He Started It(91)

Either way this goes, we’re screwed and Eddie wins. If he kills us, Nikki gets the blame. If we try to screw him, he’ll use that evidence to claim one of us killed her. Turns out he’s the smart one.

Portia crosses her arms and sticks her chin out, just like Nikki used to do. “Fine. You fucker.”

We’re at end of the trip, and I won’t get any money. My husband is dead and so is Nikki. Nothing left to do but shrug. “Take the money,” I say.

“Phone,” Eddie says to Portia. “Now.”

Portia tosses her phone. It skims across the dirt and lands near his feet. Eddie picks it up and says, “Code.”

She hesitates.

“Code,” he says again. He no longer sounds like Dad, he sounds like Grandpa.

She gives it to him and he swipes through the phone, deleting the e-mail she had set up to go to the IRS. He hands it to Krista, who smiles and puts it in her pocket without asking what it’s all about.

Interesting.

“Perfect, perfect. See how easy that was? No one has to die today,” Eddie says.

“Oh baby,” Krista says, looking up at him with those big brown eyes. “You’re wrong about that.”

Eddie tries to answer but doesn’t get the chance. Krista is too quick. She reaches behind her, pulling the gun out of the waistband of her shorts. It happens so fast I almost miss it.

Krista shoots Eddie in the head.





His body drops with a thump. It feels like the ground shakes beneath my feet, making me queasy.

Krista turns to us. Her face is splattered with blood.

Eddie’s body is right here, still warm, and I can’t help but think he deserved it.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Portia says. She covers her face with her hands and keeps saying that like a mantra. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

We’re going to die. Krista is going to shoot both of us.

I can’t speak, but if I could, I would tell Krista to shoot me first. For selfish reasons. I don’t want to see Portia die.

“Sorry, ladies,” Krista says, walking closer to us. “Well, actually I’m not sorry, because you’re both horrible. You really shouldn’t have been so mean to me on the trip. Although it wouldn’t have saved you, and I’d have to kill you anyway because you both just saw what I did, and damned if I’m going to trust you to keep your mouth shut.”

“Wait,” Portia says.

“But if you had been nicer,” Krista says. “The last words you hear wouldn’t be fuck you.”

Krista shoots Portia in the head.

Executed. We’re being executed.

I step back out of instinct, out of some base-level desire to live. I step back because that’s what you do when someone points a gun at your head.

I make myself stop. No running, no trying to talk her out of it, no attempt to grab the gun. Instead, I stare at her, this woman I don’t even recognize. The one with blood on her face and dirt brown eyes. There are no gold flecks in them now.

The real Krista.

This was her plan. All along, this is what she was going to do. “You were going to kill us no matter what we agreed to,” I say. “Even Eddie. He was always going to die.”

Krista smiles.

“The money,” I say. “You just want the money.”

“Damn straight I want it. Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up so poor that people laugh when you walk by?”

I shake my head no.

“I do. I know what it’s like to wear clothes that don’t fit because everything came from a charity box. Or to be so hungry, a piece of bread is practically a meal.” She stops for a second, taking a deep breath. “As soon as I realized your asshole of a brother would gamble everything away, I had to kill him. To kill all of you. Opportunities like this don’t come around more than once.”

She’s right, they don’t. I almost hope she gets away with it. She would do more with the money than any of us would have.

I just don’t think she’ll get the chance.

“One thing,” I say. “Just do one last thing.”

Krista stares at me, waiting.

What I should tell her is that although she may get away with blaming Nikki for a while, it won’t last forever. Richard Jewell was exonerated for everything. Even NBC News had to pay him for what Tom Brokaw said.

The same thing will happen to her.

It may have seemed like a brilliant plan at first, but it won’t work for long. If I were a gambler like my brother, I’d bet the police would figure it out in less than a week. All it will take is one slip, one camera that caught Krista without her wig on—better yet, putting the wig on—and she’ll be done. Maybe Netflix will even make a show about it.

I don’t tell her any of this. One way or the other, she’ll know soon enough.

But I do have something to say.

“Tell my mother I never stopped looking,” I say. “Please.” It sounds like I’m begging because I am.

Krista says nothing, not one word. Her finger tightens on the trigger.

I close my eyes and wait for the silence. I’m ready for it.

Here we are, at the end, and we still don’t know who the heroine is. You’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.