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Kat
August
I stop taking Meg’s calls, so she begins texting me.
Are you all right?
What’s going on?
Please just let me know you’re okay.
Finally, I text her back. I’m fine, just dealing with this credit card. I filed a police report. They’re taking over.
And Scott?she texts back.
I don’t respond.
***
Scott had printed the credit card statements and taken everything associated with it into the station, and I’m grateful not to have to look at it. But I’m unable to do anything else. My file on Meg remains in my desk, unopened, and I’ve missed several deadlines for content I couldn’t bring myself to write, even though I need the money more than ever.
Another week goes by. Veronica calls and leaves a message. Meg says you’ve been sick. We miss you. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
Sick.I shake my head, imagining Meg spinning a story to Veronica as they sit on their yoga mats waiting for class to start, about a trip to urgent care and antibiotics. Stories are what she does best.
Flashes of the Citibank call keep returning to me. The dirty street, the smell of the bus as it passed, the scratch of the wooden park bench. And the call Meg took, right before I left. Meg’s mystery buyers.
I grab my phone and open the text thread with Meg, scrolling back three weeks until I find what I’m looking for. Veronica came through! We just opened escrow at $4.5 million. Buyers are over the moon happy and we close in 30 days.
While I’ve been busy putting locks on my social security number, talking to the credit reporting agencies, I haven’t had the time to give much thought to the fact that Meg is about to take her house back. She probably doesn’t even want my $30,000; she just needs me out of her way while the deal closes. I’ve accommodated her by doing just that.
I imagine Ron packing up his belongings, directing furniture into storage, never suspecting that Meg has orchestrated the quick sale of his house, the removal of him from her childhood home. And what will she do next? Will she quietly sell it, this time at market value, and pocket the difference before slipping out of town? Perhaps Veronica will show up to yoga and wonder why the space next to hers is empty. Wonder why Meg’s number has been disconnected.
Ten years ago, Meg made a phone call that derailed my life. I lost my career and my place in the world. She stole my sense of safety and self-worth, and every day since then, I’ve had to live with the consequences of that call. I’ve had to accept fear as a daily part of my life.
And now she’s returned and taken even more. Because Meg is a con artist, and con artists steal—however and whenever they can.
I’m done feeling sorry for myself. Done with the second-guessing and hand-wringing. I may have missed what she did while it was happening, but that doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out now.
Scott had filed the police report yesterday, bringing the paperwork home for me to sign—Kat Roberts vs. Meg Williams. Now that the police are involved, there will be a formal investigation, and Scott has promised I’ll have access to everything they dig up on her.
Meg will not destroy my life twice.
