Page 15 of He Had It Coming

Until now. Because I was going to force him to.

“Are we done with family hour?” Though, honestly, I could listen to these two snipe at each other all day. If I didn’t have a schedule and a strict plan to follow, I might do just that. I needed to move this along to its inevitable conclusion. “Not that your mutual dismissive greeting wasn’t moving in a demented sort of way.”

“Fuck you.” Jerek grounded out the phrase. Sounded pretty pissed off while doing it.

Well, he could join the club. Unrestrained fury was my full-time job. “You know, it’s a shame you couldn’t finish out at NYU. Maybe your vocabulary would be more impressive.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Maeve made the declaration.

She acted like I worked for her. Apparently, that sort of conceit ran rampant in the Hayes’ DNA. “For what?”

Her steely expression faltered a bit. “I . . . why is he tied up? Why are you even here? You live on the East Coast.”

“Nice of you to notice.” The whole Hayes clan watched my comings and goings with unblinking fascination. But not every move, which they’d soon discover.

Jerek swore under his breath this time. “Maeve, think it through. Sabrina is Anonymous. She’s been threatening me, just like I told you.”

Back to this. “Look, I’ve read the posts. I’m definitely an Anonymous fan.”

“Sabrina thinks she’s clever,” he said.

I considered myself more determined than smart. A woman who wallowed in hatred while people who didn’t know me, never knew Ruby, talked about my need to show forgiveness for my own sake. As if it was my responsibility to grant Jerek penance.

They should try to sell that crap to my parents. Oh, right. They couldn’t. Dad died of a heart attack two years after Ruby was murdered. Mom ran her car into a tree fifteen months ago and never woke up again. Her third attempt at the maneuver.

The first happened right after she lost my dad. That time she said she’d lost everything and had no reason to go on. Forget me, I guess. The fact she lasted as many years as she did while steeped in heartache and drenched in pain was a miracle.

Her passing left me as the last one to carry on the family legacy of unfulfilled retribution.

I’d get there. Soon. Then I’d worry about the “after”—a concept that seemed so foreign, so impossible, that I didn’t tackle it now. I needed all of my energy for the task at hand.

“Those Anonymous posts continue to go up, by the way.” I wanted him to know that his life unspooled without his being there to stop it. “You’ve missed a few today.”

“An interesting choice on your part.” Jerek flashed a smile that suggested his overconfidence had hit expert levels. “That will make tracking your digital footprint even easier for the police. Maybe the FBI will step in on this one.”

“Such big talk.” He really was mediocre. Just a rambling mess, overinflated ego, rampant arrogance, and obvious incompetency. No wonder his daddy tried to pretend he didn’t exist. “It’s a shame you have no idea what any of those words mean or how any of that works.”

Maeve stood up. “I’m going to—”

“Sit.” I aimed the knife in her general direction. “You’re going to be still and stay quiet unless I ask you to speak or I will tie you up, too. Understood?”

“Help!” Jerek yelled and kept yelling.

“Again with this?” I pressed the tip of the knife against his leg, just above his knee. Not enough to break skin but sufficient for his voice to cut off with a yelp. “Should have done that sooner, I guess.”

“We’re on the water. There’s no one around except maybe another boat,” Maeve said.

I smiled at the way Jerek’s face drained of color at that bit of news.

“I do love this part of San Diego.” I ducked and pretended to look out the side window on the upper part of the wall. “Pretty day for a ride, don’t you think? There were a lot of people at Cabrillo National Monument. You could see them up on the hill as we passed a while ago. Well, I could. Neither of you were awake.”

Jerek frowned. “Who is driving the boat?”

He had a habit of asking the wrong questions. I answered anyway. “We’re anchored. Thought that was obvious.”

He looked like he was trying to figure out how much of what I said was true and what wasn’t as he glanced at Maeve. “How did you get on the yacht? Answer me this time and skip the work lecture.”

“Now, that’s a smart inquiry. Good job.” I lifted the knife. Let him enjoy a few seconds of freedom, illusory as it was. Using the tip more as a pointer than a weapon, I waved for Maeve to proceed. “You can answer.”