Mary looked up. ‘No.’
‘You bunker down here. No one followed us. No one knows where you are. You’ll be safe.’
‘You don’t know that. You said I’d be safe at that motel. And…’
She trailed off, because she knew what the retort would be, but Alexis made it anyway to hammer the point home. ‘Because you took yourself to that motel. And you made mistakes. This place is different.’
‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘I know. But…they almost got me. At Azure Waters. I didn’t even tell you how it happened. They knocked on the door and I looked through the keyhole and saw them standing there and I just…opened up. That’s the worst part. I’ll always have to live with that. That I got scared and I just caved. Didn’t think, didn’t plan, didn’t resist. I knew they wanted to hurt me and I thought it’d make them more angry if I tried to get away so I opened up for them and let them take me. They walked me out with a gun at my back and if your friends came a minute later…’
She bowed her head, holding back tears.
‘I know,’ Alexis said. ‘I know what that feels like. I’m still green in this world. I can remember that feeling clear as day. The powerlessness.’
Mary didn’t know what to say to that.
Alexis said, ‘Ernie McFarlane.’
Mary jolted as if electrocuted.
Alexis nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. You know him?’
‘Of course. He’s the CFO of Vitality+.’
‘The men that tried to kill me today… there’s more of them. They have his home address. They’re headed there to do what was done to Jack Sundström.’
Alexis had been wary of giving too much away at risk of tipping Mary over the edge, spiralling her into total nihilism, but she needed to know.
That there was more at stake than her own personal safety.
Alexis said, ‘Heidi is going to have seven employees beaten to death tonight.’
Mary’s voice trembled. ‘W-why? Ernie’s harmless. He’s always had the best intentions. He’s never even…provoked her. Oh, God, and the others. Who…?’
‘Heidi doesn’t care anymore. She sees herself rushing toward a cliff and she’s going down swinging.’
Mary breathed out, tried to get her head straight, tried to make an objective observation. ‘This isn’t about me anymore.’
Alexis nodded.
‘Go,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll stop complaining. I’ll be fine.’
Alexis rushed for the door.
51
Ernie McFarlane was proud of his little San Mateo condo.
In comparison to other senior executives’ homes it wasn’t much, but comparison is the thief of joy. He could certainly afford better, being the chief financial officer at a company as popular as Vitality+. For months they’d been a staple in the headlines, one of the hottest media topics in all of Silicon Valley, the appeal and popularity buoyed by Heidi Waters and her indomitable spirit.
Tomorrow they’d still be all the rage, but not for the right reasons.
The article was already out but it was late, and most would wake up to it tomorrow. Then it’d spread like wildfire.
Ernie let himself in and locked the door, more out of habit than actual fear. Rachel was curled up on the sofa watching a rerun of the Bachelor, cradling a mug of her favourite lemon and ginger tea. She looked up as he came in, gave him a smile of encouragement. ‘It’s out.’
He sighed, put his laptop bag on the hall table. ‘Yeah.’
This condo was his haven. He and Rachel had styled it, designed the interior from scratch. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She’d taken him from a depressed CFO who spent all his life at work and lived in a one-bedroom apartment with four pieces of furniture to the man he was now, who prided himself on rugs and throws and pot plants and the little things in life that most people in San Francisco ignore in favour of a higher salary and less sleep.
She’d taught him to stop and smell the roses.
To do what mattered, not just what made the most money.
She’d also been the first to encourage him to speak up about what he was seeing.
He loosened his tie as he crossed the living room, weaved around a peace lily and a rhapis palm and a monstera deliciosa, all of which he’d selected. He sat down on the couch beside her and looped his arm around her, held her tight. She was slender and small, with hair so blonde it was almost white, and bright blue eyes.
She rested her cheek on his shoulder, turned the TV volume down. ‘Are you questioning whether you did the right thing?’
‘I know I did the right thing. I just don’t know how this is going to go. Heidi’s…mercurial. She might make it ugly, tie up my bonuses somehow.’
She shrugged. ‘We’ll get by. It’s not like we’re barely making ends meet.’
‘You’re right.’ He closed his eyes, let some stress out. ‘You’re so right. I know what I saw, and what my values are.’
What he’d seen was proof of Heidi faking the results of Vitality+’s patented brain scan.
It was highly complicated and very expensive, being able to detect neurotransmitter imbalances in the brain with a single-scan dynamic molecular imaging technique. The technology already existed, but the hardest part was producing it cheap enough to make any financial sense to provide for each customer. Ernie was the chief financial officer, and therefore wasn’t exactly hands-on in the chemistry and engineering departments, so he didn’t have a deeper understanding of the technology itself. Most of his day-to-day work consisted of working on optimistic revenue forecasts that Heidi wanted to show to investors. The projected income relied on consumer hype, which relied on the scans actually working properly — hence why he’d been so nosy about their accuracy, especially at the price point Heidi demanded they work at.
Somewhere in the midst of that giant puzzle, he’d figured out that the successful scans Heidi had shown investors were fake. She’d demonstrated a brain scan using their patented machine, then had the computer spit out a formula that she wanted it to show. Ernie
