16. McCarthy
MCCARTHY
“ M otherfucker. ” The curse reverberates around the cavernous room.
It’s followed by the crash and crunch of me ripping the ninety-six-inch TV off the wall, and I don’t even feel the cuts from the glass as I put my fist through it.
A scream rips out of me, unintelligible. Pacing around the room, I smash the lamp.
What must Jenna think to hear me down here, destroying thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture?
“It’s my stuff, and I’ll destroy it if I want to.”
Even though what I really want to destroy is Nathan.
I can’t control my breathing, can’t control the pulse of fury, the bitterness of failure.
I’m not ten years old again. No one’s taking my fucking dog .
…That fucking dog.
…Jenna’s fucking dog.
Jenna, who I left sobbing in my bedroom.
There’s a baseball bat in the closet.
I leave the gun because if I shoot someone, Jenna will get fired, and I need her here, where I can keep an eye on her. Her dog has more of a sense of self-preservation than she does.
Fitz is waiting for me at the loading-dock entry to my building.
I scowl when I look in the back seat of the Jeep.
“Why did you bring the kids?”
Remember when I said our father was the leader of a polygamist cult? Two of his offspring from wives nine and ten are wedged in the back seat with Isaac.
“I had to take a leak. You’re in the back.” Hawthorne bodychecks me, pushing past me to ride shotgun.
“It was just supposed to be you and me,” I remind Fitz. “No witnesses.”
One of the little kids in the back seat pipes up excitedly, “I have a hockey stick!” He’s dressed all in black with a little black ski hat.
“What is your name again?”
“You have to know our little brothers’ names,” Hawthorne scolds me as I cram into the back seat, shoving over one of the kids, who is weirdly sticky when I touch him.
“What’s all over their faces?”
“We got slushies. Can’t go knocking in heads without a sugar high.” Fitz is cheerful as he peels out of the loading dock, his headache-inducing music thumping from blown-out speakers.
Isaac glowers and huffs when I pat him on the head .
Fucking teenagers.
“They’re wearing name tags.” Isaac is surly.
“Henry and Scout.” I peer at the excited kids. “Who names their child Scout?”
“Not our dad. I don’t think he could pick them out of a lineup if you paid him,” Hawthorne says sarcastically.
“Are we going to visit Dad in prison?” Henry asks.
“Not if we don’t get caught.”
“I put mud on the license plate.”
“And who are we not going to tell?” Fitz drawls as our younger half siblings cheer.
“Greg.”
“Hunter.”
“No. Fuck Greg. We’re not telling Salinger .”
“Since when does Sally care?” I ask.
“Since you poisoned the well,” Hawthorne says pointedly.
The Seattle streets are empty—it’s late, and it’s raining. Perfect for my plans.
Nathan’s town house is dark when we pull up.
“It’s not even a nice town house,” I hiss out softly.
It’s one of those papier-maché new builds. I’m sure Nathan lied to Jenna and told her it was state-of-the-art and that he’d worked hard and sacrificed for this piece of garbage.
“Is this the right house?” Hawthorne asks.
“Yeah, that looks like Jenna’s stuff on the sidewalk.”
Her fiancé, who she claims loves her dearly, just dumped it haphazardly on the sidewalk to get wet and ruined. The papers, some with my name on them in Jenna’s loopy script, bleed purple ink into the pages .
My brothers and I quickly load her stuff into the trunk of the SUV. Then Isaac picks the lock in an impressive five seconds. He shrugs as I give him an approving nod.
“Hunter thinks he has his liquor under lock and key.”
It’s dark in the narrow townhome. Jenna’s touches are everywhere—the blue-and-yellow curtains, the handblown glass vase with a daisy pattern, the fairy lights over the fireplace.
I whistle softly for Truman as my brothers fan out behind me.
The upstairs is messy. There’s a dog bed in one room but no dog. No Nathan or his pregnant girlfriend either.
“Truman!” I yell before whistling loudly for the dog.
“Damn it, Nathan must have thought Jenna might come back,” I say as I take the narrow staircase down two steps at a time. “We need to move out. He might have gone to a hotel. We should…” I trail off as Henry maneuvers past me.
“What the fuck?”
Henry’s eyes flick back toward me apprehensively, and he freezes.
“I thought we were here to steal things,” the littlest of my brothers says slowly, a banana-yellow stand mixer in his hands.
“I mean, I’ll allow it.” I wave him forward. “Carry on.”
I pick up a vase, dump it out, and add it to the box of high-end pots and pans Isaac is carting out.
“Where to, chief?” Fitz salutes as I get in the Jeep.
“Pancakes!” Scout cries.
Arms crossed, I let my brain run.
When I woke her up and demanded information, Jenna told me tearfully that Nathan’s new girlfriend wanted the dog .
Fucking bitch. I wanted to punch something, and I would if the little kids weren’t in the car, chattering excitedly.
Instead, I just stew in my fury. It’s just like when they took Buddy.
“I know where that dog is.”
I’d made Jenna give me the name of the girlfriend. A quick Google search brings up an address in a luxury high-rise across town.
The stand mixer is wedged between my feet on the floor of the Jeep as we drive across town. The lobby of the high-rise has crystal chandeliers, probably to make it feel safe for women. But Nathan’s girlfriend isn’t safe from me if she stole that dog.
I greet the doorman. “Georgiy.”
“I hope you’re not here because Anton didn’t pay up,” he jokes. “That’s why I don’t play poker with you and him anymore.”
“I actually have a favor to ask you.” I show him the photos I pulled from the website for ZyloPay, the fintech company where Nathan works, on my phone. “This woman lives here, yes? I know you aren’t supposed to give out this information, so I’ll take your silence as confirmation.”
I show him Nathan’s photo then Truman’s. “Did this man come in here with this dog tonight?”
The doorman licks his lips nervously, eyes flicking to my brothers. Hawthorne’s playing with the baseball bat, tossing it in the air and catching it with one hand.
“I need that dog.”
“Look, you did me a good turn when my sister was sick…” Now he looks sick .
I hold up a hand. “I know this could get you fired and blacklisted. Say no more. I prefer to publicly humiliate my victims anyways. Boys, let’s go.”
“I thought we were going to beat someone up,” Scout complains as he rides on the luggage cart filled with Jenna’s stuff that Isaac pushes off the elevator.
“McCarthy’s a little bitch and pussied out,” Isaac tells him.
Hawthorne cuffs him. “Watch your mouth. I know Hunter doesn’t let you talk like that.”
“You should hear McCarthy.” Isaac glowers at me.
“McCarthy’s not supposed to be cursing, at least according to his ten-step plan.” Fitz shoots a shit-eating grin at me.
“That’s why he can’t get a girlfriend,” Henry says matter-of-factly as they roll the cart into my penthouse. “You have to take care of a woman.”
“You’re six. What do you know?”
He’s shocked and offended. “I’m seven and a half.”
“Same difference. Besides, Jenna’s hiring me a girlfriend,” I say petulantly, because I’m not above arguing with my kid brothers. “So I will have one. Now get out, and don’t eat my food,” I warn as Scout’s already fishing around my fridge, getting his sticky hands everywhere.
“Fitz!”
“Let’s leave the beast to his rampage.”
“Did you do all this?” Isaac is shocked at the state of my living room.
Hawthorne gives me a sympathetic look .
“Leave me alone. I need to fix Jenna’s phone.” I can’t look at Hawthorne as he herds our brothers out.
Jenna’s phone is a disaster, like she is—caked in mud, waterlogged.
Pulling out an electronics cleaning kit, I go to work, then I force the phone to power down, plug it in, and let it boot back up. When it reinstalls the update, I put in the pin code I’d seen her enter in my car.
The phone blinks for a moment, then an avalanche of messages pours in—horrible, threatening, disgusting text messages, talking about her body, telling her she is worthless, threatening to make her life hell if she doesn’t do what they say. They’re cowards hidden behind unlisted or unknown numbers.
I scroll through them, hot rage turning to cold fury.
Why is Jenna acting like everything’s fine, that she has everything under control?
I kick myself for not just dragging her to the police station when I wanted to.
Upstairs, Jenna’s curled up small in my bed.
My robe, which she’s wearing, has fallen off one shoulder.
I make out the curve of her breast in the light from the hallway. In my hand, her phone vibrates.
I sit on the edge of the mattress, lean over her. She blinks blearily as the mattress dips next to her head, then she snorts awake when she sees me.
“McCarthy… what—”
“Let’s play ‘which of the shitty men in your life is sending you these?’”
Her eyes fill with tears when she sees the phone. “No one. I don’t know.”
The fury explodes. I grab a fistful of her hair.
“Tell me,” I shout at her as she cries. “Is it Nathan?” I shake her roughly.
“Stop it! It’s not your problem.”
“I picked you up off the side of the road, and I’ve been all over town, looking for your damn dog because your fiancé—who you’ve been swearing up and down for the past week loves you and he’s your soulmate and the father of your future children—kidnapped you, threw you out of his car, then stole your dog,” I snarl at her.
“I’m more invested than you are at this point, and I want to know who the hell is sending you these messages. Names. Addresses. Birthdays.”
“I think it’s just my ex-fiancés,” she mewls.
“You think ?” I shove her back against the pillows. “So there are more?”
“No. I don’t know.” She’s sobbing now, heaving, gasping sobs against the pillow. She pulls the comforter up over her head.
I add nastily, “If anything happens to Truman, it’s your fault.”
She lets out a guttural sob. “ Truman. ”
I’m unmoved. I stand up. “You’re a terrible dog mom, and you’ll be a terrible human mom too.”