Chapter Nineteen
The grave is smaller than Pete’s and Jane’s and made of granite rather than marble—gray, instead of an off-white color. The lettering is more worn—which makes sense.
Brian James Davis
I stare at the photo for too long, the gravesite of Pete and Jane’s infant son, who died three days after his birth. Who never got to marry or have children or do much of anything.
The infant son whose identity Brian, my husband, must have stolen.
I’ll bet anything that if I track down baby Brian’s Social Security number, it is now my Brian’s Social Security number.
He stole his birth date, his existence. Chances are, all paperwork related to baby Brian has disappeared too.
This grave marker is likely the only proof he ever existed.
And with his parents gone, there is no one to object to his identity being stolen.
I grasp my cart like it’s a lifeline, reality taking hold.
Brian Davis is a stolen identity.
I blink at the screen and hear myself murmur, “Who the fuck did I marry?”
And for that matter, who were the parents I met? Paid actors?
“Watch your language, young lady.” I look up to see none other than Karen’s Chad glaring at me. “My wife told me you were rude to her.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I mutter. I don’t have time for this—literally, I realize—I’ve been here for an hour, and it’s at least a thirty-minute drive to grab Evie at school, then scoop up Eliza from Graham’s.
“Miss, you seem angry. Have you considered that Jesus Christ is your savior, that his name should not be taken in vain? Maybe if you embraced him, you’d feel better and—” Chad is earnest now, his disapproval and anger melting away as he senses he might recruit me.
“I don’t think your god likes me very much.
” I offer a bland smile, then hurry toward the checkout, the vision of that tiny gravestone pulsing in my mind.
Along the way, I grab granola bars and mixed nuts and protein powder, then choose what I hope is the fastest line—there’s a very proper-looking woman with her hair pinned back in a bun at the register, and she looks like she means business—before turning back to my phone.
But the register lady finishes the next customer and waves me forward.
My phone tucked away, I heave my purchases onto the conveyer as fast as she can scan them, and five minutes later, I’m handing my receipt to the elderly guy at the door, who slashes a highlighter over it without so much as looking at what’s in my cart. Very effective security.
Brian’s not Brian.
The words echo in my head. My brain wars over how to feel about this—angry, uncertain, taken aback. If he’s not Brian, who is he? And also—god, he’s good. He’s tricked me all this time.
Is he pretending to be normal too?
I find myself smiling as I pull through the pickup line at school, as I buckle Evie into her car seat and head to Graham’s to get Eliza. But what I really want is to keep digging. To find more. Brian has made one screwup, leaving this evidence to be found on the internet. There must be more.
When I arrive at Graham’s, Piper’s BMW is already parked in the driveway.
“Shit,” I say. This is no ordinary pickup—this is Graham’s way of trapping me into dinner.
And on a night when I want nothing more than to go home and parse through the mystery of my husband.
Apparently, he’s tricked Piper too. I spare a glance backward at the dairy in freezer bags in the back of the van—hopefully it lasts.
Or maybe I’ll shove it all in Graham’s fridge, pushing aside his stuff—it would serve him right.
“Shit, shit, shit,” comes an echo from the backseat.
I close my eyes, refrain from saying shit yet again, and instead swivel in my seat and enunciate, “Ship, baby. Ship. Like a big boat on the ocean.”
Evie just stares; she’s not convinced. She doesn’t say shit again though, so I pull her from her car seat, secure her on one hip, and we go inside to greet her aunt and uncle.
“You set me up,” I say to Graham the second I see his dark-haired head pop around the corner.
He gives me his big brother grin. “You set yourself up. It’s the big brother tax. I do you a favor, you bless my family with your delightful company.” The way he says delightful makes me think that’s not the word he really means. “Wine? Beer?”
I sigh. “If I have to put up with you? Booze.”
He laughs. “Piper, got any more of that whiskey?”
“I always have more whiskey.” This, from the kitchen.
“Is that Nadia?” Isabel, Graham’s wife, hurries into the hallway. “Oh, it is you! Good. It’s been too long.” She takes Evie from me, presses a kiss to her cheek, then sets her down and shoos her to join the other kids in the backyard.
It’s been exactly two weeks, but I don’t tell her that.
I just accept the hug she offers and let her guide me to the barstool on the opposite side of the white-tile kitchen island where she’s slicing French bread.
A drizzle of olive oil goes in a plain white bowl, and she slides it across the counter.
Before I can so much as take a bite, Piper’s there, nabbing the first piece, just like she did when we were kids, but in return gifting me with a two-finger pour of amber whiskey.
“Graham called a family dinner,” she says through her mouthful of carbs.
“Is there an occasion?” I ask, fingers itching to pull out my phone and continue my search.
“Only that we love you two ladies.” Isabel gives me a wink from where she’s chopping vegetables, playing sous-chef.
“And you don’t have a date?” I ask Piper.
“Nah.” She scrunches her nose.
I peer at her, thinking of the other night, the dangling wineglass before she passed out on the couch. “So, what happened?”
“Nothing.” But the way she steals my drink and takes a swig makes me think it’s not nothing.
Maybe this new date needs to be unalived in the same fashion as her college boyfriend?
Or maybe I’m feeling a little prickly toward men today.
That doesn’t mean they all need to die. Not necessarily, anyway. I mean, Graham is one of the good ones.
“What is it?” I whisper, leaning in.
She meets my eyes for a quarter second, her voice soft enough that no one else can hear. “He’s married. I followed him one day. They have a baby.”
My eyebrows shoot up—I’m surprised that he’s married, and also that Piper stalked him—but Isabel takes that moment to set a glass of water in front of Piper. “Cool it, sis. Drink something besides booze.” Her gaze shifts to me. “How are you?”
I fake my very best smile, the one that reaches my eyes, that makes people think I’m being honest. “Good. Work has been busy, but I’m having fun.” A partial truth. “I really appreciate Graham picking up Eliza.”
“It’s no trouble. Brian’s traveling for work?”
“Again.” I give another smile, shrug, like that’s just how life goes. In my head, I’m wondering what he’s doing in Austin at this very moment. If he’s shacking up with that woman, if he’s doing awful things that earned him a death sentence.
“Good time to have you over, then.” She goes back to the stove, where Graham is busy stirring something—they love cooking together, it’s their thing.
I wander through the connected dining room to a window that looks out over the backyard.
Piper’s stepped out onto the porch, watching the kids and sipping her glass of water.
Eliza looks happy as a clam as she races around a tree with her cousins, and Evie chases after them, face wide in a grin.
I begrudgingly admit to myself this family dinner was a good idea.
When I bring my gaze back to the other adults, Graham’s adjusting the burner on their giant Viking stove, his midlife crisis splurge.
He’d gone to his yearly checkup, found out he had high cholesterol, and decided to do something about it—mainly, learning to cook incredibly healthy meals incredibly well.
He even traveled to Italy for a two-week wine and olive oil tour.
He came home with the biggest bottles of expensive olive oil he could get on the plane and insists we use them instead of what’s available at H-E-B, the local grocery chain.
I’m not sure about the tofu he sometimes cooks, nor the lentil and veggie protein-based chili he makes in autumn. But the rest of it is pretty good. And he’s right—olive oil from Italy is better.
Maybe that’s what this is all about—maybe Brian is acting out as part of his midlife crisis, having an affair. Maybe he hired a fancy car to impress her, got a nice hotel room to take her back to.
For about five seconds, I consider finding out who she is and killing her.
Squashing the fling and making sure it doesn’t affect our marriage—but that’s leaving out the part where someone put a hit out on him.
Unless it’s the mystery woman’s spouse, which I highly doubt, a midlife crisis affair doesn’t explain it.
With everyone else busy, I text Ian: Are you available to talk later? I think I need help. Then I grab my DSLR and swipe until I find the image of the town car. I enter the license plate into my phone, searching yet another website to see who owns it.
The search comes back and the owner is listed as Soren Vehicles. I stare at the name a beat; it’s familiar. Another quick search lands on a news page, a long article titled “Organized crime in Texas? What is the world coming to?” A quick skim leads me to a paragraph:
In a shocking turn of events, a decades-old town car and limo service in San Antonio is under investigation following allegations of a connection to local organized crime…
The rest of the text is mostly detail, discussing people whose names I don’t recognize, suggesting that this crime has been going on right under the nose of city officials for decades.
I can’t believe for a second that Brian is involved in organized crime—I mean, how could I miss something like that? But apparently I missed a lot of things.
A shout from outside draws my attention back to my girls playing—my girls, whose father I don’t even know.