“Ile Saint Sigo,” I finally manage to choke out. “I’m looking for my mother. She messaged me to transfer money to this guy’s Jax account, but I don’t have my computer.”
“Shorie,” Lowell says. “Slow down. And you’ve got to speak up. What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to get to your computer and transfer one hundred thousand—”
And then the line goes dead.
“Lowell!” I scream, but there’s no answer. I wave the phone over my head. “Lowell!” The signal’s dropped. Tears of frustration spring to my eyes. I want to scream, to bash my phone against a tree until it’s powder.
Now what?
I still myself, close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out, and try to collect my thoughts. I can do this. I have to. My mother’s depending on me.
Stop being a baby. Stop throwing a fit. Expecting somebody to ride to your rescue. You’re wasting time. You have to do something. Now.
You’re the only one who can save her.
I open my eyes. Turn to stare at the big house in the distance. Still myself and listen. Strains of trippy music and the occasional feminine “Woo-hoo!” drift from it across the fields. I don’t know who lives there, but whoever it is seems like they’re having a damn good time.
I hope they have a computer.
I ease open the heavy front door and slip into a wide hallway. It runs the entire length of the house, and at its far end, a massive staircase rises to an expansive landing where two young women are draped over an old-fashioned couch. They’re giggling hysterically, but neither even glances my way.
I don’t know whose house this is, or if they’re connected to Hidden Sands, but just in case, I’ve got my story ready. I puff out a couple of nervous breaths, then edge my way down the hall, peeking into each room. They’re all empty. I’m pushing open the last door on the right when it swings open, and a woman, not that much older than me, strides out. She is blonde and pretty and looks frazzled.
I smile brightly, and she stops.
“Can I help you?”
I keep my voice low. “Um, hi, yeah. I was wondering, would you mind if I hopped on your computer real quick? I just realized I forgot to send my housekeeper the new code to my lockbox, and my poor dog is trapped inside.”
The woman studies me. “What was your name again?”
“Adelia Kent.”
“Oh! Like on The Lighthouse!”
I blink. Whoops. I’d meant to say Foster, Dele’s real last name. “Ha. Right. Um, look, I know we’re not supposed to be on any devices, but, oh my God, my poor little puppers. He’s trapped.” My smile is starting to feel so fake that it’s painful.
“Zara!” someone shrieks from somewhere above us, “I’m waiting!”
The woman lets out an impatient huff, but she points to the open door. “Computer’s on the back desk. Make it quick. I’ll be right back.” She grins at me. “And don’t tell. They’ll kill me!”
52
ERIN
“Show me.”
Lach snaps his fingers for his phone.
“It’s going to take a minute. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
I’m staring at the phone. The Jax icon, specifically. The way the lowercase j seems to be edging off the yellow background into oblivion. It’s like I’m seeing the design for the first time. Really appreciating it. Perry, Ben, Sabine, and I had settled on the design for the app that same Christmas night. Drawn out a dozen iterations on Shorie’s old art easel. It was actually Shorie who had tied all the pieces together.
It should file your taxes for you, piped up her high, fifteen-year-old voice from under the nest of fuzzy blankets on the sofa. And you can call it Jax, because you get a jump on your taxes. She leapt up, and on the easel she sketched out the icon. A mustard-yellow box with the j floating off to the side. See? He’s just this humble little guy, off to the side, quietly doing all your dirty work.
We all stared, struck dumb by the perfectness of her proposal. I’d had another feeling too. One probably not that uncommon to mothers who are too busy, too tired, too pressed with things they think they need to do. It was intense shame and regret—because I’d had no idea how good my daughter was at design. I couldn’t remember anything she’d drawn or painted or created since she was little, only the AP classes of math and science, the math competitions, the computer club. An inexorable, determined march toward becoming Perry 2.0. But my little girl had so many hidden talents. I needed to pay closer attention. But I hadn’t. Not in the way I should have.
I know better now. If I survive this, I swear—I will be a better mother. I will pay attention.
Suddenly a little white bubble materializes on Lach’s phone.
$100,000.00 Transfer Pending, No Bank Account.
I yelp. Shorie got my message and she’s done it. I almost can’t believe it.
“It’s there?” Lach says.
I glance up at him, trying to keep my expression cheerful. “Essentially.”
He lowers the gun. “What do you mean, essentially?”
“The transfer can’t complete until you enter your bank data.”
“You said a hundred K, done.” His face has begun to transform from incredulity to fury.
“But when you suspended your Jax profile, Lach, it erased all your financial account information. It’s a basic security precaution.”
“Well, you built the app. Figure it out.”
I feel myself beginning to lose it and clench my fists. “I can’t just pull your financial information out of thin air, Lach. Neither can you, I suspect.”
“No deal then,” he says, and holds out his hand for the phone again.
“All you have to do is let me go, and you can go get your checkbook and enter the goddamn routing number in the blank space!”
“HAND IT OVER!” he roars, then chambers a bullet and aims the gun at my forehead. I push the phone at him. He places a call and puts it to his ear.
I hear something then. A low buzzing sound, far off in the distance. A four-wheeler or motorcycle, it sounds like. I strain my ears, wondering how close it is. I should run. But I’m frozen. And I can’t be sure he won’t just solve the situation by pulling the trigger and dropping me right where I stand.
“We’re at the crater,” Lach growls at the person on the other end of the line. “What’s it going to be? You going to help me out, or do I let her walk?”
I stand there, dumbly, the barrel of the gun pressing into my temple, listening to the whine grow louder. And then he angles his body toward mine and gazes down at me, a beatific smile lighting his face.
A smile.
“Thank you,” he says into the phone. To Antonia. Our eyes meet. “You won’t be sorry.”
“No,” I say. “How do you know she’s not lying . . .”
“I’ll call you when it’s done,” he says.
I put my hands up. “Please . . .”
He shakes his head, and I close my eyes. Hold my breath.
I tried. I really did.
I love you, Perry.
I love you, Shorie.
The buzzing-whining sound is suddenly loud and close. Just as we both turn toward it, a dusty yellow moped bounces over the rim and down into the crater. A teenage girl is driving it, one of her sneaker-clad feet dragging for balance in the dirt. Her long brown hair is streaming behind her, and she’s wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt.
She is screaming.
I start screaming too.
53
SHORIE
When the moped crests the hill, I become every single emotion all at once.
Because standing at the edge of this gray bubbling mud pool is my mom. And a tall surfer-looking guy with long blond hair, who is pointing a gun at her. I start to scream, and just as I do, I hear the engine skip like it’s going to stall out. I throttle up, the engine screaming, and head directly for them.
And then I’m screaming because I’m going to hit them; I can see it now. Even the surfer
guy, who’s turned around now, realizes it. What he doesn’t see is Mom lunge at him and shove him hard, right in the direction of the steaming pit.
I lean to the left and go into a slide, the moped slipping out from under me on the gray rocks. Mom leaps back as I slide right past her. Steam from the bubbling mud envelops me. I open my mouth, suck in a huge, scalding lungful of it, and let go of the moped. It spins out from under me as I flip myself over onto my stomach. I flail, grabbing handfuls of the loose gray dirt to stop myself from going into the pit.
Then another person’s screams replace mine.
54
ERIN
As Shorie and the moped slide together toward the sulfur pit, they kick up a cloud of gray dust, obscuring them from view. Everything slows down then, my thoughts crystallizing in a physically painful way.
I am the one who set all these events in motion. I summoned my daughter—my child who loved me and trusted me to always protect her, to always have her best interests at heart—to this island. But even before that, I’d been so selfish. I’d pushed her to keep going the way I did, insisting she go to school, brushing aside her pleas for my attention. And now I was about to watch her die.
All of this is my fault.
I sprint toward her, every cell, every building block that makes up my body, reaching for Shorie. Every day of my life, since the first moment that I held her, since I looked into her baby face, when I dried her tears when she was six, when I watched her draw that simple icon on her easel. The silent ride home the night Perry left us, the hours we cried, each of us hidden away in our separate rooms. Even the screaming match at the fraternity house—it has all led to this moment.
She’s so close now, within a couple of feet of me. I can see her perfect Shorie hair, her freckled face and hazel eyes the same color as Perry’s. They are fastened on me, full of all the hope and belief that a daughter has for her mother. Full of love.
I dive, a spectacularly awkward, Pete Rose headfirst thing, reaching for my daughter. But she reaches too, and our hands meet and clasp, just as the bike splashes into the mud. We scramble away from the pool and bear crawl up the slope, finally collapsing in the dust and rocks at the top.
By then, I can hear Lach’s high, staccato screams ripping through the air.
55
PERRY’S JOURNAL
Monday, March 18
TO DO:
Set up meeting with Sabine—Global Cybergames issue / next step?
Drinks with Roy @ Epic—Columbus, GA—3/20, 8pm
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken . . .
(for Erin and Shorie, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, no constraint because it’s too damn perfect already)
56
SHORIE
Using my phone’s spotty GPS to guide us toward the ferry terminal, Mom and I head through the jungle. As we go, I tell her everything I know about Sabine and Arch. How they’ve been carrying on a secret relationship for years and stealing money from Jax so they can run off together. How Ben figured it out, but that he seemed unsure how to handle Sabine, maybe even reluctant to blow the whistle on her. And how he definitely didn’t want me involved.
“Does Gigi know?” she asks.
“I don’t think so.”
Just as I can see the glint of water through the trees, a river it looks like, Mom puts her hand on my arm.
“What?” I whisper, but she doesn’t answer.
“Nice to see you all,” comes a voice from the wall of leaves, and then a woman steps out, like the star actor from behind a stage curtain in a Broadway play.
She’s blonde, tall, and pretty and wearing a sleek all-black hiking ensemble. Her hair is braided in this really complicated crown around her head. She has a gun holstered under her arm.
“Antonia—” Mom says.
The woman whips a walkie from her shorts. “I’ve got them,” she says crisply. “By the river.”
Mom puts her hand on my back.
A man’s voice scratches back on the woman’s walkie. “Copy.”
She looks at me. “Hi there. What’s your name?”
“Don’t speak to my daughter,” Mom says.
“Shorie,” I answer.
“Shorie,” she says. “I’m Antonia Erdman. Owner and operator of Hidden Sands. So nice to meet you.”
“Antonia,” Mom cuts in. “It’s over. Let us go.”
“And I’m so sorry to hear about your father.”
I don’t answer.
“I think he’d be impressed with what you’ve done today. What you’ve tried to do.” She smiles. “Did you know, Shorie, that when my father turned Hidden Sands over to me, it was almost bankrupt? It was; then I took over and came up with the idea to turn it into a new kind of rehab. A restoration. I’m the one who came up with the L’Élu challenge, then L’Élu II. And finally, our premium service, L’Élu III.”
I don’t have to ask what she’s talking about. I wasn’t on Zara’s computer for more than a few minutes, but it was long enough for me to see everything I needed. What’s weird is that she’s bragging about it.
“We’ve had sixteen women participate in L’Élu III. That’s sixteen problems, solved. Your mother and the other woman are the only ones who’ve ever given us a hint of trouble.”
“If you want to talk,” Mom snaps, “talk to me.”
Antonia regards her. Unholsters her gun and examines it. “All right, Erin, let’s talk. I see you got away from my brother.”
“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.
Until the Day I Die Page 27