You Deserve to Know

Chapter 43

43

THIS PAST SUMMER

The beginning of August in Washington was a wretched, humid slog. Kai was away at soccer camp, and Marcus had gone to San Francisco for work. As soon as Anton and Lisa returned from Tampa, he sent the email to Scott using a computer at work that couldn’t be traced to him, but there had been no response. Lisa was bored and lonely. If Scott wasn’t going to take the bait and respond, they’d have to up the stakes. One lazy afternoon, when Gwen was at work and Anton’s twins were at camp, Anton came to her house for a change.

“I cannot believe this whole Scott-slash-Michael Finch thing,” Anton said after their second round of screwing. “It has the makings of a movie. Did you know that Michael Finch’s mom and her boyfriend Ray McCready ran one of the largest illegal marijuana operations in the area? Before pot was legalized. The boyfriend’s a real badass. Spent time in prison.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Dex Kohl’s mom. She’s a wealth of information. She thinks this is why the police didn’t look too hard at what was going on,” he said. “Nobody really wants to go up into those mountains and start poking around. They’ve got dogs, machine guns.”

“Wait, you’ve spoken to her?” Lisa sat up, trying to hide her alarm. “When?”

“I told her we worked together on the podcast. No big deal.”

“How did you get her number?”

He looked at her sheepishly. “Your phone.”

“My phone?” Lisa had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. Her heart galloped wildly. “Why would you do that, Anton?”

“Why? Because she has a story to tell.” He looked up at her with the innocence of a boy showing his mother the earthworm he is sure she will find as fascinating as he does. “She’s very eager to get her side of things out there. I think I can help her.”

“Help her how?” Lisa asked. “We’re not actually going to turn Scott in.” She threw off the covers and stood up.

He sat up as a smile broke across his usually sullen face. “Don’t be mad. I’ve been inspired, Lisa, by this whole thing. For the first time in years, the writing is coming. Every day I have new pages. Do you have any idea what that means after years of feeling like I didn’t have anything to write? Of starting things and having them go nowhere, or sending them to my agent and him telling me it’s not worth pursuing? I finally found my inspiration. I’m going to tell this story, the story of a boy who commits murder and then reinvents himself to become the perfect suburban dad. I’ve already outlined and pitched it to my agent. He loves it, of course. He’s been trying to get me to write something more commercial for years. I told him this is not going to be some popcorn thriller. I’m better than that. This will be an exploration of the dark side of humanity, but I’ll use the mechanism of the thriller to showcase my lyrical writing, my insight into human behavior…”

Lisa turned away from him, repulsion growing inside her. He reminded her of a puffer fish, swollen with his own self-importance, making himself out to be bigger than he was. Didn’t he realize that she knew what a petty, bitter person he really was? But the more pressing issue was that he might be jeopardizing their whole plan. The more he riled up this grieving mother, the more likely she was to take action. What if he slipped up and she found out that Michael Finch was living in Bethesda? It wouldn’t be too hard. She had Lisa’s cell number. And with Anton’s now, too, a clever person would have no trouble tracking them down.

She looked out the bedroom window at the stillness of the neighborhood. The only movement was a rotating sprinkler on her neighbor’s lawn.

If the police came looking for Scott/Michael, that would be a disaster. Not because they wouldn’t get the money—she didn’t really care about the money—but because it was bound to come out that someone had tipped them off. And that someone was her. Aimee would never forgive her.

She swallowed her anger and rearranged her mouth into a pleasant smile before turning to face him. Hers was a delicate operation. Yes, Lisa hoped to drive a wedge between Aimee and Scott, punish him for his misdeeds, but she had to be careful not to leave a trail that could be traced back to her. That would defeat the whole purpose. Anton’s recklessness scared her. He was intoxicated by the secrets he was discovering. Like a young girl drunk on her first taste of champagne, Anton’s inhibitions had loosened, and he was taking unnecessary risks.

“That wasn’t the plan.” Lisa sat on his side of the bed and caressed his arm when what she really wanted to do was smack him upside the head. He was being stupid, careless. “The plan was we were going to get some money. Remember? So we could start over?”

“Oh, sure,” he said in a dreamy way. “That’s still the plan, but why not get a book out of it as well?”

Because the more you dig, the deeper the hole gets. And we might fall in.

Lisa stewed over this development for the next few weeks. And not just because what Anton was doing endangered them both, but because she was beginning to feel used. Several times he declined dates with her, saying he was writing and didn’t want to interrupt his flow.

The last weekend of August before school started was a scorching-hot day. After soccer practice, Lisa took Kai down to the neighborhood pool, where she found Aimee and Gwen near the diving well in the shade.

She joined them and spent an afternoon like so many others before, watching the kids, taking a dip, returning to her seat to chat. It’s lovely , she thought, to have this stability . Gwen pulled out watermelon chunks from her cooler and passed them around and Lisa found her dissatisfaction with life momentarily abating.

She almost had a panic attack earlier in the summer when Aimee casually dropped that she was going to use Gwen as her emergency contact. “Oh, Lisa, I put Gwen down as the kids’ emergency contact since you don’t drive to elementary school anymore.”

But today, baking under the sun, surrounded by the familiar rhythms of a suburban summer, Lisa felt reassured of her place in the world. Even Gwen wasn’t bugging her as much as usual. Sleeping with Anton had satisfied something in her. She knew she could take him away, and that felt like enough. Who cared if she was never going to be a size four, or if her hair, unlike Gwen’s, frizzed in the humidity? All she had to do when she felt insecure was remember being on her knees in front of Anton as he begged her to suck him off. She liked to make him literally beg. That could be enough. She could make some kind of internal peace with Gwen.

But she should never have told Anton about Scott. What were the odds that he would keep his mouth shut? He was writing a goddamn book about it. What a selfish, entitled little prick. He had claimed he was in love with her and wanted to start life anew. He jettisoned that dream pretty quickly once he smelled a book. She wasn’t hurt that Anton didn’t really love her, or that he wouldn’t really leave Gwen for her. She never wanted that. But she was scared. Anton would want everyone to know about his genius. His desire for validation would outweigh his instinct for self-preservation.

They would both end up in jail.

She felt her face grow warm. Gwen would paint her as some kind of psycho. She’d control the narrative. Lisa wouldn’t just lose Aimee forever. She’d lose Marcus and Kai, her standing in this community, and everything she’d worked to build. She might lose her actual freedom. She’d been so stupid, so blinded by hate, and so focused on revenge that she’d endangered herself.

“Is everything okay, Lisa?” Aimee asked. “You’re kind of red. Do you need sunscreen?”

“I’m fine,” Lisa choked out, bringing her hand to her face. She was burning hot. “I think I just need some water.”

Gwen passed her a canister of Evian. Lisa took her glasses off and sprayed the mist over her hot face. The relief was instant. It had been a terrible mistake to involve Anton, one that she couldn’t undo. She’d once viewed him as the solution to her woes, but he had become her biggest problem.

Lisa put her sunglasses back on and leaned back in her chaise, letting the sounds of splashing water and children’s happy screams wash over her. A single thought occupied her mind—what was she going to do about Anton?