Fool Me Once

Ignoring Corey’s signal to meet him, Maya locates Theo’s mother, Raisa, a diner waitress who lives in a far less wealthy area of Philadelphia. Raisa recognizes Maya as Joe’s wife and a soldier but only lets her in when Maya claims that the suspects in Joe’s murder are innocent and that her son’s death could have played a part. Because Theo’s father, Javier, did landscape work for Neville’s cousin, Theo attended Franklin Biddle Academy on a scholarship in an effort to make the school more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. Theo, who was as sociable as his father, was ecstatic. Raisa could not deny him the opportunity. She was devastated when Neville and another official came to tell her about Theo’s death, and they recorded everything on their lawyer’s advice. Maya notes that Raisa’s account matches Neville’s nearly word for word, as if the latter’s was rehearsed. Javier didn’t believe that his son would drink, let alone to excess, and wanted to raise the issue with the school. Raisa instead opted for the financial offer that Franklin Biddle made them so that her other sons, Melvin and Johnny, would have a chance at a better life; Melvin is a Stanford professor now, and Johnny is in medical school. However, Theo’s death and Raisa’s acceptance of the “blood money” destroyed Javier; he died of cancer two years later.

Raisa recalls that Andrew was truly sad at Theo’s funeral, unlike the other “rich-boy robots” who offered their condolences (293). Raisa believed that Andrew was grief-stricken over his best friend’s death. Javier read the circumstances of Andrew’s demise differently: “Grief don’t do that to a man. Guilt does” (293).

Maya finds an email address for Christopher Swain, Joe’s soccer team co-captain who was also on the yacht the night that Andrew died. Like the Burketts, Christopher operates in the upper echelons of Manhattan society as part of his family’s luxury real estate firm.

After two more calls from Leather and Lace, Corey’s code to check in, Maya heads to the club. Corey hops into her car and tells her to drive to Livingston. After making sure that they’re not being tailed, Corey reveals that his hackers found an email to Douglass regarding an unpaid bill for a storage shed behind a body shop. On the way to Livingston, Corey says that he uncovered some damning evidence about EAC Pharmaceuticals: A 3-year-old in India died after taking the fake drugs. He believes that Claire found this info and Tom Douglass, who will be their smoking gun.

Maya and Corey don ski masks to break into the shed. When they get close, an odor overwhelms them. Already knowing what they’ll find, Maya cuts the chain. The door opens, revealing a human arm. Corey gags as Maya takes a closer look; with his throat slit, the body matches Douglass’s description. Maya tells Corey to leave the scene so that he isn’t found out. She calls 911, ready to face the blowback herself.

Maya sticks to her story, telling local cop Demetrius Mavrogenous that she received an anonymous tip that Douglass, whom she knew was missing and had been in contact with Claire before her murder, was here; the door was already open when they got there. Detective Kierce arrives on the scene. Echoing Eddie’s sentiment that death follows her, Kierce says that Maya is the common denominator in three murders: Claire’s, Joe’s, and now Tom Douglass’s. Maya responds sarcastically, knowing that his hunch is just that. She also alludes to the Burketts’ bribery, which raises Kierce’s hackles. Since her car is already impounded by local police, Maya turns down Kierce’s offer of a lift in favor of a cab to Eddie’s house. When she fills Eddie in, Eddie comes to the same conclusion as Maya: Whatever happened on the yacht when Andrew died was “so bad that, all these years later, it’s still killing people” (311).

After putting Lily to bed and watching her for an hour or two, Maya sits down to write letters that are too personal and important to type up and email. Nearing dawn, Maya’s phone rings; it’s Caroline. She claims that she saw Joe and that he has a message for Maya: He’d see her soon. Maya calms herself, flexing and releasing her hand, as panic “simply [will] not do” (315). Before she can process the strangeness of the fleeting call, Kierce and Mavrogenous arrive to take Maya to the station, having found evidence in her car.

Maya quickly drops Lily off at daycare. The police then take her to Newark, where Kierce accuses Maya of hiring Rodrigo and Katen to kill Joe. Maya asks why, then, she would have identified the pair in the lineups. She also points out that if she wanted to double-cross them, as Kierce suggests, she wouldn’t have said that they wore ski masks when first questioned. Detective Mavrogenous shows her footage from a gas station, with Corey in her passenger seat. Though they can’t make out his face, Kierce asks if he was the contact who tipped her off. Kierce reveals that blood was found in Maya’s car, type AB-positive—the same as Tom Douglass’s.

Since the DNA test is still pending, the Newark police don’t have enough to hold Maya, but time is running out for her to put the pieces together. She wonders if Corey manipulated her and Claire: “[M]aybe it wouldn’t be wise to trust a man who had done so much to destroy her” (324). Maya point-blank asks Kierce if he’s taking the Burketts’ bribes. He denies it.

At home, Maya heads straight for the gun safe in the basement. All of her weapons are accounted for, including the two, bought out of state and untraceable, in the hidden compartment in the back. The secret hatch in the safe resembles her grandmother’s trunk, “carrying on the family tradition” of mistrust and secrecy (327). Christopher Swain returns her call, requesting her presence in Connecticut, alone. Maya conceals a loaded gun in a holster and then makes the drive, listening to Joe’s playlist again, with eerily prophetic lyrics of love and loss.

Christopher did not mention that he resides in an upscale rehab facility with a lot of security, including a manned gate and copious cameras among its lush greenways. Maya meets Christopher in the facility’s solarium. Though in a nice suit, he’s tentative and haunted. He correctly guesses that Joe swept Maya off her feet—his charm was evident even as a teenager. Christopher also correctly guesses that Joe’s murder was not a robbery gone wrong. Maya neither confirms nor denies this and asks about Andrew. With tears in his eyes, Christopher unburdens himself: He thinks that Joe pushed Andrew off the yacht.

Christopher tells Maya that Theo fit in at Franklin Biddle. Since he was an outgoing and warm boy, his difference in class was not an issue for his peers. Christopher was thrilled when Theo enrolled because he was a great soccer player. However, since they played the same position, Joe felt threatened by Theo’s talent. Joe was prone to flashes of anger and jealousy. In eighth grade, he put a boy in the hospital after beating him with a baseball bat. When a girl he liked agreed to attend a dance with a rival, a fire broke out in the science lab a week later, nearly killing the boy. Christopher says that he’s in rehab because of addiction stemming from adolescent trauma inflicted by Joe. Like Christopher, Theo abstained from alcohol in high school. One night, Joe, Andrew, Christopher, and two other boys jumped Theo, who went along with the prank good-naturedly. They tied Theo to a chair and put a funnel in his mouth. Andrew poured in beer until Joe produced grain alcohol. Andrew tried to stop his brother from going too far, but it was too late, and Theo had a seizure. Joe made Andrew help him move Theo to the basement, where he died.

Andrew was never the same, unable to sleep or eat, and ultimately pleaded with the others to come forward during their sailing trip. Christopher, who had started drinking to excess after Theo’s death, recalls Andrew heading up to the upper deck. Joe followed him a few minutes later. This challenges Judith’s theory that Andrew was alone and that no one knew he fell until the morning; if Joe was present when his brother fell, Christopher and Maya question why he didn’t he alert anyone. Later, no one spoke of the incident. The other boys on the boat graduated and went their separate ways. Christopher is only telling Maya what happened now because Joe is dead: “I finally feel safe” (343).