Page 89 of Savage Ruin
I repeat her message to Grayson.
“Thiago said to tell you—you’ve got a friend up high,” Grayson returns.
Keeping the phone to my ear, I slowly scan the building on the wharf behind us. Something glints on the far corner, but I can’t tell if it’s a person.
“Uh huh,” I continue to make sounds like I’m listening to Grayson say something. “Maybe.” Turning a quarter to the left, I see something moving on the roof of a nearby dock.
“I’m here,” he notes. “Be there in a few seconds.”
A second later, Thiago comes on the line. “Keep the line open as long as you can,” he commands. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?” she shouts, waving the gun around wildly.
“Right here,” Grayson inserts smoothly from behind her.
I take advantage of the moment and slip the phone into my pocket hoping she’ll forget about it.
Kathleen immediately backs up and motions for Grayson to move next to me. She studies Grayson for a second, then her mouth twists. “Of course, you’re still handsome as ever. Kira sure could pick them.”
“What are you doing here, Kathleen? Kira died ten years ago,” Grayson remarks, confusion and weariness lining his face.
“Don’t tell me when she died!” she screams. “I know when she died. Every minute of every day, she’s on my mind. She was beautiful, and you killed her!”
Grayson stiffens. “Kira committed suicide. You know this, Kathleen. The police told you how she died. The coroner confirmed it. I didn’t kill Kira.”
“You didn’t slit her wrists, but you drove her to it. When she came home for college breaks, she’d be so torn up about you and those other girls. She’d cry for hours. I tried to get her to dump your cheating ass, but she refused to leave you. It made me sick—the way you would manipulate her into forgiving you, telling her you only loved her, and nobody else. You knew how much she loved you and you used it against her,” she sneers. “As if you ever loved anyone besides yourself.”
Grayson clenches his fists. “I loved her, but her jealousy was over the top. There were no other girls. She made it all up in her head, and she manipulated you into thinking she was the victim.”
“You’re lying!” she screams. Reaching behind her, she pulls a pink book from behind her back and flings it at Grayson. “Pick it up. Look at the last few pages. Read it.”
Grayson bends down slowly and grabs the book. He shows me the cover. It says “Diary.” He opens it to the inside cover. “Kira Adair” is written under “This diary belongs to…” He flips to the last few pages. They’re filled with pages of newspaper and magazine photos with him and his beauties. Xs across most of their faces.
“Read it out loud,” Kathleen demands.
“I can’t stand it. He tells me he loves me and wants to get married, but how can I believe him when he hangs out with all these whores!!! Last night, he was so sweet and tender with me, but then I heard he’d been with her all day—Bea Matthews. How can he go from her to me? I keep picturing him and her together in bed and it’s driving me crazy. Why does he torment me like this?” His voice is hoarse and his face stricken as he reads the desperate words. “This isn’t real. Kira and I broke up in college and never got back together. Kira had a psychotic breakdown before she died.”
“Liar! She always told me to keep a diary and tell it all the things I’d never tell anyone else. It’s the truth. She wouldn’t lie in her diary,” she states, as if the idea is preposterous. “My parents might have believed your lies, but I didn’t.”
“When she died, our whole world fell apart. My mother drank all the time, and my father stopped going to work. He’d sit in the recliner all day looking at the garden. They couldn’t live without her. I tried so hard to keep us going. I got good grades, graduated with honors, and became a lawyer. But in the end, we all wanted things to go back to the way they were. Before Kira died!” She screams. Sobs burst out. The gun waves wildly when she uses her arm to wipe her face and we both step back.
“Are you the one who bribed our employees?” I ask, trying to bring her back to the present. The account in Texas must be hers.
She gives me a smug look. “I did. My parents died and left me a fortune. My husband had an affair, and I added to it when I took him to the cleaners.” She snorts. “I had all this lovely money and nobody to share it with. Where was my sister? The one I looked up to my whole life? Dead. Where was my family? Dead. There was just… me. All alone.”
Her eyes swing to Grayson. “I was alone and heartbroken, barely living. Then, one day, I’m walking by a bookstore, and I see a photo of Grayson on a magazine. He’s on a yacht, smiling, with his arms around a bunch of women, and living his best fucking life. And I could hear Kira telling me it wasn’t fair, and I knew he had to be stopped.”
She’s calmed down a little since she started talking about the present. “Was Diego the first?” I ask as if I don’t already know the answer.
“The first and easiest,” she admits with a laugh. “A little seduction, some ego pandering, and a lot of money went a long way with him. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any brains. The people he recruited couldn’t help me.”
“That’s when you hired David Perry and Harrison Langford, right? To build a virus to attack SEI?” I ask her.
She narrows her eyes. “I suppose David told you that this morning. He didn’t give you the entire story, did he? David built the virus for Harrison Langford, who was already planning to attack SEI as revenge for bankrupting his idiot father. We met in a chat room and decided to pool our resources. When David’s father, Philip, joined the team, things started happening. We were this close.” She holds her fingers a few centimeters apart. “Until your stupid girlfriend comes out of nowhere and ruins every single one of my plans. I think it’s time to take her off the board, don’t you?”
“Unfortunately, she evacuated the yacht,” I reveal with a shrug.
