by Britney King
Suffice it to say, my self-esteem is not at an all-time high.
I do not consider myself to be a stupid person, and yet, I have managed to ignore the reality of my situation for years. Meanwhile, seemingly everyone around me saw through Michael and his lies. Even my own daughter.
Was I meant to be one of his girls, back at the very beginning when he showed up at that fraternity party? Is that why he was there? He was obviously older—was he in search of prey? Had he planned this from the very beginning? Realizing that the answer is likely yes makes me physically sick. And yet, it changes nothing.
After I am certain Michael is asleep, I sneak into Sophie’s room, where I shake her awake. “Soph—”
Her eyes shoot open, and I wonder how many times she’s done this before. How many times has she been terrified? And worse?
“Sophie,” I say through gritted teeth, perching myself on the edge of her bed. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”
Her face falls, but she recovers quickly. “Is it about the money?”
“The money? No.”
“Oh,” she says. “Because I told him you’d find out. I mean…I knew you would.”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. Not only has he been molesting my daughter, he’s been paying for her silence. ’“Sophie,” I say wincing. “Soph—I’m so sorry. I know I haven’t been around a lot.”
“That’s not true,” she tells me, sensing trouble. “You’re around.”
“Sophie, I need to know…” I pause and scan the room. Chewing at my bottom lip, I say, “I need to know if your father has been hurting you.”
Her brow furrows. “Hurting me?”
“Yes. Hurting you. Has he behaved in any way inappropriately with you…sexually?”
She scoots backward on the bed. “Ew. No. Why would you say such a thing?” Her face twists and finally she cocks her head as though she’s just remembered something. “Wait. Are you on drugs?”
“No. I’m serious, Sophie. This is not something you should lie to me about.”
She scoots to the edge of the bed and stands up. “I can’t believe you! I can’t believe you’d ask me that! Dad would never hurt me. You know that.”
Suddenly, all of that pent up teenage anger shows itself and she bares her teeth. Suddenly, I’m inclined to believe her. Suddenly, I realize the rage she is exhibiting is not entirely genuine. She is hiding something. “The money…what were you talking about?”
“Nothing,” she scoffs. “Get out.”
“Sophie. You’re going to tell me the truth. And you’re going to tell me now.”
“It’s not that big of a deal. Dad was right. You’re going to make it this huge thing. You act like I’m a child!”
“Dad was right about what?”
“That you’d say he should be saving his money. That I should want to pitch in for free.”
My eyes close. I can’t bring myself to open them. “Pitch in how?”
“With the lists.”
“What lists?”
“The lists of girls on social media.”
“Soph—I need you to spell it out for me. What are you doing with lists on social?”
“I make friends with the girls. Then Dad goes after their family for business.”
“Business? What business?”
She looks at me like I’ve grown three heads. “For his architecture stuff. It’s all about seven degrees of separation, you know. Marketing…life…”
“Oh, Sophie.” I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth. Her father has been paying her blood money to do really bad things.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Charlotte
When we land in Cabo, a local man, who is not old, but not young, offers to show us around. He offers to carry our bags, recommend restaurants, and the best sightseeing tours. “I can take you to the whales,” he says in a strident voice.
Michael says all he wants is to get to the hotel. I’m really glad I didn’t rush this. “Maybe,” I suggest, eyeing the girls. “Whale watching could be fun.”
The man’s eyes shine. “Where is your hotel? I can take you.”
“We have a car lined up,” Michael tells him.
The man, weathered by the sun, studies him, a serious expression on his face.
It’s the first time I feel like I can truly breathe in weeks. Inhaling deeply, the man smells like salt, fish, and freedom. I feel a sense of calm rush over me. Luckily, convincing Michael to take a family trip over spring break turned out to be easier than I’d expected. He agreed that we could use some time away as a family. Some time to allow the dust to settle a bit.
“You should be careful,” he says to Michael as he looks at me. “The cartels. Hard to know who to trust.”
With a nod and a clipped tone, Michael assures the man we’ll be fine.
As we step out into the day, it’s sunny and beautiful, and the girls seem happy. I do not let them out of my sight. I know how easy it is to disappear here.
The sun and the sand and the carefree feeling of having no particular place you need to be makes me wish we’d taken more trips like this. Before. Back when things were different, back when I hadn’t known the truth. I’ve been thinking about that a lot as I’ve recovered—this is one of the things about being out of commission, the endless, uninterrupted hours in which to think. What a gift it is, to be naive. To live your life believing it is one way, absent of the truth.
Last week Michael and I were discussing a project he is working on and he said to me, “If you knew something was going to end badly, but that it was going to be really beautiful along the way…would you still do it?”
I cocked my brow. “How beautiful are we talking?”
“One of the most beautiful experiences in your life kind of beautiful.”
The answer came easily. “Then, yes,” I said. “Yes, I would.”
If I’d rushed this trip, I never would have been able to gather the information I needed. For weeks, I have worked hard at pretending all is normal. Or as close to normal as normal can get, considering. Thinking of Henry, I kept the six Ps in mind: Prior planning prevents piss poor performance. That notion, he always said, is at the forefront of every good job.
Speaking of jobs, there was so much I wanted to find out before I could get rid of the one person who held all of the answers. The lists of accounts, being one. It turns out, Michael was smart enough to open payable-on-death accounts with me listed as the beneficiary. With the exception of an accountant, he simply forgot to mention they existed.
But there were other things too. Things more important than money. The list of names. Buyers and sellers, traders and abductors. A treasure trove of data. Very bad people who deserve to pay. Then there are the missing girls, and the places where they might be found. That is, if they’re still alive.
It’s strange watching your husband and children, having their last best day. It’s not as easy as you might think, when you’re the only one who knows what’s coming. I wanted to make it special, for all of them. I thought back on my last, best day. Before I knew the truth about Michael.
Before I realized my life amounted to a bigger lie than I’d thought.
Back when the biggest annoyances of my life were carpool, making lunches, and scheduled sex.
Watching the three of them on the boat, lounging on the deck, laughing at something Hayley has said, Michael looks up, his face scanning the boat. He’s looking for me. He’s thinking I shouldn’t be missing this, and it’s genuine. Or at least it seems that way. I smile, hold up one finger, and finish mixing our drinks.
“This was a great idea,” he tells me when I finally make my way over, and I’m glad for the man at the airport. I’m glad I took his advice. I’m glad I chartered this boat in hopes that we might see whales.
The sky is cloudless, and the day feels like the ocean, like it might go on forever. The girls are as happy as I’ve seen them in recent weeks. The permanent look of wor
ry, or dread, or both, has nearly vanished. Their eyes are once again bright. It pains me to know this is all temporary, that all of life is. That we can only hold on to these moments in our mind.
I take a lot of photos. No one complains like they usually would.
My favorite is one of Michael standing on the edge of the boat, looking into the ocean, one hand clasped in Sophie’s, the other in Hayley’s. At the last second, he looks over his shoulder at the camera, at me as if to say, can you believe this?
He smiles, and then he jumps.
Michael was traveling in a ten-passenger van with a group from our hotel, on their way to a golf course seven miles south, when they were ambushed by the cartel. He was shot seventeen times. Only two of the ten passengers survived. Michael was not one of them.
Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. But only two people will probably ever know for sure. Me and the weathered man from the airport.
The girls and I are lounging when the police find us at the hotel pool.
They escort us to a small office just off the lobby of the hotel. There are only two chairs. A third is brought in, but I have already pulled Hayley onto my lap. On the desk is a porcelain dolphin, on the wall, an aerial shot of the hotel. It looks dated, and I wonder how much has changed in the time since it was taken.
Two police officers enter the room, different than the ones who escorted us in the first place. Water pools on the floor at my feet. Towels are offered, and from there everything else happens fast.
They ask me to confirm my identity, for identification, but I explain that it is all in the room. They ask where Michael is, and when I confirm he is golfing, they deliver the news.
Even though I know what they are going to say, it hits me harder than I expect. All the years we spent together flash before my eyes, snapshots of love and lies. But more than any of that, the countless memories I can cast aside, it is the girls’ wailing that threatens to do me in.
How unlucky can one family be? That is what everyone is thinking when the news hits. Even if it isn’t what they’re saying, it’s what they’re thinking.
On the flight home, later that same afternoon, I am thinking about the other families making the same trip, returning home, with broken hearts, to empty houses. I could ask whether or not I did the right thing, although I know that to do so would be pointless.
Lives were lost. But countless others will be saved.
It’s about balance, I suppose.
There is a lot of work ahead. It makes me think of my mother, of how easy it would have been just to get up and walk away. How easy it still could be.
For now, I am here. The girls are not yet ready to know the truth about their father. It’s not an easy concept to grasp that something can be both good and bad, and sometimes it’s better to lose a thing slowly, rather than all at once.
The time will come, eventually, where I will have to sit them down and explain everything. It is inevitable. Otherwise things cannot go according to plan.
Epilogue
Charlotte
Nine months later
I stop at a cafe and use the bathroom to change and do my makeup. Shaking out the short blonde wig, folded neatly into my oversized Hermes handbag, I slip it into place. Then, I touch up my lipstick, check my reflection, add another coat of mascara, and still unsatisfied, I make the effort to slip the false eyelashes into place. I close my eyes and squeeze them shut, before opening them slowly, carefully checking my appearance one last time. The transformation makes me smile. I look nothing like myself.
When Sophie comes out of the stall, her eyes widen in surprise. Mine too. Her brown eyes painted black, in combination with the red lipstick and super short skirt, terrify me. She doesn’t look like my daughter. She looks like me.
“Should we go over it again?” I ask, glancing at her in the mirror.
“No,” she says. “I told you a thousand times. I got it.”
We meet number two on the list, Ian Miller, at his parent’s fortieth anniversary party. We are, of course, not on the guest list, but like most things, this, too, can easily be fixed. I concoct a plausible story. If asked, I will say my company does business with the Millers’ company. Not wanting to seem oblivious, or embarrass themselves, the Millers are too highbrow to press for more.
Sophie and I make ourselves at home. Together we get acquainted with the layout of the estate and the who’s who of the guest list. When the time comes, we toast the older Millers.
At dinner, during the third course, Ian Miller excuses himself to take a call. To the rich, work never ceases. But the call is probably more pleasure than work, which is why it gives me great satisfaction to interrupt it.
Eventually, we meet in the bathroom. It’s horrific, black with flecks of gold thrown in. Sometimes the rich have taste. More often than not, they don’t. Closing the door quietly behind me, I press my back against it, and taking a deep breath, I fish my gloves from my small clutch.
Ian Miller finishes his piss and only then does he turn around.
“I have heard about you,” he says to me. “Charlotte, right?”
Our eyes meet. He is charming, this one. Maybe in a different life, I would have locked the door and turned the water on full blast for other reasons. It’s a pity, really.
“The female assassin.”
“What a funny way to put it. An assassin is just an assassin, no?”
“I suppose you haven’t come to make small talk—or pose philosophical questions.”
“I suppose not.”
“Well then, you’d better get on with it.” His tone is neutral but his eyes are sad. I estimate he has a bit of fight in him.
“Do you want to die?”
“Few people want to die, my dear Charlotte.”
It is a power play to call me by my real name and not Olivia, like everyone else. “I am not your dear.”
“You are the last face I will see alive, so that makes you special, no?”
“No.”
He takes a step forward. “How do you want to do this? Shall I sit? Kneel? Stand, like so? In other words, how do you want me?”
“As you are is fine.”
“Okay,” he says, holding his arms up in surrender. “I am ready.”
I am angry that he is making this so effortless. It is not fair, not after I’ve come so far, all the way to Switzerland, that he is removing all of the satisfaction. He knows exactly what he is doing.
Taking a step forward, I open my switchblade.
“To answer your question,” he stutters, “I am not ready to die and leave all of this. Who would be?”
“But you aren’t going to fight?”
“A woman, no. Never.”
I don’t believe him. “Then, although it will be a lie, I will say in advance that I am sorry. I didn’t take you for stupid.”
“It doesn’t make sense, I know. I suppose not to someone like you.”
I check my watch. “I’m terribly sorry, but you’re right. I don’t have time for small talk. It’s almost time to cut the cake. Chocolate mousse, I hear. My favorite.”
“At some point,” he says, “you just stop running.”
“Tell me about it,” I say. He swings at me and I duck. I lift the knife above my head and stab him in the eye. For all the girls. For all the videos. Because I can.
He swings again, but his reflexes are not fast enough, thanks to the additive that Sophie slipped in his drink. “You’re evil,” he chokes out as I twist the blade.
“You’re right,” I say, and then I slide the knife out and slit his throat.
“An eye for an eye,” the weathered man tells me with a chuckle. “Leave it to you to take it to a whole new level.”
“Go fuck yourself.” He isn’t supposed to be in Switzerland, but he’s of the overbearing and protective variety, and it’s safe to say we haven’t gotten that part sorted out yet.
“Careful, dear. You’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”
&nbs
p; My stomach clinches. Henry used to say that.
In a way, Carlo is my new Henry, although Henry he could never be. It was him who had arranged for the hit on Michael. He didn’t have to meet me at the airport, but he did, which meant that I liked him right away, in that love-hate kind of way you do with a handler. Regardless, he is everything I need in my life right now.
“Basel is beautiful, yes?” he says to Sophie.
She kind of shrugs, and he looks at me. “Teenagers.”
“She’s just mad I wouldn’t let her keep the clothes.”
Carlo smiles. “Your mother is right. The clothes you cannot keep. They go with the job.”
Sophie stares at her fingernails, picking at a piece of chipped polish. “There will be more where that came from. Don’t worry.”
She looks up at me expectantly. “Can we go shopping now?”
“Basel is not the place for shopping,” Carlo says. “Wait until you get to Zurich.”
“Can I go look around?” she asks, pointing toward the door.
“No,” I say firmly. “In a minute, we will go.”
My phone chimes, and I check my messages. It’s a reminder from my assistant that it’s time to wire the monthly payment for Michael’s other children to their Nona, the lady who cares for them. I haven’t met them, and I don’t know that I will. Although, who knows? Maybe someday. “Mom?” Sophie whines. “Can I? Please.”
Carlo gives me the once-over. “She will be fine. Basel is safe. You have trained her well. I say let her go.”
“She is not ready yet.”
“You are the one who is not ready.”
“Yes,” I say. “I am the one who is not ready.”
“This is a problem, Olivia. If you hold on too tight.”