Page 88 of The Love Scam
“But they’ll kick you out of the country!”
He smiled at his daughter. “And you, too.”
Fifty-two
“You thought I was going to kill Kovac? You thought I killed all those other people?”
“You were talking about hits and hacks! You were insanely secretive and you lie like you’re getting paid.” Rake paused and guzzled half his ginger beer. Stress made him thirsty, clearly. “Actually, youaregetting paid.”
“Point,” Delaney conceded.
It was hours later; Kovac and the C team had been arrested, lawyers had been summoned, statements had been taken, paperwork had been filed, teeth had been gnashed. Rake had been politely but not really asked to leave the city, the nuclear option vouched for him and promised to put him (and Lillith, and herself) on a plane ASAP, and the others did a fade, then met up with them for supper at Antiche Carampane, a centuries-old restaurant justly famous for its homemade desserts.
And just in time, because they were all starving and had walked past several acceptable restaurants, all vetoed by the nuclear option.
“I’m sorry, darling, but I simply refuse to eat in a restaurant that employs the use of neon lighting to lure customers, specifically makes a point of saying Americans are welcome, or serves chicken tenders.”
“This,” Rake said. “This is what I had to put up with, you guys. All my life. Oh, and Blake, too. I guess.”
“Gift horses, dear. Lillith, you come sit by me. Now: all of you. I’m dying to hear the whole story, beginning to end.”
“Come to think of it,” Rake said, “so am I.” But he smiled as he said it, clearly relaxed for the first time in days.
“But first, we’ll order.” Then, proudly to the waiter; “My granddaughter will be ordering for me.”
So she did, suggesting the carpaccio of raw wild fish
(“You like sushi, right, Grandma? Then you’ll probably like this.”)
spaghetti with spicy sauce, and finishing with several sorbets andbiscottini della casa.
“She’s trilingual!” Mrs. Tarbell announced to the waiter, the table at large, the tables behind them, a third of the kitchen staff, the street outside. Rake caught Delaney’s gaze and they both smiled when Lillith didn’t correct her.
What the hell,Delaney thought.Let her keep some secrets. That one at least won’t get anyone killed.
Meanwhile, Ellen was breaking it down for the Tarbells. “To be clear: Hits and hacks don’t equal murder. They mean that when someone promises money for the Big Pipe Dream, then reneges, we investigate why. We break in, in every sense of the word. We look ateverything.”
Delaney picked up the narrative. “And if we find out they broke their word for a legitimate reason—unexpected hospital bills if it’s a private person, or needing to rebuild after a storm or fire if it’s a company, or not pulling in the contributions they anticipated… that stuff happens, and it’s nobody’s fault. Something like that, we let it go and no hard feelings.”
Mrs. Tarbell was nodding. “But if, say, somebody wants to buy his mistress a summer home—”
“Right. Then I go to them, and lay out what we were able to dig up, and I tell them, ‘Keep your word, or we’ll put all your dirty laundry out there. I’ll expose you as a liaranda cheat and you’ll lose a lot more than the donation you promised.’”
It wasn’t a calling, exactly. But they’d been doing it forever—since a few months after she’d kicked Elena’s bully in the balls back in middle school, in fact.
“Exposure is their worst nightmare,” she continued. “Their exposure going viral is too terrifying to even be contemplated. They’ve always given in.”
Elena had gone quiet, and Delaney could guess why. The first person they’d hacked, years ago, had been their mutual foster father, who had a bad habit of “accidentally” walking in on them if they were in the bathroom, or dressing, or undressing. Pretty soon there were dozens of accidental sightings every week. The foster mother refused to take it seriously
(“Oh, you girls are so sensitive! Aren’t we all one big happy family? Who cares who sees what?”)
and the girls knew from experience that CPS was overworked and unlikely to be helpful without proof. So they’d hacked his home office and computer and found the porn, which was gross but not unexpected, and the monthly payments to the seventeen-year-old mistress, which was gross but helpful. Which they discussed with him. At length.
End of “accidents.”
“I wish you’d told me what you were really up to,” Rake said, having the gall to sound wounded.
“How could I? Your takeaway from Lillith’s story was ‘Your dead mom was a thief and a blackmailer.’ Why thehellwould any of us confide anything we didn’t absolutely have to?”
