Chapter 5
W hen the plainclothes officer walked in the classroom, she asked, “How is the questioning coming along with this one?”
The officer who’d been taking notes said, “We’re almost done.”
“Let me know when I can take over.”
I didn’t like the tone of her voice—it sounded threatening…ominous.
Silva said, “Be my guest.” Standing up, he allowed the female officer to sit in his place, and he sat in a chair at the next desk.
“Annalise Miller?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I realize you’ve told these officers your story, but I’d like to hear it for myself.”
Holding back a sigh, I related again the things I’d done and seen throughout the day—but when I mentioned leaving the lab and closing the door so it locked, she stopped me.
“Would you repeat that, please?”
“After I hung up with Dr. Rakhimov, I hurried out of the lab, making sure the door locked behind me—and I completely forgot about the noise I heard.”
“What if I told you I didn’t believe you?”
I was shocked—but I tried to calm myself, remembering that I’d heard about the good cop/ bad cop routine. No doubt she was playing the role of bad cop, hoping I’d change my story. But it wouldn’t change, because I was telling the truth. “What don’t you believe?”
“Tell me who your accomplices were and we’ll try to go easy on you.”
“What?” Now panic surged through my veins as I realized she thought I was the one who’d vandalized the lab. “What do you mean by accomplices?”
“As much as I’d like to pin this whole damn thing on you, there’s no way you could have accomplished the damage to the lab in the short time you were in there by yourself. Who helped you?”
“Nobody. I didn’t do anything. I already told you what I did.”
“You’re lying,” she said, her brown eyes dark with rage.
“No, I’m not. What do you think I did?”
She glowered at me across that small desk and I thought she would have choked me if she’d thought she could get away with it. “You know exactly what you did.” I just shook my head. This woman was crazy. “Would you be willing to submit to a polygraph test?” Before I could respond, she added, “If you took a lie detector test, how do you think it would turn out?”
“It would prove I’m innocent!”
There was yet another knock at the door, but whoever was on the other side was waiting to be invited in. The plainclothes cop finally broke eye contact with me and turned to Silva. “Do you mind? See who’s there.” While he was checking the door, she turned back to me. “So you’re willing to take a polygraph test?”
“Yes, absolutely.” It was that prospect that gave me hope.
Silva was talking with someone on the other side of the door in hushed tones, and I suspected that we were all curious about the conversation. Silva turned and said, “Can you come out here, detective?”
With a curt nod, she got up without a word. When she got to the door, she went outside and both she and Silva stayed there, talking to whomever was on the other side. I could hear voices beyond the door, but I couldn’t identify them.
That wasn’t helping my nerves. Not at all.
Soon, however, my curiosity was satisfied. Silva re-entered the room, followed by the detective…and Dr. Rakhimov.
And none other than Sinclair Whittier.
I was confused, because the last two people were not law enforcement. But then I realized it was possible that they had information to prove my innocence. Although I hated that Whittier would be part of my salvation, I couldn’t help but relax as they walked the rest of the way into the room.
But Silva nodded at the other officer still sitting across and to the side from me, signaling him somehow—and he got up, making room for Dr. Rakhimov to sit.
And Sinclair Whittier sat directly in front of me.
Gone was his charming disposition and easy smile, replaced by a ruthless, angry man, so full of rage, I could feel it.
So I was surprised when it was Dr. Rakhimov who spoke first. “We’d like to give you the chance to come clean, Annalise.” Even while she talked, it was hard to take my eyes off of Whittier, because it felt like he was a poised cobra or a jaguar ready to strike.
Of course, Dr. Rakhimov was intimidating in her own right, her voice ice cold and commanding. Her dark eyes seemed to drill inside my soul, yet I managed to answer her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Sinclair Whittier could no longer hold himself back—but it was obvious he was trying. His voice was low and menacing, like a growl, and the eyes I’d thought of as sapphires earlier in the evening now made me think of an unforgiving bottomless ocean ready to swallow me whole. “You know exactly what she means. You were in the lab unsupervised—you were the last identifiable person in there. You had the opportunity, the means, and the motive.”
They were accusing me of wrecking the lab? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do it!” I was scared out of my mind. Was I going to go to jail? How exactly could I prove I hadn’t done something? I would need a lawyer but I couldn’t afford one. Why were they so convinced it was me?
“You did do it, you little vagrant. I should have known better than to hire you,” Dr. Rakhimov spat.
Now was not the time to remind her that no one else awarded work-study money wanted to work for her. When I’d taken the position, I hadn’t known about her reputation—but I’d found out quickly afterward.
Whittier followed up as if making a case before a jury. “Opportunity: you were alone in the lab, left unlocked by your own admission.” How did he know I’d told the cops that the lab had been open when I’d returned from the print shop? “Means: working with a like-minded group, probably one you organized yourself, knowing that would give you an alibi. They did the dirty work while you appeared at the auditorium, making your presence known. And you were quite familiar with the lab and its surroundings after working in there. You knew there were no cameras inside.”
Although I needed to dispute every word he’d said, it was here that I interrupted. “Everyone knew that!”
But he kept going as if he hadn’t even heard me. “And, finally, motive, the most damning evidence of all. When I first met you tonight, I had no idea you were the daughter of Rowan Miller. You saw your opportunity to get revenge and you seized it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Are you denying you know who I am?”
I shook my head. Even angry and intimidating, this man was beautiful in a way I couldn’t describe, and it made me all the more furious with him. The Whittiers had everything: more money than I could imagine, unbelievable power—evidenced by the fact that the local police let Sinclair take over my interrogation—and ridiculous good looks. I and my father had next to nothing, partly because of his family.
This was an unfair fight.
I knew that yelling wouldn’t help my cause, nor would letting my emotions take over. “Of course, I know who you are.”
“No wonder you steered me away from the lab.”
“What? No. I didn’t know who you were when I met you earlier.”
“A likely story.”
The detective put a hand on the desk, but I wasn’t sure if she was addressing Dr. Rakhimov or Whittier. “Do you want to press charges?”
Dr. Rakhimov said, “Sin?”
Whittier said, “If she were prosecuted in front of a jury, what would she get?”
“I’m not the DA. I have no idea.”
“You pay attention, though, don’t you? Don’t you make recommendations?”
“Well…based on the estimated damages, this would be a felony. I think that’s punishable up to three years or so plus restitution. But it depends on what other charges the DA would come up with.”
They were talking about my future almost as if I wasn’t there.
While Whittier nodded, the detective continued. “She could probably be charged with conspiracy too. That would add on more years and more restitution. And the DA always thinks of other stuff we don’t.”
“The restitution…would she have to pay back all of the damages?”
“No idea.”
Whittier looked straight at me when he asked the next question. His eyes seemed to bore into the depths of my soul—and yet he couldn’t see the truth. “What if she gave up the names of her conspirators? Would the penalties be mitigated in that case?”
“If she cooperates, sometimes that helps. Not always.”
The unnamed officer cleared his throat. “Bear in mind that you have to prove she did it. Your evidence is circumstantial.”
The detective started to speak, but Whittier beat her to the punch. “It doesn’t matter. In the time it takes to build a case, we’ll make your life a living hell. If you think your father had it bad before, think again. The last twenty years will seem like a cake walk.”
The thought of jail—and having to pay back hundreds of thousands dollars’ worth of damage—was bad enough. Growing up under that shadow, I could probably handle more…but there was the question of my father. That whole experience had nearly ruined him, and I was convinced it had weakened his immune system, making him susceptible to illness and disease—so one more thing I blamed the Whittier family for was my father’s ailing health.
Something like this might kill him.
So when Sinclair Whittier made an offer that would avoid all that…it’s no wonder I took it.
Whittier’s expression lightened somewhat, but I found the slight smile just as scary as his earlier scowl. “I’m gathering that we have an option here.” Standing, he faced the detective and resumed talking about me as if I were in another room. “We can choose not to press charges—and we can choose to forego asking insurance to cover the damages. I can pay for any necessary repairs.”
Dr. Rakhimov spat, “And let her get away with this travesty?”
“I said nothing of the sort. She will pay.” He sat across from me again, his voice low, his expression intense. I felt like I was going to vomit. “I am going to make you a one-time offer. You can come work for me—and work off the cost of the damages.”
I saw a glimmer of hope. “What would I be doing?”
“You would work for me in my mansion.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know yet.” Leaning over the desk, he got closer to my face, so close that I could feel his electromagnetic energy as if it were a palpable thing. “If you refuse, I will do whatever it takes to make sure you are punished to the full extent of the law—and all the while I’ll see to it that you and your family are absolutely miserable. Everywhere you turn, everywhere you go there will be someone to remind you of what you did here and what’s coming. And don’t think it will end after the trial.”
I knew these were not empty threats. I’d lived through much of my father’s persecution and was myself suffering in the aftermath.
At this point, I was grasping at straws. “You said I’d be working off the damages. How much—”
“The lab cost over one-point-five million dollars. We can round it down.” He turned his head so that he could face Dr. Rakhimov again. “Leona, what’s Colorado’s minimum wage nowadays?”
I knew what minimum wage was because that was what I was earning as Dr. R.’s teaching assistant—but I wasn’t about to cough up that information.
“Isn’t it higher in Denver?”
“Oh, that’s right. Then let’s just round it up to twenty dollars an hour.” Again, he stood and began pacing, speaking as if to himself. “Forty hours a week at twenty dollars an hour would be eight-hundred dollars a week, but for simple math, let’s just say that comes to around forty-thousand a year.”
My heart sank as I envisioned working off this debt for the rest of my life. I wasn’t a math major but it was easy enough to figure out that it would take me thirty years—provided he didn’t charge interest on top. Suddenly, jail time and universal persecution didn’t sound so bad.
But it was like he read my mind—and, as if to emphasize his next words, he again sat across from me. “However, I would consider your debt paid if you work for me for ten years.”
Ten years seemed like such a long time. After all, ten years earlier, I was still a child of nine. Although I’d felt much of the town’s anger and hatred of my family, I was still to a degree innocent. I played with dolls and read books that had a few illustrations. I wasn’t yet wearing a bra or menstruating.
Ten years from now , I would be close to thirty years old.
Again, my mind pondered the possibilities—and I didn’t think my father could survive another long never-ending rake through the mud. I believed it would kill him. And then if I had to go to jail, it was possible I’d be locked away for the same amount of time—but I’d still have money to pay back.
“I’m waiting.”
Ignoring him, I weighed my options. Ten years serving Sinclair Whittier, and then I’d be free—both in terms of my personal self and my finances. It seemed like the best offer I would ever get. “If I accept your proposal, I won’t be held liable for the damages here?”
“You have my word.”
I let out a long sigh and stood to face him. He towered over me, but I refused to let it scare me. Holding out my hand, I said, “I accept.”
He shook my hand, nearly crushing it. I could feel his power and his wrath through his grip, but I refused to let any of that show on my face. “We have a deal.”
And thus my fate was sealed.