by them to get to it. Did she go outside with the food?
The woman is a total nut job.
“J.R., I’m going to keep asking until you tell me what the hell you mean,” Kenzie says. “You just said five hundred thousand dollars, when all we’re expecting is the two fifty Derek said he’d pay, a hundred of which is mine. I’m no math wizard, but that doesn’t add up.”
J.R. rubs his face and lets out a sigh. “Marin paid Julian two hundred and fifty thousand to have you killed. When she found out about you, she wanted you gone, and I told her I knew a guy.”
“Excuse me?” Kenzie sits with this for a minute. Her instincts were right all along—Marin did know about her and Derek. Showing up in a drunken rage to embarrass her in front of the neighbors like Paul’s wife did is one thing; paying to have Kenzie murdered is on a whole different level of crazy, well beyond what anyone could consider a reasonable reaction to marital infidelity. Fucking insane, all of them. “And she actually gave him the money?”
“Relax,” J.R. says. “You were never in danger, obviously. But yeah, she hired him, or at least she thought she did. Julian and I were supposed to split it.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Kenzie asks in disbelief. “Or even offer me a cut of the … blood money?”
He doesn’t answer, which tells her everything she needs to know.
“So then you used me,” she says. “When I told you about Derek, all you could see was a payday and a way to get Marin back. You sonofabitch.” She laughs bitterly. “I can’t believe you conned a sad, grieving woman out of a quarter of a million dollars. She’s supposed to be your friend, J.R. You know what, I hope Julian takes off and doesn’t give you a fucking dime. Because I don’t know who the bigger sucker is, me or you.”
He moves toward her, fist raised, but this time she doesn’t flinch. Instead, she remains seated, looking up at him, as if seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time. Sal Palermo Jr. isn’t the exciting older man she thought he was—street tough, clever, independent. He’s just a manchild, damaged from years of his father’s abuse, stuck taking care of an equally damaged mother, and in love with a woman who’ll never love him back. He’s nothing more than a shitty, low-level criminal. Seven years she’s wasted on him. Seven.
It’s enough.
“Go ahead, hit me,” she says. “It’s the only thing you’re good at, anyway.”
* * *
She hears the sirens before she sees the lights, and she bolts up from the table, where she’s been sitting with Lorna watching the end of Jeopardy! J.R. is upstairs in his bedroom. When he’d stormed out of the living room earlier, she heard his door slam, which signified he’d be in his room for the rest of the night.
Lorna came back into the house a few minutes after their fight. The old woman’s face was flushed from the exertion of wherever she’d gone and whatever she’d been doing. J.R.’s mother moves around quite well for someone who’s apparently on the verge of another hip replacement, and she’d plopped herself down at the table to catch the Final Jeopardy question, which of course she knew the answer to.
This fucking house. These fucking people.
Kenzie moves back into the living room and looks out the window. Blue and red lights flash from somewhere down the road, and while she can see only a flicker, it’s clear they’re coming.
Shit. The cops are coming for her, of course. Tyler must not have canceled the missing persons report in time. It’s no secret that Kenzie’s hometown is Prosser, and that she’s close to J.R., so his family’s farmhouse would be a logical place for the police to look for her. How the hell is she going to explain this? Surely the police won’t arrest her for her roommate thinking she’s missing. She can just say it’s all a misunderstanding, which it is.
Unless, of course, it’s not about the missing persons report, specifically. Maybe it’s about the ransom demand. Maybe Derek called the police to report that she’s being held against her will, and that her kidnappers are demanding money in exchange for her life. If that’s why the cops are coming, then she’s in trouble for sure. And so is J.R.
There are so many lies, there’s absolutely no way to know what, exactly, is happening.
She feels