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Nicole sat on the edge of the bloodstained mattress, heedless of the gore, and crossed her legs.
“We have things to discuss,” she said.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I said.
“That’s convenient, since I’m the one talking, and you’re the one listening,” Nicole said. “All you need to do is say, ‘yes, I understand.’”
“I won’t do anything for you,” I announced.
Her lips curved in a pitying smile at the false bravado in my tone. “Of course you will, Kat. You can forget about your reputation. It’s gone. Permanently trashed. It’s been documented now, on many forums, that you are a bloodthirsty psychopath, steeped in hatred. You want nothing for the world but pain and destruction and fiery death.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “So, essentially, I’m you?”
Nicole tittered. “Oh, no. I want much more than that. I also want power, money, and absolute control. But Kat Banner, aka the Payback Bitch 898, doesn’t have that kind of vision. She just wants to burn and kill. And tomorrow, she finally gets her wish. She gets to end her miserable life, in a blaze of self-immolating glory. Ka-boom!”
My jaw ached from clenching my teeth so hard, and my lungs just wouldn’t expand. I wished Holly was not hearing this. Her body was rigid in my arms.
“No one who knows me would believe that,” I said.
“Well, not all that many people really know you at all, do they, Francesca? Ever since that awful thing that happened in Jersey City all those years ago, you’ve kept yourself so aloof from the world. Except online, of course. That was your only emotional outlet, and you have been so prolific! You’ve been posting in hate groups daily for years now, spewing toxic rage like a fire hose. It’s all there, ready and waiting for the forensic psychologists to pore over and write bestselling books about afterward. There will be a miniseries for sure. Multiple documentaries. The whole enchilada.”
“I don’t have an online presence at all,” I said stiffly. “On purpose.”
“Well, great!” she said brightly. “That plays right into my hands. Because Payback Bitch 898 sure does. I’m very good at setting a scene.”
“How could you set this scene up so fast? You only just found out I exist!”
“I’ve been cultivating Payback Bitch for years,” Nicole said. “Keeping her in my back pocket, just waiting for you to turn up and embody her. She was a real person once. I took notice of her, and thought all that psychotic rage would have to prove useful somehow. But the real woman was a big letdown, when I tracked her down. Dull, boring, tediously self-absorbed, with bad hair and an overbite and some sort of bacterial overgrowth that gave her terrible body odor. Her online persona was the valuable asset, far more interesting than her physical self. So, I took the asset, and scrapped the rest.”
I blew out a sharp breath. “You…you killed her? For her onlinehandle?”
“Oh, stop. I did the poor woman a favor,” Nicole said lightly. “God knows she wasn’t enjoying her wretched little life. I took over Payback Bitch myself. I’ve been cultivating her ever since. I pruned her, expanded her, cleaned her up, and now, she can become you, seamlessly, like slipping on a coat. It’s worked out so perfectly. The original Payback Bitch’s grammar was a bit iffy, but not many people have heard you speak, so I’m not worried. And I’ve been improving her grammar slowly, over time.”
I stared at her. Wow. And I had thought the Petruzzis were evil. They were small potatoes compared to this terrifying, inhuman thing, smiling at me.
“You are vile,” I said.
Nicole bowed, as if I had given her a compliment. “So,” she said briskly. “Your itinerary. Pay attention. The Emory Summit, a gathering of leaders in the world of banking, investments, trade, is being held at the brand-new Willamette Convention Center right now, not far from here. It’s in full swing today, over a thousand attendees, and tomorrow at noon, Owen Halliwell will give the keynote address. Tomorrow morning, your job is to drive a caterer’s van full of explosives into the Conference Center’s parking garage. It will detonate during Halliwell’s speech, on live TV. The explosion will kill everyone in the radius of an entire city block.”
“I can’t do that,” I whispered. “I can’t.”
Nicole did not seem to hear me. “The whole country will hate and revile you, but it won’t matter, because you’ll be dead. We’ll have your boyfriend running his magic algo for us, if he wants to keep his little niece in one piece. He’ll manage the financial chaos post-bombing, and we’ll come out vastly rich. Rulers of the new world order.”
“I won’t do it,” I told her.
“Of course you will,” Nicole said briskly. “Your van will have a screen with an open video call. It will show you everything I’m doing to your little friend. In real time.”
The icy hole inside me got bigger, deeper. Impossibly deep. Nicole saw it, and started to laugh. Nicole was absolutely right, and we both knew it.
She had me by the throat.
CHAPTER38
Ethan
Freya came into the room, holding a steaming cup of tea, and looked over my shoulder at the computer screen in front of me. Mick was sprawled in a chair with his hand over his eyes. Jed lay on the couch. The air in the room was heavy with despair.
The video Nicole had sent kept looping on the screen. I had turned off the sound, since I had already processed every word the woman had said, as well as how she said it. But something compelled me to keep studying it. I kept feeling as if I was missing something. Like a phantom flicker in the corner of my eye. Driving me nuts.
