How could that even be possible?
How could Dr. Lillian Fox, someone who she had found randomly on the Internet,five monthsbefore she even met ‘Quaddra’, be ‘Quaddra’s’ sister?
Mary’s brain became a whirlwind of thoughts. She could understand the mistakes she had made with Luke and the tracker CD. She could see where she went wrong with ‘Natálie’ and the unsuspecting phone number on a torn newspaper page, but how could that be true for Dr. Fox? There were literally thousands of therapists in San Francisco and surrounding areas. Mary could’ve picked any of them, so how the fuck did Thomas get her to…
The realization came like a wrecking ball, sending her entire system into panic. Even her heart seemed to be beating in reverse, sucking the blood away from her veins, instead of pumping it into them.
This had been subliminal manipulation at its absolute best – like an extremely well-crafted algorithm. A ‘force feed’ so subtle that the word ‘force’ had no business being there.
The first time that Mary had seen the name Dr. Lillian Fox had been on a webpage, as she surfed the net for more information on ‘Quaddra’ – a sidebar advertisement on the very same page as the article that she was reading. Subsequently, she saw tens of other advertisements for Dr. Fox, all of them online… all of them either as a sidebar or an anchor ad, right at the bottom of the page… all of them on a webpage where there was an article about ‘Quaddra’.
Back then, Mary didn’t click on any of the ads. She didn’t even pay attention to them… but her subconscious did. Every time that one of Dr. Fox’s ads appeared on a page, her subconscious would log what her eyes were seeing, but not exactly registering – the sidebar and anchor ads. That would mount tostrength in numbers– the more Mary read about ‘Quaddra’, the more logs her subconscious mind made of one Dr. Lillian Fox. As soon as Mary was ready to put her con into motion – and the first step of her con had always been the therapist… months before she even met the mark – her subconscious simply paired the word ‘therapist’ with something that it had seen in abundance in the past few days… weeks… months – the name Dr. Lillian Fox.
But the ‘icing on the cake’, the really clever part of Thomas’ well-crafted ‘algorithm’ had been the tattoo on Dr. Fox’s right forearm, which Mary now doubted was even real.
Thomas had said that Phillip had told him everything he could about Mary – her favorite TV series… her favorite film… her favorite musical… etc. Mary couldn’t exactly remember, but she was sure that she had told Phillip about how much she loved the filmThe Nightmare Before Christmas.
Dr. Fox’s forearm tattoo had appeared in a few of the photos that they had used for the sidebar and anchor advertisements that Mary had seen so many times. That was a detail that herunconscious mind would not only log, but also place a star by its side, indicating a subconscious connection that went back years – before Mary became a con artist… before Dr. Fox became a psychologist.
Very few things connect people better than a childhood love.
Mary picking Dr. Fox as her therapist hadn’t been a choice amongst thousands… it hadn’t been a random act either. Her subconscious had been expertly subliminally manipulated to do so… and it didn’t disappoint. Like Thomas had said – she did everything thathewanted her to do.
ROSE: ‘Rule number three of con artistry, Mary – always control the narrative.’
MARY: ‘Fuuuuuuuck!’
Mary screamed at the top of her lungs, as she got up from her cell bed and threw the cellphone in her hand against the wall, as hard as she could, smashing it into smithereens. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuuck!’
The door to her cell was pulled open again, the police officer looking back at her with wide eyes.
‘Did you just shit pieces of a cellphone?’
One Hundred and Nine
Twenty Days Later
Layana Resort & Spa, Thailand
Denise had another sip of her cocktail and watched as the waves broke against the almost snow-white sands at Koh Lanta beach. This was her third resort in just twenty days.
Denise had been just about ready to leave her house in Los Angeles, heading towards LAX to catch a flight to Seattle, where she would’ve met Quaddra, or Thomas, as that was the name that he was using with her, when she got the ‘abort’ message from Mary. That had been the first-ever time that either of them had to use the ‘abort’ code word, and Mary sounded completely desperate.
Something had definitely gone wrong.
That morning, Denise did go to LAX, but the flight she caught wasn’t heading towards Seattle, it was destined for Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, where she spent seven days at the St. Regis Langkawi resort. From Malaysia, she flew to Vietnam, where she spent another seven days at the Four Seasons resort. Six days ago, Denise jumped onto another flight, this time heading towards Thailand, where she took temporary residence at the very luxurious Layana Resort & Spa.
Denise still had no real idea of what had happened – why didMary have to use the ‘abort’ word? She did call Mary’s burner cellphone once she had landed in Kuala Lumpur, to let her know that she was safe, but she hadn’t heard from Mary yet.
She did try searching the Internet, but she didn’t find anything about Quaddra Buckner, which was very strange, and Denise was now starting to get a bit anxious.
‘Hey, babe, how’s the cocktail?’ Cheryl asked, bending down to give Denise a peck on the lips.
Cheryl had just come out of the pool, her shoulder-length blonde hair dripping water onto Denise’s body, but Denise didn’t mind.
‘Absolutely delicious,’ Denise replied. ‘You should get one.’
‘What is it?’ Cheryl asked.
