Known (36 page)

Leo continued speaking. “I think our South African investor hired someone to murder Richard. The investor had been irate when I tried to back out of the original funding deal. I really didn’t want to give up on the money, but Richard was adamant.”

“Of course he was,” Gianna snapped. “The company was dealing in illegal arms.”

“I know, I know.” Leo paused. “But you don’t know how badly we needed those funds. We were on the brink of going under. I told Richard it was too late to back out. He was furious. I didn’t know he went to the investor on his own and tried to get us out of it, but I’ve always had my suspicions about his car accident,” Leo said quietly. He broke into sobs. “Oh Lord. Your mother, Gianna . . . and nearly you and Richard. I didn’t know . . . and now Violet. What did I do?”

“You should have said something to Saul or me as soon as he showed up,” stated Gianna.

Anger washed over Chris and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Leo was lucky he wasn’t standing in front of him.

“Richard was convinced the threat was still relevant. He wasn’t making a lot of sense the day he came to see me. He seemed to think you were still a child.”

“You could have done the right thing all those years ago and not taken the money!” Gianna steamed.

“I didn’t know if the rumors about the illegal arms were true back then,” Leo argued.

Gianna laughed in an eerie way that made Chris’s skin crawl. “That was so typical of you, Leo. Unless you saw it with your own eyes, you didn’t believe it. No wonder my father went to see you in person. You would never have believed he was alive if he’d simply called.”

“What did Richard say when he showed up?” Chris asked.

“He told me he had proof of some murders ordered by the owner of the South African company.”

Silence filled the cab of the truck.

“You’re talking about decades-old crimes?” Gianna asked. “That happened on another continent?”

“No. Murders here in the States. Starting with your mother.”

Gianna sucked in her breath.

“Wait,” Chris said. “You said murders . . . plural. More than Gianna’s mother?”

“Yes,” Leo said. “It appears this company tried investing in several up-and-coming businesses in the States around the same time as they invested in Berssina Tech. Some of the owners were resistant like Richard had been. It appears this investor has one solution for getting his own way: eliminate the issue.”

“He had other people killed?” blurted Gianna. “Because they didn’t want to do business with him? What century was this?” she said bitterly.

“Last century,” Leo replied with irony. “But it appears it has continued into the twenty-first. I reached out to my South African partner after Richard visited me. He laughed off my questions about Richard’s car accident. I tried to find Richard to ask for the proof of the murders, but he’d crawled back under one of his rocks. I wrote him off and assumed all of Richard’s ramblings could be attributed to mental illness and did nothing. Today was the first I’d heard of Richard again.”

“My father went to you with evidence of murders and you did
nothing about it
?”

“I have no defense, Gianna, but your father no longer had any credibility. And he didn’t show me this evidence . . . he only claimed it existed. The man who came to talk to me looked like a beggar. He hadn’t shaved or had a haircut and I don’t think he’d showered in a week. I thought he was nuts.”

Tears streaked Gianna’s face. “I would have taken care of him,” she whispered.

Chris saw wetness drip onto her shirt.

“He had no one,” she said softly.

“According to Saul, he liked it that way,” said Leo. “He said your father preferred to be alone. He wasn’t lonely. He chose to live that way.”

“Saul let him hide away because he was ashamed of him. And you were no better, Leo.” Her words whipped through the air.

No one spoke for ten seconds.

“Right now my main concern is helping you find Violet,” Leo said slowly. “Over the last two decades, I’ve hired some employees that were
strongly
recommended by my foreign investor. Some of them have been great engineers or salespeople, but I suspect others were trying to get out of the country.”

The hair rose on the back of Chris’s neck. Gianna met his gaze.

“Why did you think that?” she asked.

“They rarely came into the office to sit behind a desk, and I wasn’t allowed to fire them,” Leo said grimly. “Their employment was a sham. I swear he’s started using me as a halfway house to get rid of some of his problems.”

Gianna gasped. “Leo, the police just showed us an image of the Escalade driver,” she said. “He’s enormous. He’s a younger blond guy with a cocky walk.”

“Damn it,” muttered Leo.

“What?” asked Gianna.

“I think I know who that is,” said Leo. “I was ordered to hire him a while ago. He’s the son of the South African owner, so I’ve had no control over him. I heard that the guy can be brutal when pushed, and I believe he
had
to leave the country.”

“What’s his name?” Gianna asked.

“Reid Kruger.”

“I’m going to give you Detective Hawes’s phone number,” said Gianna. “Tell her everything you just told us.”

Her uncle’s and Leo’s descriptions of her father wouldn’t go away. Gianna kept seeing a pathetic, lost old man. Someone who stumbled around through life, confused by the world around him. Sometimes aware of his past and other times living in a haze.

She didn’t know if she could ever forgive Saul for keeping them apart. He should have overruled her father.

The right to choose to be involved in her father’s life should have been hers, and hers alone.

The snow grew deeper on the sides of the road as they gained elevation, but the pavement was wet and clear as they pushed on toward the national forest. Slushy bits of snow mixed with the rain on the windshield. It was a different world from a few days ago when they’d struggled to get out of the forest. Now they were rushing back in.

Where’s Violet?

She prayed the county sheriff would find her at one of the cabins.

But why would Reid Kruger take Violet up there?

It made no sense. Her phone buzzed and she paused before answering the blocked number.

“Is this Gianna?” asked a male in an accented voice.

Shock raced through her nerves. “Yes.”
It’s him.

“I have your daughter. Where is the thumb drive?”

“Who is this?” She turned to meet Chris’s questioning gaze. She pulled the phone away from her ear and turned on the speaker with shaking hands.

“That doesn’t matter. Where is your father’s thumb drive? Where did he hide it?” The connection crackled in and out.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Let me talk to Violet.”

The phone went silent. She stared at the time ticking on the screen; the call was still connected.

Violet screamed, and Gianna dropped the phone in her lap. She snatched it back up, holding it in a death grip, terrified she’d lose the connection to her daughter. Blood pounded in her ears and the scream abruptly stopped.

Along with Gianna’s heart.

“Violet?”

“That’s her polite way of asking you to tell me where it is. Would you like to hear it impolitely?”

His voice curdled the liquid in her stomach. “Don’t hurt her.”

“Too late.”

Gianna felt the truck surge as Chris pressed on the gas, recklessly passing a car on a curve. His hands were white on the steering wheel, and the tendons in his neck bulged as he clenched his teeth.

“Don’t hurt my daughter,” she whispered, not taking her gaze from Chris. “I don’t know anything about a thumb drive. My father didn’t give anything to me or tell me anything about it.
You killed him before he could.
”

A harsh laugh came over the line. “That old man. All he did was piss me off. He was like a greased pig trying to hide and sneak around. I knew if I watched you long enough he’d come crawling out of his hiding place at some point. At first I thought I’d missed him, so I went through your house looking for it.”

This slime was in my house?
She thought of the missing lingerie and shuddered.

“I finally spotted him when I followed you to the mountain. He was so fucking easy to catch.” He snorted. “Old useless man.”

Gianna winced, remembering the skinny burned body in the morgue. Her father had had no muscle mass or strength left.

“But he was stubborn. So fucking stubborn. He admitted he had the documentation but wouldn’t tell us what he’d done with the thumb drive. It only makes sense that he passed it to you or put it somewhere for you to find.
Where is it?
”

“I don’t know!” she shouted at the phone.

“Your daughter looks just like you,” the voice whispered. “I took a few things from your closet, planning to see you in them one day. But maybe your—”

“She’s a child!”
Bile heaved in her stomach. Chris looked ready to explode, but Gianna knew he would stay silent, letting the asshole believe only she could hear him.

“She doesn’t look like a child. Bring me the thumb drive and we’ll talk.”

She exchanged a glance with Chris. “Where are you?”

He laughed. “Think about where your father had gone.”

“He was an old man,” she whispered. “You killed him too soon and now you’re scrambling to save your own ass.”

“Didn’t matter. I had my orders. Killing him was a mistake, but he
made me angry
! I need that thumb drive!”

“You knew he was alive all these years?” she whispered.

“Hell no. Shocked us all when Leo said Richard showed up at his house. We might have let it go, but the information Richard claimed he had could destroy my father’s life work. We won’t let one man take us down.”

Gianna closed her eyes. Her father’s pursuit of justice had gotten him killed. Whatever was on this thumb drive clearly threatened the South African investor. “Maybe it doesn’t exist,” she whispered. “Maybe my father made up the information.
No one has seen this drive you’re looking for!
”

The killer was silent for a moment. “Richard knew things. He told Leo facts that only my father knows. He has the information hidden
somewhere
! I told my father I’d already collected it!”

“You fucked up!” Gianna shouted at the phone. “What if there is no thumb drive?”

“It exists! I
will
have it!”

“Hurting my daughter won’t make it show up!”

“We’ll see. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.” He ended the call.

“Fifteen minutes until what?”
Empty air filled her ears.

She wanted to shove Chris out of the driver’s seat and slam the accelerator into the floor.

They were still forty minutes away.

Violet’s leg burned.

The tall blond man had pulled off the highway and climbed into the backseat with her, saying he had to make a phone call and that she was to be silent or he’d slash her throat. She’d eyed the blade in his hand and obeyed.

Until he’d jammed it into her thigh and twisted.

His eyes had lit up as he held his cell phone forward to catch her screams. Then he’d yanked the blade out and she’d collapsed. No one had ever purposefully hurt her before. The shock of the abrupt attack burned as much as the pain. She couldn’t focus on his phone call, but knew he was talking to her mother. He’d stepped out of the vehicle, keeping his side of the conversation from her hearing, and let her bleed on the seat.

He ended the call and returned, grinding his palm into the place on her leg. She shrieked.

“Where’s the thumb drive?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What thumb drive?” Violet spit out. He’d asked her the same question four times but didn’t answer any of hers. He’d simply glared when she said her school thumb drive was in her backpack. If he wanted her reports and project for school, he could have them. “You seem to think I have something that
I don’t have
.”

“The one from your grandfather.”

Finally. A clarification.

“My grandfather’s never given me one.” She gasped, trying to ignore the pain and think of presents that Saul had given her over the years. “He gave me an iPod a few years ago, but you can only save music and movies on it.”