Page 31 of Grumpy Bossy Billionaire Enemy

"Believe whatever you want, but that's all I know about that night."

Henry swallowed as he shook Barry’s hand once more, thanking him for his time. I shook Barry’s hand, too, and his huge hand envelops mine. We walked through the vast lot where we had parked my car. Then we heard someone call Henry's name while they waved for us to stop walking.

Henry looked at me. We stopped, waiting for the man to walk nearer. “I know you,” Henry said as the man drew closer.

“You used to clean in here!” The man standing before us was a short, round man wearing a cleaner’s vest.

He stopped to catch his breath and nodded to Henry's claim of knowing him. The name on his vest said James.

“I know what happened that night,” James said and looked up at Henry. "I was dumping trash in the alley when Gary was beaten.

Henry glanced at me, then back at James. He didn’t believe James, but he didn't know what to believe now.

“What happened?”

“Not so fast,” James chuckled. “I heard you are now a billionaire, and I’m not going to give you the information for free.”

“How much do you want?”

“One thousand dollars,” James responded immediately.

“How can we be sure that he doesn't want to extort you,” I chipped in before Henry could speak. “How do we know you are telling the truth,” I addressed the man.

James looked at me now, diverting his attention back to me. “Barry lied to you,” James continued. “There was a CCTV clip that he trashed, but I found it. I thought it was a useless cassette I could reconfigure and resell for some cash, but when I checked it, it contained a clip of the incident.”

James looked over his shoulder a few times while he told us he’d reached out to Henry’s mother a few times about knowing the truth about the incident, but he got no response.

“Do you still have the clip?” Henry asked with desperation, and James nodded.

Then he squeezed a note into Henry's hand. “Meet me at this address at ten p.m. I'll get the cassette for you once the money is ready.”

Henry and I entered the car. I looked at him through the rearview mirror, wondering if he trusted James's words.

“One thousand dollars?” I scoffed. “Do you think he will release such a valuable disk for a thousand dollars?”

“I don't know.” Henry held my hand. “But we have to try everything to get to the bottom. You told me that.”

I nod, knowing exactly what I told Henry in the Maldives. I'd be a coward to back off now.

We decided to do what James said. Henry wrote a twenty thousand dollar check instead, and we patiently lurked around until James got off work.

****

James' home was a one-room apartment where he's been living for what I suspect was his whole adult life. The furniture and a decor dated back ten years. He looked into his hallway as he closed the door behind us. He asked if we were sure we weren't followed.

“No,” Henry said, “where is the clip,”

James grinned, “Where is the check?”

“The clip first. I’d love to know if you are lying or not.”

"I'll play it in my cassette player right now," James said as he brought it from behind a table.

He plugged the player into a socket, and the clip showed a long silent alley. Then James fast-tracked the clip to when Gary came out to the alley for a smoke. Two hefty men showed up from nowhere, and Gary was beaten until he was no longer moving. One of the men looked into the camera, and when James zoomed in, Barry’s face stared mischievously at us.

Henry showed up shortly after, staggering from being drunk but still aware that someone was almost dead. So he dialed his cell phone, which makes me guess Henry had called 911 to save Gary's life. He'd gotten blood on his hands while trying to keep him alive until the ambulance came.

Henry sighed with relief, and he squeezed my hand tightly. Henry wasn’t guilty after all. Now, it made sense why Barry had dismissed us from his office earlier; it was easier to make the son of the billionaire take the blame because he knew Henry could buy his way out of jail.

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