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“So why didn’t you challenge the amount?”

“I don’t go over all my charges line by line. If it’s over a certain amount the bank contacts me. This purchase wasn’t even close to that. Less than fifty dollars.”

“The PO box is in Naples.”

“Like I said, I have no PO box. And even if I did, why would I have it in Naples?”

“Then somebody stole your credit card information, bought the currency, and had it shipped in your name to the PO box. Why go to all that trouble?” White wanted to know.

“To frame me for two murders, apparently,” said Roe.

“Interesting, since we’ve already made an arrest and the gun used for the killings has been tied to that person.”

“I don’t profess to understand it.”

“If you’re telling the truth, it seems like someone is trying to punish you, Kasimira,” noted Decker.

She shook her head. “I can’t imagine what I’ve done to elicit that sort of hatred.”

“I don’t think it’s connected to you. I think it’s connected to your father. And something he might have done.”

“What are you talking about?”

Decker took a few minutes to tell her about what had happened in Miami back in 1981.

As he finished, Roe looked devastated by these revelations. “And…and you think my father—”

“I don’t know how he saw what he did, but he was in that room, helping to put a dead prostitute in a suitcase. The body has never been recovered.”

“And Senator Tanner?”

“Was probably very grateful. Which might explain how your father was able to quit the Secret Service and start his security firm. It might also be that as a senator and wealthy, well-connected businessman, Tanner managed to throw a bunch of business your father’s way.”

“In return for keeping his mouth shut?”

“I’m not sure I see another reason, unless you do?” said Decker, who was watching the woman closely.

Roe seemed to hover between screaming or crying, and he was unsure, ultimately, which way it would fall.

She surprised him by doing neither. She sat up straight and said, “Then why, after all these years, did this happen now? My father presumably kept the confidence.”

“You told me your father was religious. He obviously raised you the same.”

“What?”

Decker pointed to the crucifix over the doorway into the room, and a set of rosaries lying on a credenza next to a bible.

“Yes. He was a devout Catholic. That’s how I was raised.”

“And when people are dying, someone like a devout Catholic harboring a guilty secret, what might they do?”

Roe walked over to the credenza, picked up the rosaries, and began fingering them. “They would confess their sins for absolution of their soul in the eyes of God, so they could be forgiven and go to Heaven.”

“And if your father went further, and told others who were also involved in that secret that that was his intent? To make his secret public, and not just confess it to a priest in private?”

Roe walked over and sat back down.

“So you think those people killed him to prevent him from confessing his guilt, and theirs?”


Tags: David Baldacci Amos Decker Thriller