When I Accidentally Snagged a Serial Killer
Page 131
Jubilee turns to my sister—then stops. “Oh, my God. Maisie, what the fuck happened to your wrist?”
Maisie lifts one hand. The open cuff dangles from it. Her wrist is sitting at an angle wrists generally should not. Jubilee rushes forward.
Maisie raises her good hand. “Chill, Frolic.”
“Your wrist!”
“I’m aware.” She makes one small, cracking adjustment.
Jubilee recoils. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
“Not my first pair of handcuffs.” Maisie waves dismissively.
Jubilee’s eyebrows climb. “Do I want to know?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, kink or business?”
“I’m not having this discussion with you.” Maisie tugs the end of her sweater down. “Definitely not in front of my brother.”
“Kink!” Jubilee shrieks.
“Please spare me,” I beg.
Maisie retrieves the gun between two fingers, cringing at it like it’s a litter box. “Yuck.” She hands it to me.
“It’s a firearm, not a spider.” I oblige her.
“I dislike both.”
Joshua groans from the floor. All the laughter disappears. Jubilee crosses the warehouse, crouches several feet away from him, and rests her elbows on her knees.
Joshua glares at her. “You think this is over?”
“No.” She smiles. And now I understand what Joshua still hasn’t. I was never the person in this family he needed to fear most.
Jubilee tilts her head. “I think this is the part where you tell me why Dad’s ledger was worth kidnapping my boyfriend and sister over.”
Behind her, Maisie flexes her newly freed hand. I check the gun. Joshua surveys the three of us.
Jubilee’s smile widens. “Take your time, Uncle Joshua. We’ve got all afternoon.”
CHAPTER 33
Jubilee
We accidentally lived happily ever after—for one week. That’s suspicious enough.
Joshua Ricketts is in jail, waiting for an expensive parade of hearings. Somehow, I convinced Gage to not kill my uncle, mostly by pointing out that murdering Joshua in a warehouse full of evidence would be inconveniently messy—and he hadn’t even brought Mr. Slicey or Mr. Dicey. Besides, kidnapping two people at gunpoint and sending photographic evidence of your own felony to a hacker is frowned upon by the criminal justice system.
The police were even less interested in his rant that one hostage was a serial killer, the other a psychopath who escaped her cuffs by dislocating her wrist, and the cheerful brunette who walked into his warehouse had already stabbed a rapist twenty-seven times. Especially when three people told essentially the same story while Joshua screamed that we were fucking insane.
Cracking Dad’s cipher turned out to be more exciting than the ledger itself. Joshua spent weeks trying to decode a puzzle Dad taught an eight-year-old, which has brought me an unhealthy amount of joy. Unfortunately, the contents didn’t. Names. Dates. Accounts. Transfers. Women Dad conned across twenty years, and horrifyingly neat records of the ones who never survived him.
Anonymous information began finding its way to police departments. Bodies got names. Money returned to the rightful people. I can neither confirm nor deny extensive digital trespassing.
As for my mother’s money—her family’s money—I allowed myself one selfish use of it. Mom has a house now. Nothing enormous. A little two-bedroom with pale yellow siding, a fenced backyard, and a kitchen window over the sink.