“We have a couple of leads that I’ll be following up,” said Ross. “Some of these are out of state, which means that the FBI could get involved. And there are some clues as to the true identity of Charlie Finch due to tips from the photos we ran nationally. He may be the wanted perpetrator of a number of high-level cons, rip-offs, and scams across the country. So this investigation is far from over. However long it takes, we’ll find answers. We won’t stop looking for Pearl Behr.”
The front door opened and closed with a bang, the sound moving through her like a gunshot. It hadn’t occurred to Pearl-now-Anne that Charlie-now-Pop might be running a con on her.
She walked out of her room to greet him. Pop was whistling in the kitchen, putting away groceries. A bouquet of fresh flowers lay on the counter.
“Hey,” he said. He stopped mid-action to give her a concerned smile. “What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“They’re still looking for us,” she said. She was shaking and she didn’t even know why. “There’s a hired cold case detective. He said that there are leads.”
Pop nodded, went back to taking the milk from the reusable sack and putting it in the fridge. “I know.”
He was his constant, easy self. If what she said unsettled him, he didn’t show it.
“You said that they’d stop eventually.”
“They will.”
“The article said that there are leads, that the FBI is involved.”
“They always say that,” he answered, stopping to walk over to her. He put strong hands on her shoulders.
“In the article,” she pressed, “the detective said that they had leads on your identity, from other cons you’ve run, that they won’t stop looking.”
He had told her some about his past, his childhood, how he lived. Not everything. But she was starting to get the picture.
Now he bowed his head, tightened his grip on her. “Do you trust me?” he asked finally.
She looked into his face—the kaleidoscope of his eyes, the set line of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said. It was true and it wasn’t. You couldn’t really trust anyone, could you? Not even yourself.
“Then don’t worry about the article, or the detective, or the FBI. They’re looking for people who don’t exist anymore. Pearl and Charlie—they’re long gone.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
He put a warm palm to her cheek.
“As long as I’m alive, you’re safe. I promise you that.”
She couldn’t find her voice, but let him pull her close. She usually shrank from physical affection, didn’t like people near, or touching her. But she could tolerate his closeness, even craved it sometimes.
“Now, go put on something nice—you know, like, sweet. And come help me with dinner. We’re having company.”
“What do you mean?”
“I found a job.”
A job. The word had a very different meaning to Pop than it did to most people. He had his own language. “New friend” was someone he met who might or might not be a mark. “Girlfriend” meant he had one on the hook. “Venture” meant that it was bigger than a personal con, something that might take longer, be more complicated. “Breakup” meant that it was time to get out of town. A “job” meant that it was showtime.
Now, Anne looked for him in the shadows of the firelit room. But he was gone.
“Good night, Pop,” she said. A log tumbled in the fire, sending sparks up the chimney.
She was about to turn in for the night when her phone pinged. She expected something from Hugh, something desperate or ragey, accusations, or begging to meet—depending on whether Kate had kicked him out or not. But no.
Well, well. How about that?
I had a late meeting. Free for a drink?
This is Selena, by the way.
From the train.
TWENTY
Selena
The sound of her footfalls on the pavement echoed in the rainy hush, nerve endings pulsing. What was she doing? Acting against all logic and good sense, clearly.
After Will left her house, and she’d returned inside, she found Graham passed out on the couch, snoring. That was Graham’s escape hatch, sleep. Stressed or depressed, the guy just passed out cold. She stood over him, thought about waking him up, grilling him about his time with the police. Questioning him about Geneva, if there was more she needed to know.
But the truth was, she couldn’t even stand the sound of his voice, didn’t want to hear all his excuses, heartfelt pleas, apologies. She didn’t believe he would ever hurt anyone, didn’t think he had anything to do with whatever had happened to Geneva. If anything had happened at all.
But looking down at his prone form, something had switched off inside her. They’d had everything. Whatever doubts she’d had before the wedding, she’d loved her husband. They’d created a family; she’d been a faithful and loving wife. He’d set fire to everything they’d built. Not once, but three times—that she knew of. She couldn’t forgive him, not now. She wasn’t sure she even loved him anymore.
Alone in the kitchen, she’d tried Geneva another time. No answer. “It’s Selena. Please call us,” she pleaded with the voice mail. “Let someone know that everything is okay so that we can all go on with our lives.”
Then, she’d scrolled through the texts from Martha. The only person other than Graham and Will who knew that her husband had been sleeping with the nanny.
One thing she knew from her work in PR was that a little preemptive damage control could go a long way. Sometimes, if you could get out in front of something, you could divert disaster altogether.
So she sent a text.
I had a late meeting. Free for a drink?
Now, as she made her way up West Broadway, beneath the thrum of anxiety, wasn’t there something else? Something dark and glittering. Why did doing the wrong thing sometimes feel right? There was a tingle to breaking the rules, to doing the thing you shouldn’t do—like driving too fast, going home with a stranger, fighting when you should back down. There was an energy in that space, an electricity, an aliveness she didn’t feel when she was doing all the things she did as a good mom, a good wife, a good daughter.
She passed a couple that leaned into each other, the woman laughing. A man sped by on his bicycle, jacket glistening with rainwater, moving too fast for the wet road. A homeless man sat beneath an overhang, buried under garbage bags piled against the weather. She took the five she had in her pocket and dropped it in his bucket. They locked eyes for a moment.
“God bless you,” he said.
“You, too.”
Though, at the moment, she didn’t feel very blessed, and she didn’t imagine he did either. How did she wind up here? How did he? How did anyone wind up where they were?
In Tribeca the city seemed to lower its voice. There was the mania of midtown, the quaint chic of the West Village, the too-cool grit of the Lower East Side. Every neighborhood had its energy and personality, a character in the story of the city. But this neighborhood with its stratospherically expensive lofts and artfully curated shops, dim restaurants owned by this celebrity or that, seemed apart somehow, unattainable. Selena always thought of Tribeca as a place that was keeping a secret. You only knew if you knew.