The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club 17)

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I might have a heart attack.”

Briana’s phone rang from under a throw blanket on the couch. She found it, looked at the caller ID, said, “Mom? I can’t talk. The DA is here … Yes. In my fucking apartment.”

Briana clicked off the call and said to Yuki, “I’ll be right back.”

She went down the hallway and into another room out of Yuki’s view, but Yuki heard the door slam closed.

Right after that Yuki heard Briana screaming a loud, wordless howl, then came cursing, more screaming.

There was the sound of running water.

A moment later Briana came back into the living room with a towel around her neck, hair dripping, like she had put her head under the faucet.

She dropped back into the basket chair and said, “Okay, Yuki. Tell me everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, and any other damned thing you’ve got.”

CHAPTER 95

YUKI PRESSED ON, past her own tremendous discomfort in the face of the shock Briana was clearly feeling.

She folded her hands in her lap and told Briana about confronting Marc with Paul Yates’s suicide note, and the subsequent confession from Marc two hours ago.

“He committed crimes against you and he manipulated the justice system. We’re working up charges against him now,” Yuki told her. “Extortion, perjury, criminal libel, and maybe a few other things we can throw at him once we get his signed confession.”

Briana shot out of her chair, lit up all over again. She stood over Yuki and shouted, “Throw everything at him. Do not spare him. Do you know what that maniac has done to me? He’s wrecked my career, my reputation. Even my friends have lost faith in me. I can’t leave the house without people taking pictures of me. Pointing. ‘She raped that cute guy. She had a gun.’

“My privacy is gone. My dignity—destroyed. My poor mother, a proud woman, is now an object of pity.”

Briana clambered back into the basket chair. She scowled, curled up, and hugged her knees, her face radiating hurt and anger. She turned her head and pinned Yuki with a hard glare.

“Do you understand? Marc took everything from me. I want to write hate mail to him in jail.”

Yuki said, “Briana, I do understand. I feel terrible. Please, hear me out. I came to tell you that I’m sorry for my part in what you’ve had to go through.”

“Oh. You’re sorry. Thanks.”

“I believed Marc,” said Yuki. “The police believed Marc. His story was convincing, and if he’d been raped, as our office believed, he would have needed justice. I thought other male victims of rape would also be vindicated once this crime was exposed.”

“You mean I had to be exposed.”

“Not exactly. I’m a prosecutor. My intention was to prosecute a rapist. Briana, I only started to suspect Marc when he testified. Even then I thought he was making up things to make himself look better, not that the whole story was a complete fabrication.”

Briana said, “Am I getting this right? Did Marc and Paul collude in this disgusting scam?”

“Yes,” Yuki said. “Marc admitted it was his idea and Paul helped him. Paul apologized to you in his suicide note.”

Briana scoffed, shook her head. “Sick. Both of them. I really don’t have words.”

She put her feet on the floor, grabbed the Stoli from the table, put the mouth of the bottle up to her lips, then stopped. She offered the bottle to Yuki.

“Can’t,” Yuki said, “I’m driving.”

“Okay,” Briana said. She took a few slugs of vodka and sighed loudly.

When she turned back to Yuki, her expression had softened.

She said, “You don’t have to justify yourself, Yuki. You were doing your job. I respect that. I never felt that you were attacking me personally. I didn’t think you were mean. If you want my forgiveness, you’ve got it.”

“I do,” said Yuki. “Thank you very much.”