“That’s impossible. I would have known.”
“She changed her name and created a new identity. David, her attorney told me this afternoon. She’s not who you think she is.”
I heard Nathan crying in the background, and David’s voice became muffled as he tried to comfort his son while processing the information that his wife was a stranger.
“Mom, how do you know this? How can this be true?”
“Her attorney told me she has been blackmailed by her ex-husband, a man named Marcus Webb, who is also a professional criminal. She has been stealing from our family and sending half the money to him to keep him quiet about her past.”
The crying in the background stopped, and I could hear David moving around, probably trying to find somewhere private to continue the conversation.
“Jesus Christ. Mom, are you sure about this?”
“David, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Jessica has been lying to you about everything since the day you met. Her background. Her family situation. Her reasons for moving to Colorado. All of it.”
“But I met her parents. I talked to her sister.”
“Did you? Or did you meet people she introduced as her parents and sister?”
Another long pause.
I could practically hear David’s world crashing down around him.
“Mom, what am I supposed to do with this information?”
“You need to protect yourself and Nathan. If Jessica has been living under a false identity, there could be financial implications, legal problems, immigration issues—”
“Immigration issues?”
“David, you don’t know who she really is. You have no idea what other secrets she’s hiding.”
“I need to confront her.”
“She’s in federal custody. You can’t just show up and demand answers.”
“Then I need to hire my own attorney. I need to find out what else she’s lied about.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“Mom, if this is all true—if she’s been lying about everything—then Nathan and I are both victims of her fraud.”
“Yes, you are.”
“She made me complicit in excluding you from Nathan’s birth. She made me choose sides between my wife and my mother when I should have been protecting both of you from her lies.”
“David, you couldn’t have known.”
“But I should have questioned it when she insisted you couldn’t be at the hospital. When she kept making excuses for why you couldn’t visit, I should have realized something was wrong.”
I heard the pain in his voice and wished I could take it away.
But David needed to understand the full scope of what Jessica had done to this family.
“There’s something else, David.”
“What?”
“According to her attorney, Jessica is more afraid of you discovering her past than she is of going to prison. She would rather serve twenty years than have you know who she really is.”
“Well, it’s too late for that now.”
“David, I want you to think about something. If Jessica has been stealing from family members and sending money to her ex-husband, what else has she been lying about? Your finances. Your legal status as a married couple. Nathan’s paternity.”
“Mom, don’t. I can’t even think about that right now.”
“I know it’s horrible, but you need to consider every possibility. You need to protect yourself and Nathan.”
After hanging up with David, I sat in my quiet house thinking about how many lives Jessica had destroyed with her lies.
Not just the six family members she had stolen from, but David, who had married a stranger. Nathan, who had been born into a web of deception. And even Jessica’s fake family, whoever they really were, who had been playing roles in her elaborate fiction.
My phone rang again.
Agent Chen.
“Mrs. Martinez, I just got some interesting information from Jessica’s attorney. Apparently she has been cooperative about providing details on her accomplice, Marcus Webb—her ex-husband. According to Jessica, Webb has been running similar blackmail schemes against other women across the western states. She’s agreed to provide evidence against him in exchange for consideration at sentencing.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Financial records, communication logs, details about his other victims. If Jessica’s information leads to Webb’s arrest, it could significantly affect her own sentence.”
“Agent Chen, can I ask you something? Did you know about Jessica’s criminal record in Oregon?”
“We discovered that during our background investigation, yes. Jessica Martinez isn’t her real name.”
“What is her real name?”
“Jennifer Webb. She was married to Marcus Webb when she committed her first series of identity theft crimes in Oregon. Their divorce was part of a plea agreement in which she testified against him, but he was acquitted on a technicality.”
Jennifer Webb.
My daughter-in-law’s real name was Jennifer Webb, and she had been lying about her identity for the entire five years she had been married to David.
“Agent Chen, what happens to my son legally? If his wife has been living under a false identity, is their marriage even legal?”
