The Lies I Tell(71)

The officer holds up his hands. “Ma’am, please calm down. Let’s lower the temperature a little bit.”

I turn to face him. “Don’t tell me to calm down. Write up the report. Please make sure your badge number is on it as well.” I start taking pictures again. Of my bumper, of the officer, and more of Scott.

As I circle his car, I see a duffel bag in the backseat. A pillow. Crumpled food wrappers on the floor. A stainless-steel toaster oven tucked behind the driver’s seat, and a toothbrush sticking out of the seat’s side pocket.

I know what it looks like when someone’s living in their car.

I want to punch the air, do a happy dance on the shoulder of Sunset Boulevard. I glance at the officer, busy copying down our plate numbers, and walk past Scott, letting my shoulder brush against his. “It looks like Kat finally kicked you out,” I say, my words floating just under the sound of traffic behind us. “What’s that saying? ‘The bell tolls for you, motherfucker.’” I give him a sweet smile. “Or something like that.”

Scott’s eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t say anything more.

***

Less than an hour later, we’re done. Scott is stuck waiting for a tow truck, and I linger long enough to make sure the police officer leaves. After today, Scott can follow me all he wants.

I ease back into traffic, making sure to keep my speed slightly below the limit, and soon I’m circling onto the 405 freeway, heading south toward the airport. It’ll be tight—I’ll have to pay for VIP parking—but I’ll still make my flight. As I settle into the left lane, I let the adrenaline fall away. Once the DBA is set up, the second half of my plan can begin.





Kat


October

Give me back my notes. My first text to Scott since I kicked him out, and he’s quick to reply.

Meet with me.

If it’s the phone you want, I don’t have it anymore, I text back. I already gave it to the police when I filed a police report against you.

I’d gone to the police station and stood at the Formica counter, giving the detective details that seemed to bore her, until I got to Scott’s name.

She looked up sharply. “Detective Scott Griffin?”

“That’s the one,” I said. “I’ve got credit card statements and the phone he used to open it.”

When she opened the evidence bag and asked me to drop the phone in, I hesitated. “I think I’d prefer to hang on to that, if it’s okay with you. I can let the detectives see it whenever they need to.”

She’d looked at me over her black-framed readers and said, “That’s not how it works.”

Scott texts back. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Please get the help you need, I respond.

***

As far as I know, Scott’s still working. My report is most likely either last in a very long line of fraud cases or slowed down by Scott. I’ve got an appeal with Citibank, though they’ve told me that without the police confirming it was fraudulent, I’ll have a hard time getting the debt forgiven because some of the charges—for food, and once, for our rent back in June—implicate me. No one seems to care whether I opened the account or not.

Accept the things you cannot change. A line from Scott’s twelve-step recovery pops into my mind. “What a crock,” I say aloud into the empty room.

I stare at my silent phone, then open up my text thread with Meg. My last message to her sits there, unanswered, and I worry that she’s already gone. That she’s disconnected her phone and quietly left town, feeding a story to Veronica to keep her from wondering about her abrupt departure. If the Canyon Drive escrow is closed, there’d be no reason for her to stick around.

My finger hovers over the call button. I have to know.

The phone rings, and I brace myself for an automated message informing me the number is no longer in service. Or a full voicemail box.

Instead, she answers.

“It was Scott,” I tell her.

She’s quiet for a moment, and I think about a conversation I had with her, back when she was showing me houses. Men will always show you who they are. Scott worked hard to distract me with things that weren’t true, forcing me to question my own instincts, telling me I couldn’t trust what I was seeing with my own eyes. He chipped away at my confidence, convincing me up was down, good was bad. Meg had been the one who’d tried to keep me facing forward, to help me see who Scott was, and in doing so, who she was as well.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says.

“I should have listened.”

“If you’d done something the moment you saw the missing bank statement, would it have made a difference with the credit card?”

I think back to what Citibank told me, about when the card had been opened. “No,” I tell her. “Maybe a few thousand dollars less, but not enough to change anything.” I exhale slowly. “I can’t stop thinking about the betrayal. The sense of powerlessness…it keeps me up at night, running through all the things I chose to ignore.”

Her voice is quiet. “It’s not your fault Scott’s a shitty person.”

“He’s going to get away with it.”

“Probably,” she says. “In my experience, men like Scott usually do.”