Page 35 of Bought

Jack throws his head back and laughs at that, as if he’s told a hilarious joke. “You’re smart enough to reverse engineer our product. Too fucking stupid to know when you’re being offered the deal of a lifetime. What is it about you women that makes you destroy every good thing you encounter? Do you know how to love? Do you even know what love is?”

I don’t have time to answer. I don’t have time to think as he throws the car around another corner. The back end steps out and then the front goes too. We skid sideways, drifting around the apex.

“You did this to you, Casey. Remember that.”

Jack jerks the steering wheel the other way and sends us careening into loose gravel. We skid sideways into park at what I guess is a rest stop parking lot. He throws open his door and points the gun at me again. “Get out.”

“Jack, please…”

“Get out. I don’t want your brains on my car.”

The fear has reached a crescendo where I can no longer process it. I have become numb. Stupid. Compliant in the way all prey animals become compliant at the end. A fawn willing to let a bear eat it alive, because there is no choice. This is how the world ends, with predator taking down prey.

I get out of the car. The night is stunning. The stars are shining above, and from this height I can look out over Silicon Valley and see everything I’m leaving behind. Is it peace I’m feeling?

“Go to the edge.”

“Huh?”

My brain is processing things very slowly. It’s overloaded.Error.exe.

Jack walks over to the edge of what is a very tall cliff. The most beautiful places are often the most dangerous, and at this moment I am overwhelmed by the view. This will be one of the last things I see before I go.

“Come to the edge,” he says.

I walk toward the edge, just like he tells me to. It is a long way down. I think. It’s dark down there, a big void waiting to embrace me.

“I’m not going to kill you. You’re going to have an unfortunate accident.”

The gun is on me again. He is nudging me back toward the precipice.

“They won’t find you for a long time down there,” he says conversationally. “And when they do, well, it will be natural causes. You’ll be shown on Ethan’s cameras walking out of the house in the middle of the night all of your own accord. It will all be one big tragic accident, which, of course, will be covered up.”

I look into his face, but I don’t see what I’m expecting: a blank stare, or a leer of aggression. His lips are twisted, his nose is screwed up, his brows drawn down. He looks like he’s about to cry. The cold mask he wears is slipping, and I’m starting to see what he never lets anybody see. He’s not psychotic. He’s not angry. He’s in pain. He’s hurting. Bad.

I swallow. Gather the courage to ask the question I have to ask.

“Why are you doing this to me, Jack?”

“Because I know why women fuck men. I know what you’re going to do to Ethan when you’re done with him.”

“Ethan is the one who wants me…”

“I’m sure he thinks that,” Jack says bitterly. “That’s what I thought too.”

“You thought I wanted you?”

“Not you. Emma.”

“Who is Emma?”

He clenches his jaw, readjusts his grip on the gun. “I guess I can tell you,” he says. “It’s not like you’re going to be able to tell anyone after this.”

I nod, draw in a deep breath. I’m buying time. Even if it’s only a couple of minutes.

“Emma was a VC I met at a party,” he says. “She was sweet, beautiful, talented. She was just like you.”

Jack really doesn’t know me from a can of beans, but I’m not going to interrupt him now.

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