Page 369 of Hell Hath No Fury
“You deserve the best, Mrs. Herald,” I told her, honestly. “I hope daisies are your favourite.”
She hesitated. “Well, I love hydrangeas, but Dermott wouldn’t remember that.”
As the files downloaded, I opened a new tab and bought a $200 bouquet of flowers from a swanky shop for Mrs. Herald using Dermott’s dirty money. I had plans for the rest of that motherfucker’s cash.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Herald. It was a pleasure to speak with you. I’ve got things fixed on our end and your VPN should be secure now going forward.”
“Oh, aren’t you the sweetest! I’m almost sad to sign off.” Her laughter was hollow through the line. “Best company I’ve had in some time.”
I understood that kind of loneliness.
It ballooned in your chest until your insides felt like nothing, until you felt like you’d float away and no one would notice you were gone.
My head thunked against the headrest, my explosive sigh a white plume.
“I could call you again,” I offered. “Not about the VPN, but just…just to talk.”
There was silence, the muffled voices of a television on in the background.
“Sorry, that’s probably weird,” I said with a coarse laugh, scrubbing my hand over my face.
My eyes ached dully from staring at the screen for thirteen hours straight. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept, and theMcDonald’s meal I’d eaten hours ago was an anchor hooked to the bottom of my stomach.
“N-no, I just…” She sniffed then delicately cleared her throat. “I would like that, Bob. I’d like that very much.”
Fuck.
There was no way I was gonna become this old woman’s telephone equivalent of a pen pal if she was going to keep calling me such a heinous name.
“My friends call me Red,” I offered.
I didn’t have friends.
But my hacker alias was R3d W4rr10r.
Which was good enough.
“Redhead, are you? I thought I recognized a fellow Gaelic soul!” she cried. “Are you a Scot? My father immigrated from Dollar.”
I wasn’t anything, not really.
Crystal’d never told me where we came from, but considering my name Finnegan Ramsey was about as British as it came, I figured it was a good guess.
“Like recognizes like,” I allowed vaguely. “I have to sign off now, Mrs. Herald, or there’ll be hell to pay with my boss, but I’ll call again.”
“Please do. And call me Gertie,” she said, softly so she didn’t seem too eager.
My heart fuckingpanged.
“I will,” I promised, maybe a little forcefully. “Take care. And, Gertie? If someone else calls to chat, be wary, there are a lot of unsavory characters out there.”
I hung up and pulled the speakers out of my sore ears, tossing them on the passenger seat along with the debris from my lunch.
I had what I needed to move forward.
Mr. Murphy, the scumbag who’d run the strip club my mum worked out, had also operated a prostitution ring on the darkweb appropriately and sickeningly called the Venus Flytrap. It was just a small side business when my mum was alive, of few of his girls consenting to do horribly depraved things on webcams for the pleasure of deviants—with Bitcoin and other crypto currencies—willing to pay to view things that were illegal in most developed countries.
I didn’t judge the women.
