Until the Day I Die(52)

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Deirdre says.

In answer, he pulls a gun from the back of his waistband—a gleaming black pistol that looks like something a cop might carry, except it has an extralong barrel. He points it at her.

“Antonia says all clear,” he drawls. “All the mango and banana farmers are in their little houses, tucked into their comfy beds. We’re finally alone.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Jess says.

That’s not a long barrel. It’s a silencer. Instinctively I take a step toward Deirdre.

“Bonne nuit, Dee Dee,” Lach says simply. Then one shot, a muffled thwack that sounds like nothing more than a firecracker, splits the air, and Deirdre drops to the dirt. I dart to her and fall to my knees, my hands out. Then I feel something warm and wet spurt onto me. It trickles down my chin, and I swipe at it, knowing what it is before I touch it. When I look at Deirdre I see blood arc up from her chest in short intervals. It’s in time to her heartbeat, I realize, sick to my stomach. He hit her artery.

Everything around us slows—the droning of the jungle, the flames dancing under the moon, the sound of Jessalyn’s voice. She’s on her knees, too, on the other side of Deirdre, hands all over her, screaming something I can’t decipher. My body is frozen and so is my brain, and now Deirdre’s blood is spurting in lower arcs.

She’s dying.

There was no one to watch Perry die. He was alone . . .

Lach points the gun at Jess. And then I hear a second thwack, and the screaming stops. She goes down, just like Deirdre.

I leap up and step back. One step, two, then three. The fire spits and hisses, and Lach’s gun swings around to me. I think, No, no, no, no, no, and time stops. His pale gaze holds mine. He doesn’t smile, only looks deep in thought.

A moan. He points the gun down at the ground just beside the fire, where Deirdre is lying. The third thwack makes me jump.

Then, in a flash, Jessalyn is scrambling to her feet, running toward me. She yanks my shirt, nearly pulling me over, and screams at me to run. I do. I run straight into the jungle, Jessalyn crashing through the trees beside me. Behind us I hear Lach’s gun, firing shot after muffled shot.





28

SHORIE

“Let me get this straight. You noticed something off in your parents’ company’s servers, and so you installed spyware in a Jax user’s account? And now you think they’re stealing money?”

Rhys is studying my phone intently, his legs splayed out on a saggy oversize chair in the main room of his house. It’s dark out, Rhys’s living room lit by a lone lopsided lamp. Outside on the porch, moths party around the fanlights. As much as I like the idea of being alone with Rhys in his house at night, we’re not. Lowell’s back in the bedroom, tallying up the week’s reports.

Back at the restaurant, I’d grappled with the idea of confiding in Rhys without any proof that he was trustworthy. It was a risk, no doubt. But ultimately—even though I wasn’t completely convinced that Ben or Sabine hadn’t hired him to keep an eye on me—I decided to go for it. I had a couple of reasons. One: he seemed like someone who could handle big situations. He reminded me a little of Mom in that way. And two: pheromones.

“Embezzling, to be more precise,” I say. “I think it’s an employee.”

“Really? Who?”

“I don’t know. We don’t have access to identities on our servers, just anonymous UUID numbers.”

“It’s such a ballsy move,” Rhys says. Which is something, considering what he does.

“You know,” comes a voice from the end of the hallway. It’s Lowell, dressed in an old bowling shirt and straw fedora. “Somebody did this with an Indian IT firm recently, the CFO. The technical word for it is defalcation. Basically, the updated version of a bank teller taking five to ten bucks from hundreds, even thousands of large customer deposits. Obviously, there’s a bigger payoff with as many accounts as Jax has . . . but because they’re microtransactions, hardly anyone notices.”

Rhys hands back my phone. “Private conversation, Lowell.”

“Sorry.” He hands Rhys a sheaf of printouts. “Milady.”

“Is that the only way they do it?” I say.

Lowell looks thoughtful. “They could also make up a fake company and charge small amounts through Jax that people don’t notice when they go through their monthly charges. So many people don’t review their charges carefully, especially if the balances are only off by a few cents.”

“So who would do something like that?” Rhys asks.

“I’m not sure. Somebody who can code.”

Lowell settles on the opposite end of the sofa from me, and a cloud of dust poofs up around him. “So, who on staff at Jax can code?”

Scotty. Or Ben.

I sigh. “Well, some better than others, obviously. But most everybody, to some extent.” I think of Hank. “Some of the interns. The new database guy. For all I know it could be the guy who delivers lunch.”

“Shorie, do you think your dad had any clue about this—before he died? About the skimming?”

“If he did, he would’ve made a note of it. In the last journal he kept, the March one. But it’s missing.”

Both of them bolt upright so fast, it’s almost comical.