Page 70 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

“I—I,” Mav started, then stopped to take a breath, his eyes falling on Alex. “I have no idea.”

He moved over to Angeline, took both her hands. “You know me. Youlivewith me. Do you think I would steal money from the company I built? From my best friends? Do you really think I could ever…hurtanyone?”

But it happened all the time, didn’t it? It was probably the most common white-collar crime, embezzlement. The big personality responsible for the initial success of the company thinks that the accounts and the lines of credit are there for his fun and pleasure, to indulge his vices, and starts skimming off the top. Still, when she looked at Mav, she couldn’t reconcile it. Immature. Irresponsible. Okay, yes. But not a criminal. She took another glance at the rug. Not a killer. No way.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

Mav looked to Tavo, who stared for an awkward moment, then shook his head. Mav seemed to deflate with relief.

“Then, who did this?” Tavo asked. “Why?”

Maverick sank onto the bed, and Tavo rose, creating distance.Angeline could read his tension in the stiffness of his shoulders, the way he clenched his right hand.

“Did he confront you? You said you fought. Was it about this?” Angeline asked.

Mav nodded reluctantly. Angeline and Tavo exchanged a look.

“I haven’t told anyone,” he said. “I didn’t want to scare you guys.”

He had that blank look he sometimes wore when things got too much for him. When he was too hurt, or too stressed, when he talked about his mother, sometimes even when they were making love. It was like he just kind of checked out.

“Haven’t told anyone what?” Tavo’s voice had an impatient edge.

“Someone’s been threatening me. Threatening Extreme.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Angeline.

“In social, in the comments, on Pop. That person, you know, MavIsALiar with the three skulls? Whoever it is? They’ve been threatening me.”

He fished his phone from his pocket, tapped it a few times, and showed it to Angeline. There was a file of emails, the scroll of subject lines filled with vitriol.

I’m coming for you.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I am going to expose all the fraud at Extreme.

You killed Chloe Miranda. And I can prove it.

I’m going to hack my way into your company and destroy it.

Countdown to the end of Maverick Dillan.

Extreme is a virus.

You’re a dead man.

Ready or not, here I come.

It was an endless list of threats and accusations and the dates spanned nearly three months. Angeline felt a shiver, as if the malice leached from the phone into her skin.

“That wipeout at the skate park in Venice Beach last month? Someone loosened the trucks on my board,” he said.

It had been bad. He’d dislocated his shoulder which had needed to be painfully snapped back into place. The doctor said he was just lucky he hadn’t broken his neck dropping into the bowl.

“Before that, when we were skiing in February in the Italian Alps, Tav, and the weather got bad? I skied the black-diamond trail run, barely made it down the visibility was so poor, and got in trouble at the bottom because it was closed?”

“Yeah,” said Tavo. “They were pissed.”