into the hands of Finn. Mark knew she was in love with him, but his fear for her was that Finn O’Neill might be hiding something worse. And Hope was afraid of that too. She had had eleven glorious, exquisitely happy, fabulous months with him, with the exception of the miscarriage and his reaction to it. But other than that, everything had been loving and great. And now their whole life seemed to be unraveling, and Finn with it. It was extremely depressing.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said honestly. “I have to think about it. I’m not sure what this means. I don’t know if he’s too embarrassed to admit how he grew up and is trying to save face, which isn’t admirable, but maybe I could live with. Or if he’s a profoundly dishonest person.” Mark suspected that that was more likely, and even that he was after her for the money. In Finn’s current situation, that seemed easy to believe, and the same thought had crossed Hope’s mind too. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, and believe the best of him. She loved him. But she didn’t want to be blind and foolish either. She had wanted this information, now she had it, and she had to digest it and come to her own conclusions. And she didn’t want to say anything to Finn. She didn’t want to hear any more lies from him. It would only make the situation worse, until she figured out what to do.
“They don’t have anything yet on Finn’s marriage. They know the woman’s name, and the dates and circumstances seem to coincide with what you said. So maybe he told the truth about that, and not his childhood. They’re doing some more investigating, and verifying her cause of death. You said it was a car accident. The investigator said he’d have that for us by next week, or at worst by Thanksgiving.”
“I’ll be back in Ireland by then,” she said sadly.
“Be careful, Hope,” Mark warned her. “Be cautious about what you say to him. There’s a possibility that even if you love him, you don’t know who and what this man is. He’s probably just a very creative liar, which is what makes him such a good writer. But there’s always the possibility that he could be something far worse. You never know with people. Don’t corner the guy and stick this stuff in his face. Use it for yourself, to make a good decision. But be very, very careful how you handle him. You don’t want to wake up a sleeping demon. For what it’s worth, his brother says he’s a sociopath. But he’s not a shrink. He’s just a cop who has a crazy brother. And remarkably, no one has ever blown Finn’s cover, not even his brother, which is amazing. Paul O’Neill says Finn would lie about the time of day. It certainly looks like it from all that, although most of it is harmless. It’s just sad. Just be very careful you don’t help him turn it into something worse. If you embarrass him with this, he could get very nasty with you.” He was seriously worried about her, particularly after reading everything he had. His suspicion was that Finn O’Neill was a pretty sick guy, and it was hard to believe, under the circumstances, that he wasn’t after her money. And he had her to himself, far away in Ireland, in a big, deserted house in the countryside. Mark Webber didn’t like it at all.
“The sad thing is that until now no one’s ever been as nice to me. He’s the sweetest person on the planet, except for once or twice when he got mad. But generally, he’s a kind, loving, lovable guy.” And she had believed every word he said.
“And a pathological liar, from the sound of it. If you corner him, even accidentally, he may not be so nice.” Hope nodded. She was well aware of it herself, and he had been vicious to her about the miscarriage, which for some reason he took personally, as though she had lost the baby on purpose to hurt him. She wondered if that was what he thought, although it was beginning to occur to her that her having his child would give him a far more powerful claim on her. It was hard to know his motivations anymore, or where the truth lay. “I want you to do something for me, Hope. The law firm we use at the agency has a Dublin office.” He smiled then. “Every writer who wants to stop paying income tax moves to Ireland, so about a dozen years ago, the firm opened an office there.
“I checked with them this morning. The man running the Dublin office now worked with us for several years in New York, and he’s a good solid man, and an excellent attorney. I got his phone number this morning, and his cell phone, and they’re going to contact him and give him your name. He may even have done some work for you while he was here. He’s American and his name is Robert Bartlett. If you have any kind of problem, I want you to call this guy. And you can always call me. But I’m a lot farther away. He could drive down from Dublin anytime you want to see him.” As soon as he said it, Hope shook her head.
“Finn would have a fit, and he’d be suspicious. He’s jealous of everyone, and if this guy is under a hundred, Finn would go insane.” Mark wasn’t reassured by what she was saying, but handed her his numbers anyway from the notepad on his desk.
“I think he’s somewhere in his forties, if it matters. In other words, he’s not a kid, nor some doddering old guy. He’s a nice, sensible, grown-up, savvy, respectable guy. And you never know, you may need his help one day.” Hope nodded, hoping that she wouldn’t, and tucked his numbers into the inside pocket in her purse.
It hadn’t been a happy meeting and Mark was sad to see her leave, particularly in these conditions. She was in the middle of a messy situation, with a man who was a loose cannon, dishonest at best, and she had some difficult decisions to make. He didn’t sound dangerous to Mark, from everything Hope had said, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant for her dealing with it. He hated knowing she was so far away.
“I’ll be okay,” she reassured him, and then thought of something before she left. “Be careful if you call me. I’m going to leave this file in a locked drawer in my apartment. I don’t want Finn to find it. And please don’t refer to it if you call.”
“Of course not,” he said, looking equally unhappy.
Hope cried all the way back to her apartment in the taxi. Her heart was breaking over Finn’s many lies. She felt sorry for the awful childhood he had endured. But his lying was so extreme. She had no idea what she was going to do.
Chapter 16
Hope spoke to Mark again before she left. The investigators had no further information for the moment, and she had finished all her assignments in New York. She’d been checking on Paul by phone daily at the hospital in Boston. He was about the same, and he was asleep every time she called. She had spoken to his doctor, and he was concerned but not panicked over Paul’s health. Paul was weak, but the situation was what it was. He was sliding slowly downhill. And they promised to call her in Ireland if there was any drastic change in his condition. The doctor knew that if there was, she would come back immediately. He had known them both when they were married, and he had always been sorry about the terrible turns of fate that had befallen them, first with Paul’s illness, his forced retirement, their daughter’s death, and Paul’s decision to divorce.
Hope called Finn before leaving New York, to tell him she was coming and he was ecstatic. It made her sad to hear how happy he was. After the lies she had just discovered, she felt as though the bottom was falling out of their world. She hoped that they could get it on track again, and put it behind them. She wanted to find a way to reassure him that he didn’t need to lie about his childhood, or his life, or even problems with his publisher. None of those things would make her think less of him, but lying did. And it unnerved her. She no longer knew what to believe or trust. She wanted to condemn the action, not the man. She still believed that he was a good man. But he still hadn’t told her about his current disaster with his contract. It was hard to believe he hadn’t said a word about it to her, and that he had taken her out to dinner to celebrate a contract he hadn’t signed. She wasn’t even angry at him. She was desperately sad. She loved him, and didn’t want him to be afraid to tell her the truth.
“It’s about goddamn time you came home,” he said, grinning broadly, and she noticed that he sounded more than a little drunk. He told her the weather was terrible, and that he had been depressed ever since she left. She wondered if losing his publisher had started him on some kind of downward spin.
“Yeah, me too,” she said in a soft voice. It hadn’t been a great trip. She hadn’t even enjoyed her work this time. She had spent the whole three weeks deeply upset about him. And on the plane, she agonized over what to do about the investigator’s report. You couldn’t unring a bell. But along with the sound of fear in her head, there was love. And she didn’t want to humiliate him by confronting him with the report.
He looked tired when he met her at the airport, and she noticed that he had dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept. She wasn’t even happy to see the house this time. It was freezing cold, and he had forgotten to turn up the heat. And when she went upstairs, she noticed in his office that there weren’t more than a dozen pages on his desk to add to his book. He had told her he had written a hundred pages in her absence, and now that she was home she could see that that was a lie too.
“What have you been doing while I was gone?” she asked as he watched her unpack her suitcase. She hung her
