The call over, I toss the phone on the seat, shove the door open, and swing my legs out of the car. I feel light-headed. I lean my head into my lap, sucking in air.
This has to be a mistake, I think again. Some totally freaky coincidence. Those things happen. A bizarre coincidence drove one of the people I wrote about in my last book toward the choice he made—he’d seen it as a sign from the gods. Wait for the link, I tell myself. Maybe Bloom’s got it all wrong. And why should I take the word of a total stranger?
The almond scent of suntan lotion wafts into the car along with the cackle of people talking and laughing on the little beach. It’s a perfect June day, the sun high in the bright blue sky, and yet I feel totally detached from it all, like I’m watching the world on a screen.
Within a minute or two there’s an email from Bloom along with the promised link. I resituate myself in the car, grab a breath, and tap the link. I’m taken to a section of the Dallas Business Journal website headlined “People on the Move,” and almost instantly the bottom falls out of my stomach. Because I’m now staring at the photo of a man who can only be Guy. Or should I say Guy about nine years younger. Or a doppelganger so uncannily like him it could make you believe that alien body snatchers really do exist.
The section appears to cover new hires and promotions at regional companies, and there’s a short paragraph of copy along with each photo. The one I’m studying says that G. Richard Carrington has recently been named president of Dallas Gives. It lists his education below: MS from the University of California, Santa Barbara; MBA from UCLA.
The schooling matches up perfectly with what I know of Guy’s education.
There can’t be any mistake that this is my husband, that he lived and worked in Dallas like Bloom said. I’m married to a liar and a fraud and, if I’m to believe Bloom further, a criminal. A wave of nausea sweeps through me, and I grip the steering wheel, trying to fight it off.
This is what Paul wanted to tell me. Why he’d searched me out in Boston and, after I’d declined dinner, offered me the ride home the next day. During one of last year’s lunches together, we’d exchanged info regarding our spouses, and I’d shared certain aspects about Guy’s background—the jobs in Chicago and then his own small business in Miami—and after talking to Bloom, Paul would have suspected I was clueless. According to Bloom, Paul respected me. He must have convinced himself he had an obligation to tell me so I wouldn’t be duped any more than I already had been.
Did he have the chance, I wonder, in the minutes before the car went off the road? Have the nightmares been my unconscious’s way of reminding me of what Paul shared?
Before my thoughts unspool any further, I catch myself. Bloom hasn’t offered a shred of evidence that Guy stole the money, and it’s foolish to accept a secondhand report from a stranger.
Then I realize the absurdity of my thinking process. Regardless of whether Guy embezzled the money, he’s deceived me about a big chunk of his past—living in Dallas, the work he did, even the name he went by.
Others must be in the dark as well. The few friends of his I’ve met are fairly new in his life—like his pal who knew the couple I was staying with in Rhode Island the summer we met—so they probably wouldn’t be privy to much about his past.
What else has he lied about? I wonder in panic. It’s not much of a leap now to believe that he was screwing Eve. There may have been other women. Other cities he’s inhabited. Maybe his whole past is a lie. Was he always Richard until Miami?
But wait, I remind myself, I met his mother and she called him Guy, and she was hardly party to a hoax. Nor were the cousins and family acquaintances I met at her small memorial service in in San Diego.
There’s one detail that makes no sense, and for a few seconds it sends a flood of relief coursing through me. Surely the opera company would have done a background check on him and discovered any discrepancies on his résumé.
Yet if they searched only under the name Guy provided, the Dallas job might not have surfaced, even in this glorious age of the Internet. And, of course, the embezzlement itself has been kept under wraps.
A chill runs down my spine. I wonder if Guy has stolen from me. I’ve been careful overall about money, but my mind has been elsewhere since the accident. We have a prenup, at least. Casey had urged me to go there, claiming it was advice she’d offer to any client on a roll financially and about to marry.
Shouts pierce my thoughts. I look up to see that it’s two kids waving lightsabers at the edge of the parking lot. I become aware of how long I’ve been sitting in the car. Miranda may be departing soon, and I certainly don’t want to run into her and risk triggering her nosiness.
Bryn, are you okay? You look shell-shocked.