***
On Thursday, Meg and I meet at the Apex office. She guides me into a conference room where a single file folder sits on a large glass table. When I open it, there are five properties inside, all of them on the Westside. The cheapest one is a tiny white bungalow, listed at $1.2 million.
Meg is dressed in a pink silk top and black dress pants, spiky heels peeking out beneath the hems, her hair pulled into a loose chignon at the base of her neck. She looks nothing like the high school photo I saw of her so long ago, and I feel the thrill of being close to her. She slides into a chrome and leather chair across from me and says, “All of these properties have been on the market for at least six months, so don’t let the prices scare you off. I think they’re pretty soft.”
I flip through each page, pretending to read the details of each home—the square footage, whether there’s inside laundry or attached parking—but I’m not processing anything. I’m watching her watch me. Does she even remember making that call to the LA Times ten years ago? Would it bother her to know where it sent me? When I get to the last page in the file, I close it and say, “Shall we ride together?”
Meg beams. “I’ll drive.”
***
Her black Range Rover is a far cry from the used Honda that Cory Dempsey bought for her. “So, tell me about yourself,” she says as we pull into traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. “What do you do?”
I thought long and hard about a backstory I could give, something that would allow me to be flexible with my time, but nothing that she could Google to verify. “I’m actually not working right now,” I say, casting a sideways glance at her to see how that lands. After all, she’s about to show me several properties listed for over a million dollars. “I used to work for Bank of America as an account specialist, which really meant I tried to get people to upgrade their checking accounts. I hated it. But then my great aunt Calista died, and she left me a sizable amount of money. Enough for me to tell them to get lost.”
Scott had argued against this. “You have no idea how these people operate,” he’d said when I told him my plan. “They shake your hand with the right and reach into your pocket with the left.”
“The only way I’m going to get this story is to get close to her. To see firsthand how she works. You know this.”
“There are so many different cover stories you can use,” he’d argued. “Pose as another real estate agent, or someone with a lot less money, looking for a rental instead of a million-dollar home. You don’t have to set yourself up as her next mark.”
“I have to be someone worth her while.”
I could tell he still wanted to argue, but he sighed and said, “Fine, but don’t let your guard down. If she thinks you have money, she’ll have you turned inside out and backward by dinnertime.”
“She can’t con me if I’m expecting it,” I told him. “I think I can befriend her. Get her to trust me. Maybe even tell me where she’s been all these years.”
“I think you’re confusing real-life Meg with a character you’ve invented. In the real world, con artists don’t have friends. Every word they say is a lie, and their only goal is to scam as many people as possible.”
Meg’s voice pulls me back. “If only everyone was lucky enough to have an Aunt Calista,” she says.
I smile. Calista is actually my favorite aunt on my father’s side. Not rich, but thankfully, also not dead. “She was pretty special,” I tell Meg. “Calista never married. She worked as a paralegal, putting herself through law school, and was the first female partner at her law firm back in the seventies.” I shift in my seat so I’m facing Meg. “Investing in property would have been something she’d want me to do.”
The thrill of dropping below the surface of my life and pretending to be someone I’m not rushes through me, and for a moment, I can understand why Meg does it. The allure of a new life, a new backstory, is seductive. How easy it might be just to stay here.