Lindsey is released from the hospital a few hours later and my parents go to help Craig get her home.
Lindsey, of course, keeps insisting that this has all been a massive overreaction, but I can tell that she is as relieved as the rest of us.
I don't speak to Alex again that evening.
I decide to let his threat go and not dwell on it too much, writing it off to something he said out of anger or disappointment. I hope I'm right, but I'm not going to give it anymore thought tonight.
As soon as I get home, I want to crawl straight under the covers, but I make myself a big cup of coffee and open my laptop instead.
I'm tired, exhausted, and spent, but I have a number of unanswered questions that I hope I can find some answers to.
When I look up Liam Linville on Facebook, I see a profile out of Seattle.
He hasn’t been active on it for a while, but the profile picture is clearly Liam's.
He's much younger, but I immediately know that it's him. The privacy settings are too strict and I can see that he got his bachelor's degree at the University of Washington, majoring in English.
That would explain why he would make up the fact that he was D. B. Carter, the famous and elusive writer.
He likes literature, he likes to read, maybe he's even a fan.
I'm sure there has been a person or two that pretended to be J. D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, right?
Trying to figure out where to go next, I remember the mental note that I made earlier.
I bookmarked the articles that I found and I look up Samantha Lind, the journalist who wrote the most in-depth one about his uncle’s nursing home business and Medicare fraud.
She writes for the Seattle Times and I find her contact info pretty easily on Twitter. I decide to reach out to her via email.
After introducing myself and being rather vague about my intentions, I ask her to reach out to me so that we can talk on the phone or over video.
I specifically ask her if she knows anything about Liam's disappearance, hoping that it will spark her interest.
Finishing the rest of my coffee, I take the cup to the kitchen and wash it in the sink, trying to figure out what to do next. I should get into bed and get some rest, but I want to put some more fires in the oven so to speak.
Returning to Facebook, I see that one of Liam's connections is his sister, Kristen Linville Harmon. Her profile is set to private, but I can see that she still lives in Seattle and has recently had a baby.
I open the message box and put my hands on the keyboard. I know what I want to ask her, but I'm not exactly sure of the best way to phrase it.
Hi, Kristen, my name is Emma Scott and I'm a journalist working on a story about your brother.
I read the words again and then immediately delete them.
If he testified against his family and his uncle, I have no idea whose side his sister would be on.
Hi, Kristen, my name is Emma Scott and I'm trying to find out more about your brother, Liam Linville. I read that he is missing. Is that correct?
I reread what I have just written and again decide that it's not quite right. I need her to want to talk to me.
Otherwise, she might just block me and that will be the end of it.
I try one last time.
Hi, Kristen, my name is Emma Scott and I'm a friend of your brother, Liam Linville. I was wondering if I could talk to you about him.
I review the message. It's true and in present tense, which I hope sparks her interest if she is actually looking for him.
I am undecided about what I will actually tell her if she should reach out to me, but I will deal with that if the time comes.
Just as I'm about to close my computer, Kristen writes back.
You’re a friend of Liam's? Really? Can we video chat?
My heart comes to my throat. I'm startled by her reaction and I'm not entirely prepared to talk right now.
At the same time, I don't want to postpone this conversation.
Sure, I say. We can do it through Facebook if you want. I'm free right now.
My phone beeps as soon as I send the message.
“Hi, I'm Kristen,” she says, waving her hand.
Her light brown hair is pulled up in a loose bun and she has big wide eyes that are identical to Liam's.
The resemblance is uncanny.
“It's nice to meet you. I am Emma,” I say, waving back.
I feel a little bit off since I wasn't expecting to talk to her so soon, but I gather my thoughts and jump right in.
“I hope it's not too late to talk,” I say.
“No, not at all. I'm up late taking care of the baby.” She holds the screen down so that I can see the baby's head with his face buried toward her.
After a brief back and forth where I congratulate her and ask her about her son, I get to the point.
“When was the last time you saw Liam?”
“I don't know exactly. I haven't heard from him in years. How do you know him?”
I wonder how much I should reveal to her and hesitate.
“He went to school with a man I was engaged to. I met him briefly,” I say.
I want to tell as much of the truth as possible, without disclosing too much at the same time.
I can tell that she senses my apprehension, but for now she doesn't say anything.
“The article that I read about him said that he had disappeared and no one has heard from him, but I just recently saw him so I was wondering if you or anyone else were still looking for him.”
“Sort of,” she says after a long pause. “If you read that article, then you probably know that my uncle was convicted for committing all of that Medicare fraud and Liam was the main witness. He testified on the stand and the whole family turned on him. He left soon after the trial.”
“Why would they write that he had disappeared?”
She swallows hard and looks away from the camera.
Patting her baby's head, she takes a deep breath.
“I filed a missing person report,” she says quietly. “I haven't heard from him and I thought that maybe there had been some sort of… Retaliation.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Of all the things that I have considered that might've happened, I hadn't thought about this.
“My uncle is a very powerful man. He was one of the richest people in the Pacific Northwest and that's saying something since there are so many tech companies based here. He owned a chain of nursing homes, which was a big part of their business. So, when Liam testified against him in court and his testimony led to his conviction, all hell broke loose.”
“I'm so sorry,” I say in a quiet whisper.
“I guess the reason that I'm talking to you is that it's nice to know that he is alive. He is my older brother and we were always close. If you see him, please tell him that I miss him and I hope I see him again.”
I swallow hard.
I feel bad for this young woman who is being torn apart by her loyalty to her family and her love for her brother.
“Can I ask you one more thing?”
"Sure."
“Did Liam ever enjoy writing?”
“Yes, a lot. Why?”
“It's just something that he has mentioned,” I say, being vague on purpose.
“All he wanted to do was be a writer, but our parents were really against that. They even refused to let him major in English and insisted that he major in finance.”
“Did he?”
“Of course. No one ever says no to our father.”
The way that she says that, it sends a shiver down my spine.
“Where did he go to school?”
“University of Washington.”
“Do you know why on his Facebook profile it would say that he majored in English?”
“It does? Really? No, that’s not right. We went to his graduation.”
Suddenly, the baby starts to howl and she says that she has to
go.
“Can I reach out to you again if I have anymore questions?” I ask.
“Yes, of course,” Kristen says, talking over the wailing baby. “Please tell my brother to contact me, anytime, any day. I miss him. I love him. Will you tell him that?”
“Yes, absolutely.” I nod.
I hang up the phone and climb into bed.
I don't know what to make of this conversation and thinking about it at this moment isn’t going to make my thoughts any clearer.
29
Emma
The following morning, I call the records office at the University of Washington. I read online that universities are allowed to confirm if someone has graduated from their school and with what degree.
The woman who answers tells me that Liam Linville did indeed graduate from the university with a bachelor’s degree, but that degree was not in finance but rather in English.
I thank her for her time and wonder what this means. Perhaps, he lied to his parents about what degree he ended up getting.
They don't usually give out the real degree at commencement ceremonies and instead mail them to their home.
What are the chances that Liam graduated majoring in what he wanted and told his father what he wanted to hear?
The more research that I do, the more confused I get. I still have no idea whether he is actually D. B. Carter, but at least he appears to be a real person.
Why isn't he going by the name Liam Linville anymore?
Why isn't he talking to his sister?
I know that I have stumbled onto a mystery and it will take time to get to the bottom of it.
There are a lot of things that line up with him being D. B. Carter, like his knowledge about independent publishing and me actually seeing him write.
That knowledge also lines up with him possibly lying and pretending to be D. B. Carter.
He could be Liam, Alex's old middle school friend and Kristen's brother, but he doesn't have to be D. B. Carter.
I did tell him about my assignment and then I did mysteriously get a message from some anonymous person on the forum giving me his address.
Who is to say that he wasn’t the one who wrote me that message and led me to his home?
I've always thought that I had enough skepticism and street smarts to not fall for every lie out there, but I guess I don't.
I feel stupid.
You should not, I say to myself. Liam's lies are intricate and well arranged. If anything, he is quite a master at it and it is going to take me a long time to figure it all out.
My thoughts return to the follow-up article that I have to write for Corrin.
What the hell do I write in it?
I had this brilliant story about a reclusive writer and now… What do I have now?
I check my email and spot one from Samantha.
She's the journalist who wrote the article about the nursing home scam. She includes a way to reach her and I dial the number.
The conversation with Samantha is a lot more straightforward. I tell her that I'm a journalist working on a feature about elder-care abuse.
I tell her that I had stumbled upon her article and ask her for more details.
“The nursing home chain is called Trilogy Manor Care,” she says. “His uncle's name is Matthew Linville and he's one of the richest men in the Pacific Northwest, which is saying something.”
So far, she hasn't revealed anything I didn't already know from her article and from Kristen, but I appreciate the confirmation of the details.
“You had mentioned that the key witness in the trial, Liam Linville, had gone missing,” I say. “I was wondering what led you to believe that?”
“Since he testified, no one has ever heard from him again. At least no one that I ever spoke to. It's like he ceased to exist.”
“Is there any chance that he just wanted to get away from all the press and his family? Could he have just gone on a trip?”
“I thought that maybe he did. Then a year later I was doing a follow-up story. I tried to contact him again, but I couldn’t find him. There was no information in the public records of him renting any apartments or buying any property. I even got a hold of his Social Security number and looked up his credit report.”
“You did? How?”
She pauses, probably realizing that she’s said too much.
We journalists have a way of finding things out and they are not always the most straightforward and honest.
“The thing about his credit report,” she says, ignoring my questions, “is that it confirmed that he basically stopped existing or spending money, right after the trial.”
“What do you mean?”
“Credit reports have an account history, like a history of credit card payments and status of all real estate, installments, and revolving credit accounts. It also contains hard inquiries like if a lender or landlord checks your credit report it will show up on that report. It also includes any loan defaults, late payments, delinquencies, charge-offs, collections, and public records. All of these were blank. He basically stopped existing.”
“Do you think he was murdered?”
“I have my suspicions,” Samantha says, “but I'm a journalist and I need facts. All I can say is that he's missing. He has disappeared.”
“Is there any possibility that he's using another name?”
“Yes, perhaps. People can acquire new identities and his family was wealthy, but he wasn't. He never took any money from the family and as far as I know he didn't have any money of his own.”
“What did he do back then? I mean, for a living.”
“He worked in the wood shop. Made furniture.”
“He was a carpenter?”
“I guess you could say that. He seemed to be like the kind of person who didn't have it all figured out yet, but he would soon. It's too bad because he didn't get that chance.”
After we hang up, my thoughts go in circles regarding what Samantha had just revealed.
She has done an extensive amount of research and promised to send me some of the information as well. As far she was concerned, or rather her newspaper was concerned, she couldn’t write a follow-up unless she had more concrete information.
Besides, Liam wasn't a famous person and people are allowed to disappear of their own free will.
There is no evidence of foul play or bodily harm.
I pick up my phone and review parts of our conversation. I'm glad that I recorded it so that I could have it to take additional notes from.
I open my laptop and start to write down everything that I know. I write down what happened when we were together, glossing over our intimate encounters, but not removing them entirely.
I'm writing down the whole truth and the whole truth involves those scenes as well. I write down how I found his California driver's license with the name Peter Mueller Schmidt on it and how I confirmed with Alex that his real name is Liam Carson Benjamin Linville.
I still have no idea why his ID is in Peter Schmidt's name, but talking to Samantha I'm starting to feel like maybe Liam Linville had left Seattle and started a new life as Peter Schmidt.
All of the names and all of the lies swirl around in my mind. Writing everything down in the order that I learned information actually organizes it a little bit.
Now things are starting to make a little bit more sense as to why he had that other driver’s license with his picture in his wallet.
It still doesn't make sense as to why he's pretending to be D. B. Carter, if he actually is pretending to be him.
I quote Samantha extensively in my notes and reread what I have just written. I'm definitely filling in a lot of gaps about the real identity of Liam Linville and I'm certain that he is the Liam that I met in the desert.
I still don't know if he is also Matt Lipinski, the guy in the forum who led me to D. B. Carter, or D. B. Carter himself.
Later that afternoon, I review the pages of notes that I have written and organize them in
to an article.
Again, I write it in first person as it happened to me making myself the central character in the middle of the investigation. Since I have no plans to ever make this public or at least publish this exact version of it, I even put in information about what happened with my fiancé and how Liam and I really met.
It’s hard to explain why I write. There’s something compelling me to record the truth. It's so convoluted and only half uncovered.
Yet when I read through it on my computer, black text on white paper, I think that it starts to make a lot more sense.
Would you mind reading something for me? I text Shelby.
Sure.
This isn't really an article, but it's the story of what I’ve uncovered so far. I just want to get your input on how I should present it to Corrin. It's kind of convoluted with lots of twists and turns but obviously I can't publish it as it is.
I'm out right now, but just email it to me and I'll try to get to it tonight.
Shelby has always been a really good friend of mine and I trust her judgment. She'll know what parts of this I should present to Corrin and which parts I should keep to myself.
Clearly, I can't publish the whole thing. It's not advisable to sleep with your sources and is not advisable to lie about someone being on the record when they're not.
Not if you want to continue to hold onto your career and reputation.
30
Emma
Sending off the email, I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. I take a shower, watch some TV, and then make the fatal mistake of checking my email again.
It's a message from my loan servicing company, Navient, and it says that my new monthly student loan repayment amount will be $1,500. I knew this was coming.
This is why I had applied to be a bartender for at least five different bars/restaurants, all to no response. Los Angeles is filled with actors and screenwriters who have a lot more experience making and serving drinks than I do.
Usually, when someone is not interested, they don't even bother to write back and that's exactly what happened to all of my job applications.
All the Secrets Page 13
