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Myer’s eyesnarrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I’m just tryingto piece together whether he might have been aware that someone was targetinghim,” Amber said. “Did he ever mention anything about feeling threatened or indanger?”
Myer shook hishead. “No, not that I’m aware of. Thomas was a loyal employee, always lookingout for the company’s best interests. He never mentioned anything like that tome. Possibly deliberately. He may have wished to shield me from the truth aboutwhat was happening.”
Amber nodded. Shewasn’t sure she believed that Myer didn’t know about all this at the time, butthat wasn’t the point right now.
“I take it EmilyChen’s involvement was about controlling the marketing to make it seem as ifeverything was fine?” Simon asked.
Myer hesitatedjust for a moment.
Amber leanedforward, her eyes locked onto Myer’s. She could feel the weight of the truthpressing down on her, and she knew that they needed to get to the bottom ofthis.
“Mr. Myer, we’vealready told you that we’re not here to harm your company. We’re here toinvestigate the deaths of two people, who may have been killed because of thisrecall. We need to know the truth, not just about what happened with therecall, but about what happened to Thomas Jackson and Emily Chen.”
Myer looked at herfor a long moment, weighing his words carefully. “I understand that. But youhave to understand that my company is my life’s work. I’ve poured everythinginto it. If there’s anything that could damage it, I have to be careful.”
“Of course,” Ambersaid, wondering if that was the attitude that had led to the cover-up in thefirst place. “But we’re not asking you to put your company at risk. You’vealready pointed out that we can’t prove what you’re saying right now. We justneed to know what happened.”
Myer hesitated fora moment longer, before finally nodding his head. “All right. I’ll tell youwhat I know. Yes, Emily Chen was involved in that side of things. She wasbrought in specifically to have someone who couldn’t be connected directly withthe company managing the fallout of the 120’s brake failures.”
Which meant thatthey had a possible motive now why someone had killed both her and ThomasJackson. The only problem was that it gave them a potential pool of suspectsthat ran into the hundreds, if not the thousands. Anyone who had been hurt, orsimply felt cheated, by the court case and the subsequent recall might bebehind this.
“We’ll need a listof those customers who tried to sue you,” Francesca said. Those were clearlythe ones with the greatest desire to get back at the company.
“Of course,” Myersaid. “I’ll send you the court documents along with the rest.”
Amber was gratefulfor that. It felt as though they were finally getting somewhere. She just hopedthat it would be enough to let them find the murderer before he could hurtanyone else.
CHAPTER NINE
He checked themechanism of the device carefully as it sat there in the abandoned building. Hewas confident in his design, and it had worked twice so far, but a goodengineer always checked, always tested. Always made sure of things.
Theyhadn’t tested, notuntil it was too late. Not until the accident reports had started coming in.Even then, they’d buried the evidence and tried to cover their tracks.
He couldn’t letthem get away with it. Couldn’t let them pretend that it was all just some grandaccident. Not after what they had done. The dead wouldn’t let him.
“How long beforeyou make the next one pay?” The voice was clear and direct, even though hecould see that there was no one else there with him.
“How long?”another asked.
“How long?”
The chorus of themwas incessant, the ghosts of the dead demanding retribution for whatWestford-Myer had done without giving him so much as a moment of peace. Theyhad been the ones to convince him that he had to do this. He hadn’t wanted to.He’d wanted to go to the police with what he knew, but they were right; it wasn’tenough. No legal route would provide enough retribution to make up for allowingpeople to die simply in the name of profit.
He’d seen thenewspapers, seen the carefully constructed stories Emily Chen had created tomanage the situation. He knew that the company was trying to cover it up, tomake it seem as if they had done everything they could to protect theircustomers. But he knew the truth, and he couldn’t let it stand.
“Not long,” hesaid, checking the device one last time as he tried to placate the dead. “Itwill be soon.”
He had chosen hisnext target carefully, poring over his choices, trying to find the ones mostresponsible for all of this, the ones who deserved to pay the most, and whosedeaths would make the dead fall silent. It had taken some time, but he hadfinally found the perfect candidate.
He knew that theauthorities hadn’t made much headway in the case. The law had failed when itcame to the WM 120. But he also knew that justice needed to be served, one wayor another. He was prepared to make them pay.
“Now!” the ghostsscreamed in unison, impatient as they always were. “Do it now!”
He knew he couldn’tresist that screaming. If he tried, it would simply continue all day, drivinghim slowly insane. He didn’t want to be insane. Besides, why wait when theopportunity to act was there?
He left theabandoned building and drove out toward the address of the individual he’dpicked out for the next round of hangman.
