I stop fighting, sick with horror. Carol is three feet away. I can’t look away, and I can’t look at her. The man came because I’m here. She’s dead because I’m here.
“Good girl,” he says, in macabre imitation of Alex.
Then a needle stabs into my arm, and he pushes the plunger.
My head is fuzzy in two seconds, my vision greying in five.
I almost welcome it. This is on me. All of it.
Carol is dead because of me.
Thirty
Alex
Tuesday, I’m in my office and alone for once, the door closed, my phone on ‘do not disturb,’ and the rain against the window is white noise, blotting out the sound of the traffic below.
Vicky’s dot sits on a map on my second screen, and I stare at it when I think, check it between tasks, and flick to it whenever she crosses my mind.
Every five fucking minutes.
That’s not healthy. What’s going on in my head?
I put it down to the fact that I’m not working. The only Greenstone file I have open is to pull across and hide what I’m actually doing, in case someone like DeLuca walks in.
Instead, I’m putting my plans in motion. Setting up accounts abroad. Having debit cards deliveredwhere I’ll need them. Chartering a flight. Ordering a burner phone to my apartment, closing down my email addresses, wiping my social media presence.
It all takes time.
Early afternoon, my phone rings. I pick it up immediately, checking the number. Disappointment that it’s not Vicky; relief that it’s finally the call I’ve been waiting for.
I hit the accept. “Daniel.”
“Alex, good to speak. Maggie said it was urgent?”
I appreciate him getting to the point. “Yes. I need liquidity, and I need it fast.”
There’s a two-second delay before he replies. “How much are we talking?”
“Fifty to seventy-five mill, minimum.”
A pause. “Is everything all right?”
He was bound to ask. “Let’s call it flexibility.”
“Can’t that be arranged without selling half your book?”
“Get me the money, Daniel. How long?”
He exhales over the phone. “Well… I’ll start unwinding liquid positions. If we do it properly through the institutional desk, we shouldn’t move the market too much.”
“Good. But speed is more important than efficiency.”
“When do you need it by?”
“Tomorrow.”
A hiss of breath. “It’s doable, but it’ll cost you.”
