Confessions on the 7:45

After finding Stella dead in her room, Charlie and Pearl leave town. They drive until they get to New Mexico. Charlie asks Pearl where her name came from, asking if she is named after Pearl S. Buck, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel The Good Earth. Pearl explains that her name is from the novella The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Stella used to quote the book to her, saying, “There it lay. The great pearl. Perfect as the moon” (133). Charlie comments that the book isn’t particularly cheerful, and Pearl reminds him that Stella wasn’t the most cheerful person herself.

When they found Stella, Charlie quickly packed up their most important things and left immediately. Pearl had been too stunned to think about what was happening. Now that they have arrived in New Mexico, she begins to think more clearly and is a little afraid. She asks Charlie if he killed her mother, and he is shocked that she’d suggest such a thing. He tells her that they needed to leave town because she would have probably been taken by child protective services since neither of her parents were around.

They cut their hair and begin to form new identities. Charlie reveals that he is a conman, and though he did really care for her and Stella, he also had Stella in mind as a potential target. However, it turned out she didn’t have as much money as he thought she had. He tells her that even though his father was a monster, he taught him how to be a conman, and he is good at it. He can teach her, and they can work together.

They choose new names for each other, all of them taken from classic novels. Pearl chooses Anne, a classic name that also evokes a sense of innocence, similar to the title character in Anne of Green Gables. She playfully suggests names like Othello, Humbert, and Mr. Knightly, who are unsavory characters from Othello, Lolita, and Emma. Charles laughs, and they decide on Bob. She will be his daughter and call him “Pop.”

Anne and Charlie have returned to the town where they lived with Stella, and Anne is reflecting on her many identities and cons. Sometimes she runs multiple games at a time, and it gets complicated to manage several emails, social media accounts, and phones. Now that she has ended the scam on Hugh and Kate, she only has two going. One is with Ben, an animal-loving pediatrician. They had been talking about meeting in person, but she told him that she has a sister with unstable bipolar disorder and will have to care for her instead of meeting him in Montreal. Because he is a goodhearted person, she knew that he would be understanding and would do anything to help her.

Anne and Pop don’t always see eye to eye on the way Anne runs her cons. He warns her against doing too many at one time or for reasons other than getting money; otherwise, they might get complicated, and she could get into trouble. He is specifically concerned about the other con Anne is running and doesn’t understand her motive. Anne has been stalking and gathering information about Selena for a long time. She tells Pop that she isn’t quite jealous of Selena, but she wants to disrupt her easy life.

Anne has also been following the media coverage of her and Charlie’s disappearance. Years after they started their new life, she hears that a cold case investigator named Hunter Ross is still investigating the case. Ross has figured out that Charles Finch was not Pop’s real name and that all of their documentation was falsified. Pearl always worries when new developments in their case come up, but Pop reassures her that no one will be able to find them. He tells her that he is expecting company, which probably means he met a woman that he is planning to swindle.

At the end of the chapter, Pearl gets a text: It is Selena asking if she wants to meet for a drink.

After Will leaves Selena’s house, she is feeling restless and doesn’t want to be anywhere near Graham. Martha is the only other person besides Will whom she told about Graham cheating, and she thinks she should talk to her again and try to control the narrative. She texts her, and they agree to meet for a drink in Manhattan.

As Selena walks to the bar, she remembers how she almost broke up with Graham before they got married and that she met up with Will before their wedding. He told her that he would always love her and that he didn’t think Graham was right for her. At the time, she resented Will’s paternal and slightly condescending attitude, but now she reflects that she should have followed her instincts back then about not marrying Graham.

She feels that she is probably doing the wrong thing by meeting with Martha because Will specifically told her not to talk to her again, but for some reason, she is eager to see her. When Martha arrives, Selena asks how she got her number, and Martha says that Selena gave her her business card. Selena doesn’t remember doing this.

Selena tells Martha that her suspicions turned out to be incorrect and that everything was fine in her marriage. Martha tells her that her father was violent and unfaithful to her mother, so she has an internalized distrust of men; she doesn’t believe that she will ever get married but tells Selena that she deserves a good man. She asks if Selena still plans to keep Geneva as the nanny, and Selena tells her that she might not have to worry about Geneva because she didn’t show up for work. Martha asks her if she thinks that is at all strange, but Selena pretends to not be too concerned about the coincidence.

Selena is lying, but she is there for damage control. If the case escalates, she doesn’t want someone out there knowing that Graham had been sleeping with Geneva. Martha tells her to reach out again if she wants to talk some more; she calls herself a “solution architect” and says she has a particular skill for listening without judgment and solving problems in creative ways.

After their meeting, Selena doesn’t want to go home, so she tells the cab to take her to Will’s apartment, which is also in the city. Her mother sent her pictures of the boys sleeping with the text, “Everything is ok. This too shall pass” (192).

After Anne meets with Selena, she waits a minute for Selena to leave before getting in a cab to follow her. She predicts that Selena is going to see Will, and she turns out to be right. She takes a picture of Selena as she goes into the building. Anne has been gathering information on Selena for a while and has a clear picture of her life and who she pretends to be online. She carefully planned their meeting on the train, aware of Selena’s commute and schedule.

She is surprised, however, at how calm and collected Selena was at the bar and that she chose to lie about everything being fine with Graham when Anne knew that was not the case. Selena is smarter than most targets she deals with, and she does not always behave predictably. She can hear Pop’s voice in her head warning her to cut Selena loose because her unpredictability will probably cause more trouble than it's worth.

Pop appears next to her in the cab and asks if she remembers Bridget, a former target who turned out to be smarter than they expected and who came after them. Anne is having visions of Pop and his instructions, but in reality, he is not there.

This chapter travels back in time to when Pearl and Charlie first ran away and began running cons together. They traveled around New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Arizona, assuming new identities each time.

Sometimes, if a job doesn’t go the way he planned, Pop slips into strange states where he stares blankly into space and becomes unresponsive. This frustrates and scares Pearl, and she tries to snap him out of it. When he finally does, he apologizes and tells her that sometimes that just happens and there’s nothing she can do but wait for it to pass.

They are living in Phoenix when they encounter Bridget. Pop is always taking girlfriends who are “marks” and is an expert at knowing what they want. Pearl knows how to play the role of the sweet daughter raised by a single father. Bridget is different, though; she is not as charmed by Pearl and doesn’t take the bait when Pop said he has an emergency and needs her to wire him money. Instead, she offers to help or get him a lawyer. Pop stops responding to her, and eventually, she senses that he is scamming her and threatens to call the police. This incident spooks Pop, and they quickly shut down their whole lives and get out of town. Pearl resents Pop for this abrupt move because she is comfortable in Phoenix and doesn’t want to leave.

Hunter Ross enters a diner where he frequently eats with a group of retired men. He doesn’t quite like these men or being retired, but he continues to come.

Since he retired, he has made a hobby of following and trying to solve cold cases. There are three that he is working on, one of which has been unsolved for 10 years: the case of Stella and Pearl Behr. Stella was murdered, her daughter disappeared, and no one has been able to figure out what happened. The other retired men tease Hunter for working so hard when he is supposed to be retired and for caring so much about people who might not want to be found, but he just can’t forget them and let it go.

While at the diner, he catches a news report on the television that piques his interest: A 25-year-old nanny has disappeared. When he sees the picture of Geneva Markson on the screen, he feels a shock of recognition in his brain. He doesn’t know how he recognizes her but feels he can potentially help solve this case.

Selena is talking to Oliver on the phone; she has woken up in Will’s bed the morning after her encounter with Martha. Oliver is not happy about staying with his grandparents and wants Selena to come back. He asks a lot of questions that Selena can’t answer. He asks where Graham is, and Selena, not in their house, lies and says he’s still sleeping.

She and Will stayed up late talking, and Will insisted that she sleep in his bed while he stayed on the couch. Graham texted her in the middle of the night asking her to come home, but she told him she needed space. Now, he takes a jab at her for spending the night with Will, but she insists that they slept separately and that she has no plans to start cheating on him at this point in their marriage.

Graham abruptly changes the subject, telling her that the police came to the house again. This makes Selena anxious, and when she sees the news on TV, she understands why: The media has taken off with the story of Geneva’s disappearance, and her face is emblazoned on the screen. Will prepares to go over to their house to help deal with the police. Selena, apparently having a panic attack, passes out.