“Thank you,” I say. “I’m so sorry I bothered you.”
She turns to go, then looks back at me. Honey, if you’re that scared of him, you really should go to the police.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE
Sunday, December 23
In a psychological assessment known as the Invisible Gorilla experiment, subjects believed they were supposed to count passes between players on a basketball team. In actuality, they were being evaluated on something else entirely. What most subjects did not notice while tallying the tosses of the ball was that a man in a gorilla suit had walked onto the court. Focusing so strongly on one component blinded the subjects to the big picture.
My hyperfocus on Thomas’s fidelity, or lack thereof, may have obscured an unexpectedly shocking aspect of my case study: that you have an agenda of your own.
You have been solely responsible for reporting what occurred during all of your encounters with my husband—from the museum, to Ted’s Diner, to the most recent rendezvous at Deco Bar. Your interactions with Thomas could not be witnessed because of the danger that he would notice my presence.
But you have proven to be an accomplished liar.
In fact, you snuck into my survey in a move that appeared entrepreneurial but was actually duplicitous.
All of your revelations are reviewed again, this time through a new lens: You lied to your parents about the circumstances of Becky’s accident. You sleep with men you barely know. You claim that a respected theater director crossed unwanted sexual lines with you.
You hold so many disturbing secrets, Jessica.
Your life could be destroyed if they were released.
Despite your promises of honesty, you continued to lie to me after you became Subject 52. You confessed that Thomas did quickly respond to your initial text suggesting a date right after you encountered him at Ted’s Diner, but that you withheld this information from me. And the twenty-two-minute meeting between you and my husband at Deco Bar, for what should have been a five-minute conversation, remains a loose thread, Jessica.
What did you leave out? And why?
Your desire to go home for the holidays and remain there seemed quite abrupt. After that attempt was thwarted, you suggested that you might join Lizzie’s family for Christmas. But you lied about that, too, when you falsely claimed that Lizzie had invited you to the family farm in Iowa for the holidays.
Something is deeply amiss, Jessica.
Your motives for wanting to flee must be scrutinized.
You wrote something quite telling during your very first session. The words form in the mind, one by one, just as they appeared on the screen as you typed, unaware that you were being watched via the laptop’s camera: When it comes down to it, I’ve only got myself to rely on.
Self-preservation is a powerful motivator, more reliably so than money or empathy or love.
A hypothesis forms.
It is possible that the tenor of your meetings with my husband was markedly different from what you described.
Perhaps Thomas covets you.
You know the truth about your role in this experiment.
Why would you contaminate the results?
You understood that significantly more would be asked of you if you continued in my morality study. Maybe you feel as if it is too much.
You clearly want to be released from our entanglement. Did you reason that the best way to escape would be by creating a false narrative, one that would provide the resolution you think I want? One that would free you from any future involvement?
You could be congratulating yourself right now on having scored so much—gifts, money, even a luxurious Florida vacation for your family—before cunningly devising a way to move on with your life.
You might be so focused on your own self-interest that you are ignoring the wreckage you are leaving in your wake.
How dare you, Jessica?
Twenty years ago, my younger sister, Danielle, was faced with moral temptation. More recently, so was Katherine April Voss. These two young women chose poorly.
Both of their deaths can be attributed to direct results of those ethical breakdowns.
You were brought in to serve as a morality test for my husband, Jessica.
But perhaps it is you who failed it.
CHAPTER
SIXTY
Sunday, December 23
I keep coming back to this one question. My gut tells me I have to unravel it until I expose the secret buried at its core: Why did Thomas fabricate an affair with Lauren, the boutique owner, when he’s so desperate to hide the real one he had with April?
I can’t walk away from this, even though I have my file. Dr. Shields isn’t going to let me go until she’s through with me. All I can do to protect myself is try to figure out what happened to April, so I can keep it from happening to me.
Lauren told me to call the police if I was frightened of Thomas. But what could I say?
I pursued a married man. I even slept with him. Oh, and his wife hired me; she kind of knew about it. And by the way, I think one or both of them might be involved with this other girl’s suicide.
It sounds preposterous; they’d think I was nuts.
So instead of phoning the police, I make a few other calls.
First I dial Thomas’s cell. I barrel in without preamble: “Why are you pretending you slept with Lauren when all you did was buy clothes at her boutique?”
I hear his sharp intake of breath.
“You know what, Jess? I’ve got Lydia’s notes on April, and you have Lydia’s notes on you. So we’re even. I don’t need to answer your questions. Good luck.”
Then he hangs up.
I immediately hit Redial.
“Actually, you only have the first thirteen pages from April’s file. I never sent you the last five. So you do need to answer me. But in person.” I need to be able to read his face, too.
The line is so quiet that I worry he’s hung up on me again.
Then he says, “I’m in my office. Meet me here in an hour.”
After he gives me the address, I press End Call and pace, thinking hard. His tone was impossible to decipher. He didn’t sound angry; there wasn’t even any strong emotion in his voice. But maybe he’s one of those guys who is most dangerous when he seems calm, the way it’s always quiet just before a thunderclap erupts.
An office seems like a safe enough place. If Thomas wants to hurt me, wouldn’t he pick another location, one that isn’t linked to him? But it’s Sunday, and I don’t know if the building will be empty.
Lauren said she thought Thomas seemed like a nice guy. That was my impression of him, too, both at the museum and on the night we hooked up. But I can’t ever shake the memory of what happened the last time I was alone in an office with a man who seemed nice.
So I make a second call, this one to Noah, and ask him to meet me outside Thomas’s building in ninety minutes.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “I have an appointment with someone I don’t know that well and I’d just feel better if you were there to pick me up after.”
“Who is it?”
“His name is Dr. Cooper. It’s kind of a work thing. I’ll explain it all when I see you, okay?”
Noah sounds a little dubious, but he agrees. I think of all the things I’ve done—given him a fake name, told him several times I’ve had weird or stressful days, expressed concerns about trusting others—and I promise myself I really will tell him as much as I can. It’s not just because he deserves it. I’d feel safer having someone else know what’s going on.