Page 47 of The Billionaire's Special Relationship

“This is what’s going to happen,” the driver said. “You’re going to turn off all cameras inside this garage immediately. Then you’re going to erase this conversation, me driving up to this booth, and everything else that happened in this garage from right now to ten minutes back. “You feel me?” A gun was suddenly pointed at the ticket taker.

“Yes sir,” he responded.

“Then, I’m going to go in, take care of my business, and leave. After I leave, you can call the police. And when they show up, you’d better tell them that the man you saw was driving a white Porsche, and he looked exactly like Stuart Jacobs. You understand me?”

Stuart and Tabby were inwardly elated, but they wanted to see the whole video as the ticket taker was nodding to everything the driver said. “Yes sir.”

“You do all of that,” the driver said, “then I won’t hunt you down like a mangy dog. After you do what I told you to do, then you’ll have five hundred thousand dollars, in addition to what I’ve just given you, waiting underneath that lawn mower cover, in abriefcase, in your backyard. You feel me?”

The ticket taker nodded even more vigorously. “Yes sir. I sure do.”

“Now get busy. Turn off every camera and then get to erasing everything I told you to erase.”

It didn’t take but seconds for that ticket taker to do what he was told. If larceny was in your blood, Stuart knew, it didn’t take much at all to turn you. That ticket taker turned to the dark side almost faster than the speed of light. And that was when the entire recording went to black.

But it was enough. Stuart and Lou knew it too. “Whoever was in that BMW didn’t say what he planned to do,” Stuart said, “but he was right in the timeframe that they said Alan was shot.”

“It’s perfect proof that that ticket taker was paid to lie on you,” said Lou. “Even that idiotic DA can’t argue with this kind of evidence.”

Stuart smiled. “Not even her,” he said happily.

But Tabby still looked concerned. “Rewind that tape,” she said.

Stuart and Lou looked at her. “Tab, you okay?” Stuart asked her.

“Rewind that tape.”

Stuart and Lou glanced at each other. Then Stuart did as Tabby asked and rewound the tape.

“Stop right there,” she said quickly when the driver started talking. Then she leaned back. “It’s him.”

Stuart was confused. “It’s who?”

“You know him?” Lou asked.

“I know him.”

“Who is it?”

“Stuart, it’s Darius.”

Stuart frowned. “Who’s Darius?”

“My ex-boyfriend. The one I told you about that owned that clothing store on Grant Street. The one that white girl was fighting me about. It’s him. I’m telling you it’s him.”

“What kind of car does he drive?” Lou asked her.

She looked at him. “A red and gray BMW.Thatcar,” she said, pointing at the car on the tablet. “That’s his car. I declare it is!”

Stuart could hardly believe it. “But why would your ex want to shoot down my son?”

“I have no idea. But that’s Darius’s voice, and that’s definitely his car. Fast-forward it to the very end. But stop before you get there.”

Stuart pressed fast-forward on the video. And then stopped just before the tape went to black.

“You see it there?” Tabby asked, pointing to the screen. “You see that blue strip around the rim of that front driver side tire?”

They saw it. “What about it?” Stuart asked.