“Maureen always found a way to tap into what you needed. One evening after we began dating, I casually mentioned that when I was a kid I loved watching shows where good things happened to people. You know, like when Oprah gave all those people a car, or some TV show paid off someone’s medical bills. A week later, Maureen shows up at my apartment and says we’re going on an adventure. She takes me to the Times Square subway station and hands me a stack of pre-loaded MetroCards. It must have been ten thousand dollars in cards. ‘Hand them out to whoever you want,’ she said. I couldn’t get over it. Another time she hosted a party for these kids at this cancer charity she volunteered with. Brought in rescue puppies to play with the kids. God, you should’ve seen the smiles on their faces. She lived and breathed joy and excitement, and I knew six months in I was going to marry her. She seemed so good and pure and unconcerned with labels. She married a nobody with less than ten thousand dollars to his name. It wasn’t until later I discovered that Maureen fed off that stuff. She loved the underdog. She targeted them. She was relentless in her approach. Flattery along with a steady stream of presents and all kinds of adventures she’d planned. What I like to call a full-blown charm offensive. It was intoxicating. The trouble began when someone resisted her efforts. It made her even more determined to win them over. The more they resisted, the harder she worked to bend them to her will.”

“And if they didn’t bend?” Becca asked, though she already knew the answer.

“She broke them,” Paul said matter-of-factly.

“Is that why you left New York?” Becca asked.

Paul took another hit from the joint. “Yeah, only I thought we were moving here to keep her safe. You see, a few days after I’d taken the bar exam, Maureen comes home in tears and explains that a girl from work had become obsessed with her. She said she was making trouble at work. I understood how someone could become obsessed with Maureen. I know I was. There was talk of the police getting involved. Maureen’s father’s eventually intervened and that talk ended, but she was so on edge. My mom’s health wasn’t great, and we’d talked about starting a family. I suggested we move back to LA, and Maureen agreed. It seemed like the right move for both of us.”

“And it was?”

“For a while things were good.”

“Mr. Wilson, I’m trying to understand Maureen’s mental state. What were those early years with Aidan like?”