Mother of All Secrets(58)

“Anyway, where was I?” Isabel asked dryly. “Ah, right. My living hell of a marriage. But then I got pregnant. I’d always vowed to myself I would never get pregnant with his child. I wouldn’t have wanted to subject a child to having him as a father. We rarely slept together, but on the occasion we did, I was so careful. So Naomi was a shock, but when I found out I was carrying her, I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t even think about it. I didn’t even tell him that I was pregnant until I was about five months along. I just didn’t want him to be part of it. And I still don’t. And then, right after Naomi was born, Vanessa reached out and told me all about what had happened with poor Allison. She told me about Phoebe. I had no idea he’d fathered another child. Vanessa wanted to help, and had ideas, and I had some ideas, too, and finally, most importantly, I had the strength I’d been missing all along, to do something, something big, to finally get revenge on him and shake him out of my life, our lives, forever. Vanessa gave that to me, but so did Naomi. Becoming a mom has made me aware of my own power, my priorities, in a way that I never was before.” I nodded my genuine understanding.

“And so I recruited you, so to speak. Not only did we share the terrible bond of our acquaintance with my awful husband, but we were also new moms. So I knew you were as strong as I was—that you would understand why I needed to finally get out. For my daughter. I knew you were the right people to help me.”

“How did you find us?” Kira asked, finally. “How did you know?”

“Well, that was easier than you’d think.” Isabel shook her head with loathing. “There’s a list.”

“A list?” Selena asked, her voice trembling with fear and revulsion.

Isabel nodded gravely. “Yes. Connor keeps a list of names on his computer. The first time I saw it, years ago, it was by accident—I opened his computer to check my email, because my phone was dead, and it was just there, open on his desktop. I didn’t know what it meant, at first. But I was curious—and once I started googling names, matching locations to his work travel, finding pictures of the women online . . . I put it together. And the crazy thing is that I had asked him if I could use his computer before I did—of course—and he said, ‘Sure.’ He wanted me to see it. To taunt me. Because it was yet another piece of proof I had that he was a monster, but one that I could do nothing about. A list of names isn’t evidence. It’s not like it’s videos and pictures. It wouldn’t mean anything to a lawyer, for instance.” Isabel was right. A random list of names would never be enough to incriminate Connor. “His whole life is about power, control—the list is no doubt meant as a reminder to me that he can get away with whatever he wants to. And a leg up on all of you, too, because I’m assuming most of you didn’t know his name, but he made sure to find out exactly who you were.”

My stomach flopped; I felt like I was going to be sick. I did not want to be a name on Connor’s disgusting list.

“But the list ended up being handy, because I used it in a way he didn’t anticipate,” she continued. “When I realized that the four of us all had new babies and lived in the same neighborhood, I knew there was a way to get us together. To let you get to know me without immediately running for the hills when you realized how we were connected. To make us a team, so to speak. Jenn, you were a late add, of course.” Of course. I hadn’t met Connor until Clara was six weeks old. Isabel hadn’t responded to my post until a few weeks after I’d written it, and the group had already met once or twice when I joined. “Anyway. You guys were plan A. That you’d know me and care about me enough to reveal the truth, publicly, about Connor after I went missing. Then I’d come back, he’d be ruined, and I’d be free forever. That didn’t happen, unfortunately. But like I said. That was plan A.”

“What’s plan B?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Plan B is that you help me kill my husband,” Isabel said evenly.





Chapter Twenty-Five



Thursday, October 8

Selena didn’t skip a beat. “Absolutely not. I’m sorry, but no. No, no, no. I’m sorry your husband is a sociopathic monster, and I’m even sorrier I ever crossed paths with him—believe me—but I am absolutely not killing anyone. Surely you can figure out how to divorce him or leave the country and never see him again without doing all of . . . this.” She gestured with her hand wildly. “Divorce is literally what I do for a living. I can help you with that, and will do so gladly. But I’m not going to help you kill the guy.”

“This is too much, Isabel,” Kira agreed. “I know I made a huge mistake, and I want to help you get away from him, but you can’t honestly expect us to help you kill him. We’re not killers.”

I chimed in. “What if we just all come forward now? Tell the police everything that he’s been doing?”

Isabel shook her head. “It’s too late. The moment is over. It’s time for me to come back. I can’t risk getting in trouble for staging all of this. Besides, I see now that he’s capable of squashing the story, changing the narrative. I can’t risk that we try that and then it doesn’t work. You’d be in danger then, too.”

I knew she was right. If we tried to take down Connor with the truth and it didn’t go our way, he could easily come after us. He would come after us.