Matters Of The Heart

Chapter 18

Hope waited up until four in the morning to call him, which was nine in the morning in Dublin. She held the slip of paper with his numbers in shaking hands. A receptionist answered, put Hope on hold while she listened to music, and then passed her on to a secretary. Hope explained that she was calling from New York, and it was too late for him to call her back, and then finally Robert Bartlett took the call. His accent was American, and he had a pleasant voice. Mark Webber had emailed him, as had the head of their New York office. Johannsen, Stern and Grodnik was an American law firm, with offices in six American cities, and foreign branches around the world. Robert Bartlett had been the managing partner of the New York office when they asked him to take over the Dublin office, because the senior partner died suddenly of cancer. He had enjoyed being in Dublin for several years and was ready to go back to New York in a few months. He was actually sorry to leave Ireland. The situation there had been perfect for him.

He didn’t know the nature of the problem, but he knew who Hope was, and that she was an important client of the firm. He was well aware of the hour in New York, and although he didn’t know her, he could hear a note of tension in her voice when she introduced herself.

“I know who you are, Ms. Dunne,” he said reassuringly as she started to explain. “How can I help you? It’s very late in New York,” he commented. He sounded easygoing and calm, and he had a surprisingly young voice.

“I’m in a bit of a complicated situation of a personal nature,” she said slowly. She didn’t even know what she wanted from him, or what she would do yet, and it was a little crazy to ask advice from a total stranger. She knew she needed help, or might, but she wasn’t sure with what. He wasn’t a bodyguard or a psychologist, if she needed either, and she felt a little foolish calling him. But she wanted a contact in Dublin now in case she needed help. She didn’t want to go back without some kind of support available to her there. And he was all she had. “I’m not sure what kind of help I need, if any, at this point. My agent, Mark Webber, thought I should call you.” And after reading the investigator’s report she thought so too, in case any legal complications arose from her relationship with Finn. She hoped things would calm down with him, but they might not. From what she’d read, more likely not.

“Of course. Whatever I can do to help, Ms. Dunne.” His voice was intelligent and kind, and he sounded patient. She felt a little silly explaining it to him, as though what she wanted was advice to the lovelorn, and maybe she did. But this wasn’t just about being lovelorn, it was about assessing danger and potential risk. It all depended on who Finn really was, what she meant to him, and how desperate or dishonest he was. Money was clearly important to him. But how important? Maybe this time, for him, their love story had been for real, in spite of all the other horrors she had read in the report. Maybe he truly loved her. She wanted to believe that. But it seemed doubtful at this point, and impossible to assess.

“I feel stupid telling you this story. I think I’m in a mess,” she said as she leaped in. It was four o’clock in the morning in New York, her apartment was dark, and it was the heart of the night, when everything seems worse, dangers loom, and terrors grow exponentially. In the morning, the ghosts recede again. “I’ve been involved with someone for the past year. He lives in Ireland, between Blessington and Russborough, and he has a house in London too. He’s a well-known author, very successful, though in a professional and financial disaster at the moment. I took photographs of him in London last year, we went out afterward, and he came to see me in New York after that. To be honest, he swept me off my feet. He stayed with me for several weeks, and we’ve been together almost constantly ever since, staying at each other’s houses, in whatever city. I have an apartment in New York and a house on Cape Cod. We’ve been everywhere together, though I’ve been mostly in Ireland lately. He has a house there that he told me he owned, and I discovered he didn’t. It turned out that he was renting it.” Robert Bartlett was making small acknowledging and sympathetic noises as she told the story, and he was making notes as well, to keep it all straight when they discussed it later. “I discovered that he was renting, although he said he owned it,” she resumed after a pause. “He said it was his ancestral home, and he had reclaimed it two years before. That was a lie, he said he was embarrassed to admit he didn’t own it. Actually, there were three big lies that I discovered at about the same time, after nine months that were absolutely perfect. I’d never been happier in my life, and he was the nicest man I’ve ever known, but suddenly after nine months, there were these three big lies.” She sounded sad as she said it.

“How did you discover them?” Bartlett interjected, intrigued by the story. She sounded like an intelligent woman, didn’t sound particularly naïve, and was a businesswoman, so he knew that if she’d fallen for the lies, the perpetrator was undoubtedly good, smooth, and convincing. Originally, apparently, she’d had no reason to doubt him.

“The lies just kind of popped out of nowhere. He said he was widowed, and had brought up his son alone. His son came to visit us in Ireland, and told me that he didn’t grow up with his father, as Finn had told me. His name is Finn, by the way.” Bartlett knew who he was on the literary scene, most people did, and he didn’t comment. He was certainly an author of major fame, and of equal stature to her in her field. She hadn’t picked up some homeless guy off the street. She didn’t sound like the type for that. So it seemed like a fair match, on the surface, even if it wasn’t, and had probably seemed that way to her too. So it made sense in the beginning. “Anyway, his son told me that he grew up with his maternal grandparents in California and hardly knew his father while growing up, and doesn’t see him much now. That’s not at all what his father told me. I asked him about it, and Finn said he was embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t brought up his son. He has never admitted that he scarcely knew him. He also told me that he and his wife weren’t getting along when she died, and they probably would have divorced eventually. She died when their son was seven. But I’ll tell you about that later.

“A few months before that, I had found out about the house being rented. He still claimed it was his ancestral home, which I believed, on his mother’s side, which it turns out is bullshit. Sorry,” she sounded embarrassed, and he smiled.

“No problem. I’ve heard the word. Never used it myself, of course, but I get the drift.” They both laughed, and she liked him. He sounded sympathetic and was listening closely to all she said, despite the fact that it sounded crazy, even to her. “He said he was ashamed of that too, that he was renting. And we were planning to get married by then, so I bought the house last April.” She felt a little stupid admitting it to him now.

“As a gift? Did you put it in his name?” It was not a criticism or a reproach, just a question.

“A kind of future gift. It’s in my name, but I was going to give it to him as a wedding present when we got married. For now, it’s in my name, and I rent it to him for a nominal amount. Two hundred dollars a month, just to keep things clean. I paid a million five for it, and I’ve put in about the same amount in restoration, and another million in furniture and decoration.” Hearing it now, it was a huge amount of money to spend on his house, although technically it was hers, but she had done it all for him. “I drew up papers after we bought it, and it’s in my will. In the event of my death, if we are married, it goes to him, free and clear, or in trust to our children, if we have any.”

“Does he know that?”

“I can’t remember. I think I said it to him once, maybe twice. I told him I would leave it to him. I thought it was his family house then. I discovered a few weeks ago that the house has no relation to him. It was just another lie, among many. But he made a big deal about being embarrassed to have me know he only rented. And I believed his story, hook, line, and sinker.”

“To give the devil his due, he sounds pretty good at what he does.” So far, he had played on her sympathy every time. He was smooth.

“I also told him what my ex-husband gave me in a settlement in our divorce. I didn’t want to keep any secrets. Finn asked me how much, so I told him. It was fifty million dollars, with an equal amount on my ex-husband’s death,” she said sadly.

“Hopefully not for a long time,” he said politely, and there was a pause at her end, while she caught her breath.

“He died this week. He’s been very sick for eleven years. That’s why he divorced me, he didn’t want me to go through that, but I did anyway.”

“I’m sorry. But let me get this straight. You have another fifty million coming to you now from your late husband’s, sorry, ex-husband’s estate. Is that right?”

“Yes.” There was a soft whistle at the other end in response and she smiled. “It’s a lot. He sold his shares in a company that makes high-tech surgical equipment, and did very well. So Finn knew what I had and what I had coming.”

“Has he ever asked you for money?” It didn’t sound like he needed to. He was doing fine anyway, since she’d bought him the house, and promised to pass it on to him, at their marriage or her death. Either way, he stood to win.

“Only recently,” she answered. “He wanted five million dollars cash, no questions asked. And more when we get married. He’s only asked me for that in the last month. Before that he never mentioned money. He’s in financial trouble, which was the third lie that got me worried. He told me he had just signed a new contract with his publisher, for a lot of money. We celebrated it, in fact. As it turns out, he owes them two books, they broke his contract, and are suing him for close to three million dollars.”

“Did he want the money to settle with them, as a loan of some kind?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, thinking about it. “He just wanted it outright and he wanted more than he’s being sued for. Two million more. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the lawsuit. He’s trying to stall them, but his name is mud right now in the business. And he says he has no money, not a dime. He said he didn’t want to ask for an allowance. I suggested some kind of petty cash account, and I pay all the bills anyway, so he has no expenses. But he wants five million cash in his own account, with no accounting to me for it. Just a straight gift, and more when we get married.”

“And when was that supposed to be?” He hoped it was no time soon from the sound of what he was hearing.

“Originally October.” She didn’t tell him about the baby she’d lost in June. He didn’t need to know that, she didn’t think it was relevant to the story, and the memory of it still pained her. “We put it off till the end of this month, on New Year’s Eve, and I recently told him I wanted to wait till June. He’s livid about it.”

“I’ll bet he is,” Robert Bartlett said, sounding worried. He didn’t like the story, and just as he was thinking that, it got worse. “He has a lot to gain from marrying you, Ms. Dunne. A house-several houses-money, steady income, respectability. It appears you’ve been extremely generous with him, and were prepared to be more so, and he has a fairly accurate idea of your financial situation, so he knows what he’s gunning for.”

“Please call me Hope, and yes, he does,” she said quietly, sitting in the dark in her apartment, thinking about it. Finn knew exactly what she had and what he wanted. Maybe all.

“You said you pay the bills right now. Does he make any financial contribution to the household?”

“None.”

“Has he ever?”

“Not really. Newspapers, the occasional trip to the hardware store. He usually charges it to me.” Nice, very nice. Sweet deal for him, Bartlett thought, but didn’t say it. “He was supposed to pay a token rent, but he hasn’t. I set up the rent originally to save his pride.” Bartlett was convinced by then that Finn had none, just greed. “He’s also been very determined that we should have a baby. He was willing to undertake infertility treatments if necessary, for me of course, to make that happen. He took me to a specialist in London.”

“And has that happened?” This time Bartlett sounded nervous.

“No… well, actually, yes, but I lost it. But he’s very anxious to do it again. I wanted to wait, particularly now.”

“Please don’t do that, Hope. If you have a child, this guy is going to have his hooks into you forever, or the kid. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

“Apparently he tried to do that with his late wife’s family, and their son when his wife died. I’m not sure the boy knows that. I have a feeling he doesn’t.”

“Yeah, let’s hold off on baby-making right now, if that’s okay with you.” The more she talked to him, the more she liked him. He sounded like a decent, down-to-earth person. She was using him as a sounding board, she realized, to try and make sense of it herself.

“Fine with me. And another thing was that I found a photograph of a woman he went out with when he was young, a long time ago. He said she killed herself and was pregnant by him. She committed suicide, and he asked me if I would ever do that. I got the creepy feeling that he felt somehow that that was a tribute to him and how much she loved him.” He didn’t tell Hope that, but listening to her, for the first time, Robert Bartlett was scared. This was beginning to sound dangerous to him, and familiar. Strung all together it was the classic portrait of a sociopath. And she was his ideal victim, she was isolated with him in Ireland, had no family or friends nearby, she was in love with him, she had money, a lot of it, and was entirely at his mercy, and would be much more so if they got married. Robert was very glad Hope had called him. He asked her then if she had children. There was another brief silence at her end. “I had a daughter who died four years ago, of meningitis. She was at Dartmouth.”

“I’m so sorry.” He sounded like he really meant it, which touched her. “I can’t imagine anything worse. My worst nightmare is something like that happening. I have two kids in college. Just their going out at night and driving drives me crazy.”

“I know,” she said softly.

Robert Bartlett also realized now that she didn’t have kids to observe what was happening, be alert, or warn her. Hope was every sociopath’s dream, a woman without family or protection, and a hell of a lot of money. And worse yet, he could sense that she loved him, maybe even now. There was a quality of disbelief to what she was telling him, as though she wanted to piece the puzzle together for him, and have him tell her there was nothing to worry about, and it was not what it appeared to be. So far he couldn’t do that for her. It sounded pretty bad, and frightening. And there was a seeming innocence to her that alarmed him even more. Just knowing this much, he thought she was in real danger. Finn O’Neill sounded like a con artist of the first order. The suicide of the previous girlfriend concerned him, as did O’Neill’s determination to get Hope pregnant. At least it meant he didn’t want her dead. Right now, she was more useful to him alive, married, and pregnant. Unless she gave him trouble, or interfered with his plans, which was what she was currently doing. She had postponed the marriage, refused him money, and didn’t want to get pregnant again at the moment. All bad news for him. It meant he would have to work harder to convince her, and if he couldn’t, she was going to be in serious danger. And the worst thing about sociopaths, Bartlett knew, was that they induced their victims to destroy themselves so they didn’t have to do the dirty work, like Finn’s old girlfriend. But so far, Hope still sounded sane. He was doubly glad she had called him, and that her agent had given her his number. He had dealt with situations like this before, although Finn seemed like a particularly able pro at the game. He was good.

“So those were the lies I discovered on my own,” Hope went on. “But the last one made me nervous, the lawsuit and his publishing contract. He told me that time too that he was ashamed to tell me the truth, in contrast to my own success. He always uses that same excuse about being embarrassed so he didn’t tell me. The truth is, I think he just lies. Everything was fine between us until last June when I lost the baby. He blamed me for it, and said I wasn’t careful enough so I caused the miscarriage. He was pretty nasty, very disappointed, and very angry. And he wanted me to get pregnant again right away. My doctor wanted me to wait, because I almost died.” Bartlett winced as he listened. It sounded grim yet again.

“But before all that, he was wonderful to me, and thrilled about the baby. We didn’t have fertility treatment by the way, it happened on its own. We knew that I was ovulating, he got me drunk, and we had sex without protection. He knew what he was doing.” Bartlett was convinced of that by now, she was preaching to the choir. “And it worked. Anyway, for six months everything was wonderful, and after the miscarriage, it was fine again for the summer. But now, he’s angry at me all the time, or most of the time. Sometimes he’s absolutely wonderful to me again, and then he gets vicious. He’s drinking more than he used to. I think he’s pretty stressed about the lawsuit, and he’s not writing. And he’s really angry that I’ve been postponing the wedding. All of a sudden, we’re fighting all the time, and he’s always pushing me about something. He never did that before. It was perfect, he was wonderful to me, and he still is sometimes, but it’s bad more than it’s good now. And sometimes it changes so often and so suddenly, he goes from bad to good to bad to good again, my head is spinning. By the time I left Dublin a week ago, I was so confused, I didn’t know what to think. And he kept telling me I was going crazy. I started to believe him.”

“That’s what he wants you to believe. I can tell from talking to you, Hope, you’re not crazy. But I’m equally sure he is. I’m no psychiatrist, but this guy is a textbook case in sociopathy. This is very scary stuff, particularly trying to brainwash and confuse you. When did he ask you for the money?”

“A few weeks ago. He just came right out and asked for it. I said no, and we’ve been fighting ever since. It concerned me, so when I came to New York in November to do some work, I had my agent hire someone to do an investigation.” She sighed then, and told him what the report contained. “His brother thinks he’s a sociopath. Even his saying he was an only child wasn’t true, he had three brothers. His mother was a maid, not an aristocrat, his father died in a bar fight and wasn’t a doctor. Absolutely nothing he told me about his history is true, which is how I know the house in Ireland isn’t his ancestral home. And everybody else who’s ever known him says he’s a pathological liar.” That much they both knew was true from what she had told him so far. “The rest of the report came yesterday, and it’s no better. His wife died in an accident. He was driving drunk. He had told me she was alone in the car and died. The report says that he was with her, she was alive at the time of the accident. He had a concussion and didn’t call for help and she died. Although to be fair, the medical report said she would have died anyway.” Even now, she was trying to be kind to Finn. Robert Bartlett considered it a bad sign. She was still in love with him, and hadn’t fully assimilated the new information she’d gotten. It was too shocking, and hard for her to accept. “He got a suspended prison sentence for manslaughter and five years’ probation for killing the other driver,” she went on. “And there are some other minor upsetting stories. His wife’s parents think he was responsible for her death and wanted her money. He tried to get it, and what she left their son. And now he’s after my money. Indirectly, he has been responsible for the death of two women. His wife’s death in the car accident and the earlier suicide. He has lied to me about everything. I just don’t know what to believe about him anymore.” Her voice shook on the last words. Robert Bartlett would have been stunned by what she had just said to him, except that he had heard it before, and it was the nature of a sociopath and his victim. The confusing evidence and contradiction between their calculating viciousness and their extreme attention, kindness, and seduction paralyzed their victims, who wanted to believe that the good parts were true and the bad ones only a mistake. But with more and more evidence, it became harder to believe. He could tell that Hope was at that stage. She was waking up and starting to see Finn for what he was, but, understandably, didn’t want to believe it. It was hard to accept all of that about someone you loved, and who had been so loving at one time.

“I don’t want you to be his next victim,” Robert said in a sobering tone. She already was in many ways, but he was seriously afraid that if she crossed him in some serious way, or became useless to him, Finn might kill her, drive her to suicide, or cause an accident to happen.

“Neither do I. That’s why I called you,” Hope said in a heartbroken voice.

“You know, what you saw in the beginning, when he was so wonderful to you, is called ‘mirroring,’ when a sociopath will ‘mirror’ back to you everything you need and want and want them to be. And then later, much later, the truth of who they are comes out,” Robert told her. “What do you think you want to do, Hope?” he asked her then gently. He felt deeply sorry for her, and understood better than most people how hard it was to face this kind of thing and take action.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” she admitted. “I know that sounds crazy. It was so wonderful for nine months, and suddenly all this awful stuff is happening. No one had ever been as nice to me, or as loving. I just want it to go back to the way it was in the beginning.” But she was trying to raise the Titanic, and she was beginning to see it. She just didn’t want to believe it. Not yet. She wanted Finn to prove all of it wrong. She wished she’d never gotten the report and still believed the dream. She wanted to but didn’t. But she felt she had to go back and see for sure. Anyone listening to her would have thought she was insane, except Robert Bartlett. She had been lucky to find him.

“That’s not going to happen, Hope,” he said gently. “The man you saw in the beginning and fell in love with doesn’t exist. The real one is a monster, without a heart or a conscience. I could be wrong, of course, and he could just be a very troubled guy, but I think we both know what we’re seeing. That man in the beginning was an act he put on for you. That act is over. This is the third act, where the villain goes in for the kill.” It was the theme of everything Finn wrote. “You can go back and take another look to be sure, no one can stop you, but you could be putting yourself at risk. Maybe great risk. If you do go back, you’ve got to be ready to get out fast, and run like hell if you smell danger. You can’t stick around to negotiate with him. I don’t usually tell people this, but I’ve been there. I was married to an Irish girl, the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, and the sweetest. I believed every word she told me, and her story sounds a lot like Finn’s. She had a miserable childhood, her parents were both drunks, and she wound up in foster homes where people did awful things to her. She had the face of an angel and the heart of a devil. I defended her on manslaughter charges a few years after I got out of law school. I had absolutely no doubt of her innocence then. She killed her boyfriend and claimed he tried to rape her, and there was evidence to support it. I believed her. I got her off, but today I wouldn’t tell you the same thing. Eventually, she left me, took every penny I had, broke my heart, and took our kids with her. I married her right after I defended her.

“Eventually she tried to kill me. She came back during the night and stabbed me, and tried to make it look like an intruder, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew it was her. And I still went back to her two more times, trying to make it work, ignoring everything I knew. I loved her, I was addicted to her, and all I wanted to do was save our marriage and keep my kids. She eventually kidnapped them to Ireland seven years ago, and by some miracle they needed someone to head up the Dublin office at the time, so I jumped at it, to be close to my kids. I couldn’t force her to come back to the States. She’s very clever, and thank God, my kids are okay. The youngest one just left for college in the States two months ago, and I’m going back to the New York office this spring. Nuala has married two men since me, both for money, and one of them died two years ago, from a medication he was violently allergic to, which she administered to him, and convinced the judge at the inquest that she didn’t. She inherited all his money. And she’s going to do it to the man she’s currently married to or some other guy one of these days. She has absolutely no conscience. She belongs in prison, but I don’t know if she’ll ever get there. She is so profoundly disturbed that she is willing to cross any line and has a deep need to get back at the world for what was done to her. No one is safe from her.

“So I know what you’re dealing with here, and I think I know how you feel. It took me years to understand that the good Nuala was only an act she put on for me, but it was so goddamn convincing that I always believed her, no matter what lies she told me or what awful things she did. The kids eventually moved in with me, which didn’t bother her. People like that don’t make terrific parents. Their children are either accessories to their crimes, or their victims. She doesn’t even see my girls now, and I don’t think she cares. She’s busy spending her late husband’s money, the guy she killed by giving him the wrong antibiotic out of the medicine chest. It stopped his heart cold as she knew it would, and she waited an hour to call the paramedics because she ‘was so upset’ and claimed she was sound asleep and didn’t hear him dying. And they believed her. No one has ever cried as hard as she did at the investigation. She was inconsolable. She married her defense attorney, again, and one of these days, she’ll do the same thing to him or someone else. But every man she’s ever left, except the dead ones, have mourned her. And so did I.

“It took me years to get over her, give up on her, and not give a damn anymore. Until then, I went back a hundred times for more. So, I get it. If you still need to turn the boat around, no matter what the evidence, no one can stop you. You have what you saw for nine months, and felt for him, and then you have that investigator’s report and what everyone who knows him, and has experienced him, said. But if you go back, Hope, be smart. With people like that, when he turns on you, all you have time to do is run. That’s the best advice I can give you. If you go back to him for another round, wear your track shoes, listen closely, trust your instincts, and if something happens that worries you or scares the shit out of you, trust yourself and get the hell out. Fast. Don’t wait to pack a suitcase.” It was the best advice he could have given her, based on his own experience, and she was stunned. It was a terrifying story. But so was Finn’s.

“He’s all I have now,” she said sadly, “and he was so good to me for all those months. Paul was the only family member I had left, and now he’s gone, and so’s my daughter.” She was crying as she spoke.

“That’s the way these people work. They prey on the naïve, the innocent, the lonely, the vulnerable, and the solitary. They can’t work their voodoo in a group with people watching them. They always isolate their victims, like he has you, and they pick them well. He knew that all you had was your ex-husband, who wasn’t around anymore and was very sick. So he got you over to Ireland, where you have no family, no friends, no one to look out for you. You’re his ideal victim. Just be aware of it when you come back. When are you coming?” He didn’t ask her if but when. He knew she would. He had done the same thing, and he could tell she wasn’t ready to let go yet. She needed another dose of Finn to shock her, because the evidence of the good Finn, and the memory of it, was so strong. It was a perfect example of cognitive dissonance, two sets of evidence in direct conflict with each other, all the love they lavished on people at first, and from time to time later, and the brutal, unconscionable cruelty when they took off the mask, and then put it back on again, and confused their victims even further, and tried to convince them they were insane. Many sociopaths caused suicides as a result, when perfectly sane victims couldn’t figure out what was happening to them, and got pushed over the edge. He didn’t want that happening to Hope. His only goal now was to be there for her, keep her alive, and help her get out when she was ready, which he could tell she wasn’t yet. He knew only too well that only someone who had been there would understand. And he had been.

Hope was deeply impressed by Robert’s story, his willingness to tell it to her, his honesty, and compassion for her dilemma and love for Finn. It was so hard to assimilate the evidence and the extreme contradiction between how he had treated her in the beginning and all she felt for him, and what everyone else said about him, and her own concerns about him now. It was the very definition of confusion and contradiction. And no one could understand it unless they had been in a similar situation themselves, as Robert had. Her willingness to go back and look again was incomprehensible to Mark.

“Thank you for not telling me how stupid I am for going back. I think I keep hoping he’ll be the way he was in the beginning.”

“We all hope that in matters of the heart. And more than likely, he will be, for a night at a time, or a few hours. He just won’t stay that way, because it’s all an act, and a way of getting what he wants. But if you get in his way, or don’t give it to him, you’re going to be in big trouble, and he’ll strike like lightning. Hopefully, the worst he’ll do is scare the shit out of you. Let’s try to keep it at that.” That was his only goal now. Hers was still the hope that Finn was what he had seemed, and would straighten up and treat her right. Robert knew there was no chance of that, but Hope had to experience it for herself. Maybe more than once. He hoped not. She was the classic victim of a sociopath. Isolated, confused, incredulous, vulnerable, inordinately hopeful, and not yet ready to believe the evidence at hand. “Why don’t you come and see me before you go back? You can stop in at my office on the way back to Russborough when you get to Dublin. I’ll give you all my numbers, we can have a cup of coffee, and then you can go back to Jack the Ripper.” He was teasing her and she laughed. It was not a pretty picture, and she felt a little foolish, but he was right. “I’d offer to come and see you at the house, but my guess is that that would get you in trouble. Most sociopaths are extremely jealous.”

“He is. He’s always accusing me of flirting with someone, even waiters in restaurants.”

“That’s about right. My wife was always accusing me of sleeping with my secretaries, the au pair, women I’d never even met, and eventually she started accusing me of sleeping with guys. I was constantly defending myself and trying to convince her that I wasn’t. As it turned out, she was.” It was projection at its best.

“I don’t think Finn cheats on me,” Hope said, sounding certain of it. “But he accuses me of sleeping with just about everyone in the village, including our workmen.”

“Try not to get him excited about anything for the moment, if you can help it. I know that’s hard. The accusations are never rational or based on fact, or rarely, unless you give him something to worry about.” But she didn’t sound like the type. She sounded honest, honorable, and straightforward, and she was feeling much better since their conversation, and no longer crazy. “My guess is that you’ll get into it with him over the money. That’s bound to be his number-one goal, and the wedding, and maybe a baby.” He didn’t tell her that most sociopaths were extremely sexual. Nuala had been the best thing in bed that had ever hit him. That was one of the many ways they got control of their victims. In his ex-wife’s case, she screwed them blind. So blind they didn’t know what hit them, and then she killed them. He had narrowly escaped that fate at her hands. A good therapist and his own common sense had saved him. And even though she was still in love with Finn and her illusion of him, Hope sounded sensible to him too. The truth was very hard to swallow and believe, and the dichotomy too extreme to make sense to a sane person, so she was giving him the benefit of the doubt, which their victims often did. It wasn’t stupidity on her part, just hope, naïvete, faith, and love, however undeserved.

As Hope thought about it while talking to him, she decided to fly back the next day, on the night flight she liked to take, which would put her in Dublin the following morning. And she liked the idea of seeing Robert Bartlett before she went back to the house. It would ground her. She made an appointment with him for ten o’clock that morning, after she got through immigration and customs, and came in from the airport.

“That’s fine. I’ll be clear all morning,” he assured her. And then he had another thought. “What do you want to do with that house when this is over, when that happens?” This wasn’t a divorce where she owed him a settlement to end it.

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it, and I can’t decide.” She still hoped it wouldn’t come to that but was well aware now that it might, and had to give it some thought. “I could keep it and keep renting it to him, but I’m not sure I’d want to. It could turn out to be a link to him I don’t want. But I feel mean just throwing him out.” Robert knew it was all Finn deserved, but Hope clearly wasn’t there yet. And she still wished that would never happen, but Robert wanted to bring it up.

“You don’t need to worry about it now. Enjoy New York, and I’ll see you day after tomorrow.” She thanked him again and hung up. It was six-thirty in the morning by the time she finally went to bed, feeling calmer than she had in months. At least now she had a support system in Ireland, and Robert Bartlett clearly knew the subject. It sounded as though what he’d been through with his ex-wife was far worse. She was an extreme example of the breed, but with two women dead because of him, and a lifetime of lies, Finn wasn’t much better. Hope could see that. The sad thing was that in spite of all she knew about him now, she still loved him. She had believed everything that he had been to her in the beginning, and it was hard to give up that dream. She was deeply attached to him, particularly now with Paul gone. Finn really was the only person she had left in the world, which would make it that much harder to give him up. It would mean she was entirely alone for the first time in her life.

Finn called her twice that morning as she slept. She stirred and saw his number on her cell phone, turned over, and didn’t answer. And when she went back to Ireland, because she would see Robert Bartlett on the way, she wasn’t going to tell Finn she was coming, and she would surprise him when she got back to the house. But she wanted a few hours alone with Robert Bartlett in Dublin first.