She had spent the next week checking facts instead of asking him for more stories. The penthouse at Harborview Tower was a furnished monthly rental, not a property he'd bought or leased through a business. Its charges appeared on a credit card in their names, a card she made payments on from her nursing salary. She pulled up a statement and pointed to the recurring rental charge, which included services and parking far beyond what their own household could comfortably afford. James had described it as an expense covered by investors. The investors existed only in his conversations.
"And the wine bar?" I asked.
She gave me a look that combined exhaustion with an anger so steady it frightened me. She'd contacted the city and checked the public records. There was no liquor-license application associated with James or his company at the Fourth Street address, no relevant permit approval, and no lease she could find. When she drove by the storefront, a faded FOR RENT sign hung inside the glass. A real-estate agent confirmed the unit had been available for months and no agreement had been executed for it.
"He takes pictures outside it," Rachel said. "He sends them to me and the kids. He tells Lily the yellow wall is where he's going to put pictures she draws. He tells me he's meeting a contractor there, and all the time he's standing outside a place he doesn't even rent."
I thought of Clare telling me that James had actual dreams. It occurred to me that James's dreams might have had no cost to him at all, because he financed them with other people's belief. Clare's excitement suddenly seemed almost painful in its innocence, except that she had also made deliberate choices that hurt me. Two truths could exist at once. She was being deceived, and she had deceived me.
Rachel had found another name in old records while preparing for her divorce: Megan. Two years earlier, Megan had been recently divorced and received a settlement. James had convinced her to put sixty thousand dollars toward a food-truck venture, promising ownership and repayment from future profits. There was no truck. Rachel said James had described the failure as a foolish business mistake when it first surfaced, and she had chosen to believe him because she didn't want their children growing up in a family broken by one bad investment.
"Did Megan ever get any of it back?" I asked.
"Not that I've found. She stopped returning his calls. I don't blame her. He was angry with her for months afterward, always saying she lacked vision and couldn't understand how businesses worked."