Fool Me Once

There were too many possibilities spinning through Maya’s head. For the first time she tried to let it go. For just a few moments. Get back to the basics. Know what you know. Most people oversimplify Occam’s razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn’t complicate, that you shouldn’t “stack” a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess.

Andrew was dead. Claire was dead. Joe was dead.

But at the same time, she couldn’t just dismiss everything else she had learned, could she? Could she just dismiss what her own eyes had seen, or again should she accept the simplest answer? And what was the simplest answer?

Well, it wasn’t pleasant.

But for the sake of exercise, strip it down. Be as objective as you can. Then ask yourself: Was the person who had seen the video on that nanny cam reliable-or had she undergone enough stress, strain, and outright trauma to be someone of questionable judgment?

Be objective, Maya.

It was easy to trust your own eyes, wasn’t it? We all did. We weren’t crazy. The other guy was. That was part of the human condition. We understand our own perspective too well.

So step outside it.

The war. No one understood. No one could see her truth. They all thought that Maya was weighed down and guilt-ridden over the death of those civilians. That would make sense. They see it from their perspective. You feel guilty, the theory went, and that manifests itself in the painful flashbacks. You try therapy. You take drugs. Death surrounds you. No, check that. Death does more than that.

“Death follows you, Maya…”

Was a person like this-a person surrounded by death, a person who had fooled even those closest to her into believing that her condition was based, in part, on feeling guilty-someone whose judgment you trusted? Stripping away the excess and the complications: Could such a person be trusted to look at the facts rationally and learn the truth?

Objectively, no.

But then again, screw objectivity, right?

Conclusion: Someone was messing with her big-time.

Judith had been awfully cagey when it came to the whereabouts of Caroline. Maya took out her phone and called her sister-in-law. It went to voicemail. Hardly a surprise. When the message beeped, Maya said, “Caroline, I want to make sure you’re okay. Please call me the moment you get this.”

Eileen was parked in the driveway when Maya got home. Maya pulled the car to a stop. Lily had fallen asleep in the backseat. She got out of the car and started to open her back door when Eileen said, “Let her sleep for a second. We need to talk.”

Maya turned and faced her friend. Eileen had been crying.

“What’s wrong?”

“I may have messed up,” she said. “With that nanny cam.”

Eileen started shaking.

“It’s okay,” Maya said. “Let me get Lily in the house and we can-”

“No,” Eileen said. “We need to talk about it out here.”

Maya looked a question at her.

“It may not be safe to talk inside,” Eileen said, lowering her voice. “Someone might be listening.”

Maya glanced through the car window at Lily. She was still asleep.

“What happened?” Maya asked.

“Robby.” The abusive ex.

“What about him?”

“You wouldn’t tell me what happened with your nanny cam, remember?”

“Right, so?”

“You came to my house. You were angry, upset. You were even suspicious of me. You wanted me to prove that I bought it.”

“I remember,” Maya said. “What does this have to do with Robby?”

“He’s back,” she said with tears starting to pour down. “He’s been watching me.”

“Whoa, slow down, Eileen.”

“I got these by email.” She reached into her purse and shoved a bunch of photographs toward Maya. “They came from an anonymous email address, of course. Untraceable. But I know. It’s Robby.”

Maya started looking through them. The photos had been taken inside Eileen’s house. The first three were in her den. Two had her kids, Kyle and Missy, playing on the couch. The last was just of Eileen, sweaty, a glass of ice water in her hand, wearing a sports bra.

“I’d just come home after working out,” Eileen said in way of explanation. “No one was there. So I took off my shirt and threw it in the downstairs hamper.”

Maya could feel the panic welling inside of her, but she kept her voice even. “The angle,” Maya said, riffling through the photographs of Eileen and her children. “These photos-they were taken by your nanny cams?”

“Yes.”

Maya felt her stomach plummet.

“Look at this last one.”

It was a photograph of Eileen on a couch with a man Maya had never seen. They were kissing.

“That’s Benjamin Barouche. We met on Match.com. It was our third date. I had him back to my place. The kids were upstairs asleep. I didn’t even think twice about it. This afternoon, I get these pictures in my email.”

Why hadn’t Maya thought of this before?

“So someone hacked into-”

“Not someone. Robby. It had to be Robby.”

“Okay, so Robby hacked into your nanny cams?”