“Ms. Davenport must have been furious. Unless this was some crazy whirlwind thing, this guy was cheating on her.”
“That sucks,” I said. For a minute, I tried to imagine what it might have been like, to be Ms. Davenport. To be married to a banker who clearly had a lot of money—his cover photo was of his house in San Francisco, and it was gorgeous—and then to have it all end, most likely in an awful way. With all those nursing home and mortgage payments, I bet she was broke, while her husband was living it up with a new young wife and baby. “She must be so angry. Maybe it made her crazy.”
“I’d say it’s understandable, except most people who are mad about getting divorced do things like sell their husband’s fancy cars on Craigslist for pocket change, or try to hook up with one of their husband’s friends. At least that’s what they do on TV. I don’t think they start crazy blackmail schemes.”
“I know. I’m not saying it makes sense. It’s more that she must have felt so betrayed. Someone she trusted, going behind her back like that.” I knew how she felt. Her betrayal had gutted me; ironic that the feelings of hurt and anger were helping me understand her better now.
“So she turned around and did the same thing to us? Don’t get soft on me now.”
“I’m not.” And I wasn’t, really. But there was this moment when I could see where someone could just lose it and do things they’d never thought they were capable of. Which didn’t make it okay. Just because I got how this could happen didn’t mean I was any less angry. I still wanted her to pay.
And I wanted to find a way to end this nightmare.
We plugged away, me searching through Jonathan Fisher’s timeline, Alex using his name to see if she could come up with a connection to the house. “I’ve got it,” Alex said. “It’s easy now that we know her married name—it looks like she used it for everything but work. The lawsuit was filed against her by her mom. Said she tricked her grandmother into signing everything over to her before she went into the home, and then took out a second mortgage on the house.”
“She’s being sued by her own mother?”
“Isn’t that the worst? Here we are thinking our parents are going to have fits over the stupid things we’ve been doing, and Ms. Davenport’s actually in a lawsuit with hers.”
“It was pretty hard to find that, though, wasn’t it?”
“Once I had her married name, it wasn’t,” she said. “But yeah, there’s nothing here that would link it to her now.”
“I wonder if people know,” I said. “I wonder if the lawsuit is something she’d want to keep quiet.”
“We’ve found our leverage,” Alex said.
“Exactly. We just need to figure out what we want and how to use the leverage to get it.”
“We should tell everyone,” I said. “Let’s meet tonight. I want to get it over with.”
“Okay. You want to text them?”
“I don’t have Justin’s number. I can take care of the other two.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Great. Fine.”
“We’re all in this together,” I reminded her. As if she needed reminding.
I got out my phone to text them and realized I hadn’t looked at it since I’d shut the ringer the day before. The signal was blocked in school, so I wasn’t in the habit of checking my phone during the day. Because if I had, I’d have seen that in addition to the missed calls from my parents, I had new text messages.
A lot of them.
My head started pounding as I wondered how many of them were from Ms. Davenport, what she could possibly want now. But none of them were from her. They were all from Isabel. I’d forgotten to call her.
She was not happy.
I started reading through each text.
Where are you guys?
Did you find out anything?
I’m staying up until I hear from you.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!
Okay, now I’m getting scared.
Seriously, you’re freaking me out.
Just write even one word so I know you’re okay.
I can’t do this anymore.
And then the last one:
If you haven’t texted me by the time I wake up, I’m coming up with my own plan.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex asked, reading over my shoulder.
“I don’t know, but that’s the last one I got. I’ll write her back and apologize and hopefully that will be the end of it.” I wrote and apologized and told her about our plan to meet up.
My phone buzzed with a text notification almost immediately.
Too late. Couldn’t stand it anymore. Had to talk to someone.
Tell me you didn’t, I wrote back.
No choice. Bringing her with me tonight.
I’d been hoping she didn’t mean who I thought she meant, but as soon as I read her final text, I knew.
“Was that her?” Alex asked. “Is she mad?”
“That’s not the problem anymore,” I said.
“Then what is?”
“She told someone.”
“She did what? Who did she tell?”
I tried to stay calm. Breathe, I told myself.
“Becca,” I said.
27.