“Mrs. Lucas.” I smiled tightly, shifting my chair closer to her bed, which was set up in the den. The nurses had left the room, and we were alone. “It’s so good to see you. I’m sorry I didn’t come by last week.”
Her thin mouth curled into a frown. “You look unwell, Heather.”
“It’s been a strange few days, Mrs. Lucas.” I sighed. “I actually need to ask you for a favor, and I warn you, it’s quite an alarming ask.”
The corners of the old lady’s eyes crinkled. “Honey, they tell me I have weeks to live. A month or two if I’m lucky. Try alarming me after that.”
I gave her bony hand a gentle squeeze. “Okay, here goes. I have access to two million dollars in a private bank account that’s not my own. It’s supposed to be my money—well, mine and Burke’s, technically, but he’s having an affair. I desperately need the cash, but I can’t transfer it into my own account, and I can’t say why. What I’m wondering is if I might be able to transfer it into your bank account, and then, well…” I pause, exhaling a thin stream of air. “I realize this is extremely inconsiderate of me, Mrs. Lucas, but I can’t not ask.”
“What is it, Heather?” Her brow raised, ever so slightly.
“I’m wondering if—if I do transfer you the money—you could leave it to me in your will.”
Silence permeated the room.
“I realize this probably isn’t something you’re up for. Given your … situation. But if you are, I’d be eternally grateful, to say the least. And I’d give you a cut, of course.”
Mrs. Lucas was quiet for several long beats.
“Heather,” she said finally, her voice breathy. “You know very well a dying woman has no need for ‘a cut’ of anything.” She raised her fingers in an effort to make air quotes.
“Well, it could be for your niece out in California. Something to leave her.” Mrs. Lucas had never had children of her own.
“I’m already leaving Gwen everything I have,” Mrs. Lucas croaked.
I said nothing, suddenly feeling stupid to have brought this up with poor old Mrs. Lucas. It was too much, too selfish an ask at this point in her fragile life. I would just have to figure out another way to get the money.
“Forget I said anything, Mrs. Luc—”
“I’ll do it, Heather.” Her voice was slow and husky. “I won’t ask why, but I’ll do it for you. You’ve been good to me in these last years of my life. You’re a good person, Heather Michaels. I’m sure whatever is behind this comes from the heart. I’ll have my lawyer come over tomorrow and make the arrangements.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lucas.” I leaned forward to kiss her hollow cheek. “Thank you. Thank you so very much. You’ll never know how much this means to me.”
“You’re my friend, Heather.” Mrs. Lucas’s voice was a shallow whisper, and she squeezed my palm with the strength of a mouse. Pressure swelled behind my eyes, and I blinked back tears. Perhaps Mrs. Lucas was the only real friend I’d ever had.
Several days later, October 3, when the newlyweds were in Capri—fuck them—I logged in to Burke and Skye’s Bank of America account to make the transfer, using the mobile app on my phone. I knew I’d need to answer all the security questions to make such a large transfer, and luckily Burke hadn’t changed those either.
A couple of days after that, during my visit to Mrs. Lucas’s on October 5, I helped her log in to her own bank account, and my heart bloomed in my chest when I saw that the money—$2 million—was there. I’d done it.
The timing was perfect. An airport selfie on Skye’s Instagram told me that the newlyweds were flying back to the States that evening （Trip of a lifetime with my one and only––arrivederci, Italia! See you in a few hours, America!）。
I fell asleep that night to the image of Burke and Skye floating through the western hemisphere in first class, clinking champagne flutes in blissful ignorance of the hell that awaited them on the ground.
The morning of October 6 I woke at the crack of dawn. I felt invincible; it would be a day of green lights. I put on a pot of coffee and logged in to Burke’s Gmail. I swear, the idiot never bothered to change a single password except his iPhone code.
I opened the carefully crafted email that I’d already drafted with Burke’s fictitious digital diary attached to the message, and after triple-checking that it was perfect, I clicked Send. White-hot elation flooded my veins. Now all I had to do was wait.
Three weeks later, Mrs. Lucas would pass away peacefully in her sleep. A week after that, her executor would contact me and confirm what I already knew—that she’d left me two million dollars in her will. It would take a couple of months for the assets to land in my new, personal bank account, but they would, and then I’d be a millionaire—marginally, but a millionaire nonetheless.
The prize of the Big Plan turned New Big Plan would finally be mine. It would be enough. Enough to start over. Enough to help Garrett and Hope pay off their student loans, and send Maggie to the college of her dreams. Enough to invest in a decent-size place in Westport, one with central air and good resale value and maybe a pool. Enough to have a good portion left over to invest, a big chunk that would sit in the bank and multiply so that, one day, it might be enough to buy an even nicer house in Westport, one with a view of the ocean and a tennis court and enough bedrooms for all my future grandchildren—children who would grow up with even more possibilities at their fingertips than I’d been able to give my own kids.
Maybe one day I would join the country club—the glitzy one where Libby was a member for so many years. Maybe I’d take up golf. Garrett sometimes played golf with his buddies in Boston—maybe he could teach me.
That was another immeasurable positive, for which I would always be unthinkably grateful—I no longer had to run. I could stay here with Garrett, Hopie, and Mags and give them a better life. I no longer had to worry about whether the Starlings would press charges against Burke and me, forcing us to live thousands of miles away from our babies. The authorities would see that the money had been transferred to Mrs. Lucas’s account, but they’d never be able to trace it further—she’d wisely placed the assets in a revocable trust that could never become public record. Besides, Burke would take the fall for all of it. He would never let them dig deeper and link any of it back to me. The knowledge that Burke would protect me—for the sake of our children—had always been my bulletproof vest.
It continued to be too easy to know things from Instagram. I sometimes wondered if people understood just how much they exposed in the content they shared. I wondered if they were even vaguely conscious of the dangers of it. A picture posted was a behavioral pattern. A video clip contained background faces and voice snippets—information that proved invaluable to shrouded, invisible me. I knew when Skye got wind of the digital diary and the misdirected email to Andie. I knew because Skye stopped posting photos from the honeymoon and the wedding; she stopped sharing her enviable content because her life stopped being enviable. Soon her presence on Instagram seemed to have dropped off entirely.