I study him for a moment, conscious of how he always manages to make me smile. “How do you even know how to do this?”

He keeps his eye on the wall as he speaks, the same as me. “Was dating this guy a few months back. He thought it was more than it was. They all do. Out of nowhere he shows me screenshots of all these guys I was DMing and whatever. Tells me he installed this key-logger software on my phone that tracked my keystrokes. He used the logs to figure out my passwords and spy on me.” He shrugs. “Taught myself that shit in case it ever came in handy.”

I glance around at slow-moving people. “So how long will it take?”

“I can install the software remotely tonight. So as soon as she logs into her email...”

I lick my lips, trying to find any holes. Nothing jumps out. Jared pulls a prepaid cell phone from his structured Prada and hands it over. “We only communicate with these until he’s in the ground, and everything dies down, got it?”

“Yeah.” I take the burner and drop it into my purse.

“Hey,” Jared says softly, his hand brushing against mine.

I stop and look at him, but he doesn’t say anything. “What?”

He searches my eyes for a moment, then swallows so hard, I hear the sound. “You sure you want to do this? Like, really sure?”

The way he says it, gingerly, like he’s afraid that the question will anger me, I know that the finality of all this is finally dawning on him. And I get where he’s coming from, but this isn’t just about the money or my father. It never has been.

This is about so much more than that.

I have to do this. For my mother.

“I need this,” I say, trying to sound firm, but there’s a hitch in my voice, and I know I only have so much time before the tears. “You know I need this.”

“I know. I know.” He looks away, takes a breath, then his eyes meet mine again. “But are you sure you want to go through with it? The whole thing?”

I lift a hand and pat at the corner of my eyes with my finger. “It’s not just for me. If he hurt my mother the way he did, the mother of his child...imagine what he’ll do to someone else. If we get rid of him, we could be saving someone else.”

It takes Jared a beat to nod, then he eases a hand around my waist, kissing me quickly on my cheek before slipping away without another word.

Three hours later the burner phone rings on my bed. I roll over and answer it.

“Got her password,” Jared says, and I can almost hear his smile.

“Wow. You always finish so fast?”

We both laugh at that.