Ziya glanced over at her. “What?”
“That’s what he said on the podcast,” Amie explained. The words came to her like a well-loved song. “ ‘I wasn’t bothered at all—in fact, I offered her a generous discount for myentrepreneurship courseto encourage her to keep fighting for her dream. Since then, Susannah has visited me three times under the guise of friendship. I immediately realized that she was trying to attain my hard-earned knowledge for free.’ ”
Amie waved a hand. “And then one of the hosts says something about Oakland’s good business sense, blah blah—”
She continued with the story. “ ‘Instead of turning her away, I began giving her bad business advice. She—I know, I know, but she wanted to learn, didn’t she? I was just teaching her a lesson. No such thing as a free lunch. Anyway, she took the advice to heart, believing that I was unknowingly giving her myentrepreneurship coursefor free. It was easy to convince her to take the poor advice,because I was validating and building upon concerns and ideas she’s already had for her bookstore.’ ”
In her periphery, Ziya had gone very still, likely coming to the same conclusion Amie had come to.
“The hosts joke about his lawyers calling him for sharing too many details,” Amie recalled, “and then Oakland says, ‘My point is, some businesspeople can be easily convinced, often by their own minds, that everything they are doing with their business is correct, and thateveryone elseis the problem, not them. Susannah is without a doubt one of those people.’ ”
She looked at Ziya. “And then they cut to an ad read. But he’s gotta be talking about Savannah, right?”
“How did you do that?”
Oh, fuck.Amie’s stomach dropped as she realized that Ziya’s stunned expression wasn’t due to the story, but because of Amie’s delivery of it.
She wasn’t ready to try to have the time loop conversation again. Things had been going so well between them.
“I … I have good recall for these kinds of things” came Amie’s weak excuse.
Ziya wasn’t buying it. “Since when can you perfectly recite—”
“It wasn’t perfect,” Amie hurriedly interrupted. “Sorry, I made it sound like that was word-for-word, didn’t I? It was just something like that. Not perfect at all.”
“It does sound like he was talking about Savannah,” David called from his work table in a merciful attempt to rescue Amie. He waved three conjoined toilet paper tubes like a lecturer’s pointer stick. “Someone who owns a bookstore and believes that everyone other than her is the problem? That has ‘Savannah’ written all over it.”
“And Raina said she’d been making strange decisions lately,” Amie added, giving him a grateful look. “This must have been why.”
“Do you think Oakland was doing it on purpose to tank the bookstore faster so she’d sell it to him?” Ziya asked.
Amie relaxed, relieved that they were moving past her uncanny feat. “He said he wasn’t bothered by her rejection,” she remembered. “But maybe. Could have been an added bonus to the lesson he was trying to teach her, at least.”
A twinge of pity sparked in her chest. Amie summoned a memory of Savannah screaming at a barista to keep herself from feeling too bad for the woman. “I wonder if he knows she’s dead.”
“I wonder if Andrew will try to sell to him,” Ziya added.
“I wonder if one of you will come hold this while I finish taping it,” David said.
Ziya leapt to her feet. “Me! I’ll help.”
“I doubt Andrew would sell to him if he knew how Oakland was treating his wife,” Amie said as Ziya went to assist David. Oakland’s website was open on the laptop screen. She clicked on the large Contact button in the top-right corner. A page popped up with a contact form, showing spots for a name, an email address, and a message.
If “Susannah” was Savannah Harlow, that meant Oakland had spoken with her at length multiple times. Would she have mentioned blackmailing Benny, seeing it as a savvy move to save money she could put into her business? Could this man help prove that Benny had a motive to kill Savannah?
She knew she was grasping at straws. In fact, it felt like she was grasping at those paper straws that get soggy and lose their structure the longer they’re left in liquid. Before the straws could completely dissolve, Amie typed:
I’d like to ask you some questions about Savannah Harlow.
Resisting the urge to add “whenever you get the chance,” she typed out “Amie T.” in the name spot. She added her old email address from high school that didn’t include her full first and last name, and sent off the message just as David clapped his hands together.
“All right, that’s it,” he declared. “Want to do the honors?”
“Yes!” Ziya squealed.
Amie closed the laptop, putting it down next to her as she twisted around to watch David toss Ziya a Ping-Pong ball and point her toward the start of the machine.
“Should I do a countdown?” Ziya asked.
