The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “Ah, we’re still piecing together... Actually, for now, I just have two questions for you. That okay?”

  “Shoot.”

  She makes a finger gun, pointing it at me with a pew sound. When I don’t laugh, she folds her arms across her chest. Her brows knit together. “Okay, then. First question: were you compensated for your statement to the press Wednesday night?”

  My...statement? “I didn’t say anything.”

  “So you’re saying you did receive compensation, or you didn’t?”

  “I didn’t.” Obviously.

  “Second question: what can you tell me about the deposit made to your joint investment account with one, uh...Wayne Douglas, the evening of the press conference?”

  “Investment...what?” I feel the color draining from my face. “I don’t have... Wayne and I don’t have any joint accounts. That I know of.”

  The detective winks. “Great. Easy as pie, right?” She’s already heading for the door.

  “Wait—”

  And she’s gone. And Wayne’s been stealing from me. Maybe for years. Maybe all along. Outrage and elation crash over me in waves. He’s been cheating me...and I’m free. If the cops know, Schenck must, too. My contract’s as good as history. All I can think of is telling Brandon—flying into his arms, basking in his warmth, and my relief.

  I sidle up to the door, peering through the safety glass. I’m not under arrest, as far as I know. I could go out there. Find him, if he’s even still here.

  Two grim-faced men sweep around the corner, mouths set in identical narrow lines. I take an involuntary step back. The second they’ve passed, I’m back at the window, taking in their government-issue crew cuts, the bright yellow letters emblazoned across their backs: NTSB. So this is about the plane.

  I drift back to the table and sit down to wait. Feels like this could take a while.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Brandon

  It’s back: that stunned, hazy feeling from after the crash. From the night I drank with Neil. Shock. The smell of blood’s inescapable in the stuffy interrogation room. It’s all over me, down my chest, my pants, pooling in my shoe. And it stinks, meaty and rotten, with a hint of copper.

  “Mr. Shaw—” Slade’s studying me. Or is it Rice? Didn’t catch which name went with which face. Whatever—doesn’t matter.

  “Sorry... What was the....” Was there a question? One minute he was talking. The next, he wasn’t. Something about....

  “Your recollection of the crash.”

  No wonder I zoned out. “It’s...there’s not much left.” I’m not lying. The whole thing’s gone blurry around the edges. It’s better that way. Don’t want to remember.

  “Think about your senses. Anything you saw, heard, felt—any smells. Tastes, even. Close your eyes if it helps.”

  Nausea closes my throat at the thought of closing my eyes and thinking about...that. “I’ll keep them open.”

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  I take a shallow breath. “There was a jolt. Like a speedbump. I hit my head. Spilled my drink. Thought it was blood. I, uh....” Blood. I look down at myself, and I can almost hear it: the whine of the engines. The pilot—Hydraulics are out!—Adam shouting. That smell.... The metallic taste of canned tomato juice... I grip my knees under the table.

  “And after that? Sir?”

  “Another jolt. Bigger this time. We started, uh.... Spiraling. Pulling right.” Sinking into that glorious sunset, the sea of golden clouds—or was that a dream? I close my eyes, fishing for the memory. Tearing metal from the tail section—was that real? “We were coming in hot. Way too fast. The pilot said—”

  Fuck you, Shaw!

  “—he was going to level us off. Then... I don’t know. The plane tore apart. Shit was flying around. I got hit in the head. Next thing I remember, I was face-down in the dirt. No idea where I was. I could walk, so I did. I tried to get through to you—I really did....”

  Slade nods. “Number Mr. Parker gave you was off by one digit. You left five messages for some trucker in Arkansas.”

  Of course I did.

  Rice looks up from his tablet for the first time since he sat down. “So that first jolt you felt—that would’ve been the lower section of the rudder moving out of alignment, following the detonation of a small incendiary device.”

  The rudder fell off—Neil. Red-faced. Laughing. “The rudder?”

  “We believe the device was intended to damage the rudder. Send you into an immediate and irrecoverable dive. But what it did was damage hydraulic system B.”

  “A bomb...?” I stare, bewildered. “We didn’t hear an explosion.”

  “It wasn’t a bomb, exactly. Think more along the lines of a firework in a tin can. Might make a little pop, send some shrapnel flying around, but the damage would be very localized. With a rudder malfunction, they’d have been expecting the wreckage to be much less intact than it was. Minor explosion like that, they’d have thought, okay, that’ll be undetectable.”

  Undetectable.... So that was the original plan. A tragic accident, a quick memorial, and Neil—he thought he’d just...slide into my seat?

  “The second jolt was the damaged lower rudder interfering with the upper one.” Rice picks up his tablet. “It’s a miracle you got as close to a safe landing as you did. That kind of rudder issue—plus, it looks like your vertical stabilizer took some damage—you’re lucky you didn’t drop like a stone.”

  Drop like a stone.

  “We still hit pretty hard.” I clear my throat to get the waver out of my voice. “How’d I survive?”

  Slade makes a sound that might be a laugh. “Technically speaking, you were thrown clear when the wing hit the ground. Practically speaking... Your guess is as good as mine.” He shrugs, already gathering his recorder. “There’s no logical explanation for it. You’re a lucky guy.”

  It’s my turn to laugh—lucky? Blown out the sky by my best friend? And—and.... “Was he...trying to set me up for it? Sabotaging my own plane?”

  “That’s part of an ongoing investigation.” Rice gets up, too, tucking his tablet into his bag. “I can tell you this, though: that friend of yours? Soon as it came out you were alive, he told everyone you know you were nowhere near that plane. That you’d had a nervous breakdown. Gone to stay with your aunt in Indiana.”

  My great aunt? Who died two years ago?

  “When we hit him with evidence you’d survived the crash, he swore that’s what you’d told him. He also informed us—not to mention the press—you’d joined a cult, become a conspiracy nut, and threatened suicide multiple times. Most of it in under two weeks.” He snaps his bag shut. “Draw your own conclusions.”

  I sag in my chair. The detective from earlier—he made it sound like they never entertained the possibility it wasn’t me till I escaped from the psych ward. Guess the presence of an armed assassin made me look a tad less paranoid.

  Neil must’ve been planning this for months. Setting everything up for his great takeover. Which would never have happened, because—

  A chair scrapes on the linoleum, and Lily sits down next to me. I reach for her, unthinking, only to pull my hands back in horror at the sight of my bloody fingers grasping for hers. She leans in and hugs me, ignoring the mess. “They said I could come sit with you now. Does this mean—?”

  “Think we’re all right.” I’m cold, despite the sun glaring through the window. Numb with shock. Or relief. Maybe both.

  “What did they say?”

  “It wasn’t me. The plane—they know I didn’t....”

  “Oh, I know that.” She laughs. “They were in with that other fucker, before you. Edwin. For, like...two hours.”

  “But we can’t leave?” I want a shower. Need one. Need the blood off me—the memory of Frank’s inert weight in my arms, his head lolling on my shoulder. His last breath rattling against my neck.

  “They’re worried there might be more....” Lily trails off, looking away.

  Mo
re Franks? More Edwins? More...whoever that was, at the hospital? I groan. There’s only so much I can take.

  “They’re not sure where to hide us, tiny place like this. But Mark’s coming. With our security team. They’ll have to let us go then.” Her smile spreads, becoming truly joyful. “We can go anywhere. Wayne...he’s gone. Or he will be.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She’s positively beaming. “They’re going to arrest him. He embezzled—I don’t know. Millions, over the years. A lot of it’s gone, spent, but...I don’t care.”

  “So it’s over? Your contract?”

  “It will be.”

  “Does that mean you could extend your vacation? Couple of weeks, maybe a month?”

  Her eyes sparkle. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well...I have one thing to wrap up in Austin, but after that...Tokyo? Paris? Where haven’t you been?”

  “Your place?”

  “Mm, that would be a vacation—been a while since I’ve spent more than a night or two at home.” I let my eyes drift shut. Home sounds good: my own bed. Breakfast on the balcony. Seagulls over False Creek, screaming for treats.

  Lily squeezes my hand. I squeeze back. I’m going home. At last.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Lily

  The main camera pans away and I let myself relax. One last hoop to jump through, and I can meet Brandon at the airport. Fly away to the start of my new life. Behind my practiced half-smile, I let my mind wander to what that future might be. The makeup guy’s buzzing around, spraying down flyaways, powdering noses, but I barely notice.

  “Okay—ten seconds!” The lights come back up. I sit up a little straighter, and the host—Karen—leans forward, all wide-eyed sincerity.

  “And three...two—”

  “And we’re back!” She flashes America a dazzling smile. “Now, Lily, Adina’s mentioned how you’d be the one to approach Wayne if there was an issue, or you’d step in, if he was getting out of line—do you think you were able to shield your bandmates from his abusive side?”

  I dip my head, avoiding the camera. “I thought I did. But we’ve been talking a lot, the four of us, since....” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. “We all knew some of what was going on, but we were all keeping the worst to ourselves. Trying to protect each other. I don’t know—I feel like if we’d come together on this sooner, we might’ve reached this point years ago.”

  “How about you, Adina? What was your experience of Wayne?”

  Adina’s lip curls. “Well, he’s been sexually harassing me since I turned legal. In fact—” She reaches into her bag. “This is what he got me for my eighteenth birthday.”

  The audience gasps as she holds up a pink, sparkly dildo, still in its blister pack. She turns it this way and that, to the sound of nervous laughter.

  “So I kept it as a reminder—never be alone with this man. Not for one second. And I never was. Whenever we were on tour, or if he came to the studio...even if I wanted a soda, or a second to stretch my legs, I’d be like...okay, guys, let’s go!”

  Karen cringes. “Bet that’s one note-to-self you’ll be glad to cross off the list. Truly disgusting. And Jed—how about you?”

  Jed’s leg twitches. “Uh, well...I learned to keep my head down pretty quick. Few times I did step out of line, he’d do this thing, uh....” He’s twisting his hands in his lap, noticeably nervous. Adina pats his arm.

  “He’d call my ma, or worse, my grandma—tell ‘em...like, if I stayed out late partying one night, he’d say I went on a week-long bender. And they’d be blowing up my phone, like ‘What are you doing? Come home!’—and I mean....” He finally looks up, right into the camera. “We all love what we do, but we treat it like a job. None of us act like that. Not even as teenagers—we were always pretty responsible. So to have him doing that, scaring my family... It sucked. I started acting like I was sleeping whenever he’d come by. Mostly kept him off my back.”

  Guilt blooms in my gut. I should’ve noticed that. Jed was always closest to his family. Must’ve hurt like hell to have Wayne chipping away at that, year after year.

  “And Mark—we all saw you and Wayne get into it at South by Southwest—can you tell us what your relationship was like?”

  Mark shifts in his seat. “I’m just gonna say it: Wayne’s been keeping me in the closet my entire adult life, under threat of my job. And last week... Last week, I got dumped right after the red carpet, ‘cause my boyfriend was fucking sick of it.” He’s glowering into the camera, bright red and defiant. “Wayne Douglas is a thief, a pervert, and a bigot, and he’s exactly where he belongs.”

  “So you—I’d say you’ve got a real case for discrimination there.”

  “Well, we can’t talk about the, uh...any ongoing legal stuff. But, yeah. Yeah. I was feeling the hate.”

  I want to hug him. He never said a word. All this time, I thought he was a private guy. Keeping his personal life to himself.

  “So, I’m not sure how to put this—” Karen touches her own cheek, right where Mark’s scar is. “Did this have anything to do with Wayne?”

  Mark mirrors her gesture, hand to his face. “Ah, nope—that was some asshole tree, back in Carbon, Texas.” He grins. “That’s right, prickly ash on the corner of Anthracite and Avenue G—I’m talking about you.”

  Karen smiles, turning back to me. “So, with that mystery solved, I’m told you have one more announcement you’d like to make today?”

  This time, my smile’s not forced. “I do—and this one’s actually good news: Jake Walters will be rejoining Maidenfang, after twelve years—but on the keyboards, not the drums.” I leave out the part about how Wayne was the one who talked his parents into not letting him tour with us in the first place. The world doesn’t need to know Jake’s zits and braces nearly cost him his dream.

  “And Jake couldn’t be here today, but after the break, the rest of Maidenfang’s going to perform what’s sure to be their next big hit: No-Good Crawling Sewer Snake. Ooh—wonder who that’s about?”

  The lights go down. There’s no time for anything but a mad rush to the stage—microphones adjusted and instruments checked—but Adina squeezes my shoulder on her way past, and Jed claps Mark on the back. We’re okay—how we made it, I don’t know, but we’re here. And we’ll go on.

  The countdown starts. I close my eyes.

  This one’s for you. Asshole.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Brandon

  He doesn’t even drop his eyes. If it wasn’t for the orange jumpsuit, I’d swear he was in his office back home: same casual slouch; same curious head-tilt. Waiting for me to sit down so the meeting can start.

  I pick up my receiver and he picks up his.

  “Neil.”

  “Brandon.” Even the way he says my name, that amused, half-mocking drawl—it’s like nothing’s changed. He said it just like that the first time we met. Then he shot me in the face with a water pistol. He’d filled it with Kool Aid instead of water so it’d look more like blood.

  This might’ve been a mistake. Whatever I thought I’d get from him—

  “So. You’ve won. Come to gloat?”

  “You think this was a game?”

  He leans forward, nose nearly touching the glass. “Hasn’t it always been?”

  I can’t help but flinch away. His way of thinking’s alien to me. Or maybe he’s putting on a show. He wasn’t always like this. We had good times, the kind you can’t fake. Summer camp. Our grad trip to Thailand. The day we opened our first overseas office.

  “I’ll never understand it. How someone like you always wins—boring as dirt, all the passion of a dead fish, and still, somehow—”

  “I’m not boring. You’re—”

  He slaps the glass hard. A guard steps forward, hand raised in warning. “Class valedictorian. Top account man. CEO. And now you’re dating a rock star? How do you get that?”

  “How do I...?” I shake my head, confused. “You were there. You
saw.”

  “Oh, yeah—I saw. I watched you live your gray little life, never taking a chance, never thinking an original thought, falling ass-backwards into everything I ever wanted. Living my dreams, one after another.”

  That’s how he sees me? I can hardly look at him. He’s not smiling any more, lips stretched into a sort of...hateful rictus. Barely human. “If you’d wanted—”

  “It should’ve been both of us. You and me together, when the old man died.”

  Old man? “My father?”

  Neil’s grin’s back—all teeth. “We talked about it, me and him. Asshole let me believe. Kept me hanging on till the bitter end, swearing he’d do right by me. What’d you do—drip poison in his other ear, trick him back to your side?”

  I edge away from him, choosing my words carefully. “My father barely knew his own name by the end. Whatever he promised you... You had to know that was the morphine talking.”

  Neil opens his mouth to interrupt. This time—maybe for the first time—I don’t let him.

  “No. You know, we talked about it. Before he got too sick. I wanted to make you partner. Split everything down the middle. But Dad—he warned me. Begged me not to do it.” It’s my turn to lean into his space. “And you know why? Same reason you weren’t valedictorian. Same reason you couldn’t land those accounts. Because you take shortcuts. You’re—you’re probably the smartest person I know, and maybe that’s the problem, because you’ve never learned to work. You—”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. It’s all spilling out, all my outrage, all my hurt. “You thought you could...kill me and take my job? Why would you think—didn’t it occur to you to find out what would happen, once I was gone?”

  “I said—”

  “Feinman would’ve taken over. From the London office. I left you my penthouse. My place in Whistler. Not my job. You lazy fuck.”

  Neil spits on the glass. I watch it trickle down, impassive. There’s nothing for me here. Nothing to understand.