Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(42)

He shook his head. “Where is the fun if I tell you all my secrets?”

He had a point.

Sasha leaned back. “So Amelia went to Germany and studied at Richter, and you moved to Florida.”

“Yeah.”

“Why did Amelia go to Richter?”

AJ sat back down. “Dad said it was to keep her safe. As if the US ambassador to Germany was some great target,” he said with doubt. “He wanted Amelia contained in a boarding school so he didn’t feel guilty about being an absentee dad. When he moved on from his job in Germany, Amelia stayed her final year.”

“Did she ever tell you why she stayed?”

“No. We didn’t spend a lot of time together after she graduated. Holidays, that kind of thing. I should have gone to Richter with her.” He sighed when he said the last part of his thought. Guilt hovered in his eyes.

“It wouldn’t change the facts now.”

AJ locked eyes with her. “If you could go back and spend time with your brother, would you?”

A strange knot in her throat made her swallow. “You can’t go back.”

“Doesn’t make me stop wishing I could.”

“Waste of energy.”

“You’re right. So I do the next best thing. Make sure whoever is responsible for her death pays.”

Footsteps in the hall outside of the dining room interrupted them.

Neil appeared in the doorway, a laptop in his hands. “We have a new development.”

That’s never good.

He placed the computer on the table and brought up a news channel.

“The missing student from Richter, a private boarding school known for its program to help troubled teens.”

A picture of Claire in her school uniform flashed on the screen.

“The girl was ordered by the court to attend Richter until she came of age or face possible criminal charges, which leads authorities to believe she didn’t leave on her own will. A person of interest in the case is Sasha Budanov-Petrov. Daughter of Ruslan Petrov, a man who escaped the criminal justice system many times before his death two years ago. It is said his daughter was responsible for his death.”

“Lies.” Sasha watched the fabrication on the screen and dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from slamming a fist on the table.

“Miss Petrov is no stranger to disappearing and never being seen again. The German authorities would like to bring this woman in for questioning before she can disappear with the missing teenage girl.”

The cameras moved to the walls outside Richter, and in front of a half a dozen microphones, Geoff Pohl stood in his perfectly pressed suit and fake concern. “I’m the longtime benefactor for young Claire and students like her. Kids that have taken a detour and simply need the discipline to find the right path here at Richter. We’re unsure why Miss Petrov would abduct poor Claire, but we want her back.”

“Abduct?” AJ asked the screen.

“Once again, here are the most recent pictures of the missing seventeen-year-old and the woman of interest in her disappearance.”

AJ reached out and placed a hand over Sasha’s.

“Slimy media calling you Petrov,” Neil muttered.

She would just as soon die than use her biological father’s last name.

“Because a minor is involved, authorities have been notified throughout Europe to be on the alert.”

Neil turned off the computer and closed the lid. “We need to get you out of Europe.”

“Creepazoid was my benefactor?”

Claire stood in the doorway, her face a sheet of white.

All eyes turned to her.

“He was the one waiting for me to graduate to give me a job?”

Sasha could imagine what kind of job that would be.

“You don’t have to worry about that now,” Sasha told her.

Neil crossed his arms over his chest. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Eighteen.”

“Pohl said you were seventeen,” AJ said.

“He’s lying. Ask my roommates. We celebrated my eighteenth birthday with liquor we stole from Checkpoint Charlie’s stash.”

AJ turned to Sasha. “Wouldn’t the authorities check those facts before going through all this?”

Sasha thought of the room in the subterranean levels of Richter, of the time Linette showed her the many copies of her birth certificates. “We’re not the only ones who can obtain a fake passport . . . or birth certificates.”

AJ squeezed her hand, and that’s when she realized he was holding it.

She slid her hand away, saw concern on his face. “This is all part of plan B. Make me the criminal. Connect me to my father, who made many enemies who may find taking a piece of me worth their while.”

“I don’t like this,” AJ muttered.

“Claire, didn’t you say you saw Pohl lingering in the gun range after I left?”

Neil tensed. Sasha knew his mind went where hers was stuck.

“Yeah. You’d turned his assassin job down, and he beelined to the range. Made me think he was picking out a replacement.”

Neil turned to Sasha. “Did you use the range?”

Her skin crawled. “Yeah.”

“Was anyone with you?” Neil asked.

The face of her friendly martial arts instructor surfaced in her brain. “Brigitte. She challenged me after I beat her on the obstacle course.” Sasha stood and moved to the window, where the protective fog started to lift. “How do you force someone to take a job they don’t want?” She asked the rhetorical question to everyone in the room.