Now? I’m that person for people who hire me. I don’t rest until I find the truth. Whether the people who hire me like it or not.
Two
The decal on the rear window of my Bentley Bentayga readsBlue New You Designsin swirly periwinkle letters. A play on my last name, Blue, and my profession, interior decorator.
At least, by day. It’s the perfect front because it pays very handsomely and the hours are flexible, giving me plenty of time for my true passion: being a spy for hire.
I pull in front of the house, a modular in a neighborhood of new construction. White faux-brick facing and black shutters that gleam like plastic in the daylight. I already know that the owner of this house will want neutrals. Gray walls, marble countertops, and vessel sinks.
My boss lines these up for me, and he deliberately picks the clients who are the least work. In Westport, there’s no shortage of these gigs. Old money living alongside new money, and people with high-powered NYC careers who opted to live in the suburbs on the Connecticut shoreline.
Before I can turn off the ignition, my business phone rings. The namemr. xappears on the screen in bold white letters. My boss.
“Blue New You,” I say in my chirpiest voice.
“Got a good job for you,” Mr. X says. “Are you someplace where you can talk?”
“Just pulled in,” I say. “What’s up?”
“This one’s going to require two of you,” he says. “A plagiarism case. The victim spoke with me last week, and I’ve been doing my research. It seems worth our time.”
“Plagiarism?” I say. “You do realize I’ve just put a murderer behind bars. Now you want to bust someone for stealing their college thesis?”
“Code, actually,” he says. His voice is cool as ever. You never know what he’s thinking, never know what he’ll do. But I’ve known him a long time, and I can hear the slightest bit of excitement in his voice. “The victim’s name is Erin Casimir. She contacted me because her brother stole the code she developed for a finance app. He’s made billions off of it.”
That word—billions—erases any apprehension I had just a moment ago. “This is more than white-collar Bernie Madoff stuff,” I say.
“Bingo.”
“But you said there are two of us for this?” I ask. “Who else did you get?”
“I got her on embezzlement a few years ago, at one of those pyramid scheme clothing companies based out in California,” he says. “Seemed a waste to turn her in to the police. She’s smart. Really good with numbers, knows how these sorts of crimes work. Let’s just say I’veheld her on retainer because I had a feeling she’d be of use to us.”
“And you trust her?” I know it’s silly of me to ask. Mr. X is thorough.Verythorough. He keeps a Rolodex of former criminals and con men in his arsenal, and he makes sure they know what will happen if they screw him over. Even if they somehow avoided the lengthy prison time, they would have nothing left to return to when they were released.
“You’ll meet her for yourself tonight,” he says by way of answer.
Tonight. Dread sinks like a lead anchor in my stomach. Waylen already hates my secret career—the only way I can keep him on board is by conceding to his reasonable requests that we still function as a typical suburban family. Never missing dinner is one such condition.
Mr. X knows this, of course. That’s why I don’t say anything; he can read my silence.
I care about my family, and I love my husband. It isn’t the sort of person I ever thought I’d be, but it’s true nonetheless.
“M,” he says, breaking the businessman facade he likes to wear. He’s no longer the mysterious Bosley-type voice on the phone, addressing one of Charlie’s Angels. He’s appealing to the real me. “This domestic life isn’t for you. You always said you’d rather end up doing life at Rikers than be a housewife.”
Before I met Waylen I was wild. Take-a-pill-you-find-in-a-train-station-bathroom-and-see-what-happens wild. I’d gambled, stolen, even committed armed robbery once at a 7-Eleven, although that was accidental. I forgot Ihad a gun tucked into my belt loop when I was caught stealing a travel box of Tylenol for my massive headache. Let’s just say the panic was overblown.
It was Mr. X who bailed me out that night. Told me how smart I was, that I was wasting my life. He said he was starting a new business, assembling small-time criminals who were interested in reforming themselves to right what he called “certain wrongs.” I was going to jump out of the car, but he said he’d pay me. Give it a week, he said. Now it’s been fifteen years. One husband and child later, I’m head of the props department at the elementary school production ofThe Nutcracker, and my daughter is angling to be head ballerina. I right injustices, wipe runny noses, and make a damn good cherry pie for the PTA fundraisers.
He thinks it’s my fault that I turned out the way I did. Although it’s been years since we’ve acknowledged that we’re family, blood remains thicker than spy work. A traumatic childhood will do that to a person, I guess. After the fire killed our parents, I never recovered from it, and I learned never to speak about it, but it didn’t matter because it still followed me everywhere I went.
Mr. X is the same way, but his coping mechanisms are different from mine. He started his spy business and gave us both a way to find some control in an uncontrollable world.
When Mr. X paired twenty-two-year-old me with twenty-two-year-old Waylen, the last thing he expected was that we would fall in love. Waylen was so—clean. He’d hacked into his college admissions database to secure a spot for a friend who’d failed the SATs and been rejected because she’d been caring for a sick father in hospice. Aregular Robin Hood. Mr. X thought I’d eat him alive. But nobody was more surprised than I was when Waylen proposed and I said yes.
“We have a daughter, remember?” I tell him now by way of explanation. “But I can juggle. It’s fine. I’ve got this.”
“Perfect,” he says, donning that Bosley demeanor again. “Then I’ll send you the info for tonight’s rendezvous.”
