The Love Scam - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,79

slamming his hands palms down on the desk, and glaring straight into Kovac’s eyes. “Your grubby brigade of fucksticks was gonna snatch my daughter?”

“I told you, he was only supposed to talk to her.” This in the tone of a man mildly inconvenienced by a waiter bringing the wrong order, instead of facing off with six feet three inches and 195 pounds of irked Tarbell. “But you put an end to that quick enough.”

“If you ever come near my—”

“Yeah, yeah, vengeance will be yours. Hell, vengeance was yours. The guy you upchucked all over has been sick as fuck ever since.”

“Good. When it comes to gastroenteritis, I like to share the wealth.” Rake straightened and stepped back from the desk. “And there’s plenty more where that came from if you guys get any other moronic ideas.”

“It’s his superpower!” Delaney said brightly.

“Consider me horrified.” Then, to Delaney: “So, sunshine. About this letter—”

“She only talked about the flash drive. There weren’t any instructions on how to find it or what to do with it.”

“So what’s the point? Why bother writing anything?” Kovac asked, scowling.

“You are a sociopath, aren’t you?”

“That’s what my therapist says,” he admitted.

“I’d try to explain why a letter that doesn’t lead to figurative buried treasure is worth writing, but you wouldn’t get it.”

“Do it anyway.”

Forty-eight

Delaney—

So running away didn’t work. Which you told me would happen, but since you’re insufferable when you’re right, that’s all I’m gonna say about it.

I wasn’t even looking, that’s the stupid part. I hadn’t for years, ever since I renounced our family “tradition” after my come-to-Jesus moment with Rake Tarbell in fucking Venice, of all places.

And it wasn’t too bad, me and Lillith pretending to be citizens. After a while, it didn’t feel like we were pretending. But then I smelled a fat rat and it was like when we were kids and we just had to snoop.

I volunteered. That’s it. That’s why I’m in this mess—except I was always going to be in this mess, it just took me the better part of a decade to fall. There was a major fire at the church and they were running fund-raisers to fix the nave and the meeting house and I was helping out the office gals, all that filing and refiling and asking for new financial statements to replace what they lost, pretty boring shit, and then I thought some of the statements looked … off. So I poked. And then I asked. And the church ladies were all “Oh, no worries, Mr. Kovac takes care of that and he’s a brilliant investor who’s always moving money around and we don’t really understand it but he gets results,” and I don’t have to tell you how many alarm bells that set off in my brain.

Old habits die never, which is why I didn’t call a cop. And tell you what, kiddo, you coulda cracked this guy’s files with your eyes closed and your thumbs broken. That’s how easy it was. He is into a ton of shit and I think he got overconfident. Scratch that—I know he did. This isn’t even the first church he scammed—he got his start in Europe. In fact, he’s going back to Italy in the next few months.

I didn’t squeeze him.

I thought about it, and if I was still living for myself, I probably would have, just for the pure joy of fucking with a scammer, but I’m out of practice and there was Lillith to think of. I put the bomb back in the box and got the hell out of there—how’s that for a what do you call it, a metaphor? Except I’m worried snooping sped up the countdown. And that it’ll blow before I can get us clear.

So I didn’t squeeze him, but I did make copies—like Ellen says, a little CYA goes a long way. Something like that, I dunno, ’cause when Ellen starts with the acronyms, I tune out.

Anyway. We’re going. No idea if this guy’s got software on his system that’ll tell him if someone’s been peeking, and I won’t take a chance. Not with Lillith to think of. I’m setting up a fail-safe if, God forbid, something happens to me, I’ve got the drive in a safe space, I’ve pulled my savings, which are also in a safe space, and I’m sending you all the info I pulled on the Tarbell family back in the day when the plan was to scam and leave town, not get knocked up with a baby