Page 42 of The Handyman

“Reece was the one that killed them— my parents.”

Surprise twitched my brows and unhinged my jaw, and I stared, open-mouthed at Vanessa as she nodded firmly. “It was one of his first jobs, I think. I always liked Reece…he’s cool, collected, rational. . . all the things you want in a handyman. He doesn’t let other people’s opinions run away from them, and always makes sure to keep his expectations realistic. So, one day, I told him that I had a job for him, if he wanted it. I had wanted to do something for a while— the ultimate ‘fuck you’ not only to my parents, but the person that they’d made me into. Actually, for a long, long time, like, a few weeks, no one knew what happened to my parents. They just disappeared. There was a huge man hunt for them, and he refused to tell me what happened.”

“What did he do?” Images of Reece crouching over Brandon flashed behind my lids when I blinked. If he could so easily make a grown man shit himself, what would he do if he hadrealreason to go hard? Of course, my reason was reason enough, but this would’ve been more than 6 years ago, if Vanessa’s timeline was right.

“They found my parents in an abandoned church after weeks of rotting there. There was a book too, detailing all my parents’ sins. That’s why he’s super anal about researching his targets by the way. It started after this request. He spent weeks figuring out all my parents’ dirty secrets, and then spent more time researching the ways to punish them in the Bible. And then, he did that to them over the course of about a week, I guess is how long it took. My dad was cheating on my mom with a teenage boy from the church. My mom liked money a little too much and was stealing from her job. There were pages and pages of individually listed sins and what the punishment was. Honestly, it was glorious going to the police station to read it.”

Picking my jaw out of my lap, discomfort wormed between my ribs.

Vanessa caught my gaze as her smile disappeared. “It didn’t quiet that voice my mom had implanted in me that maybe she was right. It didn’t change anything, to be honest.”

“I don’t expect it to change anything. My mom hired someone to kill me, and Reece is right about that, too. If I just ignore it, what if she tries again?” As if he knew his name was being mentioned, my phone started to trill with Reece’s ringtone. Swiveling around to swipe my phone off my desk, I frowned at the time before answering the call. “Hey…I‘m just packing up now. What’s up?”

“I have to drive my couch goblin upstate. You wanna come for the ride?”

Puffing my lips out under brows furrowed by thought, I nodded with a little hum. “Yes.”

“Cool. I’m outside. Are you talking to Vanessa?”

“Yeah. Um…” I rolled my jaw awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

Reece grunted lightly into the phone as the line rustled loudly.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

30

Reece

“You know— last time my mom called me, she said my ‘boyfriend’ had messaged her on Facebook, and that we were dating, and he wanted to introduce himself.” Speaking up from the passenger seat, Riley gazed at the dash from under furrowed brows. “I wonder what that meant.”

I briefly glanced at her. “I dunno, but why does it matter?” We had a ways to go to get to Carlyle’s home base-slash-office-slash-evil-villain’s-lair, but the highway was clearer than I’d expected. No one was trying to brake check my pretty nice car, and I wasn’t being rammed by truckers, which was always a good thing. “Your mom is fucking delusional, baby.”

“Oh, I know, I’m just wondering if Brandon somehow found my mom. I have Facebook, but I never use it. It’s not even installed on my phone or anything. He could’ve found me, found my mom, and tried to pressure me or something. I don’t know. It’s also possible she lied to—well, I don’t know why, but it’s possible.”

Flexing my hands on the wheel, I frowned as I glanced in the rearview before flicking on my blinker.

Riley went on, “I’m just not sure what to do. I know acting on what I know won’t make me feel better, but I worry about what’ll happen if I don’t do anything.”

“Why not introduce them?” Piping up from the back, Delilah sprawled on the seat lazily, but the excitement trilled in her voice as she hauled herself up to sit to grip the back of Riley’s seat. “You wanna know why people hire people like Reece? Because then they don’t have to face their actions. Someone else did that— not your mom. So, why not introduce to her the man she hired to kill you?”

“That’s a terrible idea, Delilah.” Scowling lightly, I trained my eyes back on the road while she scoffed a little in my ear.

“Trust me, okay. If there’sonething I know a heck of a lot about, it’s people coming after me for no reason. That lady isn’t your mom biologically and even if she was Riley— she raised you like she hated you, anyway. The only way to get better on people like that is to be free and happy.”

Everyone’s got an opinion.Shooting an irritated glance at Riley, a sourness coated my tongue. Everyone was giving her different advice from different angles. No wonder it was taking her forever to decide what to do about her mom.

Delilah went on, “Besides, it’s not like you want to do anything about it, anyway. You just don’t want it to happen again, right? So, just be all like ‘hey, I know you did this, and if you ever try again, I won’t be lenient’ or something.”

“Yeah— because that works.” I rolled my eyes, but I could see Riley seriously considering what Delilah was saying. My only protest was that I wanted her to make her own decision, not rely too much on other people’s. She was so unlike me in that regard, though. Riley cared a lot about what other people perceived, their opinions, and how they affected her.

“My momdidsay she wanted to meet my boyfriend. It’s Friday, so she’ll be home, and so will my dad.”

Clenching and releasing my jaw absently, I inhaled through flared nostrils at the evil lilt in Riley’s tone. “If that’s what you want to do, baby, I’ll drive you up there.” Truly, I didn’t know how I would handle this situation, considering my mom was dead— and also not married to a pedophile while raising some child’s child. What Ididknow, for certain, was that this probably wouldn’t go however Riley expected. Her mom most definitely wouldn’t break down in tears, confess, and try to better their relationship. Even her father, who I hadn’t heard a peep about other than the fact that he screwed a prepubescent girl, probably wasn’t going to admit he did anything wrong.

This wasn’t going to end well, but I guess…at least, it would end.

“I don’t know. We’re going to be an hour from Redding. . .” Trailing off, Riley turned out the window.