Look Closer

In September, Vicky meets with Christian again. He shows her a risky investment option that could make her a lot of money, but also tells her he will put together a low-risk portfolio for her if she wants. He doesn’t normally make these exceptions, but he says he will do so in this case because he likes her. Vicky responds by telling him to let his assistant go home early and then starting to unbutton her dress.

After sex, Vicky and Christian discuss the trust. Christian promises he can get her access to the money without Simon’s approval, and she tells Christian she doesn’t want to hurt Simon. They agree to continue the relationship, and Vicky leaves, thinking to herself that it is best to leave Christian wanting more.

Christian leaves his office and heads home to meet his best friend Gavin, who is his partner in the con. Gavin handles the financial side and helps Christian fake his aliases. They joke about the women Christian has seduced. He is smug about his ability to keep Vicky interested even though the sex could be a complication.

Simon leads a meeting of a group for people whose loved ones have died by suicide. He tells them that his mother, a brilliant law professor, had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair. Their financial situation changed and his father, a formerly wealthy personal injury attorney, was no longer able to afford in-home care. Unwilling to enter a nursing home, his mother overdosed on her pain meds. Afterward, Simon spent some time in a mental health facility before he was ready to go to college.

What Simon does not tell the group members is that his father was cheating on his mother. Simon knew because he was at the law office late at night and accidentally caught his father there with another woman. Though his father promised to change, Simon later found two glasses and an empty champagne bottle at the family home. He realized that the man he had loved and idolized didn’t really exist and declared his father dead to him: “The day I found that bottle, the day I realized my father was never going to stop cheating—that was the day that Ted Dobias died. The night he was found with a knife in his stomach, floating in his pool, was just the moment he stopped breathing” (125). Simon believes that his father’s betrayal, and his own complicit silence, were major factors in his mother’s death.

In a diary entry from September, Simon recalls his latest encounter with Lauren. She could tell something was wrong and prodded him until he told her. His father cheated on his mother, and it led to her suicide. Simon worries that he is becoming the man he despises by cheating on his wife as well.

Doing what he calls “due diligence,” Christian researches Simon online. He discovers the timeline of Ted Dobias’s career and Glory’s mysterious death in 2003. He also sees that it took seven years for Simon to graduate college. After Glory’s death, Ted earned a fortune from a huge lawsuit he won for a client, explaining Simon’s trust fund. But what Christian is really intrigued by is Ted’s death in 2010—he was found floating in his swimming pool with a stab wound in his stomach. Simon was suspected but never charged. Christian is suspicious of Simon, but also of Vicky and wonders what she was doing the night of the murder.

Simon heads to his meeting spot to text Lauren. While waiting for her to respond, he thinks about his therapist, who challenged him to attend college and make his mother proud. Because of this, he was able to “not heal. But move on. Move on but remember” (132). Lauren tells him she is anxious to talk to him, but it needs to be in person. Simon asks if he should be worried, but she doesn’t respond.

In his diary, Simon vents about the vague text Lauren sent and how torturous it is to wait for a response.

Simon recalls his first meeting with Lauren Lemoyne. She was a 20-year-old paralegal at his father’s law firm, and he was working at the firm the summer before starting college. He thought she was beautiful, and she flirted with him in the break room one day, telling him he would grow up to be a heartbreaker.

In his diary, Simon writes that he showed up at Lauren’s house uninvited because he couldn’t stand the tension. She told him that she understood why he hated being a cheater and didn’t want to repeat his father’s mistakes. However, instead of breaking up with him, she suggested that they get married.

The day after Halloween, Jane interviews Cassandra Barclay, Conrad Betancourt’s ex-wife. She tells Jane that Lauren broke up their marriage and was interested in Conrad’s money, whereas Conrad was bored with his wife and wanted someone exciting and younger. She also tells Jane that Lauren and Conrad were separated at the time of Lauren’s death. She tells Jane that Lauren was a cheater and was probably looking for her next sugar daddy.

Before Halloween, Vicky and Christian have sex in his apartment. They have continued their affair, though Vicky tells Christian she is worried about getting caught and jeopardizing the money. Christian reassures her verbally while thinking about the different ways he convinces her and other marks to trust him. For example, he keeps an expensive grooming kit from a previous lover in his bathroom so he can appear to be casually wealthy. He believes that Vicky is gullible and trusts him.

At her job at the domestic violence shelter, Vicky and her boss scrounge up what money they can find to buy groceries for their clients. Her boss protests, but Vicky uses some of her own money to cover the shortfall. While she is heading to the grocery store, Rambo calls her to tell her that her alias has been compromised. The body of the real Vicky Lanier has been discovered in West Virginia. Despite the danger, Vicky refuses to stop using her alias. She knows that she just needs to hold on for seven more weeks and things will be over.

In his diary, Simon excitedly writes about his joy over marrying Lauren. Lauren says she wants a Paris wedding, and he agrees. He worries about breaking the news to Vicky but decides to do it after November 3 so he can give her $10 million out of the trust to soften the blow.

At the office, Anshu tells Simon he is taking him to lunch. Simon knows it’s because his friend wants to cheer him up. Today is the deadline for submitting the portfolio for the full professorship and Simon has not done it, letting Reid and the dean win. However, at the restaurant they run into Reid and the dean preemptively celebrating their victory. Reid is condescending to Simon and Simon decides to retaliate by submitting his portfolio after all.

In his apartment, Christian becomes angry when Gavin makes crude remarks about Vicky. Christian feels a kinship between himself and Vicky because they are both survivors who had rough childhoods. Gavin reprimands him and reminds him that this is not a fairy tale or a movie. The two men decide to go eat at a restaurant downstairs from the apartment—Viva Mediterránea. Unbeknownst to them, it is the same restaurant where Simon has been going to text Lauren every evening.

Simon heads to his morning meeting and tries to text Lauren, but she doesn’t reply. Later that evening, she is cranky with him via text and mentions her husband by name. Simon is worried and frustrated. Walking home, he looks up at the condominiums where he knows Christian Newsome is living. He knows Vicky is sleeping with Christian but tries not to let it bother him, since it would be unreasonable to be angry with her given what he is doing.

The day after Halloween, Jane interviews Conrad Betancourt. She notices that he refers to Lauren not by name, but as his wife as if she were a possession or an object. Conrad tells them he was in the process of divorcing Lauren at the time of her murder. He has an alibi and had not seen her since September 11. He is also angry when they tell him Lauren was having an affair, though he himself was not faithful to her.

Jane and Andy realize that Lauren was lying on September 18 when she texted her affair partner to say her husband was there. They wonder what else she lied about.

Simon’s diary entry is dated October 18. He worries about doing right by Vicky and also pleasing Lauren, who wants him to file for divorce before the deadline. Lauren tells him that it’s his money, and he can always pay Vicky alimony out of his professor’s salary. She also reassures him that she doesn’t care about the money and wants what is best for him.

Simon lingers outside Lauren’s house, waiting for Conrad to leave. However, there is no sign of Conrad and Simon wonders where he’s gone. He tells himself it is not too late to stop what he’s doing with Lauren, but he knows that he won’t be able to stop. He remembers having sex with Lauren for the first time, the summer he worked at his father’s law firm. She invited him over for a birthday present and seduced him. He was thrilled and flattered by the attention, believing that she loved him. In the present, he compares his situation to a man rapidly approaching a cliff. If he goes through with it, his boring and safe life will change forever.

Vicky sits outside a ballroom at a fancy hotel, listening in to a secretly recorded conversation. Her friend Melanie is a sex worker, and Vicky has hired her to seduce a man and secretly record their encounter. During sex, he insults his wife. Afterward, Vicky pays Melanie and asks her to finish her college degree and leave sex work behind.

Lying in bed with Vicky, Christian reassures himself that he can keep the relationship under his control. However, he worries about whether Simon is capable of murder. Vicky tells him about Ted’s cheating and Glory’s death. She confesses that Simon killed his father and that she married Simon despite knowing this. She tells Christian that it’s his chance to run, but Christian tells her he trusts her and will stay for her sake. She whispers to him that no one has ever trusted her before.

In his diary, Simon recounts Lauren’s disappointment that he hasn’t told Vicky yet. He swears to her that he will, and the entry ends abruptly as he hears Vicky coming up the stairs.

Vicky shows Simon the video of Paul Southern and tells him he should use it to blackmail Paul directly, rather than involving the dean. Simon refuses because he thinks Paul is just trying to help his son, even if he’s going about it the wrong way. Unlike Simon, Vicky believes people are bad until proven otherwise and doesn’t see a problem in fighting fire with fire. Simon still loves the law and believes in the system, and he doesn’t want his job contaminated by blackmail. Vicky agrees to drop it, and Simon thinks wistfully that he loves her and will miss her when she leaves him.

In a diary entry dated October 20, Simon remembers telling Lauren that he wouldn’t file for divorce until after November 3. Lauren responded coldly and told him she needs time to think.

Simon is alone for the weekend because Vicky has gone to visit his nieces. He uses the time to check out Christian’s condominium and look for the points of entry into the building. He thinks about sneaking in, but decides it isn’t the time.

At her brother-in-law’s house, Vicky discusses moving in with him and her nieces. They reminisce about Monica, and Vicky is glad that he remembers her good points and not the woman struggling with addiction. She worries that she did not do enough to help her sister and feels responsible for her death.

The day after Halloween, Jane continues with interviews, speaking to Lauren’s circle of friends. Though they all knew she was getting a divorce, none of them had any knowledge of an affair. Reporting back to the chief, they can’t decide why Lauren kept her cards so close to her chest and didn’t talk about her lover with her friends. Another police officer hands them an old report on Lauren that involves Simon Dobias. Jane says she knew him a little from high school and remembers him as quiet and smart.

Simon writes a series of three diary entries in which he vacillates between resolving to tell Vicky right away and deciding that he can’t cut her off before November 3. In the last entry, he recounts a meeting with Lauren where she told him she was pregnant.

Simon draws up the divorce document between himself and Vicky. He thinks about how he proposed marriage to her and told her that he wanted children, but she told him she wasn’t right for him. He wishes that he had understood what she meant sooner, and feels sorry things turned out this way.

In a diary entry dated October 25, he tells Lauren that he is thrilled to be a father and that he will divorce Vicky before the deadline. He will divorce her and then tell her about the pregnancy, as Lauren suggests.

Vicky wakes up and is surprised to see that Simon has left without making coffee. She thinks that he must have been running late for class. She sees a green notebook on his desk next to his laptop but bypasses it to log into his computer. She already knows his password: “I_love_Vicky.”

Simon texts Lauren after class, telling her that soon they will have all the time in the world. He runs into the dean, who tries to use veiled threats about his past to discourage him from his job application. Simon tells the dean that he doesn’t have “the balls” to go up against him and that he should not underestimate Simon as an opponent.