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Kat
October
Meg texts me just after lunch. Can you come over? I need your help with a new transaction I have open with Ron. Another text follows with her address.
I set my half-eaten yogurt on the counter, still in my pajamas even though it’s after noon. I’d come home from seeing Scott at the beach the other day and looked up properties in Mandeville Canyon, but nothing popped out at me, and nothing’s gone under contract in the area since then.
I can be there in an hour, I text back, but she doesn’t respond.
I scramble to throw on clean clothes, forgoing the shower I’ve been putting off, grab my keys and purse, and am in my car within fifteen minutes.
***
Sun casts the facade of Meg’s house almost golden as I approach the front door. This is the first time I’ve been here, and I’m wondering if I can break away from our conversation to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, just to take a quick look around.
I knock, but there’s no sound of footsteps, so I ring the doorbell and wait.
Still nothing.
I try the knob, which is unlocked, and step into a bright and airy living room filled with a white sectional couch, a low glass and chrome coffee table, and a beautiful ceramic-tiled fireplace. “Meg,” I call, but my voice echoes back to me.
I wander into the kitchen, the counters bare and sparkling, and open the fridge, only to see its shelves scrubbed clean, a lone bottle of water in the very back. It’s as if I’ve stepped into a model home, staged to appear as if people live there, but the cupboards and closets are empty.
“Meg?” I peek into the backyard, but there’s no sign of her.
Where are you?I text.
In the dining room there’s a table with eight chairs tucked around it. In the center is a stack of about twenty spiral-bound notebooks, and on top, an envelope with my name on it.
Inside is a letter and a cashier’s check made out to Citibank for $31,125. I stare at it for at least a minute, dumbfounded, before starting to read.
K—
A good story can be seductive. Most people are inclined to believe one rather than examine the evidence piling up in front of them. But what they don’t know is that no one is a reliable narrator. Reliable narrators don’t exist.
Have you ever thought about your name? Kat—a predator stalking her prey, waiting for the right moment to strike. Is that how you thought of yourself, spinning a story about an inheritance, a newly rich woman looking for a way to fill her days?
I look up from the letter, stunned. Scott had been right after all. Of course Meg wasn’t going to fall for my story about a big inheritance—she was the con artist spinning big stories, not me.
I don’t mind that you lied to me. One of the hardest things about doing what I do is the burden of always carrying other people’s trust. That I didn’t have to carry yours was a gift. But even though you expected my lies, I still regret telling them, and I still regret having to leave this way. But this is how it always ends: me disappearing before anyone is ready to say goodbye. Even me.
At times, it’s been hard to accept that I would never live a normal life. I would never have a normal relationship or a normal family. But I had something bigger. A life that spanned a continent, meeting people I never would have met otherwise. Of course, I left a lot of confusion and questions in my wake, the people I’d befriended often wondering what—if anything—about our friendship had been real. But each one of them has left an indelible mark on me. I love the movie Casablanca because of Diane in Phoenix. I prefer my sandwich bread toasted thanks to Natasha in Monterey. Coworkers and neighbors who have, for a time, become my community. Who kept me from living in isolation. And among them, I’ve found some good friends. Perhaps not ones I can stay in touch with, but that doesn’t keep me from carrying their kindnesses with me.
The lies I tell serve a purpose, tipping karma in the right direction. Returning power to those who have lost it. The difference between justice and revenge comes down to who’s telling the story.
The notebooks will give you a sense of what I’ve done and why, because context matters.
The men I target—corrupt, selfish, and sometimes dangerous—are everywhere. In every town, in every industry, doing what they do best, taking advantage of others. I no sooner dealt with one when another would crop up, somewhere else. I can see now the price I paid, the cost to my own soul. Because proximity to corruption and greed is like living on top of a nuclear waste site. Eventually it’ll seep into your blood and poison you as well.
There is more I wish I could tell you, but time is up for me here. So know these three things: First, my affection for you was real. I valued our friendship, and I will carry it with me always. Second, you deserve loyalty from the people you love. Third, and maybe most important—if you know a man’s weaknesses, it’s easy to press them and get the result you want.
Be well, and write this story—or a novel, or whatever the hell you want—with my blessing.
The notebooks aren’t arranged in any particular order. The one on top is from several years ago, and when I open it, the pages are dated at the top, filled with Meg’s handwriting. Some entries are lists of things she needed to get done. Call phone company and get internet set up. Others are facts about towns, locations, and people. Marco’s car was repossessed last year, start with him. Flagstaff is too small, it’s not going to work. Some entries appear to be more personal—memories of her mother, rationalizations for decisions she made along the way. Impressions of the people she met, the men she dated and what she was able to take from them: $50,000 from a man in Fresno, who’d stolen that money from his dying uncle; $100,000 from another man in Houston, running a Ponzi scheme. The list wasn’t nearly as long as I’d imagined it would be, because Meg took the time to research first. To make sure the men she targeted deserved it.
I scan the pages, details jumping out at me. Strategies for how to approach a target. How to gain someone’s trust. She even outlines what to do if someone catches on to what she’s doing—Pull them close. Distract them with other things. I look up, thinking about her mystery buyers, who will likely turn out to be no one special at all. Every lead I followed, every theory I had, was curated and handed to me by Meg.
The next notebook in the stack is her first one, dated over ten years ago. I was born to be a grifter, though I didn’t see it until after I’d been one for some time. I find an early entry about Ron Ashton, the heartache and anger so vivid on the page, I marvel at how she could have spent so much time with him over the past few months. How much that must have cost her. I hope the payoff is worth it.
