So I had to do something I had never done—keep a secret from my wife. To transfer money to Holly without Kate knowing, I would have to find an asset in our portfolio that my wife wasn’t tracking. Then, quickly and quietly, I would have to liquidate it. Then I would have to act like nothing out of the ordinary was going on—by getting up, going to work, talking about my day just like I always did. Evan advised me to get rid of the SUV, or at least keep it off the road for a while, but Kate would find that odd and ask me about it. And I would have to lie to her face. Lying by omission was one thing, but making up a bullshit excuse why we spent a fortune on a new car just to have it sit in the garage was something else entirely. I rationalized that moving the car was just as risky as driving it—as I said to Evan, Wouldn’t it be better just to keep it on the road, like we had nothing to hide? He said No, it wouldn’t, but I overruled him—that’s how afraid I was of having to lie to my wife.
The first part—figuring out how to do the payoff—turned out to be relatively easy. Evan had an idea where to pull the money from, and I gave him the go-ahead to make the transfer. Twenty-four hours later, it was done.
The other part—keeping this from my wife for eternity—that’s what would keep me up at night. I had nightmares about that video popping up on Twitter, then going viral for the world to see. Clouds got hacked, people cracked. Our lives were on thin ice now.
I was worried about physical evidence, mental mistakes, that damn video—but I was also worried about myself. Pretending everything was fine was going to be the hardest acting job of my life. And I would have to play the part until I died.
CHAPTER 18
Everybody on my staff loved the script.
I didn’t want to read it. Because I had already decided I wasn’t going to hire the squirrely investigative journalist who had spent his summer writing it. I did not want a New York Times reporter anywhere near me, especially one who was wondering where the hell I was on the day of the accident. And who could unearth that one critical piece of this horror show I needed to stay buried.
It had been almost four months, but panic still surged through my body every time I got an unexpected knock on my door. I had played the scene out in my mind a thousand times. There’s a detective here to see you, my assistant would say. And she would let him in. And I would lie. No, Officer, I don’t know anything about an accident. And he would ask me if anyone on my staff could vouch for my whereabouts at 11:55 a.m. on May 17. And then my staff would have to tell them, Yes, come to think of it he was acting strange . . .
Maybe I was being paranoid, but I did not want a reporter who was capable of connecting dots hanging around my office. But I couldn’t pass on a script everyone on my staff loved without a reason. It was just a matter of finding one. After twenty-plus years in the business, I had become an expert in passing on scripts. We did it 99 percent of the time. If practice makes perfect, then I was a master at saying the word “no.”
It was nine o’clock. My first meeting wasn’t until eleven, and the reporter’s script was the only one in the recommend pile. It was a tight 102 pages, but I only intended to read the first ten. Most people read scripts on their iPads or computers now, but I still liked them printed, on three-hole paper, secured by shiny brass brads. I liked the reminder that a movie script was different, special. It was not just a story told by words on a page, it was a blueprint for an immersive experience—one that would be shaped by camera moves, light, editorial trickery, music, and songs. A script on its own was just a suggestion. A producer’s job—my job as the producer of films that I sometimes also starred in—was to interpret it, then find the best people to bring it to life. A script wasn’t like an embryo with every feature predetermined by its DNA. It was a lump of clay requiring an army of artists to shape and color and bake life into it.
That’s not to say that a good script is not important. Having a good blueprint, with an exciting premise, memorable characters, and great dialogue, is critical to the end product being worth anything. Producers search tirelessly for great scripts, they are as rare as a snowstorm in September. I hadn’t read one for a long, long time. No one on my staff had, either, and I knew they were getting antsy to find something for me. Even if this script was a little better than the others in my pile, it would be easy to find a reason to reject it. No script was perfect—they always needed work. And I didn’t want to work on this one—period.
I opened the script and began to read. The writing style was crisp and engaging, and the lead character was as intriguing as any I had ever met. The conflict was expertly set up, and I decided to read a little past page ten just to be sure the writer wouldn’t be able to sustain it. A lot of scripts start strong, then go nowhere. I fully expected this one to peter out by the end of the first act, like most of them do. Then I could validate my staff for liking it （great premise!） but ultimately dismiss it for falling apart.