Chapter 45
One hour later, the survivor from the Devil’s Staircase has been photographed, fingerprinted, and seated in a soundproof interrogation
room on the second floor of the Stevens County Sheriff’s Department. This is now a controlled environment—no more interrupting
nurses, no more distracting coughs down the hall. The walls are bare and the furniture minimalist. Instead of a cheap digital
recorder, Tess’s every move is now captured by two high-definition cameras and four directional microphones. She waits rigidly
in a sunken chair that’s bolted to the floor. She hasn’t touched her bottled water. When the door creaks open, she jolts.
Detective Washington enters with a smile. “Hey, stranger.”
Her face goes colorless. You.
“Yes, me.” She sits between Tess and the door. “Remember hours ago, when I told you most killers dig the hole themselves?
I just hand them—”
“The shovel,” Tess says. “I remember.”
When subjects are read their Miranda warning, they’re often too shocked or distracted to truly listen. But Tess is different.
She absorbs every word with clear-eyed awareness. On the paperwork, she signs her name with a precise swoosh. Then she sets
the pen down and stares directly forward, as if challenging the detective.
“To give credit where it’s due: Tess, you are one incredible liar.
Maybe the best I’ve ever seen. Your performance was nuanced and believable.
And those details?” Washington mimes a chef’s kiss.
“Even I was rooting for you, and I’d suspected you were hiding something the moment I sat down in your hospital room.
” She scoots her unbolted chair forward.
“I mean it, Tess. You’re damn good at this. ”
The woman sits on her hands, silent.
“But I’m better.”
Interrogation is all about psychological pressure, and that pressure requires momentum. A subject must be afforded little
time to reflect or maneuver, and Tess has already proven herself to be a gifted and pathological liar. Normal tactics won’t
work on her. She can juggle details and handle an immense cognitive load. Her mind is agile, pin-sharp, enviably young.
No matter. Washington will break the little bitch anyway.
For Allie.
“I solved it, you know.” She pats her notepad. “The whole puzzle.”
Tess says nothing.
“I just got off the phone with my friends downtown. I don’t believe Allie was really a secret criminal leading a double life.
I don’t even think she committed wire fraud.” Washington scoots closer. “I think that was you, sweetheart.”
Tess stiffens, almost imperceptibly.
There it is.
“You were stealing under Allie’s nose, weren’t you?
Forging site metrics, lying to her advertisers, pocketing their money.
Sneaky little net and gross adjustments that’ll take the math nerds months to untangle.
It always tore you up that your best friend was so much more successful than you, that her life was so much better than yours, that you were almost thirty and still working for her like a little pet—but you still found a way to carve out your own slice.
Law school is expensive, huh? The smart parasite never kills its host, and you’re the smartest. But somewhere, you made a mistake. ”
A muscle below Tess’s eyelid tenses. She’s trying to hide the flush of adrenaline.
Washington knows she’s drawn blood.
“The feds were circling, and you were terrified of what would happen when Allie found out. She was never home and you ran
her office, so you could have deleted the calls and emails. If you made sure to answer her apartment door, you could have
even impersonated Allie and intercepted the subpoenas and target letters, too. But you were only buying time. The fuse was lit. Any day now,
she would discover the truth. It was all about to crash down on you, and you’d be charged with God only knows how many felonies.
You’d go to prison. Three years of law school wasted. Your future was over.”
The room feels smaller now.
“So you did the only thing that might save you: you had your best friend murdered before she found out. If Allie died in a
random attack from an unknown killer, you could pin everything on her. A clean break for you.”
Tess is stone-still.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.
There’s an undeniable catharsis in seeing the full picture excavated, dragged up out of the earth and exposed in harsh detail.
But like so many other wins over the decades, it still feels hollow, meaningless, like too little, too late. Clearing Allie
Merritt’s name for her family and friends won’t bring the poor woman back. It never does. The killer always gets to tell the
story, and the victims are only ever trapped inside it.
Washington takes a breath and gathers herself. It’s dispiriting work as always, just damages and punishments, but she’ll do what she can.
For Allie.
“And when your planned murder at the Devil’s Staircase fell apart, when badass Allie refused to go quietly and killed Jacob,
you had to cover your ass somehow. You didn’t just need Allie dead—you needed her body and her memory card to disappear, buried under millions of tons of earth somewhere so deep we’d never find her remains.”
At least now, she doesn’t have to hide her disgust any longer.
“You left your pregnant best friend to die.”