Confessions on the 7:45(70)

Most people who were victims of the sweetheart scam just slunk away; it was a humiliation, the death of a dream. But Bridget Pine raised a fuss and when Hunter called her, she detailed for him everything that had transpired. The passionate emails, the late-night phone calls, the delicious tension of awaiting their first meeting. She wasn’t a beautiful woman; so, the ability to get to really know someone before meeting—she thought that it was a truer connection.

“The physical shell doesn’t matter,” she told him. “It’s what’s inside that counts, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” said Hunter. But intimacy was about more than late-night conversations and promises. He thought of his own marriage—imperfect, enduring, how you had to accept every facet of each other, even the things you didn’t like.

“On some level,” she said, “I guess I knew. I’d given up on love and romance. But something about the online dating. It felt safer. I didn’t think it would hurt as much if it didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “This happens a lot. More than you know.”

“How do I find him?” she asked. “Can you help me? I can pay you.”

“I’ve been looking for him—or someone like him—for years. You don’t have to pay me. If I find him, you’ll be my first call.”

“How have you been looking for him?” she asked.

He told her his techniques of scanning news sites, following up with similar stories, cold calling. Sometimes taking a road trip.

“All it takes is one detail that leads you somewhere new,” he said. “But my advice? Just let it go, move on.”

She laughed a little. “I don’t have anything to move on to. Bill—I think he was my last chance for love.”

Bill. Charlie. Whoever. He wasn’t even real.

“If you get a lead,” he said, “don’t follow it up on your own, call me. Let me help. No charge.”

She promised that she would. This was a couple of months before Maggie Stevenson was murdered, her daughter Grace disappeared.

Later, Bridget Pine walked off the face of the earth. She bought a new car, quit her job, cashed out some accounts, packed a bag and slipped away from her life. When he couldn’t reach her—email bounced, phone disconnected—Hunter called around, finally finding a former coworker who knew her a little.

“She was an odd duck,” he said. “She kept to herself. Then, one day, she just quit. She said she’d made enough money to retire and she wanted to travel. It was—odd.”

No one had ever heard from her again.

Hunter kept reading through his old notes. Then scanned the various news sources for all the information he could get on the Naughty Nanny, and then he scanned through the cold case websites he liked. He was looking for it, the one thing, that connected all of them. The one piece of information that would lead him on a fresh trail.

The sun set and the lamps came on outside. Hunter knew there was about an hour before his wife came home. Until she did, he’d spend a little time on Stella and Pearl Behr, Maggie and Grace Stevenson. He’d keep looking. Because everybody counts.



TWENTY-EIGHT

Selena

She pulled the blinds and pretended there was no one out on her lawn, on her driveway, on the street. As the detective left, a handful of reporters, a couple of news vans, a few other unmarked vehicles had come to gather around her house. Neighbors were at their windows and on their porches. It wasn’t a mob. But the sight of the strangers filled her with dread. Now, Selena was one of those people, the ones you saw on the news, their lives in a shamble because of scandal or a crime.

She sank onto the couch, not sure of what to do. Pack. That was it. She needed to gather her things and more clothes and toys for the boys. She needed to leave this house and go home to her mother. Because—what else? Where else?

When there was an aggressive knocking on the door, she sat frozen. The detective again? The police coming to take her in? Her heart thumped. She waited. Maybe they’d go away.

“It’s me.” A familiar voice through the door. “Selena, it’s Beth. Let me in.”

Relief was a flood as she ran for the door, let her friend inside. There were shouts from the lawn.

What happened to Geneva Markson, Selena?

Did you know your husband was sleeping with the nanny?

Beth, blond hair tousled, clutching her tote tight to her body, moved inside quickly and pressed her back against the closed door.

“Is this happening?” she asked Selena, eyes wide. “Is this really happening?”

“It is,” said Selena. “This is my life right now.”

They stared at each other. They’d been in dark places together before, watching their dear friend die. Her grim funeral. The implosion of Beth’s marriage, the ugly, contentious divorce—luckily or unluckily without kids. A miscarriage Selena had before Oliver was born. The time Beth broke her leg while they were hiking, and Selena had to practically drag her five miles because they’d both decided to “unplug” and left their phones in the car.

“Shit,” said Beth. “Shit. What time is it? Can we drink?”

It was after three. “I have a bottle of cab.”

Selena didn’t want to drink, but Beth made her way to the kitchen, dropping her bag at the table. She poured them each a glass from the bottle on the counter, and Selena took a tentative sip, then another. She felt that familiar warmth, a softening of edges. Her shoulders relaxed a bit.