You Deserve to Know

Chapter 44

44

NOW

“Your son ?”

The word seems to ricochet off the walls of the small kitchen and lodge inside Aimee’s head, where it cracks apart the image of Scott she has held since she’s known him. He lost his mother young, just like she did. It was one of the things that had bonded them. Now this woman is claiming it was a lie.

“I don’t understand,” Aimee says, a clash of nausea and heartbreak spreading in her belly. “Scott’s mom died when he was in college.”

“Is that what he told you?” Cathy’s gaze is steel-eyed and steady. “No, I didn’t die. After Michael left California, he cut off contact with me. Cut me out completely. That’s when he changed his name to Scott.”

“Why? Because he killed Dexter Kohl?” Gwen asks.

Cathy turns to look at Gwen, amusement in her eyes. “Someone’s been talking to Dexter’s mom. I assume that’s where you got that nonsense.”

“I don’t think it’s nonsense,” Gwen says, pulling out Anton’s black notebook from her bag. “My husband was the one who talked to Dexter Kohl’s mom. She told him her name was Cathy Stocker.”

Cathy walks over and grabs the notebook. She opens it up, flipping through the pages.

“Cathy is Dexter’s mom. I’m not Cathy Stocker.” She looks at Aimee. “My name is Jen. Jen Finch.”

“So why were you using her name?” Aimee asks, incredulous.

“Well, she’s not using it anymore,” she says dryly. Jen Finch puts the notebook on the counter behind her and picks up the mug of tea. “Cathy is dead. The generator outside her trailer blew up about a month ago, right before I came here. She’s the one who booked this Airbnb. She was planning to come out here and see for herself if it was really Michael. So I came instead. I mean, it was already paid for. Would be a waste for someone to not use it.”

“She’s dead,” Aimee says, more to herself than anyone else. “You say her generator blew up? Was it an accident?”

“Oh, those old generators can be quite dangerous, you know.” She takes a tentative sip of tea. “Such a shame. Poor thing died after three days of clinging to life in a hospital with third-degree burns.”

Aimee feels herself shiver. She’s not imagining it, there’s a subtle glee in the woman discussing Cathy Stocker’s gruesome death.

“I want to know the truth.” Aimee’s voice is tentative. “Was Cathy murdered?”

“Well, let’s put it this way. She had a big mouth and she was pissing off a lot of people. We live in a small community. Not geographically, mind you, it stretches over many miles, but it’s not that many people. I heard from Arlette that someone was looking into the disappearance of Michael and Dex, but I couldn’t have been the only one who heard that. I visited Cathy. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut, even after I offered to buy her a new refrigerator to keep her quiet. Nope, she was determined to drag all this out of the past and into the present. I told her it wasn’t safe. I warned her. I told her there were people who would rather see her dead than stir up this hornet’s nest. But did she listen to me?”

“So, she was murdered,” Aimee says. “And you came here.”

“I came because Cathy said she’d been talking to someone who thought Michael was living here. I had to alert Michael. I didn’t plan to stay. I parked in your little suburban neighborhood one night. There was some kind of block party and I wandered onto your block. I saw you. I saw all of you. I told myself I was just here for a short visit—to warn him. But once I saw Michael with the kids…” She squeezes the bridge of her nose. “I hadn’t seen my boy in so many years. Never even seen my grandkids. Being apart from him all this time has been hard. Once I saw him I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I got curious. About you, Aimee.” She stops and smiles at Aimee, and for a flash Aimee sees her the way she did when they first met—as a kind older woman, good with kids and cats. But then Aimee remembers that isn’t who she is.

“I wanted to get to know my grandkids,” Jen says. “And when I met you, Aimee, I really liked you. I could tell you liked me, too. And that time I got to spend with Noa, I wouldn’t trade it. But last Tuesday I heard some news—they’ve issued a warrant for Michael’s arrest. It’s only a matter of time until they track him here. I had to warn him.”

“You want him to run from the police?”

“The police?” She scoffs. “The cops are the least of it. I don’t know how much Michael’s told you about me, about our life in California.”

“Not much, actually.”

“Ray, that’s his stepdad, and me, the people we know, we’re not the kind of folks who go to the police to settle our problems, if you get my drift. What Michael and Dex did was stupid, and it cost Dex his life. But Michael can’t come back to testify. It might be selfish, but him coming back will ruin my life. Ruin Ray’s. If he testifies, it won’t be safe for me and Ray to stay.”

“Testifies to what? What happened exactly?”

Gwen gives a startled cry. Aimee looks up to see Scott walking through the living room toward them. She jumps up to meet him but stops just before throwing herself into his arms. A part of her longs to bury her head against his chest and squeeze hard. What she wouldn’t do to be rocked back and forth in his strong arms, for him to kiss the top of her head.

But anger stops her. Everything that has happened in the past few days is now a barrier between them that she cannot cross. “Where have you been?”

The question is sharp. The gratitude that he’s safe is lost in the fury that she has been keeping under control.

“I’m so sorry, Aimee, I really am.”

Aimee wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “What is going on? Why didn’t you come home? Why didn’t you call me? Text me?” She makes a fist and slams it against his chest. “Do you have any idea what this has been like?” She hits him again. “How could you do this to me? Not come home?”

“He’s never coming home, honey,” Jen says. “He can’t.”

Aimee whips her head around, shocked. She is disgusted by the hint of a smile around the woman’s mouth. “That is not up to you.”

“Mom, please,” Scott says. “Let me handle this. I want to talk to Aimee alone.”

“Fine.” His mother pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. “I’m going outside to have a smoke.” She nods at Gwen. “Join me?”

Gwen looks to Aimee as if to ask if that’s okay. Aimee nods her okay and then stands still, her arms stiff at her sides until the two women have left the house. Once the front door has slammed, Scott sits on the couch. He pats the seat next to him but Aimee chooses a threadbare chair nearby.

“I know I’ve been so selfish, Aimee,” Scott says. “I know it must have been so hard—”

“Did you kill that boy?” she asks.

He twitches. “What? No, I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Dexter Kohl, right? That’s his name?”

“You think I’m capable of murder?”

She chews on her lip, thinking about this. “No. At least I didn’t think so. But I also didn’t think you were capable of lying to me, Michael .”

“I can explain everything.”

“I also didn’t think you were capable of leaving your family to wonder for three days if you were dead or alive. I deserve to know the truth. What happened in California? Your mom said something about testifying.”

He runs his hands through his messy hair. He looks exhausted and run-down with the beginnings of a beard and shadows under his eyes. “My mom and me, we moved to California right before tenth grade. But I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Then what happened? Why did you change your name?”

“The truth is ugly.”

“Please. Try me.”

He stands up, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jeans, rocking back and forth. It’s a tic he has—can’t stay still when he’s nervous, just like Noa. “We were robbing some drug dealers, Dex and me. It didn’t go as planned. Dex got shot.”

“What does this have to do with a backpacking trip?”

“There was no backpacking trip. My stepdad, Ray, and my mom managed a farm about an hour away outside Garberville, near the top of a mountain.”

“A farm?”

“This was before marijuana was legal. It was an illegal grow operation, about a hundred acres. My stepdad managed the trimmigrants—that’s what we called the people who come through at the end of summer to work the harvest and make some fast cash.”

“And you lived there? On the farm?”

He nods. “I did. And there was a lot of cash floating around that time of year. Trimmers worked nonstop for about five weeks, sometimes as much as sixteen hours a day. It’s all they did. Then they got paid in cash. Not too many places to spend money around there. Dex and I heard my stepdad talk about a high-stakes poker game at another grower’s farm. We knew there would be tons of cash floating around. We got the brilliant idea to rob it. We thought it was foolproof since they wouldn’t go to the cops.”

“And?”

“It went to shit immediately. We showed up in masks with shotguns and one of the players pulled a handgun. Dex shot him in the arm and the guy returned fire, killing him. I barely got out of there with my life. If that guy’s gun hadn’t jammed, I’d be dead, too. I took off running, and I ran and ran until my lungs were on fire. I didn’t even go back to where our car was. Called my mom once I hit the highway and found a pay phone. She came and picked me up. She knew right away I had to get out of town. You can’t go around robbing criminals and not have them come look for you.”

“So, she sent you away? A boy was killed.”

“You don’t get it. I couldn’t go to the police. Do you know what the felony murder rule is? It says that if someone dies while you are committing a felony, you can be charged with murder. You are just as liable as if you pulled the trigger yourself.”

“But you didn’t kill anyone,” Aimee protests.

“That’s the law. There are people on death row who were driving the getaway car when their buddy shot someone inside a bank. But I wasn’t worried about that at the time. I was scared of the guy who killed Dex. I saw him do it, Aimee. He pointed that gun at me and I’ll never forget that look in his eyes. He wanted me dead. I had to leave.”

“So she sent you to North Carolina. To Aunt Kay.”

“Aunt Kay agreed to take me in. She didn’t really want me there, but at least she gave me a place to get my act together. I changed my name, finished my senior year. Spent a year at community college and then transferred to UNC. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make up for what I did. To be a good person.”

“What about your mom? You just cut her out?”

Scott gazes at the picture window that overlooks the front yard where Jen stands with Gwen. “It might be hard for you to understand this. Your mom sounded like an amazing person. But my mom is different. She’s deeply in that life. And I mean deep. Her boyfriend was a major player in the growing scene back then. I basically spent three years of high school surrounded by people in the drug trade. She wanted to get me out of town to protect me, but honestly, it was also to protect herself. She could have left with me. We could have started over together somewhere. But she chose the life over me. She chose my stepdad over me. So, yeah, I cut her out. But she cut me out first. At Aunt Kay’s I had an opportunity to start over. I took it.”

“The way you start over is by coming clean, Scott. Not by abandoning your family.”

“Don’t you get it?” He kneels in front of her, beseeching her with his eyes. “I’ll have two choices—go to prison for the rest of my life or testify. That’ll mean not just testifying against the man that killed Dexter but against all five men—including my stepdad—who were at that poker game. They didn’t report the murder, either. And they got rid of the body. They’ve all committed first-degree felonies. Why do you think they killed Cathy? To shut her up.”

“They have witness protection programs. We could go somewhere.”

“Is that what you want? To cut ties with everyone you know, including your dad, and live under an assumed name in some random place? Is that what you want for the kids?”

“I want them to grow up knowing their father.” She lifts her chin in defiance.

“They won’t if I’m in WITSEC. And they won’t if I’m serving time in California.” Scott flinches. “I’m sorry, Aimee. I’m weak. I feel lucky to have met you, married you, had these great kids. It’s more than I thought I would ever have. I’m sorry I’ve ruined it all.”

“What about Anton? How does he play into all this?”

Scott jerks his head back. “Anton? What are you talking about?”

“He was blackmailing you. You’re saying you didn’t know?”

Scott stands up and stumbles back. “Anton? Where did you get that idea?”

“I talked to Jon Block. He figured out where the email was coming from. An account at a library on the American University campus.”

“What? He didn’t tell me that.”

“I think he just found out. And then when I confronted Gwen, she confirmed it. Anton confessed to her the night he died.”

“I can’t believe this. I had no idea it was him. He was trying to talk to me that night. But I blew him off because I was meeting Jon Block. Holy shit. I need a drink.” He walks into the kitchen. She hears the whoosh of the fridge as he opens it. He appears in the doorway holding a bottle of beer. “Want one?” He pops the top off the bottle with the edge of the counter and takes a swig.

Aimee glances at her watch. “It’s not even noon.”

“I don’t get it. Why would he do that? Why would Anton blackmail me? And how the hell did he even find out about my past?”

“I don’t know. But you paid him, right? A hundred thousand dollars. I’ve looked through the finances over the last few weeks. The money is gone.”

“No, no. You have it wrong. I didn’t pay him,” he says. “I took that money out for me.”

“You what?”

“I took the money out to help me run. I never paid the person blackmailing me. I never intended to. I didn’t know Anton was the one who sent me that email or that text. I assumed it was someone from back in California. The person never gave me their name. I just knew that someone out there knew about my past and the clock was ticking. I withdrew that money for a getaway fund, to start a new life.”

“You’ve been planning to leave us for weeks?” Aimee stands up.

“I know how it sounds—”

“How it sounds? You’re a lying sack of shit, Scott. Michael. Whatever your name is.”

She brushes past him to get her phone from the basket in the kitchen.

“Wait.” He grabs her arm.

“Let go of me!” She wrestles free of his grip and steps back into the living room. “So what happened Monday night?” She spits the words out. “You just decided that was a good time to put your little plan into action?

“When I went to pick up Noa, there was my mom. She told me Cathy had been murdered. That people were already looking for me, and she and Ray had to go into hiding. She said the police were going to issue an arrest warrant. I had to run. I wasn’t ready, but I left my car there and came here. I had to get new papers, social security number, passport, things like that.”

“And what will you do once you have all those things?” She fights to keep her voice steady.

“I’ll make my way to Ecuador. There’s no extradition with the US.”

“Clever.” Aimee looks at the man in front of her. He has the same dark brown hair, the same green eyes, the same strong jaw as her Scott, but she doesn’t recognize him. And it’s not his ill-fitting jeans and sweatshirt, his unshaven face, or the bags beneath his eyes. His demeanor is different. He’s harder, like he’s been filed down in the past few days into something sharp. Maybe that’s what happens when he’s around his mom—he reverts back to Michael, the boy who thought robbing drug dealers was a good idea.

Or maybe Michael was always inside her Scott, and she just never wanted to see it.

“I can’t believe you would do this to our kids,” she says. “I thought you were the best dad in the world. I looked at other dads, and husbands, and I actually felt sorry for my friends because their husbands seemed so second-rate compared to you. I believed you loved us more than anything in the world.”

“I do love you, Aimee. You and the kids. That’s why—”

“Forget the lies you told me,” she says, speaking over him. “Forget the mistakes you made when you were young—that’s nothing compared to the mistake you’re about to make. What you decide to do right now, right at this moment, will determine what kind of man you are. Not just what I think of you, but what your kids will think of you.”

“You don’t get it, Aimee. I’ll be gone either way.” He takes a step toward her. “You think it will be good for these kids to see their dad do time?”

“But you’ll get out. Eventually. I mean, you didn’t actually kill your friend, right? You might be able to make a deal.”

“If I don’t testify, I’ll go to prison. If I do, I’ll be killed.”

“At least your kids, at least I, would know what happened to you. I can’t believe you would let us suffer for the rest of our lives not knowing. It’s sick.” Aimee goes to the front door, puts her hand on the knob. “I’m not going to beg you. I’m all wrung out from worrying about you the past three days. From keeping our family together during this crisis. From believing in you and defending you.” She pulls it open. Across the yard, Gwen and Cathy turn to look at her.

“Are you going to call the police on me?” he asks.

Aimee turns back to him, surprised by her own calm state of mind. The unraveling will come later, she is sure. In these past few days of catastrophizing, she imagined Scott in so many different terrible situations—wounded in a car crash, unconscious in a hospital, or kidnapped and held against his will. She hadn’t entertained even for a second the thought that he would voluntarily stay away from her and cause her so much pain and grief. And that knowledge is like a moat around her, one he won’t be able to cross easily.

“I am going to go home to my kids. And yes, I am going to call the police. I am going to tell them every single thing that you told me. The rest is up to you, Scott.”