Page 56 of Girl, Empty
‘But it could… ruin everything.’
Ripley slapped Ella’s shoulder.‘Hey Dark, they have the death penalty in Indiana?’
‘They do, and they’re awful generous with it.’
‘Alright, alright,’ Sinclair threw his hands up.‘I’ll lay it out for you, but you gotta believe me, okay?’
‘Get on with it,’ Ella said.Her patience was wearing thin.She needed to know if Alexander Sinclair was a serial killer and she needed to know before nightfall.
‘There’s not a whole lot of money in my job,’ Sinclair breathed, like the weight of a confession had been lifted.‘My company is small.It’s niche.It’s not super profitable.The image is all… fugazi.You know what fugazi-’
‘We know what fugazi means,’ Ripley bit.‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Sinclair Corp is legitimate.Truly.We really do make software security… but that’s not where I get my money.’
Ella could picture the end confession here.The big house, the maid and the tech mogul persona.Sinclair had it, but he was no different than the trust fund kid who posted yacht photos on Instagram while his credit cards got declined at the coffee shop.Image was everything until someone looked behind the curtain.‘So, where do you get your money?’
‘Those things.In my museum.’Sinclair was gracious enough to look embarrassed.‘I sell them.’
‘You’re a murderabilia seller,’ Ripley said.Ella grabbed her partner’s wrist because Ripley had an itchy trigger finger, except the bullet was her fist.He’d just confessed to the cardinal sin of profiting off murder, which in Ripley’s eyes was barely one rung below murder itself on the deplorability scale.
‘Yes.’
Ella let the moment hang so the tension might cool, but Ripley was across the table, nose-to-nose.
‘I’mthisclose to knocking you out, and if you don’t tell us how a dead guy’s nameplate ended up in your house, I’m going to do exactly that.’
Sinclair backed away.‘Okay, okay.You saw it all, right?The kind of stuff I have?’
‘Damn right we did.All that crap.A shoe from the Atlanta Child Murders?My mentor consulted on that.He said it was the worst case he ever worked.It kept him up at night, right into his eighties.’
‘I know it’s bad.It’s just my…’
‘Just your what, Alex, because from where I’m standing-’
‘The nameplate.Think about it.I don’t want to say it.’
‘Because you don’t have an excuse, is that why?’
The argument faded to white noise, because Ella had fallen down a mental rabbit hole.She thought back to some of the things she’d seen in Sinclair’s trophy room.Ancient knives that should have been in a history museum.Tons of artwork.Hundreds of letters from infamous murderers.Aileen Wuornos’s gleaming white tooth.Relics that went back almost a hundred years in some cases.
All of that stuff combined would equal hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And if Sinclair’s company wasn’t making much money, then one possible conclusion rose above all of the others.
‘It’s not a nameplate!’Sinclair cried.‘Well it is, but it’s not what you think!It’s-,’
‘Fake,’ Ella jumped in.‘All of it.Everything in that room, including Rankin’s nameplate.They’re… fugazi.’
Sinclair shrank like a punctured doll.All of the panic and sweaty terror whooshed out of him.He breathed a sigh like he’d been holding his breath for a week.‘Yes.Thank you.All of those items are forgeries.’
Ripley pulled back.‘What?’
‘I craft them myself.That’s how I make most of my money.Inauthentic true crime collectibles.You can’t tell anyone, because if word gets out… I don’t know what will happen.Some of my stuff has sold for a lot, and if they find out, I’ll…’
‘Word is definitely getting out,’ Ella said.She wasn’t sure if selling fake murderabilia was worse than selling the real thing, but she didn’t have the mental capacity for such an unnecessary internal debate right now.Both were equally scummy.‘It’s illegal.’
‘Is it?It was just an idea I had, and then it took off, and then it overtook the money I was making in tech, and it just…’ Sinclair was spitting it all out, like he’d been confess this awful secret for years.‘It was easy.’
