Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(16)

It was half past noon and Sasha wasn’t there.

The Brandenburg Gate was one of the busiest tourist attractions in Berlin. The square was filled with families and walking tours led by someone holding a colored flag on a stick and talking into a microphone while a line of dazed, zombie-like visitors followed behind. Aside from those in the square learning about the history of the place, there were a dozen police officers and security guards moving around. Considering the American, British, and French embassies were all within a stone’s throw of each other, AJ was surprised there wasn’t a stronger military presence.

AJ kept scanning the crowd in search of Sex on a Stick in black leather pants and a bad attitude.

Nothing.

Left without options, AJ dialed his phone number on her phone and waited. It rang twice.

Behind him, the riff of “Bad to the Bone,” his ringtone, shot through him. He dropped his hand from his ear and saw a blonde standing three feet away, her back to him.

Slowly she turned.

“Whoa.”

Sasha stared back at him, wearing white capri pants and a bright floral top. The blonde wig overdid it but completely camouflaged her in broad daylight. She took a step closer, reached out her hand holding his cell. “Hello, AJ.”

They switched phones. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Half an hour, give or take.”

He looked her up and down. She looked like a typical American housewife, minus the kid in the stroller. “Impressive.”

“I wanted to make sure you were alone.”

AJ glanced around at the passing tourists. “Is there a reason behind the cloak-and-dagger?”

She moved closer, lowered her voice. “You’ve come here to look for your sister’s killer. You think there is some connection to Richter. Went so far as to go there asking questions. You’re stalking the local pub and hitting on, not to mention stealing from, the patrons . . .” Sasha waved her phone in the air before tucking it into her back pocket.

“I’m calling pot to kettle on that last accusation.” Although all the rest she pointed out was spot-on.

“I like to go unnoticed. If someone followed me here, they lost me the second I made the city limits and went clothes shopping.”

“What if someone followed me?”

“Then I would have seen them watching in the thirty minutes you’ve been standing around looking like a lost child without a parent.” She turned and started walking toward the gate.

AJ had no choice but to follow.

“What makes you think anyone is following either of us?”

She smiled, didn’t answer his question. “I used to help your sister on her agility training,” she told him.

The mention of his sister brought his attention back to what he should be focused on. “She wasn’t the most athletic woman.” Amelia took after their mother, who didn’t grow more than five feet five inches tall and had a sweet tooth that always kept her rounder than she’d liked. At least that’s what she’d blame when she went on one of her many diets.

“No. But she held her own most of the time. Everyone at Richter was pushed to do at least that.”

“Her coworkers said she had recently started taking morning walks before work,” AJ said.

“Which explains the police report about her being murdered in the park and tossed in the river.”

AJ stopped walking. “You looked her up.”

“Only because I knew her.”

He jumped in front of her, stopped her from moving. “Then you’ll help me.”

“There is nothing to suggest that Amelia’s death is at all linked to Richter.”

He shook his head. “I can’t find any trace of Amelia’s roommates. And the one friend she mentioned several times to me, Keri Shrum, was the roommate who died in the car accident.”

“How did you find that out?”

“When I went into her condo after the police had done their investigation, I went through a few of her drawers. Found her calendar with Keri’s funeral written on it. I made a couple of phone calls and flew to Europe to dig a little more.”

“And what did your amateur investigative skills find?”

He didn’t want to tell her this, but any research on her part would reveal it. “Her car was shot at and the police thought her boyfriend did it.”

Sasha narrowed her eyes. “The reason they thought her boyfriend did it?”

“She broke up with him. He was popular with the local police.”

“Well, there you go.”

He sidestepped in front of her. “No. No, I’m not going, because this is Europe we’re talking about. The UK. The average person on every corner can’t buy guns there, and while her boyfriend is no choirboy, he didn’t seem to have any history with weapons. The shots to her tires were painfully accurate.”

Sasha gave him a hard stare. “What has your father said about all this?”

AJ stared back. “My father said that the kind of students that graduated from Richter and ended up dead were not like my sister or her friend. That maybe Keri had something to hide.”

“What did you take that to mean?”

“I’m not oblivious, Sasha. I know that graduates from your alma mater end up in jobs all over government agencies, from those who carry weapons to those who go deep undercover. I know that wasn’t my sister. If Keri Shrum was that woman, then picking a boyfriend who liked to test her fighting skills and go in and out of jail for his efforts wasn’t covert by anyone’s definition.”