Chapter 44
The door is, of course, locked.
“Alex, can you please restrain your overly curious friend.”
Alex looks at me, pain etched on his face.
“Alex…you know him? You—you’re involved in this?
” It takes me a second for my brain to catch up with what’s happening.
My heart feels like it is ripping in two, and I have to grip the top of the chair to stop from crying.
I am seized by a visceral pain, much like the panic attack at the animal hospital.
“Should I explain or should you, Alex? Our friend has endless questions. She could have just accepted she was off the hook, but she had to keep digging.”
“I…I swear I didn’t know anything about the murder,” Alex stutters. He moves toward me as if to take my hand. I flinch.
“Well, if I go down, you do too,” Brett says, perhaps a bit too calmly for my liking. He’s now sitting with his feet propped on top of his desk. He’s enjoying this.
“What does he mean, Alex?” I demand. I move toward Amaya and try to catch her eye. We need a plan to get out of here. Alex moves in front of the door, thwarting any attempt at escape.
“I…I lied. I know Brett. We went to college together, like you said. He had this idea for this incredible company, New Frontier, and he needed my advice, so I gave it to him. And suddenly he needed my money—and I gave it as an investment. I gave him a lot of money, including a lot of money I didn’t have to give.
Once the company went public, I would make all my money back.
It was a sure thing—until I looked at the numbers.
The company wasn’t going to be even close to profitable, and probably wouldn’t be for years.
If we just got those investors…if we just slightly modified numbers just a little bit…
we could take into account future value so it wasn’t illegal per se.
Once we made the money back, we’d be okay.
I didn’t realize—” Alex gulps as if he is running out of air.
“Brett was stealing from the company, so adjusting the numbers a little was actually a crime. It was no longer just a gray area. I unknowingly helped him commit a crime. Of course, no one would believe I didn’t know.
Only an idiot would be so careless as to not thoroughly vet the numbers beforehand. ”
My stomach is doing flips, and I feel bile rush to my throat. Somehow, Amaya looks calm and collected. I know it’s a facade. She is bouncing her leg up and down—her obvious tell.
“Alex, you can get out of this. Even if you’re in a little bit of trouble, it’s not as bad as being complicit in murder.
You can still make this right,” Amaya says.
I’m not so quick to forgive, but we need Alex on our side to get us out of here.
I’m so mad at him, I never want to speak to him again.
I can hardly look at him, I feel so sick.
“Oh, you wish that’s all he did.” Brett laughs. He’s sitting upright in his chair now. The same things that made him seem sympathetic when we first arrived, like his gaunt face and sunken-in eyes, both of which I assumed were from crying, now make him look sinister.
Alex has moved away from the door and is now pacing while running his hands through his hair. He looks at me pleadingly, but I turn away.
“Initially, before I looked at the numbers myself, Brett told me James was stealing money from the company, so I told him to deal with him. I swear that I didn’t think dealing with him meant killing him. I just thought it meant a stern talking-to…or something…I could never imagine…”
“Sure, the idea to kill Shirley and James was mine alone, but you were certainly the inspiration, Alex. Take some credit. Like you always said, ‘Success at any cost.’ ”
“This is not what I meant,” Alex responds through gritted teeth. He genuinely looks pained at what he’s done.
Brett gets up and stands between Alex and me before advancing toward me.
Brett’s face is now inches away from my own.
“Don’t be so sad. Alex finally did some due diligence after the murder and realized that I had stolen the funds, not James, and he threatened to out me.
This, of course, would have implicated him, but he didn’t care as long as you got off the hook.
He is a loyal friend. He said we had to find the true murderer.
So I said James’s friend Charlie had the most motive to kill him.
And Alex believed it. Or maybe just wanted to believe it. ” Brett looks gleeful.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Alex has known Brett this whole time and has taken him at his word.
I’m surprised that Alex, as a lifelong New Yorker, has managed to be so naive.
He was going to make sure I didn’t go down for this crime.
It didn’t absolve him of his secrets and betrayal, but he certainly wasn’t in the same league as Brett.
“Siri. I swear I didn’t know you were going to be involved in this.
I didn’t even know James would get into your taxi.
When I found out what really happened, I was trying to make it right immediately…
I’m so sorry. I should have been honest from the beginning.
I didn’t want you to hate me, and I thought I could get the guy who did it and everything would resolve itself.
I only realized Brett was stealing funds after you got charged, and I didn’t think Brett was capable of murdering his close friend and business partner.
I should have asked more questions…” Alex turns to Brett.
“I mean, how did you even know James was going to get into Siri’s taxi, Brett? ”
“Harvey was following Siri. I thought that if Alex had some second thoughts about outing my criminal activities, I’d let him know I was keeping tabs on his most favorite person in the world. Then I thought I’d have even more leverage over Alex with Siri behind bars.”
I still couldn’t figure it out. “How did you ensure James would get into my cab?”
“I work at a tech company. Some geek hacked the Curb app to make sure you’d be right by where James would hail a cab. Don’t ask me how he did it. James and I shared a Google Calendar for work, and he had ‘snake drop off 1:15 a.m.,’ so I knew where he would be.”
The night of the murder, I remember being hailed on the Curb app and then the cancellation. Then seconds later, James was at my door.
“How did you do the rest of it?” Normally, I’d relish this satisfying explanation at the end of it all, like a British murder mystery that neatly wraps up despite a few gaping plot holes. Instead, actually living it feels terrifying.
“I hired my friend Harvey to kill James. James found out I was embezzling money from my own company. I covered my tracks for a while, and James’s hippie-dippie ass didn’t even notice.
Eventually, Shirley mentioned something about her deliverables still not being sent to her, and James realized I had taken the money her company paid us to get her that stuff.
We probably could have worked something out, but James was insistent on outing me.
He was going to fly to Paris to reveal all to our investors.
I tried to talk sense into him, but he kept saying I had committed a crime. He really gave me no choice.”
“But…how did you kill James in my moving taxi?”
“You can thank Harvey for that,” Brett says, nodding to the photograph of the two of them on his desk.
“He’s pretty awful at everything, and I guess that extends to killing people.
Don’t send out a Yale grad to do your dirty work, but my options were limited.
Harvey was so desperate for money for his little drug addiction that he’d do anything for me.
He followed your taxi on his motorcycle.
He was going to wait until you stopped, force you out of the car, stab James, and flee.
Or follow you to the airport and stab him at some point.
He didn’t have it fully fleshed out, yet knew he needed to do it before James got through security and got on that flight.
Then you stopped at a red light, and the passenger window was open.
He stabbed James and literally rode away into the sunset. ”
It was nighttime, but I get the metaphor.
Brett gestures over to the gorgeous view of the sun setting behind him.
It would be a breathtaking moment to behold if I weren’t worried about leaving here alive.
I think back to the night of the murder, to the moment the motorcycle rode up next to me.
There was a commotion up front, and I remember sticking my head out the window to find out what was causing all that incessant horn beeping.
With a sinking feeling in my gut that makes me want to vomit, I realize that’s the exact moment James was murdered in my car.
And finally, we have it: means, motive, and opportunity.
“He got very lucky. Until he totally spun out and tried to kill Amaya at the hospital. I didn’t think he was stupid enough to attempt that.
I told him just to scare her. He was really strung out.
Harvey followed you to throw you off the trail with that pizza menu and those anonymous threatening texts.
Turns out you were hard to scare off.” It’s a compliment from a literal psychopath, but in a twisted way it still makes me feel a little better about my investigative skills.
“When Harvey couldn’t follow you because he was trying to keep tabs on Amaya and Charlie,” he says while looking at her, “I hired some girl to follow you. Of course, I created a dummy email account to make it look like Shirley was hiring her. Obviously, I have to cover my tracks.” It wasn’t Shirley Lee who hired her after all. But the voicemail on the burner phone…
“And Shirley?” I ask. Brett’s on a roll, and I need to keep him talking. Always keep the suspect talking.
“Shirley had been demanding the environmental work we promised for months. At first I thought I could hold her off because she was interested in me.” Brett retreats behind his desk and starts rummaging through his drawer for something.
“And did she stop demanding the deliverables when things got…intimate?”
“Not really. That bitch was suspicious from the start. I think she only came on to me to find the truth. I’d only even gotten together with her to shut her up.
When James died, her suspicions grew, and she thought she was hiding it from me.
I knew she was too smart for her own good.
She would have figured it all out in the end. ”
“So you staged her suicide?”
“I tried to get her to stop without taking such…drastic measures. Harvey called her and left threatening messages. That only seemed to fuel her curiosity.” That’s how her number ended up on Harvey’s phone. He was threatening her. They weren’t working together.
“How did you kill her?”
“I don’t need to tell you all my secrets, do I?” Brett grabs a letter opener out of his desk drawer. “I wasn’t anticipating having to kill anyone myself, but I guess this little thing will have to do. It’s dull, so this will most certainly hurt,” Brett says with a manic smile.
“Please spare Amaya,” I plead. “You have me.”
Brett is standing up again and advancing toward Amaya and me.
“Sorry, y’all got to go.” For a second Brett sounds like a Southern belle.
I remind myself this situation is anything but funny.
“And, Alex, you have to help me. You may not have committed murder, but financial fraud is certainly a crime punishable by prison time. And so easy to prove too. I have receipts. You don’t have to go to jail for your friend, Alex. ”
“Brett. Just calm down. We can work this out,” Alex says, voice frantic.
“Time is past for that. I think we can kill both of them, take them out the service corridor, and then dump them in the river…also open to other creative solutions.”
“You won’t get away with it,” I manage to eke out. “There are cameras and DNA evidence and…”
“I’ll help you,” Alex interjects.
My stomach flips again. Alex is tossing aside years of friendship to save himself.
I’m about to die. This is how it ends. Nosy investigator who can’t stop asking questions finds herself as a true crime headline.
Why couldn’t I just keep quiet and be happy the charges against me were being dropped?
Why do I always have to figure out how it ends?
I wonder if Amaya and I can bum-rush both Alex and Brett, but we are at a disadvantage.
Amaya still has the injured arm, and I’m a string bean compared to Alex and Brett.
I’m thinking about our exit strategy when Alex approaches me gingerly. He grabs me.
“Alex, I can’t believe you’re doing this.” I dig my fingernails into my palm, but I can’t stop a few tears from stubbornly making their way out. I’m momentarily frustrated at my inability to hold my emotions back when I need to be tough—or at least pretend to be.
Alex looks at me so sadly, for a second I feel bad before remembering that this is all his fault. “Siri…I—”
I interrupt him. “There’s nothing you can say to make this better. There’s nothing you can do to fix this.”
“Do you remember the Great Noogie Incident of 2011?”
Brett, Amaya, and I all stare at Alex like he’s hit his head. What the heck is he talking about, he—oh. I nod almost imperceptibly.
In what feels like half a second, Alex pivots and pins Brett to the chair as I swiftly punch him.
It happens so fast I feel like I’ve hallucinated it except for the pain radiating from my fist. The Great Noogie Incident was payback to a certain middle school bully.
Back then, the noogie, not a punch, was the torture of choice.
The letter opener falls to the ground with a clatter.
—
The punch was enough to knock Brett out temporarily, just until the police and medics arrived. The New York Post headline the next day spared no mercy, just as they hadn’t for me a few days earlier:
LOVE TRIANGLE: Man Hires Hit Man to Stab Best Friend and Poisons Girlfriend!
The article has a quote from Brett Ryan’s expensive lawyer stating that they vow to take his case to trial.
According to sources Amaya has in the DA’s office, the Cayman Islands account that was used to buy the Rolex and hire an expensive attorney for Harvey so he wouldn’t talk was arduously traced back to Brett, resulting in Charlie’s name being officially cleared.
In light of the overwhelming evidence against Brett and his own plea deal, Harvey confessed to the murder for hire.
In the story, my name is cleared, but only toward the end in small print.
Brett’s trial is quickly becoming the murder case of the year, and I’m sure I’ll be called to testify—a thought that would normally bring me crippling anxiety. This time, though, I’m ready.