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I felt pieces of my old self falling away. Chipped edges, brittle fears and suspicions. Worries that kept me up at night, imagining years of constant monitoring. Years of doubting and following up, the endless cycle of wondering, questioning, confirming—they all slipped off me, leaving behind nothing but a polished resolution.
“Clock starts now,” I said.
While he packed, I stepped out, taking his burner phone with me. I waited in my car, making sure all the doors were locked, and hunched down in my seat, checking my mirrors to make sure no one could see the woman sitting alone in her car on a dark street.
I imagined him emptying his dresser, the closet, clearing out his desk in the office. Shoving his clothes into a duffel bag, taking everything he’d brought into the relationship. The framed artwork in the living room. The lamp on his desk that once belonged to his father. The fancy toaster oven he just had to have.
Finally, he left, his car piled high with his belongings, and I waited until he turned the corner and vanished before going back into the apartment. I walked through the living room and into our bedroom—my bedroom now—climbed into bed fully dressed, and fell asleep.
***
My phone rings, yanking me back to the present. It’s a number I don’t recognize, and my stomach twists. Another collection agency? Another credit card opened up in my name? “This is Kat,” I say.
“Kat Roberts?”
I close my eyes, bracing myself. “Speaking.”
“This is Renata Davies, returning your call.”
My eyes fly open, all thoughts of Scott vanishing as I scramble to find a pen and a fresh piece of paper. “Yes,” I say. “Thanks so much for getting back to me. I was hoping you could tell me about a woman named Melody Wilde.”
There’s a long pause. Finally, Renata speaks, her voice low and angry. “I can tell you that she’s a fraud and a fake. I can tell you that she came into town spinning lies about who she was as a way to ingratiate herself into my circle of friends. And I can tell you she stole $350,000 from my brother andconvinced him to sign over a house to her. Is that the kind of information you’re looking for?”
Maybe I’ll get my story after all.
***
I spend an hour on the phone with Renata, who told me about a woman posing as an interior decorator and life coach to New York City celebrities and how she convinced Renata’s brother, Phillip, to let Meg—or Melody—“coach” him through his divorce, collecting huge sums of money she promised to hold on to until after the settlement.
“Tell me about the house,” I said, the one piece that could tie together what Meg was doing now.
“The lake house,” Renata said. “I told him to let Celia have it, but my brother is stubborn and the house was in his name. It was his asset.”
“How did Melody end up with it?”
“He sold it to her for $20,000, which is a fraction of what it’s worth. Melody said he could buy it back after the settlement was finalized, then sell it again, this time at market value.”
“Surely he would have known he’d be slammed with taxes,” I said, my mind half on what Renata was saying, half on how she might have convinced Ron to go along with something similar.
“Melody said she knew a way to get around them. Another lie. But by that point, the only thing Phillip cared about was hanging on to what he believed was his,” she explained. “He didn’t think beyond the settlement. Melody convinced him it would work simply because she’d told him it had worked for her.”
“Con artists often target people who are emotionally vulnerable,” I said. “People who need to believe the reality they’re selling, desperate for a solution to whatever problems they’re facing.”
“She ruined his life. His reputation,” Renata said. I knew what Meg would say. He ruined his own life. I just found all the cracks.
“Has he contacted the police?” I asked her.
“He did, obviously, but they said she’d be ‘hard to prosecute.’ Their words. Because he’d been engaging in fraudulent behavior as well, it would be hard to prove she conned him. His divorce attorneys resigned and he was forced to represent himself. It was a mess.”
It was hard for me to muster any sympathy for Phillip Montgomery. Renata gave me his ex-wife’s name and number, and I called her next. Celia revealed a man who terrorized her and her children. “I stayed longer than I should have,” she told me. “I left with just a suitcase of essentials. Phillip was livid. Changed the locks. Wouldn’t allow me to enter the house to retrieve the rest of my things. By the time we got a court order, most of it was gone. Thrown out, donated, sold, I don’t know. I didn’t care about my clothes, but some of the more sentimental pieces—my mother’s jewelry, notes and cards the kids gave me over the years—that gutted me.”
So much of her story was familiar, Meg and her mother having lived their own version of it. “How do you think Meg found you?”
“No idea. But here’s the crazy thing—a few weeks ago, I was contacted by a real estate attorney who was working on behalf of a counterpart in California. He told me the lake house had been deeded to me. And since I acquired it after our divorce was finalized, Phillip can’t touch it. It’s mine.”
I sat up straight, my pen still. “Meg gave you the house?”
“And everything in it,” Celia said. “Even the taxes were covered.”
