Page 35 of The Perfect Deception
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Because there were fifteen couples involved in the swaps, it took an hour after Ryan’s direction before they finally hit on something more useful than titillating stories about the residents.
“Who’s this guy?”Jessie asked, holding up the paper file for an attractive man in his late twenties.
“Oh, that’s just Tommy.”Prager waved her hand dismissively.
“Who is Tommy?”Jessie pressed.“He’s part of this swap network but it doesn’t look like he’s married or even lives in Lafayette Square.”
Prager sighed, as if annoyed that she even had to explain herself.“Tommy is Thomas Golden.He’s part of an experiment that I started in the last six months.”
“What experiment?”Ryan put down the file he was reading.
The woman smiled, seemingly excited to share.
“I hit on this idea while I was talking to him at the gym—Tommy’s a personal trainer.”Prager got increasingly enthusiastic as she went on.“He was telling me about how he was pretty new to L.A.and the whole social scene here.He said he wanted to get married one day but found it hard to meet people easily.Plus he was nervous that marriage might not be for him.That’s when the lightbulb went off.”
She stopped to take a sip of her coffee, clearly hoping they’d take the bait.Jessie was happy to.
“What lightbulb?”
“I thought—what if I could expand these swaps so it wasn’t just about couples?What if I could give a bachelor like Tommy the experience of married life?He could swap places with a married man and immerse himself in the world of domesticity.Meanwhile, the husband could, for a little while, go back to the single life, without all the attendant responsibilities.So, I asked around to see if folks might be interested.A few were.Tommy was into it too, so he became my guinea pig.”
Jessie fought back the urge to demand why Prager hadn’t mentioned this earlier.A guy who was new to town, didn’t have the same level of wealth as the couples he’d be interacting with, and was a trainer who likely had a fair bit of strength?That sounded like a potential suspect to her.
As she took a screenshot of the first page of his file to send to Jamil, Ryan asked the obvious next question.
“Did Golden ever have swaps with any of the victims?”
“I think so.The file should say.”
Jessie handed it to her and she flipped to the third page.
“Here it is.”She pointed to some chicken scratch that Jessie couldn’t understand.“He had swaps with both the Troppers and the Maplewoods, but nothing with the Dominiks or the Patels.”
It wasn’t the slam dunk that Jessie was hoping for, but if Golden was their killer, maybe he’d had some other interaction with the latter two couples that set him off.
“I hope you’re not thinking that Tommy could be responsible for this.”Prager looked genuinely appalled at the idea.“He’s a total sweetheart.”
“We have to consider it,” Ryan said.“He’s connected to two victims.”
“Not that I think anyone I recruited could do this, but he’s just not the type.”
“Not the murdering type?”Ryan said drily.“You feel like you could tell the difference?”
Before Prager could reply, Jessie jumped in.
“Wait, you just said ‘anyone I recruited.’Are there other single people doing this for you?”
“A few.”
“How many?”
Prager thought about it for a moment.“One other man and three women.”
“Have any of them been with these couples?”Ryan asked.
“I’d have to check, but I think a few, yes.”
