The Last Lie She Told

by K. J. McGillick

  I wondered if Ray had cameras in the house. Probably. The man’s a security nut, so I’d need to be careful of my actions and how loud I spoke. Because of last night’s fiasco, things had escalated to the uncomfortable point where I needed to accelerate my plans to leave the US. If anyone wanted to follow me, it would prove difficult. I had four travel itineraries in place, and at the last minute I’d choose one to follow and leave the other three as false leads.

  The phone jolted me out of my thoughts. I walked over to the sink, turned the water on, and leaned in toward the fast stream to drown out the camera’s ability to pick up the conversation.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  Silence at the other end and a hang up. No number registered.

  I decided that enough time lapsed and called him back. He answered on the first ring.

  “What the ever-loving fuck were you thinking?” I asked.

  Dead silence. Dead air.

  “I thought we had a deal? We both agreed on a plan, and I followed it to the letter.” My voice escalated with my anger.

  Dead silence. Dead air.

  “Why would you draw attention to us? What was your thought process? Have you tipped over the edge toward crazy town? Do we need the world breathing down our necks when we’re so close?”

  Dead silence. Dead air.

  “The auction starts at noon. Once we receive our funds, I never want to hear from you again, or I swear to God I will have someone hunt you down and kill you,” I threatened, and he knew me well enough to believe me.

  Ben disconnected.

  There was nothing else to do until I pressed the start button for the bidding to commence. My head started to twinge with the beginning of a migraine, and I felt the pain and pressure behind my eyes begin to build. Stress brought on headaches. My mind needed calm, and I couldn’t indulge in a bout of anger, which could cause a misstep. If I didn’t stay focused, even a small mistake could ruin this operation.

  My plan to steal the data had been flawless. If only Dennis hadn’t stumbled on my plan.

  But that fiasco last night. That was why I didn’t work with others; you never knew when they would go off script. But I still held all the cards. The server and the auction were under my control. Without me, years of work would disappear, and I was willing to do whatever it took to maintain control of that.

  I needed to clear my head. I slipped on my tennis shoes and grabbed a bottle of water, took my phone, engaged the alarm, and headed out toward the trail.

  What a lovely place. Ray had added landscape touches that made you feel like you were walking through a natural forest. As I finished what must have been about a mile walk, a lake and wood benches came into view. It was the perfect place to sit, decompress, and let my mind wander. As I came closer to the area, I saw a dock with a small motorboat attached. I wondered if the keys were in it, and if Ray would mind if I borrowed it for a spin. I’d come back after the auction and check it out, but all I wanted now was to sit on the bench and listen to some music. I pulled my phone from my pocket, put my earbuds in, and sat with my face to the morning sun. I could get used to this life. Not here, but maybe Lake Garda or Lake Como in Italy.

  Closing my eyes, I immersed myself in the music, letting my mind dump the negativity and absorb the surrounding quiet, making myself forget all the distractions of the day.

  Suddenly, I felt someone removing my right earbud. A man so close I could feel his hot breath against my skin. I froze.

  “Good morning, Fiona,” he whispered, placing his left hand on my left shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Mrs. Abajian has sent me to have a conversation with you.”

  As I moved to stand, I felt something small and sharp push against the skin of my neck. Sharp enough and with enough pressure to make me realize if I moved there would undoubtedly be a problem.

  Mahir’s mother. That woman had been a thorn in my side from the start. Initially, Mahir had proved an easy target. Quiet, docile Mahir, always so polite. What was $100,000 to them to sweep an embarrassing event under the carpet and settle my claim?

  How did this man get in here and how long had he been following me? Was he the one who’d gone through my hotel room?

  “Well, you’ve got me at a disadvantage. Say what you came to say and go,” I said with confidence.

  His breathing against my neck was even, and the instrument stayed in place.

  He chuckled and said, “You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you? Full of bravado for sure. Tell me, Fiona, with all the men who would do anything for your attention why Mahir?” he asked.

  He had an accent similar to Mahir’s, Armenian. Was he a relative? I hoped he was, because he was about to be played. And I’d enjoy playing with him.

  “Mahir liked to fly his freak flag. At first, he was a bit shy. But when I opened the wild world up to him, he totally immersed himself in it. He had some ideas about pain and pleasure that even pushed my safe boundaries,” I said with an air of confidence. That should embarrass him and shut him up.

  And for several minutes it did.

  “So—” he started.

  “So I’m saying you can tell Mom that her little boy was a high-octane fetish freak. He lost his shit one night in a frenzy, which led him to beat and sodomize me while he yelled her name.”

  These people were unbelievable. Why couldn’t they leave me alone? But maybe this was an ordained event for me to get the final word for messing with my settlement plans.

  “And did you kill him for any particular reason? Or were you cleaning up loose ends before you left the country?” he asked, grabbing my hair to stabilize my head.

  Well, that got my attention.

  “How do you know about my plans?” I asked, trying to stand, but the hold he had on my hair made it impossible.

  “Sit down, or I will slit your throat,” he insisted and used that opportunity to jab the sharp object in a little more.

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said. But the quiver in my voice even left me doubting that statement.

  “You or someone you sent as your emissary, no difference,” he said with a calm that was unsettling.

  These people really think I killed him. Well, that changes this whole scenario. I had to think. If I argued, it would undoubtedly show guilt.

  “I’ve got things to do, so finish what you came to say,” I said, starting to squirm.

  “As you wish.” I could almost hear a smile in his voice.

  Shit.

  “Do you see that boat over at the dock?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said and swung my eyes that way, but the way he maintained control of my head I couldn’t turn to look at it.

  “We’re going to walk over there, and you’re going to get in the boat,” he said as he yanked my hair, forcing me to stand.

  I tried pulling away, but the hold he had made it impossible. Had I played this all wrong? Jesus, I’d allowed him to take control. “You’re kidnapping me?” I asked more angry than frightened. Fear hadn’t yet entered my mind.

  He walked and pushed me toward the boat. As isolated as this place was, no one would hear me scream. With everything that should have gone through my mind, the only thing I could think of was if I wasn’t manning the computer for the auction, the information would reside on some obscure server until it was finally purged. No one would ever find it.

  I heard our shoes echo against the old dock floor. Should I break free and try to run? Or try to jump into the lake and swim away? Or maybe, when we start to head out, hit him with the hope of knocking him overboard?

  As if my body had unconsciously signaled my thoughts, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic zip tie, and secured my hands together at the wrists behind my back.

  Standing behind me, he ordered, “Get in,” as he guided me. “Sit there.”

  The boat was just a small motorboat and not much room for maneuvering.

  OK, I would bargain with him. “Money? You want money?” I asked.

  He r
emained silent.

  “Sex?”

  He sneered.

  While I sat there contemplating my escape, he moved the motorboat away from the dock, but not so far I couldn’t swim back. Good, he probably is going to scare the shit out of me and then let me swim back. What an idiot. What made him think I wouldn’t hunt him down and kill him?

  Suddenly he cut the engine and sat looking at me. Studying me.

  “So, do you still say Mahir brutalized you and raped you?” he asked, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs and hands clasped between his legs. The man had a dangerous look about him, and I came to believe, at this point, he was probably not a family member. He was too detached.

  I raised my head and said, “I know he did.”

  He nodded, taking in my statement. Thinking about it.

  “Let me tell you a story about a young man who lived in Armenia. Two countries, Armenia and Azerbaijan, had been immersed in conflict since 1994. In 2008, the brutality in the region escalated, and hatred between the two countries led to unimaginable bloodshed. A young Armenian man was caught in the company of a young Azerbaijan woman. A woman he loved and respected. And for the brief moment they’d indulged in their chance at love and happiness, that man was dealt multiple blows that left him physically incapable of ever performing sexual intercourse in a normal fashion for the rest of his life. His family was intimidated and fled Armenia, then settled in New York where they became productive citizens. Are you following me?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “So I’m telling you it was impossible for Mahir to do what you accused him of,” he said, his black eyes holding mine. There was a calm about his speech that was so unsettling I wanted to scream.

  “That can’t be true. Why wouldn’t he reveal that when he was arrested?” I challenged. “Why go through the investigation?”

  “Because it would have humiliated him as a man and made him a laughing stock at the school. What woman would want him? If the legal action had gone further, it would have been revealed.”

  As I processed what he said, I remained silent. Check and mate.

  “You’re probably wondering what will happen next,” he said reaching into a box next to him.

  He took out a small glass vial and a syringe. He removed the metal cap from the vial and pulled the plastic cap from the syringe. He then pierced the orange rubber top with the needle and pulled back the plunger to fill the chamber with fluid. Once that was done, he put the vial back in the box.

  He suddenly jabbed the needle into my thigh and pushed the plunger to empty the syringe contents into my body.

  “I’m administering a drug called Anectine into your thigh. This drug will immediately start shutting down the ability of your nervous system to send impulses to your muscles. You might wonder what that means. That means you’ll be paralyzed, and then you won’t be able to breathe, and then your heart will stop.”

  I stared at him as panic flooded my body. My hands were restrained, and I had nowhere to go. I knew what Anectine was and could do. You suffocated to death as your brain recognized everything going on. Already my body was shutting down.

  “Your brain will continue to function, but you won’t be able to move your lips to beg for your life. All you can do is embrace the panic of what’s happening. I’ll walk you through it, so you’ll know what to expect. Your muscles will twitch. When I’m sure your lungs aren’t able to take in any air because your diaphragm is paralyzed, I’ll top the dose off, just a tiny bit. I want you conscious, but unable to respond to your brain’s commands. Then I’ll cut the ties, drop you in the lake, and motor away.”

  “Why?” was all I asked as I felt my ability to move my lips become difficult.

  “Because the lie you just told me is the last lie you will ever tell.”

  Annabelle

  “People, can we all agree something’s wrong here?” Lee asked as we waited for instructions from Mary’s contact on where to go. The area just outside LA proper gave us the ability to sit and wait without worrying about being asked to move.

  As soon as he asked that question we heard the booming whirl of helicopter blades overhead. The thump thump thump drowned out all other noise as it circled three times, hovered, and left.

  As we watched the helicopter leave, Mary’s phone rang. Once again there was no conversation on her end; she just listened to the person speaking.

  After she disconnected Mary told us, “Tyler said he hasn’t been able to pick up any activity from the auction site, and his people did an area sweep just now. Nothing is being transmitted from this area.”

  “Well, it’s only fifteen minutes late,” Lee said. “What if someone’s trying to build up the tension?”

  “The way Tyler explained it to me these things are strictly regulated. The bidders have already placed their opening bid funds into a reserve escrow account to show good faith. Once the bidding is over, the money is released by an automatic trigger. The question is, if the bidding doesn’t occur, what happens to that money? Does it get released after a specific time, or does it stay there forever?” Mary asked.

  “So what you’re saying is that it’s likely something has happened to prevent this auction,” I said.

  “Who knows? I’m flying blind here as well,” Mary said.

  My phone rang. “Hughes.”

  What I heard caught me by surprise. I gave the detective who’d called my location so a squad car could pick me up.

  “LAPD picked up Jeremy Stamos and offered me a ringside seat at his interrogation.”

  Shock reverberated through the car. Mary was the first to ask the how and when questions, but I had limited information to give her.

  “Don’t forget; all we have right now is circumstantial evidence. He’s only a person of interest, and we can’t put the murder weapon in his hands.”

  Lee shot me a “really?” expression.

  “A cruiser is picking me up. How long are you going to stay here?”

  “I’d say another hour. Tyler can continuously monitor the auction from his location,” Mary said.

  “What if the person found some way to divert the funds in all the escrow accounts and made off with it?” I asked.

  “Why would the person running the auction take such a loss? The data is worth millions, so why just take the money from the opening bids? Unless of course there was no data or it was incomplete, and all this was a ruse. Let me call Jax and see what he says. He’s probably waiting by the phone. He might want to confer with Hightower about when we should pull the plug.”

  I listened as Lee and Jax discussed the issue and then disconnected. Within five minutes or so Lee’s phone rang.

  When he answered his phone, he opened his door and stepped outside. Mary and I watched as Lee paced, and the longer he paced, the more animated his movements became. His expression grew more and more angry. Finally, he disconnected and remained outside the car. His breathing was rapid, and he looked off into nowhere.

  Mary and I stepped outside the car and cautiously moved toward him.

  “What happened?” I asked trying to decide whether or not to touch him.

  “Hightower has lost his mind. He wants us to hack the website and cancel the auction,” he said.

  “That’s impossible. We don’t have those skills. You’d need someone like an advanced black hat hacker or some government nerd to do something like that,” I said.

  Mary was silent, and I sensed she was formulating a plan.

  “Do you want my theory?” Mary asked.

  Simultaneously, I said yes, and Lee said no.

  “The yeses have it,” she said. “I think Fiona and Benjamin are in this together—”

  “Wait, I thought we’d discounted Fiona,” Lee said, leaning against the car.

  “Well, we never totally discounted her. We never considered that the two of them might be partners,” she said.

  “But if they’re partners, why did Hightower send us after her? Why call attention to her
?” Lee asked.

  “Are you going to keep interrupting me or let me hypothesize?” Mary asked.

  He gestured for her to continue.

  “I think they were in cahoots. I think they planned the whole thing together from removing the data to setting up the auction. I’ve said from the beginning, I thought it was difficult to believe a server could be totally wiped with no backup anywhere. My theory is they did it together, figuring they could get more money selling the information illegally than legally. And as an extra bonus, they could sell it privately over and over. Only one person I can see being able to truly wipe the server clean is Hightower. He pins it on her for plausible deniability, if the investigation goes south, and sends us off on a wild goose chase for two reasons. First, if the shareholders want a scapegoat, he’s got one ready to serve up and can say, ‘Look, I tried my best.’ That’s where we come in. And second, it puts her on notice that we’re watching, if she gets any ideas about going this alone,” Mary said.

  We saw the squad car coming toward us. As much as I wanted to stay, right now I had an obligation to attend Jeremy Stamos’s interrogation. We decided to meet back at the hotel café in three hours.

  As I waited for Mary and Lee to arrive at the restaurant, I replayed in my mind the brief conversation I’d had with David not a half hour earlier. Things were going to get ugly when I went home.

  I was lost in thought and heard Mary before I saw her.

  “So what happened?” Mary said as she pulled back a chair. Lee was right behind her.

  “It was very anticlimactic,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Oh, I was hoping for a dramatic build up and then a ta-da moment,” Mary said as her shoulders slouched in disappointment.

  “It was anything but exciting once he lawyered up. And now the jurisdiction fight begins. They really have nothing to hold him on here in California, and so Washington, Massachusetts, and New York are going to battle out who gets extradition first—”