Until the Day I Die(91)

“Perceptive of you,” Mom says.

“I have something to say,” I interject.

“I gave you a chance,” Antonia continues, addressing Mom. “I offered you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“And I told you, you can shove your opportunity up your sleazy, grifting, murdering, Executive Barbie ass,” Mom snaps.

“I have something to say!” I shout.

Antonia raises her arm, points her gun at my mother, and ever so coolly squeezes the trigger. The jungle explodes with sound and light, but Mom doesn’t fall. She just crouches over, holding her ear. It happens so fast I don’t even scream, and it takes me a minute to realize she only shot in the air, inches from Mom’s ear.

Antonia swings the gun back to me and tilts her head thoughtfully. “Next one’s for real, okay?”

I’m shaking again, so violently now, I’m not sure how long I can keep myself upright. But I have to speak. “I have something to tell you. About your Jax account.”

“My what?”

“I mean Hidden Sands’ Jax account.”

“What do you know about Hidden Sands’ Jax?”

“Oh my God,” Mom says.

“What the fuck did you do?” Antonia’s face looks like a thundercloud.

“Shorie.” Mom’s straightened, and although she’s still holding her ear, she’s staring at me. “What did you do?”

“Just check your phone,” I say to Antonia.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket. Taps, then squints at the screen.

“I just played around with the settings,” I say. “Changed a few things.”

“You hacked into my account?” Antonia says.

“Oh, Shor.” Mom’s eyes are wide, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips.

“You sullen little piece of suburban shit! You hacked me!”

“I didn’t,” I say simply. “Your employee, Zara, enabled the integrated password-saving setting on your computer, and I just opened it. You should really tell your team not to do that. It leaves your company vulnerable to all sorts of attacks.”

Mom laughs.

“What did you do?” growls Antonia.

I glance at Mom. “It was Dad’s idea, one from his last journal. A new feature he was considering, making merchant accounts public. I switched Hidden Sands to a customer account and made all its transactions public. It was pretty easy, then, to import everything from the files—your accounts payable and receivable and entire client list. And the link to your secret Landscaping file. Every fake company you’ve done business with, how much you pay them, and how much they pay you—I made every bit of it public.”

Her face has gone gray.

“I also requested a few connections with a handful of key people. The US attorney general. Owner of the Washington Post. Somebody in the FBI’s organized crime unit. Because they’re really good at exposing shell companies. And murder for hire.”

Antonia hurls the phone at me. I must be coursing with adrenaline, because I catch it. And then—I can’t help it—I grin. Which is stupid, I know, an utterly boneheaded move, because this walking piece of filth nearly shot my mother and I’m pretty sure she’d love to shoot me.

So let her, I think. Let her do her fucking worst.

Dropping my hand back, I picture her head as a lacrosse goal, then whip the phone back at her, aiming directly for her head.





57

ERIN

The phone hits Antonia so hard on the temple, her head snaps back. She curses and stumbles sideways, clutching at her head. It’s just the window we need.

We go together, hands clasped, crashing through the trees and underbrush toward the glinting river. I hear Antonia behind us, but I think we got a decent enough head start to make it to the waterfall before her. But then what do we do when we get there? Jump?

“Erin, I’m warning you!” Antonia screams behind us. A shot booms, then another, one hitting the tree beside me, splintering the wood. We duck our heads reflexively, but we keep running.

And then, as we near the river, something strange happens. An idea occurs simultaneously to us both—an unspoken but perfectly clear understanding between us—and we stop.

Our eyes meet, and I take in the beautiful sight that is my daughter. Her face is flushed and dirty, hair frizzed in the humidity. Her eyes glow with something, adrenaline or resolve. She smiles at me, and I smile back, and I realize what we are both thinking.

“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,” she says.

I nod to show I understand. And I approve. My daughter never did like waiting for somebody to find her. She’s so much like me. We are so much like each other.





58

SHORIE

Our hands release, and Mom and I separate, each of us circling back to find a big enough tree to hide behind.

Please, please, please, please, I think as the sound of Antonia’s footsteps grows louder. Please let this work.

I am praying, in a weird way. To my father, to my mother, to Gigi and Ben and Rhys and Dele. I’m asking for help. And hoping that when all this is over, in spite of everything, I will still have a family. Because, I realize now, family is the only thing that matters.

And then she comes into view, doing this mincing jog down the hill, blonde braids a halo in the sun. She’s holding the gun straight out in front of her, cop-style, but she’s got her eyes down, on the path in front of her. Behind my tree, I’m coiled—ready to go, just like I know Mom is—and when Antonia is inches from crossing the invisible line that connects the two of us, we let out bloodcurdling screams and spring at her.