Page 33 of Fatal Conspiracy

“He keeled over on stage quickly after drinking about half of the new bottle. It makes sense that if the antifreeze was in the bottle he just drank from, he would have died much sooner than he did, taking into account how quickly he died after drinking from the one on stage,” Cal reasoned.

“To Cal’s point,” Alayah said, starting the tape again, “Derek takes the bottle to the water fountain, rinsing it out.” She waited for it to play, and they watched as he walked to a vending machine and bought a bottle of the vitamin water Hugo liked. “He dumps the water from the vending machine into Hugo’s bottle and screws on the lid.”

“That raises two questions,” Henry said. “Why didn’t you bring his favorite water with you, and why dump it in another bottle when it’s already in one?”

“I did bring a bottle of it with me,” Derek explained. “Hugo drank it all on the way here. I can’t prove it, but Hugo filled the bottle before we left, not me. Since it’s a popular brand, I wasn’t worried about not being able to get it, so I just grabbed a bottle from the machine. Hugo preferred his water bottle with a straw because it made it easier to drink when he had his head microphone on.”

Alayah hit Play again before Henry could interrupt with more questions. She wanted those handcuffs off Derek.“We can follow him all the way to the room where I was looking for coffee,” she says, pointing herself out when the camera angle changed to inside the room. “We talk for a minute, and then I walk out. You see Derek standing there looking around the room, not messing with the bottle, until Cal walks in.” She stopped talking as the tape continued to play. Cal and Derek shook hands and joked before Derek handed him the water bottle. Just to be on the safe side, she let it play until Cal walked out of the room with it, and then she stopped it. “As you can see. He had no time to put the antifreeze in the bottle, and it couldn’t have been there to begin with because he rinsed the bottle out before refilling it.”

Henry was silent, tension radiating from him as he stared at the screen. “It didn’t just magically grow in the water bottle.”

“That’s correct,” she said, holding up her finger and clicking on a different file. “I thought the same thing, so I went back to the feeds after Cal set the bottle down and after the stagehands were cleared. Look.”

With a click of the mouse, the static feed of the stage played for about fifteen seconds before the screen went black. It stayed that way for almost a minute before the feed returned.

“What the hell?” Cal asked, leaning in. “Play that again.”

After rewinding and playing it again, he stood and shook his head. “That’s weird. I didn’t see that the first time we watched the footage.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said with a smug smile. “Someone had planted a Trojan horse in the coding that looped the video for the minute it was actually out. No one would ever know the difference since it was just a static video of theempty stage. The only reason I found it was that I’d magnified the image on the water bottle and thought I saw it jump. The same thing happened every time I rewound it, but it wasn’t noticeable when I zoomed out. That’s when I dug into the video’s coding and found it.”

“And that’s why we pay you the big bucks,” Cal said with a satisfied smile. “Well done, Miss Heath.”

Derek let out a sigh and his smile told her how grateful he was. “Thank God for Alayah.”

“This was a fun show and all,” Henry said, “but it doesn’t clear Mr. Benjamin. His literal job is coding. He could easily have done this with very little trouble.”

“Had he been here,” Alayah said. “I saved the best for last.” With a flourish, she clicked on the final video in the file and let it play. It showed Derek leaving the convention center just minutes after Cal set the bottle on stage and long before the feed was cut. He reappeared in the parking lot, removed his jacket and climbed in his car, then pulled out. The timestamps on the videos showed that the stage feed went black at the same time Derek was driving away.

The room was silent as they waited for Detective Henry to speak. He stood staring at the monitor, his jaw ticking to the beat of his case falling apart, and she hung her hopes on that final time stamp. Finally, he walked over to Derek and unlocked the cuffs. She was sure her relieved sigh was heard around the world.

“In light of this, I have some more work to do to confirm what was found. However, as of right now, the only person I can clear with any certainty is Mr. Newfellow. He may leave town. You may not. Do you understand?”

“Crystal clear,” Derek said, rubbing at his shoulder. “We both want the same thing, Detective Henry. To seeHugo’s killer behind bars. I assure you that isn’t me. I will do whatever you ask of me until you figure out who killed my friend.”

Detective Henry didn’t appear impressed by Derek’s impassioned plea, instead pointing at her. “I need both of those drives, so our digital recovery team can follow the same trail to see if they come to the same conclusion. If anything deviates from what you just showed me, you’ll find yourself behind bars for tampering with evidence.”

“I stand behind my work,” she assured him, disengaging the jump drive and putting it back in the envelope, then handing both to him. “There will be no discrepancies. If your team has any questions, you know how to reach me.” Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe she was tired of feeling small around men like him, but there wasn’t so much as a hint of fear in her voice when she spoke.

“I’ll show you out,” Cal said, motioning for the detective to follow him. He turned back to them. “Sleep. I don’t want to see you before nine a.m. tomorrow. Preferably ten.”

The moment they were gone, Derek knelt before her and pulled her into his arms. “You are a rock star with impeccable timing.”

“Unless you’re Detective Henry, then I’m a killjoy,” she said, loving how his laughter rumbled through her. “I knew you didn’t do it, so it was just a matter of finding the proof.”

He trailed a finger down her cheek. “I don’t know how I got so lucky to meet you in this room just a few days ago, but I’ll thank the universe for that until the day I die. What do you say we go get some of that sleep everyone keeps talking about?”

Once he had retrieved her walker from the doorway, she followed him to the elevator. When they stepped on, and it lifted them toward the reward of her hard work, she wonderedif that was sleep or something else entirely. While part of her wanted sleep, the other yearned to be held and loved, even for just one night.

Chapter Nineteen

Sleep wouldn’t come for Alayah. When they’d returned to the room, Derek had wished her a good night and disappeared into the bedroom. She’d be lying to herself if she didn’t notice the way he’d hesitated at the door when he’d said good-night. Almost like he was hoping she’d say something. The request to share his bed had been on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t force the words passed her lips.

“Alayah?” His voice filled the darkness, and she jumped with a squeal, throwing a hand to her heart. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but you’ve been flopping around like a fish out here. I was worried something was wrong.”

“Can’t sleep,” she said, sitting up to rub her face. “Even though I’m beyond exhausted. That happens sometimes when I’m working on a big case. I know Cal is worried my ankle won’t heal if I don’t get enough rest, but it’s fine. It only gives me an occasional twinge if I step on it wrong. I probably won’t even need the walker by tomorrow.”

“You’ll use the walker,” he said firmly. “At least for long distances around the hotel. You don’t want to set your recovery back by overdoing it, right?”