“Consultancy for the company. That was easy,” Griffin gloated, shaking his head like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
Faith couldn’t believe their luck. The man had obviously decided his ship was sunk before they ever showed up, and now in his drunken state he assumed they knew everything already. They’d need a bigger boat if the fish kept jumping in on their own. Brandt had barely taken the bait out of the bag.
“Of course, we have those records,” Brandt lied. “And I assume it was Grayson you dealt with most of the time?”
Griffin made a nodding, head-shaking sort of motion which Faith guessed was intended as an agreement.
“You know what I don’t get?” she said, playing the less informed partner, “is how Skylar fits into all this? She was your student, right?”
Griffin looked up at her through dull, unfocused eyes. “She blew the whistle,” he mumbled, and the two agents looked at each other.
Faith thought about the timing. Skylar had left the university and was already in trouble several more times elsewhere before Myra Shah became involved. Besides, to Faith’s knowledge, the reporter hadn’t mentioned the girl.
“And everything crumbled from there, huh?” she tried, seeing if she could lure a little more information.
“Took eight months,” the professor scoffed. “Enough time that I thought we were free and clear. And then this,” he waved at the TV screen. “Dredged it all up again. Now we’re fucked.”
If she blew the whistle eight months ago, that was right at the time of Olivia Massey’s accident, Faith thought.
“Do you think Jensen Massey knows it was Skylar who told his wife all about your scam?” Faith asked, piecing together the story.
Griffin frowned. “He didn’t,” he said firmly. “I stood three feet away from the man at his wife’s funeral. Don’t know how he’d find out since.”
“Shit,” Faith whispered. “Massey doesn’t know he’s mutilating and threatening to kill the only Briggs that’s done the right thing.”
Brandt stood up. “Grayson Briggs is being arrested as we speak for the murder of Myra Shah,” he said boldly.
“The reporter?” Griffin said, looking confused.
“Murdered, earlier today,” Brandt confirmed. “So if you want to help yourself out on this, you’d better tell us everything you know. That’s what Grayson Briggs will start doing when we interview him. Now’s your chance to beat him to it. We’ll only work with one of you.”
Griffin slumped back on the sofa. “Grayson’s just a puppet. He won’t talk. Sure, he’ll tell you all about me, but we’re the pawns in this game.”
“We want Briggs,” Faith announced. “Can you give him to us?”
Griffin looked up at her. “Grayson, no problem.”
“Not Grayson,” she clarified, hoping she was on the right path, “Donovan.”
Griffin sneered, “Grayson won’t give you his old man, and probably can’t. Donovan Briggs rubs shoulders with governors and Fortune 500 execs, he doesn’t get his hands dirty.”
“But you have something on Donovan, don’t you?” Faith pushed.
“I want my lawyer here,” Griffin demanded, and Faith cursed herself for leaning on him too hard.
The professor sighed. “Get my lawyer here, and I’ll tell you how to get Donovan Briggs. But I need a deal,” he said, and Faith held back a smile.
“And protection. If you can’t protect me, I’ll end up like Olivia.”
32
Joan of Arc
I knew I was running out of time. Trying to bash my way out had proven harder than I’d hoped. I wondered if I could break out of the exterior wall, but that wouldn’t get me to Massey. I couldn’t abandon Skylar at this point. Conversing had got me nowhere. I was scared of pushing him the wrong way and causing more damage. And by damage, I mean pain to Skylar Briggs.
With no other options, I focused on preparing for the final challenge. But how do you prepare for something when you have no idea what it is? He’d said something about ‘speak no evil’ in his description of the last challenge, but if he was using the saying with the three monkeys, that should have been the last one. See no, hear no, speak no evil, right? I questioned myself and began wondering if I had them in the right order. The first challenge had been about holding my breath and solving a puzzle. I supposed it could be construed as a sight task. In the second one I’d been blinded and relied on hearing, and the last one I was hearing again, but we were both speaking. Apparently I had them in the right order, but none of that gave me a clue to what lay ahead. We were out of monkeys.
I could hear movement from the other room, but it was impossible to tell what was happening. Massey was walking back and forth, his heavy footfalls vibrating the flooring, and I thought I heard water running. Hopefully, he was cleaning Skylar’s wound, or at least wiping her face or something pleasant. There were occasional clunks and bumps, but it was all muffled to my ears and hard to identify.
“Hurting me won’t get to my dad,” I heard Skylar say. “You should take your problem up with him. Maybe he’d meet with you to sort it out.”
Massey laughed with no hint of humour. “Meet with me? He wouldn’t even take my phone calls. He had his chance. I tried talking with him and he chose to ignore me, which was to be expected from the likes of him. Now it’s come to this.”
“I don’t understand,” Skylar whimpered. “I have as little to do with my dad as possible, it’s not fair to take your problem out on me.”
“Not just your father,” Massey pointed out, and I heard him moving with more haste and heavier footsteps. He was getting agitated.
“Whatever. His company too,” Skylar said. “I don’t work for him, you know, I’m just a student.”
“Sometimes you’re a student,” Massey corrected. “I lost track. Are you currently enrolled somewhere, or did you get kicked out again?”
“Fuck you,” she groaned.
Skylar seemed to give up, and all I could hear was Massey moving about, setting up whatever he’d concocted for the next part of his show. I looked around my tiny room again, looking for anything remotely useful. I had no idea what constituted useful, as my situation was unique, at least to me, but I looked regardless. Picking up the helmet, I checked it over for any loose parts that could become a tool or weapon. Unless I resorted to bashing a hole in the wall with my head, I couldn’t come up with a use.
Next, I wiggled the whiteboard to see if it was screwed in place or hung there. It moved slightly, but didn’t come away from the wall. I heard a tearing sound that was familiar. Velcro. I tugged firmly at the board and it pulled away, accompanied by more tearing sounds. The board was too big to utilise for anything I could think of, but I sat on the floor and studied the aluminium pen tray along the bottom. I couldn’t see any screws, so I guessed it was glued to the board. If I ripped it off, maybe the piece of extrusion could be a pry bar or even a bat, although it didn’t weigh very much. Being hit with it would be more annoying than damaging.
“Nora, what are you doing?” came Massey’s voice over the speakers.
I’d hoped he was too busy to notice what I was up to. “I’m bored,” I said, looking up towards the camera above where the whiteboard had been. My eyes never made it to the camera. Two long Velcro strips remained stuck to the wall and between them was a TV screen or monitor of some sort, set into the partition. It had been hidden behind the whiteboard.
“I’m sorry I’ve failed to adequately entertain you,” Massey said, “But I think you’ll find that will change shortly.”
“Take your time,” I replied, shoving the whiteboard aside and standing up.
“We have a few more minutes, but I’d planned to have you take the board down once I was ready, so you could watch the next video,” he said.
“One step ahead of you,” I said to the wall.
I heard a chuckle from the other room. Glad I could amuse the man. Maybe he didn’t realise I was over this shit and would
gladly beat him over the head with an aluminium whiteboard pen tray, given the chance. Perhaps I could annoy him into submission. His gun was probably more effective, but he shouldn’t underestimate a pissed-off Viking.
“So, Mr Massey,” I started, “what does this final challenge have in store?”
“Hey!” I heard Skylar blurt. “Your name is Massey?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Skylar didn’t know the man’s name, but it made sense when I thought about it. The only reason I knew was from Whittaker. They’d made the ID before I got in the water at the dock. That felt like so long ago already. The video I’d seen hadn’t mentioned his name and neither he nor I had used it until now.
“Jensen Massey, yes. I apologise I didn’t formally introduce myself.”
“Shit,” Skylar blurted. “Now I understand.”
The movement next door stopped.
“You don’t know me,” Massey said, sarcastically.
“Not you,” Skylar replied hesitantly.
I moved closer to the wall and rested my hands against the plywood, listening carefully.
“I knew your wife.”
The room went quiet for a few moments.
“I know you briefly attended her university,” Massey said. “You met her there I presume.”
“I didn’t have her class,” Skylar said, still sounding unsure.
“I know that,” Massey replied, beginning to sound impatient. “You studied under that bastard, Griffin.”
I heard his feet moving again and presumed he’d gone back to his preparations.
“I saw her that night,” Skylar said, her voice shaking.
All movement stopped once again.
“What?” Massey snapped. “You saw Olivia the night she was killed?”
“I met with her.”
I was riveted to the conversation. His wife had died. Or more accurately, had been killed. This was news to me.
“You met? Where?” Massey asked, his voice changing. “About what?”
It was difficult to pinpoint the emotion in his voice. It was a mixture of surprise, suspicion, and something else.
“In her office,” Skylar replied. “It was late, no one else was there.”
“Why? What was it about?”
For a moment I wondered if Skylar was talking so softly I couldn’t hear her, but then she spoke again.
“Your wife was looking into the study the university had conducted for the Florida Environmental Protection Agency.”
“I know that, but why was she talking to you?”
“It was my fault,” Skylar replied, her voice breaking, and I guessed she was crying.
“You were in on this with your brother?” Massey boomed, and I began to panic. If he was going to lose it, I had to try again to break down the door.
“No, no,” Skylar quickly replied, “I had no idea they’d go that far.”
“Then how did you know about the study?” Massey grilled, and I pictured him towering over the girl tied to the chair, gun in hand.
“I heard Grayson and my dad talking about it,” she said defensively. “We were out on our boat and they forgot I was there. Or didn’t care.”
“You helped Olivia look into the study?” Massey asked incredulously.
There was another pause, and I held my breath, pressing an ear to the wall.
“I’m the one who asked her to look into it,” she said weakly.
Massey had said that Skylar had nothing to do with the day’s events. An innocent victim. She had the misfortune of being Donovan Briggs’s daughter as her only sin. Against Massey, at least. But this changed everything. If she was working with his wife, it seemed like they were on the same side. Surely he’d let her go?
“You’re the anonymous tip that started it all?” he muttered.
“Except, I wasn’t totally anonymous,” Skylar corrected. “I met with your wife and asked her to look into the study. What they were doing was wrong. Once I knew about it, I couldn’t let it go on. I asked her to keep my name out of it, and she promised.”
“What about that night?” Massey urged. “You still haven’t told me what happened that night.”
“Olivia was stuck,” Skylar began. “Everything on the university servers was bogus figures from the water tests. She could see from historical data and a test she conducted herself that the numbers weren’t right. She asked me if there was anything else I could provide her.”
Skylar paused and took a few breaths. I was glad she hadn’t taken the pain pills she was offered, as I doubted she’d be this coherent. This was a different side to the gum-snapping rich kid I hadn’t imagined. A side worth saving.
“My brother and two of his buddies conducted all the tests, then provided fake data to Griffin. To make sure the data was realistic, Griffin had created a formula to offset the real results. Grayson applied the formula before uploading the data. But the formula itself was on the server. I snooped in Grayson’s university email account and found where Griffin had sent an attachment with a revised formula. That’s why I went to see Olivia. I told her about the formula.”
“She called me,” Massey said, sounding utterly deflated. “On her way home, shortly before the crash. She told me I wouldn’t believe what she’d found. I’d been asleep on the couch and the phone woke me up. It was really late. She was going to tell me everything when she got home. But she never made it home.” His voice trailed off, and I waited, unsure what was about to happen. He continued, on the verge of breaking down. “She told me she loved me, and we hung up. I said nothing back. I had the chance for my last words to my soulmate to be ‘I love you’, and I was too tired to say it.”
The room fell silent once again, and I tried to process all the new information. Skylar was on his side. She could provide the evidence he needed to prove whatever these reports they were talking about were fake. He had to let her go.
“This changes nothing,” Massey barked. “Maybe you’re telling the truth, maybe you’re lying to save your own skin, but I’m finishing what I started. You’ve had eight months to come to me and tell me what you told Olivia, but you didn’t. You chose to stay quiet and let her death go unpunished. You knew they killed her to shut her up.”
“I didn’t know for sure!” Skylar screamed. “I was scared to death. I had no idea what to do. My dad moved me to another school and never told me why. I was terrified.”
“It’s too late now. The world is waiting to hear about your family and how Olivia was murdered for their profit,” Massey ranted. “If you’re lying, then you deserve the suffering I’ve caused you. If you’re telling the truth and this ends badly, then I’ll be the Devil and you’ll be Joan of fucking Arc.”
I banged on the wall. “No! She’s innocent, damn it! She helped your wife!”
Massey ignored me, and I heard Skylar sobbing. I banged harder and yelled.
“It’s over! You have the evidence you need!”
More movement echoed from next door, and Skylar yelped. My whole view of the girl had shifted. For all her problems, attitude and mistakes, she had tried to do the right thing. Now she was being punished by one of the people she was trying to help. I hoped his reference to Joan of Arc was figurative, and burning was not involved in the final challenge. There was nothing I dreaded more than being burned alive. I smashed my hand against the wall, but Massey didn’t respond.
I stepped back and considered taking a run at the door when the TV came to life. A video began playing and haunting music drowned out anything happening in the next room. I was looking at the crushed remains of a BMW.
33
A Basket Full of Eggs
The wrecked car was hardly recognisable as a BMW, the emblem on the boot the only clue. Whittaker winced at the news footage showing the wrinkled front of the box truck, dragged off to the side by a tow truck. Massey’s voice began narrating over the film.
“Olivia Massey was killed in a hit-and-run accident while driving home from work late one evening. The tr
uck which hit her had been stolen, and two men were observed fleeing the scene by two separate eyewitnesses in neighbouring buildings. A car pulled up and stopped moments later, according to the same eyewitnesses. A man in dark clothing walked along the top of the divider wall that Olivia’s car was crushed against, and took something from inside the vehicle. He spent an estimated 30 seconds at the crash site before returning to his own car and leaving.
“The witnesses, who observed from the windows of their apartments, both over 100 yards away, could only give vague descriptions of all three people and the vehicle that stopped. Neither the man, nor his car, nor the two men from the truck, were ever identified. Olivia’s cell phone, laptop and satchel she always carried with her were all missing and never recovered.”
Images of Olivia Massey in running gear scrolled across the screen. They were all from events with competition numbers pinned to her shirt, and in many she stood proudly holding up a medal on a ribbon.
“Olivia ran marathons. She usually placed in the top three for her age group and top thirty overall in the women’s division. Yet, according to the autopsy report, she died of a heart attack.”
More pictures appeared on the video, all clearly showing a fit, lean woman with a broad smile. Olivia was a pretty lady.
“A marathon runner with no history of heart trouble. A perfect picture of health. The injuries sustained in the impact were extensive, she had multiple broken bones and a punctured lung. None of which were life threatening if treated in a reasonable timeframe. An ambulance was onsite within ten minutes of the two eyewitnesses both making 911 calls. Olivia should have been alive when they arrived. Instead, she was already dead.
“What did the man do when he leaned into the car? Obviously, he stole all the crucial evidence she had gathered, but what else? She was probably conscious, and likely thought help had arrived. But rather than come to her aid, the man was making sure she was silenced.”
Deadly Sommer: Nora Sommer Caribbean Suspense - Book One Page 19
