The Lies I Tell(28)

I was just printing that out when the doorbell rang. I crept from the office into the living room, glancing out the window, hoping it was a solicitor I could ignore. But it was Nate. He pounded on the door. “I know you’re there, Meg. Open up.”

I swung the door open. “Cory’s at work.”

Nate stepped past me and into the living room. “I’m here to see you.”

My eyes followed him. “Make yourself at home,” I finally said.

He turned to face me and said, “We need to talk.”

I tilted my head to the side, looking confused, though my palms were growing sweaty. “About what?”

“The truth about who you are.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my mind scrambling to find a foothold.

“I made some calls,” Nate said. “Paid $30 for an old yearbook from the high school in Grass Valley. Found some alumni online. None of them have ever heard of you.”

I glanced toward the street and saw old Mrs. Trout, our neighbor who lived on the corner, locking her front door, her ancient basset hound, Dashiell, waiting patiently.

“So then I started thinking about how you and Cory met,” Nate continued, pulling my attention back to him. “Talk about being at the right place at the right time,” he mused. “What a coincidence.”

“Get to the point, Nate. Whatever fantasy you’re spinning, please finish it. I have to get to class.”

“You don’t have class today,” Nate said.

I took a step back. “Have you been following me?”

Nate’s voice was low and angry. “For some time now. Because you don’t add up, Meg. Not on paper, not in real life. Everything you’ve told Cory is a lie, isn’t it?”

“I need you to leave,” I said.

Nate shook his head. “You’re pretty comfortable here, aren’t you?”

I thought about the emails I’d just discovered and wondered what Nate would say about them. Whether I could justify what I was doing by throwing something even more appalling in his face. But Nate was a man who forced women in bars to accept his unwanted drinks and advances. Whatever Cory was doing, Nate wouldn’t care at all.

My plan had been to use the next four weeks to empty Cory’s account in $2,500 chunks. To be gone before he noticed his most recent bank statement never arrived. Before he started asking where the car title was. But Nate’s accusation changed everything. I was going to have to leave now. Today. I’d be able to do one withdrawal, but I wouldn’t have time for more. I scrambled to think about what I did have. The car—still registered in my name, the forged registration paperwork sitting on the desk in Cory’s office—and my laptop. Not enough.

A fiery rage rose up inside of me. Why should men like this always be the ones who won? The ones who disregarded the rules and did whatever they wanted? I glanced out the window again, Mrs. Trout now standing across the street, waiting for poor Dashiell as he sniffed around the base of a tree.

Then I let out a blood-curdling scream.

Nate leapt away from me, his eyes wide. “What the fuck?” he hissed.

I took a deep breath and let out another one. Then I flung the door open and charged out of the house. “Help me!”

Mrs. Trout’s gaze shot up, her expression stunned to see me running toward her, my feet bare, glancing over my shoulder. Nate stood in the doorway of the house, color drained from his face.

“He attacked me,” I cried, cowering behind Mrs. Trout.

Nate pushed himself through the doorway and approached us. “She’s lying.”

“Stay away from me,” I said, forcing my voice to wobble. To Mrs. Trout, I said, “He shoved me against the wall, tried to kiss me, then reached up my shirt…” I trailed off, as if I couldn’t continue.

Mrs. Trout took me by the arm and said, “We can call the police from my house.”

Nate looked incredulous. “You’re fucking crazy, Meg.”

“What I am is traumatized,” I shot back.

Nate glanced between me and Mrs. Trout, then back at the house, the front door still standing open. He held up his hands. “Fine,” he said, heading to his car.

When he was gone, Mrs. Trout came inside and sat with me as I called Cory. Demanded he come straight home.

***

At first, Cory didn’t want to believe me. “Nate’s been my best friend since college. He would never do anything like that.”

But Mrs. Trout corroborated my story. “She came tearing out of the house like a cat on fire,” she told him, her eyes wide behind her thick glasses. “Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

An hour later, as Cory stood on the sidewalk and watched to make sure Mrs. Trout and Dashiell got back to their house okay, I did some quick math. Twenty-five hundred dollars a day for twelve days would get me $30,000.

Cory returned and sat next to me, taking my hand. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “Nate’s made some questionable decisions in the past, but I never thought he’d do something like this to me.”

I forced myself to count to three before pulling away. “He told me if I didn’t sleep with him, he was going to convince you I’d targeted you somehow. He even told me he would tell you that I’d lied about my background. That no one in Grass Valley knew who I was. He’s insanely jealous of you.” I could practically feel the satisfied vibration passing through Cory. “Nate wants what you have,” I went on. “He wants the house, the success, the relationship. He’s always wanted to be you.”