The Revenge List, page 1
Praise for The Revenge List
“The Revenge List checks all the boxes of what a thriller should be. Brilliant premise? Check. Mounting tension? Check. Jaw-dropping twist? Double-check. I couldn’t put it down!”
—Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of The House Across the Lake
“I flew through this twisty, original thriller through the dark side of self-help. The Revenge List is a breath of fresh air that ends with a jaw-dropping gasp.”
—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest
“It’s always a delight to see a justifiably angry woman in fiction, and McKinnon handles Frankie’s story with ease in this twisty thriller.”
—Kelley Armstrong, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“A propulsive page-turner of a thriller, and a gripping and important deep dive into the power of grief and the dangers of revenge. The Revenge List is an absolute triumph!”
—Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA TODAY bestselling author
of The House Guest
“The Revenge List is both twisty and twisted, and that’s a good thing. Compulsively readable from start to finish.”
—Samantha Downing, internationally bestselling author of For Your Own Good
“A thrilling page-turner with a protagonist you can’t help but root for—even when she makes you mad.”
—Cate Holahan, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Darkness of Others
“Taut, furiously paced, and immensely entertaining.”
—Jennifer Hillier, internationally bestselling author of Things We Do in the Dark
“McKinnon is a clever master of surprise, dropping subtle clues and changing course often enough to keep you glued to the pages. A read-in-one-sitting thriller with a stinger in the tail.”
—Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of The Personal Assistant
Internationally bestselling author HANNAH MARY McKINNON was born in the UK, grew up in Switzerland and now lives in Canada with her husband and three sons. The Revenge List is her seventh novel. Connect with her on Facebook and Instagram, @hannahmarymckinnon, and Twitter, @hannahmmckinnon.
HannahMaryMcKinnon.com
The Revenge List
Hannah Mary McKinnon
To Jenny & Sonica
More than Book Friends Forever
Contents
Quote
Frankie’s Forgiveness List
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
chapter thirty-six
chapter thirty-seven
chapter thirty-eight
chapter thirty-nine
Acknowledgments
The Revenge List - Reader’s Guide
Questions for Discussion
A Conversation with Hannah Mary McKinnon
If I die, I forgive you; if I recover, we shall see.
—Spanish proverb
FRANKIE’S FORGIVENESS LIST
WHO WHY FORGIVENESS SCALE
The bastard who killed my mother Needs no explanation! 1 2
Finn Morgan Dad, there are so many reasons… 4
Edith Bryant Ugh! Worst neighbor ever!
Chelsea Fischer Made school hell for years 3
Adrian Costas Ruined my life 3
Tyler Vance Thanks for nothing, college m-fer 3
Trina Smith With colleagues like her…
Patrick Davies Misogynistic dick of a client 3
Shay Callan
Geraldina Hoyos Ha! Ha! Ha! 10
FRANKIE MORGAN The worst :( ①
chapter one
The sharp sound of a high-pitched scream filled the air. A noise so unrecognizable, at first I didn’t register it had come from deep within me, traveling up my throat in stealth mode before bursting from my mouth.
The remnants of the yell reverberated around the car, forcing their way into my ears and penetrating my skull, urging me to do something. Survival instincts kicked in, and I fumbled with the seatbelt, my other hand grasping for the door handle. The need for the relative safety that solid, stationary ground would bring was so intense it made my stomach heave. A loud click of the central locking system meant my captor had outsmarted me again, obliterating my immediate plan to throw myself from the moving vehicle.
When I looked out the windshield, I knew there was no time to find an alternate escape. The end of the road—the edge of the cliff—announced by signs and broken red-and-white-striped wooden barricades, had been far enough away seconds ago but now gleamed in the car’s headlights, a looming warning yards ahead. I couldn’t comprehend what was about to happen, couldn’t do anything as the vehicle kept going, splintering planks and racing out the other side with nothing but air below. I let out another scream, far louder than my first, the absolute terror exploding from my lungs.
For the briefest of moments, we were suspended, as if this was a magic trick or an elaborate roller coaster. Perhaps, if I was really lucky, this was all a dream. Except I already knew there were no smoke and mirrors, no swirling track leading us through loop-the-loops and to safety. It wasn’t a nightmare I’d wake from with bedsheets wrapped around my sweaty body. This was happening. It was all terrifyingly real.
As the car continued its trajectory, it tipped forward. The only thing to stop our momentum was whatever we were rushing toward, obscured by the cloudy night skies. Pushing my heels into the floor, I tried to flatten my shoulders against the seat. My hands scrambled for the ceiling to brace myself, but I flopped like a rag doll, my loosened seatbelt tearing into my shoulder.
They say your life flashes before you when you’re close to death. That didn’t happen to me. Instead, it was all my regrets. Choices I’d made. Not made. Things I’d said and done. Not said. Not done. It was far too late to make amends. There would be no opportunity to beg anyone for forgiveness. No possibility of offering some.
As the finality of the situation hit me full on, I turned my head. The features of the driver next to me were illuminated in a bluish glint from the dashboard lights. His face had set in a stony grimace; his jaw clenched so tight he had to have shattered teeth. But what frightened me the most were his eyes, filled with what could only be described as maniacal delight.
He’d said we were both going to die. As the car hurtled to the bottom of the cliff, I closed my eyes and accepted he was right.
chapter two
Ten days earlier
Seven minutes. Four hundred and twenty seconds was all it took before I gave shoving a fistful of coffee stirrers deep into my eyeballs some serious thought. Seven. As I’d begrudgingly trudged into the church hall on Chestnut Street in Portland, Maine, at exactly 6:59 p.m.—no sense being early for a torture session—I had promised myself I’d make it to thirty.
Lack of motivation wasn’t the only problem. Before I’d arrived, I’d hoped the seating arrangements would allow me to duck and hide at the back of the room, but the counselor clearly had other ideas. She’d arranged the chairs in a circle with two dozen spots in all, so I’d chosen an empty one with a space on either side, plonked my bag at my feet, folded my arms across my chest, and abandoned any good intentions of trying to look like I wanted to be here.
My initial and arguably naive understanding of these anger management sessions, to which I’d agreed under duress and against my better judgment, had been that they would make me calmer. Slightly less irritated, at the very least, but so far, it wasn’t working.
“Come on, Frankie, pull yourself together,” I whispered, garnering a glare from another woman on the opposite side of the circle, a petite redhead wearing ladybug-patterned pants and dangly silver grasshopper earrings. I gave bug lady a smile, hoping it translated into something close to girls gotta stick together, and uncrossed my arms. Maybe the gesture would make me appear more receptive and approachable to the counselor, who sat a few chairs to the left. If there were extra marks to be had for a friendly attitude, I wa
It was a crisp evening in mid-October, a little cooler than usual on the Northeast coast, the sidewalks slippery with leaves, the trees already partially bare thanks to Old Bastard Winter making an impromptu appearance over the past few days. On any other Monday, I’d have either been at work catching up on my construction project management duties, or at home, eating dinner while reading from my out-of-control stack of crime novels. Maybe binge-watching Netflix until I woke up dribbling into a cushion and shuffled my sorry ass off to bed. I swallowed a sigh. Some people were terrified of dining alone, but with the last few weeks I’d had where I’d been inundated with work, it sounded like absolute heaven.
My visiting a church on any day was an unusual occurrence. I only frequented them for the occasional wedding, christening or, thankfully rarest of all, funeral. While I’d never been to this particular place of worship, if memory served, it smelled the same as the others. Musty books and burnt coffee mixed with faint body odor, Grandma’s perfume, and pine wood polish. A smell not even the electric air freshener behind me, which sprayed out the occasional pffft of lavender-scented grossness destined to give me a thumping headache, could adequately hide. I wondered for how long I could hold my breath without passing out. Then again, maybe fainting was my escape plan. Definitely a lot less painful than those coffee stirrers.
As the counselor said something about the various benefits of group therapy and what fabulous exercise we’d try tonight, I switched my brain to selective hearing. I looked around the circle, glancing at the other adults who’d joined. We were a mixture of gender, age, and ethnicity. A few actually appeared enthusiastic, making eye contact with the counselor, nodding like a gigantic set of bobbleheads. Some looked openly bored, checking their watches and sliding their phones from their pockets as often as I did. Most, as one might expect from this group, appeared angry, with scrunched-up faces and narrowed eyes, expressions filled with disdain.
I let my gaze fall on a tall, lanky person—from my vantage point I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—who’d pulled an eggplant-colored hoodie halfway over their face and sat hugging their knees. Kind of comforting, knowing I wasn’t the only one wishing I could manipulate time or had a DeLorean parked outside.
I forced myself to concentrate on the counselor for more than two seconds, dug around my memory to recall she’d introduced herself as Geraldina Hoyos. I shouldn’t have forgotten the name, considering she was a friend of my boss—who also happened to be my father—and he’d mentioned her five times at work in the past week alone. She was perched on the edge of her chair, which sat atop a stained frayed blue rug bunched beneath her black leather boots. Her smile was not only unwavering but genuine, and her gray hair cascaded past the bright orange scarf wrapped around her neck, over her narrow rust-colored jacket, and halfway to her ankle-length tangerine skirt. If I squinted a little, she resembled a giant happy pumpkin who might roam the place until Halloween.
For the millionth time in what was now eight minutes, I wondered if corralling a bunch of individuals with temper issues in the same room was a good idea. The smallest of sparks could ignite one of us, unleashing a chain reaction that would explode like fireworks across the room. Except they wouldn’t be colorful and pretty, but an ugly, dangerous pyrotechnic display with the potential to blow off the roof. As I bowed my head, I allowed myself the smallest of grins and half crossed my fingers, because if it happened, we’d get to skip the rest of the hour, collateral damage be damned.
“Again, let me take this opportunity to thank you for joining the group this evening,” Geraldina said in her so-cheery-it-was-annoying tone. “Please remember everybody is welcome here. This is a safe space filled with mutual respect.”
I tried hard not to roll my eyes at her language du jour. Bug lady pursed her lips, and eggplant hoodie didn’t say anything, either, but folded into themselves like an accordion, now appearing half their original size. As I sank lower in the old wooden chair, which had already made my butt numb, I hoped Geraldina wouldn’t ask me to share. I’d seen similar groups on TV, where people bared their souls before bursting into tears and piling in for a group hug, the idea of which made me shudder. I tucked in my chin, wishing to be invisible, and thought how counselors like Geraldina got any satisfaction from this job was a complete mystery. We were more akin to a bunch of sullen teens than adults, so moody I half expected to end up grounded if I didn’t change my attitude. Maybe I’d be sent to bed before the session was over.
I glanced around the room again, counted nineteen other individuals who’d either been forced or, like me, had kind of, sort of, maybe, agreed to these sessions of their own accord. At thirty-three, I wasn’t the youngest or the oldest. As I pretended to listen to what Geraldina was saying, I continued observing one participant after the other, trying to guess what had brought them here. Anger issues, obviously, but what kind?
One guy sitting a few chairs to the right might’ve been at home in a UFC cage and capable of tossing my weathered Ford F-150 truck with one of his sleeve-tattooed arms. He had his elbows on his knees, fingers steepled beneath his chin, seemingly hanging on to Geraldina’s every word. Why was he here? It was easy to make stereotypical assumptions. Road rage? A bust-up at a bar when someone side-eyed his partner once too often? Or had his partner done the side-eyeing?
The older woman next to sleeve-tattoo sat straight-backed, fingers spinning her gold wedding band on her left hand. She wore a tailored black suit and killer red-soled heels probably worth twice my monthly rent. When I arrived, she’d made eye contact, seeming open and friendly, not the type to lose her shit. Most people would think she belonged at a business networking luncheon or a parent-teacher meeting rather than a session like this. After all, women, in particular, weren’t supposed to burst into fits of rage, we were taught to swallow it down, keep ourselves in check.
“You’re an angry woman, Frankie.” How often had I heard that? As if it were an emotion exclusively tolerated and understood in men, something they felt was completely justified, and yet we felt the constant need to apologize for it. I barely scraped five feet three inches on a good day, yet my temper had been compared to an offensive lineman, a Tasmanian devil, or a sun bear, depending on who was asked. Until I looked it up, I’d assumed the latter might’ve been a compliment. Turned out sun bears aren’t cute and cuddly as the name would imply, but vicious creatures who’d rip your face off if given a fraction of a chance. I mean, come on, I wasn’t that bad.
Truth is, we all carry some degree of anger inside, every single one of us, and anyone who insists on the contrary is a goddamn liar. Some ignore it; many stuff the sentiments into a little box and keep it closed, maybe ridding themselves of tension through breathing exercises, meditation, or a deep tissue massage. Others, like me—and probably many of the people in this old church hall—didn’t fare as well. We could explode in a nanosecond if the wrong button got pushed. Become red-faced and feral, noticing the verbal or physical damage we’d caused only in the aftermath of the carnage, when it was too late. My temper could turn into fire, wild and impetuous, unpredictable. Able to get by on a tiny ember until it was fed. It wasn’t a part of me I liked but it was difficult to ignore, one of the reasons I often preferred my own company so I didn’t piss anyone off but myself.
“Okey-dokey.” Geraldina clapped her hands, startling me into sitting straight as if school were in session. “Time for our first reflection exercise and an opportunity to get in touch with our feelings.”
A soft groan escaped my mouth. Not quiet enough because Geraldina glanced at me, put her head to one side, and gave me one of her dazzling, cherubic smiles. Despite her cheery facade, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was thinking your dad said you were a shit-stirrer.
“It’ll be beneficial, I promise.” Her gaze flicked around to the others in the circle. “It can help you let it go.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, promised myself if she broke into the Disney song, I’d shove those coffee stirrers into my ears as well. Willing my legs to resist making a mad dash for the beverage supply table, I sat on my hands and waited for further instructions. Ones I’d already decided to ignore.
