Alexandra felt ready to burst when she entered the common room—which was basically a large living room and library that overflowed with people.
On one side of the room, couches and plush chairs had been arranged in a large rectangle. In the center, Grace, Colin, and Gemma played with toys that must have been brought by the other parents.
Grace was building with foam blocks, while Colin was pushing a green tank engine—she guessed it was Percy, but she was new to the train world—on a wooden Thomas the Tank Engine figure-eight track, while Gemma held a plastic dinosaur in one hand and Tee-Tee in the other and was using both to destroy train tracks and block towers. Her kid had discovered the joy of playing Godzilla, but neither Colin nor Grace was particularly happy about the dinosaur antics.
She covered her mouth to stifle her laughter as Grace—the oldest of the three—intervened when Colin got frustrated with dinosaur destruction. At six weeks shy of three years old, Grace sounded just like her mom as she attempted to settle the squabble in a toddler version of a maternal tone.
“I think I’m going to melt,” Alexandra whispered as she gripped JT’s hand.
Erica approached, a petite blonde woman—Curt’s wife, Mara—at her side.
Mara pulled Alexandra into a hug. “Sorry. I realize we’ve only met once briefly, but I’m skipping the handshake because we’ve been so worried!”
Alexandra hugged the small woman back, feeling like a giant. Her mind reeled at the acceptance by this community she hadn’t known she had.
From there she was introduced around the room to Raptor employees who lived in the compound and others who’d joined the holiday celebration with their significant others.
Some shared knowing looks as they glanced between her and JT. Most had entered JT’s life after she had left it, but they all appeared to know at least some of their history.
Through all the introductions, Lee was in the back corner, head down as he stared at a laptop. His posture was so familiar, it could be fourteen years ago, except his previously boyish face finally showed his age.
She crossed the room and dropped down on the couch by his side. “Anything interesting?”
He nodded. “Very.” He waved to JT. “You both need to hear this.”
JT had picked up Gemma to redirect her from destroying Colin’s trains, but catching Lee’s summons, he passed her off to Isabel, wife of Raptor owner Senator Alec Ravissant.
Seeing JT make a beeline for Lee, Alec, Curt, and Keith followed him to Lee’s corner.
“What’s up?” JT asked.
Lee removed his headset. “There’s an audio file on here you need to hear.” He faced Alexandra. “A week before Kendall died, she recorded a conversation.”
“Should we do this now?” JT asked, glancing back at the kids.
“Yeah, you don’t want to wait. Plus, I’d like Tricia’s thoughts as a former police officer and Curt’s as a prosecutor.”
Isabel had introduced Alexandra to Tricia a few minutes ago. She was glad to learn the Black operative was a former cop. Her take on the situation would be invaluable.
“I’ll make sure the kids don’t fuss,” Mara said. “So Erica can listen too.”
“Maybe put them in front of the TV,” Lee said. “I don’t want Grace learning any new words. I’m already in trouble for her delight in saying dammit.”
They waited for Mara to get the kids settled on the far side of the room with How the Grinch Stole Christmas before listening. While Mara juggled toddlers, snacks, and sippy cups, Lee shared what he knew about the digital recording. “This was buried in a directory of very old files—grad school research notes of yours, Alexandra. It was nested three layers deep. But the date on the recording itself is from October of this year—a week before her death—so it was easy to find. Well, that and the file name gave it away.”
“What was it?”
“GHB.”
That came as a blow. She and Kendall never talked about that night, even though it undermined the rest of their friendship.
“How did Kendall die?” Tricia asked.
“It was ruled a suicide,” Alexandra said. “She’d battled depression for more than a decade, so that part wasn’t shocking. But according to her sister, she’d been in a good place the last few years. I hadn’t seen her in the year since I returned from Switzerland, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge of her general mental state, but Tanya said she was doing well.”
“What was the method?”
Alexandra cleared her throat. She hated to think about Kendall’s last moments, and it was worse now, with the knowledge her friend might have been murdered. “She died in her garage of carbon monoxide poisoning. She was leaning against the wall on the steps going into the house, not in the car. The Jetta’s engine was running. The button to open the garage door was above her, next to the door.”
Erica shuddered, and Alexandra remembered how close she’d come to dying from carbon monoxide nine years ago. That had been Drake’s doing. But Edward Drake was dead and couldn’t have anything to do with this.
Lee had also seen Erica’s reaction. He patted the seat next to him, and she sat down and leaned against her husband as he wrapped an arm around her.
Alexandra glanced toward the kids. Grace giggled as the lyrics to “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” played.
She turned back to Lee. “It’s safe to start the audio now.”
He nodded and hit Play.
“What are you going to do about it, stupid bitch?”
“That’s Brent Forbes’s voice,” Alexandra said.
“Well, there’s no denying I’m stupid. All those lies, and I believed every fucking one.”
“And that, of course, is Kendall.” It hurt to hear her voice, let alone the words.
“You can’t tell. You’re in this as deep as anyone. You’re the one who signed off on the cost estimates that put money in Russ’s hands.”
“I was forced to do it. You know why.”
Alexandra experienced a throat-clogging rage on Kendall’s behalf. Brent and Russ had spent more than a decade gaslighting and belittling her. Brent’s so-called love had turned Kendall into a shadow of her former self.
“I can ruin everything. I can end this sale. Make it impossible for Calvin Moss to purchase T&D. But the best part is you’ll go to prison for embezzling.”
“If that were to happen, you’d be in prison right alongside me.”
“Brent, I’ve lived in a prison of your creation for sixteen years. You think you scare me now?”
There was a long silence before Brent said, “But there’s your problem. You can’t pin any of this on me. There is nothing—nothing at all—that connects me to any of the transactions. I never even got a payout. It was Russ who got the kickbacks from Drake. It was you who made sure the payouts continued after Drake was gone. I was just a midlevel guy working for a company that I’ve given my entire career to. I didn’t even worry that Talon was never going to promote me. I put up with so much shit, and everything is documented by HR. I’ve got a sweet lawsuit against Talon in the works for smearing my reputation to the degree that I couldn’t get a job elsewhere. I had to stay.”
“That’s bullshit. You could have left at any point, and that’s why HR never worried about you and your complaints. You were lucky you weren’t fired. And you stayed because you knew that if you walked out the door, you’d lose everything, including that sweet little bank account in the Cayman Islands.”
“What bank account? I already told you I got nothing.”
“You know Uncle Sam doesn’t like people who cheat on their taxes. Lee Scott can find your bank account and whatever you squirreled away. Bitcoin isn’t worth anything if you can’t access it. You must’ve turned it into cash at some point. Lee will find your money. See, he doesn’t have to worry about it being an illegal search. He doesn’t care about being able to present the evidence to a jury. But he does own one-third of T&D. And you can bet your ass that if he gets wind that you colluded with Russ and Drake”—the name was said with deep disdain—“he will find proof.”
“And then, dear Kendall, he’ll find out what you did. Everyone will. Even your precious Alex. Everyone will know exactly why the false evidence against Russ disappeared.”
“That evidence wasn’t false. The only fake was what you planted. But don’t you worry, I have it still. I held on to it all these years. Anything happens to me, and Alex will get it. She’ll tell JT everything.”
“Nice try. Everyone knows she hates him.”
“Everyone is stupid, then. She’s never hated him. The only person she hates is Russ. Well, and you.”
“Are you prepared for her to hate you?”
Kendall’s voice shook in her reply. “I’m pretty sure she already does. I did nothing but betray her. For you.”