you—you just…suckered me. Like a fool.”
“No. You saw exactly what we wanted you to see. We put on a good show, tailored just for you. So you believed it: That makes you an optimist, not a fool.” I pick up the box and hand it to her. “Here. You earned this.”
“Well, I don’t want it.”
“Fine. Donate it to charity, then. But for God’s sake, don’t leave it for him.”
She picks up the box again, peers inside. Shakes it around, then sticks two fingers deep into it, and pincers out something else: a small manila envelope. She looks at me, then opens it and removes a piece of paper. Unfolded, it reveals itself to be a birth certificate, soft with age. The name is almost obscured by the fold lines, and for a few seconds the strange truth fails to register. Michael O’Brien, born in Tacoma, Washington, October 1980 to Elizabeth and Myron O’Brien. There’s a yellowed Social Security card in the envelope as well, and an expired U.S. passport, all belonging to Michael O’Brien.
He used his real name.
Vanessa’s face pales. “Oh God.”
I look at the birth certificate for a long time, remembering the moment in that hotel room in Santa Barbara when Lachlan rolled over in bed and suggested his new pseudonym. Michael O’Brien. No wonder it rolled off his tongue so easily, far more easily than Ashley ever fit onto mine. Did he already see Vanessa as the big fish he had been waiting all these years to hook? I wonder what he has planned for her. A cushy marriage? An even cushier divorce? Or something far worse than that?
“He’s not even from Ireland,” I mutter.
Vanessa leans over to study the birth certificate, touching the edges lightly as if fearful of leaving her fingerprints on it. “He’s waiting for me back at Stonehaven. If I file for divorce, he’s going to take me for half of everything I have.” Her voice grows softer. “I’m having his baby. I thought about not going through with it, but I want this baby. I just…don’t want Michael in our lives. I need him gone before he finds out I’m pregnant. Otherwise I’ll never be rid of him.”
“You need to kick him out.”
She peers at me from behind a tangled strand of hair. “He’s not going to leave that easily, is he?”
Guilt gnaws at me, sinking its sharp teeth into my conscience: I dragged Michael to her front door, and then I left him there for her to deal with. “Probably not.”
She stands up, a little wobbly. “I’m not going to let him drive me out of my own home.”
“Are you going back there? To Stonehaven?”
She shrugs. “Where else can I go? It’s my home.”
“Don’t go alone, at least. Maybe you could take Benny with you? You could confront him together?”
“You don’t know how Benny is now. He’s not reliable that way.”
“For God’s sake, just—give it a minute. Stay at a hotel for a night or two. Come up with a better plan than I’m asking you to leave.” I know what I should tell her to do—call the police—but if she does, it’ll just be a matter of time before they find the JetSet profile Michael and I put up and figure out that I was a part of his plans, too. I’m already in enough trouble. So I keep my mouth shut.
Vanessa picks up the oatmeal box full of money and holds it stiffly out from her body, as if it might accidentally detonate and take off a limb or two. She turns, and goes back to the kitchen.
The minute she walks away with the money, I regret giving it to her. What was I thinking? I probably just signed my mother’s death warrant. And I’m going to need money for a decent trial lawyer, unless I want to spend the rest of my life rotting in jail. What is my piousness going to gain me in the end? Is a clear conscience really worth all that?
Too late now. But presumably he has other stashes of cash in other hiding