Confessions on the 7:45(101)

There was a drawn breath, a moment of surprised silence. Then, “Hi, Pearl. I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.”

“I know,” she said. “Thank you. I think.”

He cleared his throat. “What can I do for you?”

There were things she wanted to know, and things she wanted to tell. Hunter Ross was the only person she trusted.

“Did you ever find out who he really was? Charles Finch?”

“I never did,” he said. “Don’t you know?”

“No,” she said truthfully. “He had so many identities even before I knew him. I’m not sure he remembered himself. And after he died, I looked through all his belongings. I never found a single authentic document.”

“When did he die?”

“About five years ago,” she said. “A woman he conned or tried to. She hunted him down and killed him, then killed herself.” That was not the whole truth, of course. But she had to protect her little sister.

“Who was that?” he asked. She wondered if he was recording the call.

“Her name was Bridget.” She didn’t remember the last name. She felt oddly embarrassed by that. She didn’t remember many of the names of the people she conned. They weren’t people. They were marks.

“Okay,” he said. “Where are their bodies?”

She flashed on that night. Digging the graves. Grace weeping.

“If I tell you, what will you do?”

There was a moment of quiet, where she figured he considered lying. But Hunter Ross was an honest man.

“Call it in,” he said finally. “Someone will go and dig them up.”

Did she want that? Did she want them dug up? What would happen to Pop’s remains, some government grave?

“Did he kill my mother?” she asked. “Did you ever suspect anyone else?”

A breath drawn and released. “What do you think, Pearl?”

“She had a lot of boyfriends.” Stella was a tease, a user. She hurt people just for fun. Any one of the men in Stella’s life might have turned angry and violent. That’s what men did, wasn’t it, when they didn’t get what they wanted from a woman? Some men.

“Men that came and went,” he said. “No one who stayed on. No one who really, in his heart of hearts, wanted you.”

She let that sink in, the truth of it.

“He took care of me,” she said finally. She didn’t want to think that Pop killed Stella. But probably he did. “He never hurt me. Never—touched me.”

“It sounds like you loved him.”

“Maybe I did. In a way.”

“And Gracie Stevenson.”

“He loved her, too.”

She heard him clear his throat again in that way old men always do. There was a woman’s voice in the background. Who is that, Hunt? It’s so early.

“Her mother was also murdered,” said Ross. His tone was gently leading.

“Yes.”

“I’m seeing a pattern here. Aren’t you?”

She didn’t answer him. Just a few more minutes and she’d end the call and trash the phone.

“Where is she? Where’s Gracie—or should I call her Geneva?”

“She’s somewhere safe,” she said, hoping that was true. She was pretty sure they’d never see each other again. “Starting fresh. We’re both done.”

“With all the games you’ve been playing.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve been trying to figure the two of you out. How you worked together.”

“I wouldn’t say we worked together.”

“No?”

“She had her things,” said Pearl. “I had mine. We had different styles.”

This wasn’t the whole truth. Pearl was always the puppeteer, pulling Gracie’s strings, whether she knew it or not.

“So the Tuckers, that was her thing? Get a job as a nanny, sleep with the husband, then blackmail him to stay quiet.”

“Something like that,” said Pearl. “I think it was just her twisted way of trying to be a part of a family.” Also not really true. Gracie hated breaking up families. But she was very good at it. The scores were smallish but consistent.

But it was, in fact, Pearl who brought the Tuckers’ need for a nanny to Gracie’s attention; they were part of Selena’s network of social media friends. And it was Pearl who encouraged Grace to meet Selena in the park, having seen also on social media that Selena was about to go back to work. Then, things just fell together the way they do when you’re in the flow.

“But Selena, she was your thing, your half sister. You’d been watching her for years, right? Must have been.”

Yes, that was true.

Pearl had hovered on the edge of Selena’s life for years—online stalking Selena and her friends, Selena’s sister (Pearl’s other half sister) Marisol, who for some reason interested Pearl less. She watched from afar as Selena got married, had children, bought a new house, built brick-by-brick her Instagram-perfect life.

Pearl had also watched Graham on social media, though he was far less active and had a smaller network. Occasionally, she followed him. When, a couple of years into their marriage, Pearl realized he was unfaithful, she watched him more closely.