The CEO Came DOA (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Book 5)

by Heather Haven

  Sharise scowled at me, her features turning hard and ugly. “I see I should have taken care of you first, before David. But I had just learned about your being hired that day. Unfortunately, it was all set up with David. He was so eager for me to meet him, especially as I’d returned early from Europe just to be with him.” Her tone was mocking and churlish. “I’m sure you figured out by now he and I had gotten together a few times in Switzerland at my suggestion. He thought I was softening, planning to go back to him. For a smart man David could be such an idiot.”

  “So was it the same scenario as you tried with me?”

  “Not quite. We met at the Sunnyvale house. He was in the garage working on the plastic container for some idiotic party he’d planned on sabotaging. Always trying to bend people to his will. I showed up disguised as a cowgirl.”

  “Ah! The red wig,” I interjected.

  “Yes, this time I wore the red wig. I told him I didn’t want to be recognized. He thought it was exciting, having a clandestine meeting with his ex-wife dressed up like someone else. We had champagne to toast the occasion, and I put the drug in his drink when he wasn’t looking; much more than I put on the photo for you. When he was under, he did what he was told.”

  “Which was to go to Read-Out and hang himself. With a little help from you.”

  “But first I made him give me the prototype and the codes to the garage so I could do the rest.”

  “It wasn’t enough you were going to kill him, you wanted to destroy his reputation?”

  “Why not? He was destroying mine. His wealth was a weapon he used to punish people he couldn’t control. He told me he was going to obliterate the business he helped create, just because they dared to go against him. He didn’t care about the workers or their families. All he cared about was himself. But his ego suited my purposes. It made him vulnerable. So I decided to embarrass his memory, make him look like the vicious, vindictive man he really was; a total asshole.”

  For a short breath of time a true sociopath revealed herself to me. Or maybe she was just plain nuts.

  “But always in the back of my mind I knew I needed to worry about you, Lee Alvarez.”

  “What about me?”

  “I was told you were smart. And the downside to being smart, is being cocky.”

  “Funny, I was about to say the same thing about you, Sharise.”

  She laughed. “I knew the map of the East Bay I left in David’s office would eventually lead you to his parent’s home.”

  “It did.”

  “I wanted to take care of you there, but you arrived sooner than I thought. I missed you by minutes. Those stupid boys, I never should have trusted them to do the job. They failed miserably.” Her demeanor changed suddenly. She folded her arms. “You know, this is a form of entrapment. My lawyers --”

  “Your lawyers are going to have a tough time keeping you out of jail.”

  “You can’t prove anything. They will make your taped phone call inadmissible. So I have one of the sleeping sickness trees. So what? They’re not illegal.”

  “No, just deadly. But your biggest mistake was killing Ty Deavers’ girlfriend, June. He’s really scared. Any minute he’ll be talking his head off.”

  “His word against mine? I don’t think so. I say he’s lying. There’s no proof of anything.”

  “The German police have corroborated that June’s fingerprints are all over that studio.”

  I actually made that up. I had no idea what the Germans did or didn’t do, but I went on with the lie.

  “If she was supposedly here in the States, how did June’s fingerprints wind up in the German movie studio? Nobody was supposed to be there but you and Ty Deavers.”

  Sharise sat back in the leather chair and thought for a moment. Then let out a small laugh.

  “She was supposed to keep the gloves on I gave her at all times. Silly girl. So you’re saying I’ve been foiled by modern science?”

  “Not so modern. But very efficient.”

  She hesitated then leaned forward again. “In that case, should I tell you the truth?”

  “It would be refreshing.”

  “June was greedy. She wanted more money, much more. And the reason I did all of this was so I could have David’s money, not hand it over to someone else. So I met her at the airport when she and Ty got in this morning. When he went to play drums with his buddy, June and I changed identities back to ourselves in the ladies room. I gave her some Devil’s Breath and brought her back to Ty’s. Then I gave her more of the drug, enough to finish her off. I’ve gotten quite good at knowing just the right dosage.”

  “I’ll bet you have.”

  “And a little goes a long way.”

  “But why kill her there?”

  “I thought if she was found in Ty’s house dead, he’d be accused of killing her then I’d be rid of them both. I tried to set it up that way, and I’m usually very good at these sorts of things.”

  “Two birds with one stone.”

  “I didn’t count on him not doing what I told him. Imagine, sitting in on a gig all day and having an unbreakable alibi. And before that, stupid little June had to go and take off her gloves in the German studio.” Shaking her head, she let out a self-deprecating laugh. “It just goes to show; you can’t trust anybody to do what you tell them.”

  “Did you chemically alter the pods yourself?”

  “I’ve turned one of my bedrooms into a lab. It’s not hard. When the tour was in Bogotá, I came across some very interesting characters that were willing to help me put a lab together here in Tiburon. They even helped me smuggle in a tree.”

  “It sounds like you were planning this a long time. But then it must have been tough having an ex-husband so controlling and powerful.”

  “You have no idea.” Her face lost its color. “Six-months ago he bought my contract from my producer and told me I would never perform on television again. He had already taken over my iTunes contract. Now that I’d become somebody, he was systematically destroying my career and there was nothing I could do about it.”

  She stared at the gun in my hand, almost as if seeing it for the first time.

  “You don’t know what it was like; having a man so rich he could buy and sell your life. You think people cared about what he was doing to me? All he had to do was write a check for a hundred thousand dollars, a million dollars, or threaten to put them out of business. What I wanted, my life, meant nothing to him. He had so much money. It was like a sickness. I finally realized it was him or me. Can’t you see that? I had to kill him. Even giving up my child to him wasn’t enough to buy my freedom!”

  “But what about the others? Like Jake Gold?” My voice was harsher sounding than I intended. I reined in my feelings.

  She was quiet for a moment, her face mirroring a myriad of thoughts and memories. For as much as she’d been in control before, she now lost it, bursting into tears.

  “I had to do it. It was the price for being free. Don’t you see? Can’t you see? It was David’s fault. The man was a monster.”

  Screaming, her arms flailed in the air in tune with her emotions. She ranted on.

  “And I needed the money. Thanks to him, I’m losing money with the tour. It’s all so expensive. He wouldn’t stop no matter how much I begged him. He was strangling me, cutting off my contacts and money sources. I needed to be free. It was like I couldn’t breathe!”

  She covered her hands with her face, sobbing into them. I watched her in stunned silence. The next thing happened so fast, I wasn’t prepared for it.

  She uncovered her face and there was a small blowgun in her mouth. Maybe she had it on her the whole time; maybe it was hidden in the pillows of the chair. She leaned forward and blew a dart straight at my face.

  I’ve probably failed more often than anybody else in

  Silicon Valley. Those don’t matter. I don’t remember the

  failures. You remember the big successes.

  Vinod Khosla

>   Chapter Thirty

  More of a reaction than conscious thought, I moved my head to the side. The dart landed in my hair, a puff of white powder releasing on impact. I could feel some on my neck and cheek.

  Sharise, meanwhile, bolted from the house. I sprang up and found the kitchen, ducking the powdered side of my head under rushing water from the sink. How much was absorbed in the few seconds before I located the kitchen, I had no idea.

  I raced outside. Sharise’s car was still in the driveway, but there were noises on the dimly lit deck leading out to a small dock. I headed for it, stumbling in the unfamiliar terrain, trying to avoid what small amount of light there was. It’s a good thing I did.

  A shot rang out close enough for me to feel the spray of dirt when the bullet hit the ground. I crouched down behind a railing and took the safety off my gun. If this was the way we were going to play it, fine by me.

  A motor started. I took a chance and looked through the railing toward the sounds at the end of the dock. There was the silhouette of a sailboat, mast reaching up to a dark sky, backlit by the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  I’d been thrown by the sound of the motor, but many sailboats have them for when there’s no wind. A moving figure was casting off. It had to be Sharise.

  “Oh, great,” I muttered. “Another boat. Why do all my cases involve people on boats? I hate boats. And where are the stupid police?”

  I put the safety back on the Tomcat, shoved it in my coat pocket, screwed my courage to the sticking place – wherever that is - and ran for all I was worth. Even when the dock ended, I kept running. I flung myself at Sharise, Superman style, and we crashed to the floor of the cockpit in a tussle.

  The small sailboat dipped and swayed under our weight. Sharise gave me a push away and the strength of it surprised me. The small of my back hit something that nearly knocked the wind out of me. I’d read somewhere Sharise was a Pilates fiend. Time to be respectful of her craft.

  The moon came out suddenly from behind rainclouds. It was like someone had thrown a spotlight on the entire bay. I saw the boat drifting away from the dock, as much from the wind and water currents, as the putt-putt of the motor. I also saw Sharise reaching for her gun lying on a cushioned seat.

  I stood, trying to shift my weight for a maneuver to kick the gun out of her hand, Karate style. Impeded by my coat, wet surfaces, wind, and the up and down motion of the boat, I couldn’t seem to get it going. They say a poor carpenter always blames his tools, but I said to hell with it. I pulled my arm back, while lunging forward. Then I punched Sharise on the jaw as hard as I could.

  When writer Ian Fleming puts 007 in a brawl, he never alludes to what the punch does to the puncher as well as the punchee. Yes, Sharise fell to the deck like a rock. But I almost dropped to the deck myself. My right hand felt like I’d broken every bone in it. The sharpness of the pain was so intense I’d have paid more attention to it, if had it not been for the boom coming right at me. Now who was the idiot who untied that?

  In the Internet world, especially in Silicon Valley, everyone is at the

  ready all the time, and turnaround is relatively short, if not instant.

  Chad Hurley

  Chapter Thirty-one

  One thing I’ve learned about a sailboat, other than to avoid them like the plague, is don’t think you’re going to outmatch a boom. Even on a small seventeen footer like this turkey, booms are one powerful thing. When they start moving, they’re not stopping for nobody, no how.

  The boom rammed me midsection, carrying me out over the water. My Jimmy Choos, which I had just broken in, thank you, came off with the impact. Feeling the salty spray of San Francisco Bay beneath my bare feet, I wondered if it was too late to become a nurse. This detective stuff was getting old.

  My alacrity for swinging my legs up and over, and straddling the boom was second to none. Even I was impressed with my agility. As I hung over the water on the boom, the boat tilted precariously toward me. Let’s face it. I still weighed around a hundred and thirty pounds. Between the wind, waves, and being off-balance, the boat could capsize at any minute. And it was fr-fr-freezing.

  On a positive note, I had changed to slacks at the fitters so at least I wasn’t dealing with a skirt. I scooted in, while the boom bobbed and bounced like a bucking bronco. I lost my grip once and toppled to the side.

  Hugging the boom, my new best friend, I tried to catch my breath. I wrapped my legs around it and hand over hand, continued underneath toward the relative safety of the boat. The whole thing probably took less than two minutes but felt like an eternity.

  All the while I was waiting for Sharise to wake up and shoot me or some enterprising shark to break water for a late evening snack. After all, the island isn’t called Tiburon for nothing, named in honor of the Great Whites patrolling its waters.

  A maverick wave hit just as I slid off the boom and onto the deck. Thrown off balance, my foot landed on one of the many metal cleats that live there, and I heard or felt a snap in my ankle.

  I dropped to the floor of the cockpit in a crouching position with a screech. The boom grazed my head as it passed over. No matter how much pain I was in, the first thing I had to do was tie the boom down or it was going to continue its wild ride over and around the boat.

  It’s called securing the boom to a preventer, but I’m just showing off. I learned this jargon and how to do it from a guy I used to date who loved sailboats more than life itself. In fact, he’s sailing somewhere off the shores of Tahiti, currently with a girl young enough to be his daughter. I dodged a bullet on that one.

  Fortunately, the moon was still out and at least I could see. My right hand throbbed like crazy, and my left ankle felt like someone was prodding at it with a hot poker.

  I ignored them both as I waited for the boom to rock and roll itself close enough so I could secure the preventer to the block. Miraculously, the winds died down for a second, the boom was in position and I secured it…or gybed it…or something.

  I heard Sharise moan. Was she waking up? I remembered her gun, crawled on my hands and knees to find it on a cushion, and threw it overboard. Maybe I should have saved it for evidence, but I had no idea how to put the safety on and was a little busy. I tried not to worry about how hard I’d hit Sharise. Although she still hadn’t moved, the moaning gave me hope she would be okay.

  I looked up to see we were heading directly for one of the many buoys in the bay. Minding its own business, it blinked little warning lights about its location telling you to Stay Away Or Else.

  Oh, come on, guys; it’s just one thing after another with a boat. That’s why I hate them.

  I hobbled to the tiller and turned the rudder starboard. I think. I’m never sure about my left and right on a boat. But we were no longer on a collision course with the buoy. Finally, I found the running lights and throttle.

  Thank you, ex-boyfriend, for teaching me the basics of boating.

  In the distance I heard police sirens. The sounds became louder and louder as I steered us back to Sharise’s dock. Within minutes four policemen ran onto the dock guns drawn, looking toward the boat. I couldn’t wait to get this tub back to shore and hand off Sharise to them. I was tired, drenched, and body parts were killing me. I’d had this Captain Ahab routine up to the gills.

  Out of the blue, I felt a shove in the middle of my back that sent me sprawling onto the deck. I rolled over and managed to rise to a squat position. Lit by the ever-nearing deck lights, I saw Sharise’s face, furious and deadly, looking down at me. At the same time both she and I noticed a long handled grabbing hook, used to haul tie lines out of the water, clamped beside the seat cushions.

  We both lunged for it, but Sharise got there first. I tried to stay upright, but it was dicey with only my one good foot to support me. I fell backward and grabbed at the tiller to stay upright. Meanwhile, I could hear one of the policemen shouting something. I couldn’t understand the words but the tone sure meant business.

  Unfor
tunately, I was too preoccupied to reply. Sharise stood before me holding the grabbing hook like it was a baseball bat. And she was looking at me like my head was the ball, and she was about to make a home run.

  I shrank back as far from her as I could on the small boat. I’d like to say I commended my soul to God, but actually I thought about Gurn and Tugger, not necessarily in that order.

  “Stop! Drop the weapon immediately or I’ll shoot.”

  The commanding words of one of the policemen reverberated in the air, clear and concise. He stood, along with the other officers, on the deck at the waterline, now not more than ten feet away.

  “This is the Tiburon Police Department. Drop the weapon.”

  He was an older man, large and imposing, and carried the weight of his years and position with him. He aimed his firearm directly at Sharise. I could have kissed him.

  “I mean business, lady. Put the weapon down or I’ll shoot. This is the Tiburon Police Department,” he repeated.

  Sharise looked in the officer’s direction then back at me, deciding what to do. Meanwhile, my mind raced. Was he going to shoot her or was she going to cream me?

  Please, please, please shoot the bitch.

  Just when I thought I was a goner, she dropped the metal hook, which clattered with a metallic sound to the deck. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, the singer dove over the side of the boat into the dark water, disappearing into its murky depth.

  We who work in technology have nurtured an especially rare gift:

  the opportunity to effect change at an unprecedented scale and rate.

  Technology, community, and capitalism combine to make

  Silicon Valley the potential epicenter of vast positive change.

  Justin Rosenstein

  Chapter Thirty-two

  At four-thirty in the morning I awoke to the noise of someone entering the apartment. What with police reports, trips to the Emergency Room, yada yada, I didn’t get home until midnight. Helped upstairs by Tío and Mom, I collapsed on the bed and was asleep at twelve-oh-five.