“Win? I’m home!” Maren shouted as she walked in the front door. “Everything OK?”
“Yep,” Winnie called out from behind her closed bedroom door.
Maren popped her head in the bedroom. “Have you eaten anything?”
“Yep,” Winnie said. “I made pasta. There’s some extra on the stove.”
“Thanks,” Maren said. “So listen, I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman.”
Winnie glanced at Maren briefly and then looked back at her computer in icy silence. Permission to enter not granted.
“I feel like we’re at a huge disadvantage if it’s really true your biological father somehow knows who you are and we don’t know who he is,” Maren continued to speak from the doorway. “So I did some poking around, and I have an idea. I think if we have you take one of those DNA tests, maybe we’ll learn something about that side of your, um, genetic family. It takes about six weeks to get the results, but the sooner we start the clock, the better.” With no reaction, Maren figured she might as well press on. “Anyway, it’s expensive, so I wanted to ask you if you’d be willing to take a DNA test before I buy it. No needles involved. You’d only have to spit in a tube.”
“Yeah, I know what a DNA test is,” Winnie said, her eyes still glued to her laptop screen. “I’ve done one before. With Brooke.”
“What do you mean? That’s impossible. I literally just read that section on the website. You’re a minor. You would have needed my consent.”
“No, I definitely did it,” Winnie said, finally making eye contact with Maren. “I remember us spitting in a tube and laughing so hard about how disgusting it was.” Winnie’s tone turned wistful. “It was before Brooke started ghosting me… I think you were out of town setting up one of the Stones’ new houses and I was staying with them.”
The Del Mar beach house. It was the spring of eighth grade. “But why? Who gave you the tubes?”
“Alicia did,” Winnie said. “She gave one to everyone in the house. For Brooke’s science fair experiment.”
“Are you kidding me?” She smacked the doorjamb with her open palm. “You’re telling me Alicia took your DNA and never even bothered to ask my permission? But of course she did,” Maren snarked under her breath. “It’s one hundred percent something she would do.” Why did that damn woman, who had literally everything, continually feel entitled to steal from her and Winnie?
Winnie nodded warily. “Do you think Alicia’s the one who tried to sabotage my first-gen hook with Mr. Clark? It kinda makes sense, right?”
“I wish I could say no.” Maren took a few tentative steps into the room and sat on the end of the bed. Her jaw clenched at the thought of Alicia running wild with Winnie’s DNA, using it to snatch the college crown for her own daughter. Not only that, Alicia was potentially endangering Winnie in the process while also cracking open the one secret Maren desperately needed to reveal on her own timetable.
“I wonder if I already have an account set up on one of those sites.” Winnie’s curious mind was already starting to problem-solve. “That could be how this Naomi woman found me; that is, if she really is who she says she is.” She flipped herself around so Maren could see her screen.
Together, they proceeded to search the websites of all three major consumer genetic-testing companies but struck out. It was Winnie who finally figured out why. “It says right here if a minor is tested, your account will be controlled by the parent until you turn eighteen. So it must be a subfolder of Alicia’s account.”
Maren felt the rage building inside her. “Looks like she pretended you’re her daughter, again,” she bit out. Winnie flinched slightly at the venom in Maren’s voice.
“You have access to Alicia’s computer, right?”
“Yes, I use the desktop in her office all the time to pay the family bills.”
“Well then, I think you should do a little investigating, don’t you?”
Maren hesitated for a moment. “I could get sued for that kind of invasion of privacy. This could end very badly for us.”
“Yeah, but what Alicia did has to be totally illegal. We can’t let her get away with this,” Winnie said.
Maren took a deep breath. She reminded herself of her promise to leave fear behind; the least she could do was stuff it in her back pocket for a while. “You know what? You’re absolutely right.”
“But, Mom, you have to tell me what you learn. I have a right to know.”
Maren bit her lip. She only wished she could satisfy Winnie’s right to know without being forced to confront the truth herself.
23
Kelly
Kelly parked in front of the Seattle Police East Precinct. Wiping her palms on her pants, she smoothed her hair in the rearview mirror. According to the detective who’d contacted her, Ted Clark had passed along the names of the EBA families with Stanford applicants. Kelly wanted to appear helpful, of course, but now she was questioning her decisions not to tell Kevin and not to consult a lawyer. It wasn’t as if they had a lawyer on speed dial, but she’d watched enough episodes of Law & Order to wonder if going into a meeting like this alone was the best idea. Especially given her suspicions about Krissie. But Kevin had been so irritated with her lately, and he’d been working day and night structuring a major client’s acquisition for taxes and accounting, so she figured she would deal with this on her own.
Running a gauntlet of panhandlers, Kelly entered the precinct. “Can I help you?” the desk clerk intoned after ignoring her for a solid thirty seconds.
“Yes, thank you. I’m here to see Detective Davis. My name is Kelly Vernon,” she said. “I have a ten a.m. appointment.” She hoped that tidbit might move things along for her. The precinct waiting room was crowded and smelled like body odor.
The clerk made a quick call. “He’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Kelly took a seat on an ugly black plastic chair and placed her purse on her lap. She scrolled through her Twitter feed to avoid making eye contact with anyone, particularly the man with a tattoo on his face staring at her, but it was impossible not to eavesdrop on the conversations around her. She’d clearly left her safe little bubble where everyone sent their kids to private school, listened to NPR, read the New York Times, bought organic food, and only worried about which fabulous college their child would attend. Frankly, reality was a bit jarring.
“Mrs. Vernon?” A bold voice interrupted her listening in on a young couple who reeked of marijuana and were fighting about where to eat because between them they only had $3.02. She’d heard them laboriously count all their change. Three times.
“Detective Davis?” she said, standing to greet him.
They shook hands, and the detective led Kelly back to a large room buzzing with activity. “Thanks for coming in today,” he said over the din. “We appreciate you taking the time to answer some questions.” He pointed to a metal chair next to a desk covered with paper, folders, and what looked like the remainder of a breakfast sandwich. Kelly glanced around the room, intrigued by the chaos.
Detective Davis looked down at his notes. “So I understand your kids go to Elliott Bay Academy?”
“Yes.” Kelly smiled. “My daughter Krissie is a senior. My other two children are in tenth and seventh grade.”
The detective whistled. “Three kids at private school? That must set you back.”
Because her kids went to private school, he assumed she was rich, which couldn’t be more laughable, at least compared with most EBA families. How was she supposed to respond? “It’s not easy, but our children’s education is very important to us.”
“Sure. So I spoke with Mr. Clark, the principal of the school—”
“He’s actually the head of school,” Kelly corrected.
“OK.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he said you’re pretty involved at the school. PTA president and chair of”—he looked down at his no
tes again—“the SST?”
“Yes, the Senior Send-off Team. It’s the most coveted volunteer assignment at EBA.” Kelly may have found the SST to be a gigantic pain in the ass, but she nevertheless enjoyed the status it conferred on campus. From the look on the detective’s face, he was unimpressed.
Detective Davis cleared his throat. “People covet volunteer positions?”
“Um, yeah,” Kelly said. “Our job is to plan surprise activities, parties, events, and stress busters for our overworked seniors.”
“Oh, that’s nice. My mom lives in one of those senior centers in Shoreline and loves when the young kids from nearby schools come to visit. Really cheers her up.”
“Gosh, no, by seniors, I mean high school seniors—you know, our kids who are applying to college?”
Confusion clouded the detective’s face. “EBA seems like a pretty fancy school. Is this for some of the underprivileged students on scholarship who work after-school jobs and such?”
“Um, no. It’s for all the seniors—they work really hard in their classes. Lots of honors and AP courses, and many of them play highly competitive sports and compete in bands, orchestras, chess competitions, math Olympiads, and the like. It’s such a rat race to get into college these days, you wouldn’t believe it. These kids have zero downtime. They’re so programmed and stressed out. And all that is on top of having to take tons of standardized tests to get into college.”
“Tons? My kids graduated from UW and Western, and I only remember them taking the SAT. There are other tests?”
“Yes, well, the Ivy Plus schools all require not just the SAT achievement test but also SAT subject tests in both humanities and STEM fields, unless of course your kid takes the ACT, in which case many of the Ivy Pluses will waive the SAT subject test requirement,” Kelly said, well aware she was rambling, but she’d never been interviewed by a police detective before. He seemed to be listening intently to everything she said. She sat up a little straighter, pleased to be helping the investigation. “And most kids take both the SAT and the ACT to see which one they perform better on, and then they take their preferred test at least one and sometimes two or three more times after months of private tutoring.”
“And Ivy Plus is?” His eyes narrowed.
“Ivy League schools plus Ivy League–equivalent schools like Stanford, MIT, schools like that,” Kelly spouted. He sure had a lot of questions. Was this part of his detective process, or did he really not know anything about good colleges?
“Got it. Sounds pretty intense,” he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. Detective Davis rubbed his chin. “So your daughter Krissie? She also applied to Stanford? Like Winnie?”
“Yes, Krissie’s a double legacy. Both my husband and I attended Stanford. Alicia Stone’s daughter, Brooke, applied too. There may have been other students who also applied?” Her voice rising at the end invited the detective to spill the names of any other students he may have come across in his investigation.
Detective Davis didn’t take the bait. “Do you think Winnie’s accident had something to do with Stanford only taking one more student?”
“I’m not the detective,” Kelly said with a smile. “But you should know there was a rumor going around that Winnie was applying to the top ten colleges in the country just to see if she could get into every one of them. Lots of parents were very upset that she would try to take spots she had no intention of using. Maybe that had something to do with the accident?”
“I see,” Detective Davis said, jotting down a few words in his notebook. “So after word spread, there were a lot of memes on social media featuring you. I assume you’re aware of them.” He cocked his eyebrow at her.
Kelly could feel her cheeks burning. “Yes, I’ve seen them.”
“Interesting that so many people thought you had something to do with it, don’t you think?”
Kelly shifted in her seat and stared down at her hands, which were fiddling with the straps on her handbag. Taking a deep breath, she looked Detective Davis square in the eye. “I think people are jealous of me for my commitment to my children. My daughter is quite extraordinary, and I’m sure many people would like nothing more than to see both of us fail. Frankly, I’m scared Krissie might be the next victim. Do you have any idea who went after Winnie?”
“Where were you the night of the accident?” he asked, tapping his pen on his desk.
“You can’t be serious.” Kelly’s eyes grew wide. “But for the record, I was home with my entire family having dinner and watching a movie.”
“What movie?” he pressed.
“The Princess Bride,” Kelly said without hesitation.
“Love that one,” he said, smiling at her. “So I’d like to ask Krissie a few questions. Is there a time you can bring her down?”
Kelly froze. Short of directly posing the big question to Krissie, Kelly had tried every which way to ask her daughter whether she’d had anything to do with the accident. But each time, Krissie had blown her off, in much the same way as she dismissed Kelly’s concerns about her lack of eating, her constant workouts, and the hair plugging up her bathroom sink. Her mental state was already so fragile, how could Kelly possibly subject her daughter to a police interview? And then she’d have no choice but to tell Kevin. Kelly had to put Detective Davis off at all costs. “We would love to help, we really would, but I’m very concerned about my daughter right now. She was diagnosed with trichotillomania, and now we’re worried she’s becoming anorexic. And anyway, I don’t even know what she can tell you because she was home with the rest of our family watching The Princess Bride.”
Davis pushed back his chair and looked at his watch. “I’ll be in touch then. Maybe after some of this college stuff calms down? I understand Stanford’s early admission notification date is December 15?”
Now he knew something about college? “Oh, well, OK,” Kelly said, disappointed he wasn’t giving Krissie a pass entirely. At least she’d bought them some more time.
“Is there anyone else who you think I should be talking to?”
“Alicia and Bryan Stone,” Kelly said without hesitation. “My daughter overheard their daughter, Brooke, bragging that her mom hired a big shot college professor to write Brooke’s application essays. And word on the street is they donated $15 million to Stanford to pave the way for their daughter’s admission. They certainly have a lot to lose, don’t you think? Obviously, you didn’t hear this from me.”
The detective nodded and scribbled another note. “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Vernon.” As Kelly stood up, Detective Davis added, “Actually, if I might make one observation?”
“Sure.” Kelly hesitated. Had she gone too far pointing the finger at the Stones? But at least what she’d said about them had the benefit of being the truth.
“Sorry if this is out of line, but I wonder: Has your SST group considered ways to reduce the stress your kids are under all the days they aren’t attending your stress busters? It just seems like everyone—parents and kids alike—might be happier.”
Kelly’s jaw dropped. Was he serious? Given his line of work, Kelly was surprised that he didn’t grasp the concept that all this parental college stress was about making sure their children had opportunities and didn’t end up like the derelicts in the waiting room. She worried constantly about economic inequality and feared her kids faced a binary future—they would either succeed spectacularly or fail miserably. Without the safety net of a trust fund (which so many kids at EBA seemed to have), Kelly felt that she had no choice but to strategize over every aspect of her children’s lives. The truth was Kelly had engaged in this anxiety-fueled opportunities arms race in large part because she knew admission to an elite college like Stanford would be the stepping-stone to a top grad school, a prestigious career, and, ultimately, financial success. With the stakes so high, she wasn’t about to be the schmuck who fell down on the job.
“Thanks, Detective,” Kelly said, turning back to address him. “That’s excellent advice.” She didn’t want to risk contradicting him, even if he was clueless.
24
Maren
It was late afternoon by the time Maren finally arrived at the Stones’ after finishing a mile-long list of errands. She perused the other cars in the massive driveway. The dinner chef, the housekeeper, and Bryan were all home, but no Brooke or Alicia yet. This was as good a time as any to access Alicia’s desktop. She walked in the front door, greeted Cardinal with her usual sweet talk and pointed knee, and hollered out her routine arrival announcement. Bryan’s golf clubs were in the front hall. Excellent. His post-golf routine was to grab a beer from one of the four taps on his kegerator (because the six beers he drank on the golf course were not enough) and then head to the shower. From there, Maren chose not to imagine the scene. She padded upstairs and slowed at the door to the master bedroom. As she suspected, the shower was running.
She entered Alicia’s study and sat in the chair behind her large mahogany desk, an activity that was hardly out of the ordinary. Maren was normally required to log in with her own unique username and password. Today, she logged in with one of Alicia’s go-to passwords and quickly gained access. When she pulled down the bookmarks menu, “A Pair of Genes” was at the bottom of the list. Maren almost laughed out loud at Alicia’s sloppiness when she realized she wouldn’t even need to guess the account username and password—the computer browser automatically supplied them for her. She clicked on the subfolder for Winnie, and a dashboard appeared. “You have multiple family connections. See your Family Tree here.” Click. Boom.
Her hand quivered as she swiped at the tear on her cheek that appeared out of thin air. It was an out-of-body experience taking in the name that appeared above Winnie’s leaf, connected to her daughter’s name with a thin green line. Chase Alder. A name she didn’t recognize at all. What the fuck? Who the hell was this guy? But she had no time to delve deeper. Very shortly, Bryan would emerge from the bedroom dressed in his usual home lounge attire—gym shorts and, well, that was all. Just gym shorts.
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