Page 122 of False Evidence
“But she was so terrified that she believed him in the moment.” Alexandra could imagine her terror. Williams had been intimidating then and now. “Later, when the evidence against Spaulding disappeared, she had to think that confirmed his claim. She was convinced her fingerprints were on the vial taken from Russ that night.”
“And they might have been, although I don’t understand why Spaulding and Forbes would have implicated her ahead of time. What was the point? You’d never believe she played a part in your rape.”
Alexandra scrolled up and reread Kendall’s confession, including Williams’s threats about the GHB. She tapped the screen. “There were enough drugs in the drink to kill me. But they couldn’t know that. Half the drink spilled.” Cold dread hit her in the gut. “What if the plan wasn’t to rape me that night, but to kill me?”
“If you turned up dead in Spaulding’s hotel room, the only person implicated would have been him.”
“But Spaulding wasn’t the only one with a hotel room. All the executives had them. He was resentful that his wasn’t being comped as promised.”
“They weren’t all being comped, just the ones for executives who worked over fifty miles away.”
“And Drake.”
“Yes, but he was one-third owner.”
“And he hated your guts but couldn’t fire you.”
“Shit,” JT said, his voice cracking as he added, “But if a woman was found dead inmyhotel room…”
“Could Russ have gotten your room key?”
“I’m sure Drake could have gotten it, since our rooms were booked in the same block. Claim a mix-up with the room numbers. Easy.”
“In the audio recording, Kendall said Drake funneled Talon & Drake money to Russ Spaulding. This could be Russ’s extortion. Drake asked him to remove you from the picture. I was chosen as the victim for no other reason than I was Kendall’s roommate and could be convinced to attend. But Russ had no real interest in me. He even went off and played blackjack instead of spending time with me.”
“I’m not sure if it means he had a conscience and didn’t want to get to know you, or if he was just a cold motherfucker who had better things to do before committing murder.”
Alexandra felt the air thicken. Once upon a time, she’d thought the worst thing that would have happened to her that night was a horrific rape.
“So how does Williams play in? He was involved somehow. He responded to my 9-1-1 call, then coerced Kendall and destroyed evidence. Kendall was fully locked in at that point. Complicit in the crime Russ had tried to commit.”
“Until the GHB vial showed up again in her nightstand, forcing her to question everything. Brent could be innocent. So could Russ—they always claimedIhad the cops plant the vial on Russ. And then there was another cop, with another vial.”
“But the vial in the nightstand was GHB, not X.”
JT tapped the screen. “Which Brent explained away as a mistake.”
She nodded. Kendall’s diary gave Brent’s embarrassed admission that he’d never tried X, so when he was sold GHB instead, he didn’t realize he’d been tricked.
Kendall had been so desperate to believe him, to believe she wasn’t complicit in arealcrime, that she’d accepted his explanation. She’d clung to the idea that Russ really was innocent, because then it meant she hadn’t caused the charges to be dropped against a guilty man just to save herself.
The diary entries that followed over the years were written at times when she struggled with her guilt and belief in Brent. She was haunted by nightmares of Williams and terrified Russ was a monster.
She saved the diary file without a password on the desktop computer they shared, not the personal laptop she used for school most of the time.
Alexandra was convinced Kendall wanted her to find it. Wanted to confess. She probably even wanted JT investigated, because she was sure he was guilty of something. Alexandra’s uneven relationship with him didn’t help Kendall’s opinion of him.
But Alexandra had never looked at Kendall’s files. It honestly had never occurred to her.
So Kendall suffered in silence. Complicit in crimes she couldn’t begin to understand.
ChapterForty-Seven
When JT and Alexandra joined the others in the main conference room, Erica jumped to her feet and wrapped Alexandra in a tight hug.
Somehow, she and JT had made it through reading the diary and discussing what it meant without tears, but this hug was her undoing.
This was the hug of a friend, not a lover. Erica had also known Kendall. Not well, but they’d met several times.