Yes, it would have been the end of my career, but I’ve had a good run. I’ve had success beyond my wildest dreams, provided well for my family, and lived my fifty years on earth to the fullest.
I thought about saying that I did it, but it was too risky. Not because I feared going to jail—I wasn’t worried about that, not really. I was worried they’d figure out it wasn’t really me. I was at work that day, my employees all saw me. Even if I could get them to lie for me—which I couldn’t, and wouldn’t—I worked on a studio lot. There are cameras everywhere, clocking who comes in, who goes out. There was no way to say I wasn’t at work when it happened. I had been there all morning.
And then there were the phone records. That devastating incoming call that made my breakfast rise up in my throat. I didn’t know what I was hearing at first. Slow down, I can’t understand you, I told him, until I realized something horrific had happened. Then in a stern voice I said, Hang up the phone and meet me at the house.
The entire ride home I prayed that I had misunderstood. The words were garbled, mangled by emotion. Maybe I didn’t really hear “I think I killed him.” But then why was he sobbing like that?
The twenty-minute ride to the house was a blur. I was not in my body. My car drove on autopilot, stopping at red, cruising through green. This isn’t real. Things like this don’t happen to people like me. Tragedies befall damaged people. I am healthy, hardworking, good. This can’t be happening. Not to me.
A man will go to extreme lengths to protect himself from pain. He will lie, cheat, steal, or even resort to violence in order to save himself. It’s how, as human beings, we are wired. It’s in our DNA.
Until we have children. Then our focus shifts from protecting ourselves to protecting them. It makes perfect sense. We are today, but they are tomorrow. Our kids are our future, our legacy, a chronological extension of ourselves.
I pulled into the driveway and opened the garage. He was already there, sitting inside the SUV. I could see the outline of his shoulders hunched over the wheel.
I parked and got out of my Porsche.
Then walked into the garage and hugged my son.
CHAPTER 30
“We need to talk,” Evan announced when I answered the phone. It was late—after ten o’clock—but he said it couldn’t wait until morning. “I’m coming over.”
He sounded upset. It wasn’t like him to show his emotions, at least not to me. I knew him to be professional, disciplined, reserved. I tried not to panic, but the possibilities scared the shit out of me. Had someone found a piece of evidence linking us to the scene? Did Holly break? Or maybe it was Savannah, was she having buyer’s remorse?
I kissed my wife, muttered something about having to catch up on some work, and headed to my study to wait. We never talked about the incident over the phone. Only in person. It was our hard-and-fast rule. But I tried to reassure myself—just because he wouldn’t tell me over the phone didn’t mean it was catastrophic.
I thought about how the accident had changed my life. My son was supposed to be a freshman in college, but I wouldn’t let him go, not until I knew we were in the clear. I told him he needed to stay close to home, get a job, let things settle. He wasn’t happy about it, but he obeyed.
It was not a big deal to defer his admittance. I made the call to the dean of admissions myself. We had “a family situation,” I’d explained. And it was done.
Kate was surprised when our son told her he wanted to defer starting college, but not disappointed. She loved having him at home. He sometimes even joined us for dinner. She cooked all his favorite meals—shrimp scampi, spaghetti carbonara, jambalaya—even though it was murdering my waistline.
My phone chirped with Evan’s text announcing his arrival, and I went to the front door to let him in. Kate was in the kitchen making her nightly cup of tea. I didn’t think she could hear us over the sound of the kettle humming, but I played it safe. “Thanks for coming,” I said, shaking his hand. “Shall we go to my study?”
He knew this formality was just for show, and he played along. “Lead the way.”
We walked to my office in silence. This is what a man having an affair must feel like, I thought, sneaking around at night in the dark. I had made the decision to hide this from Kate the day it happened, and it was too late to go back now. She had no idea I had reassigned our son’s trust fund. It was Evan’s idea—a way to hide the payout from both the IRS and my wife. And while losing this money surely hurt him, it was far less painful than what would have happened to him if he had turned himself in.