Known (30 page)

“You’re talking about apartheid,” Gianna said slowly. “You’re saying my father would never have accepted money from a company that actively supported racial segregation. Or worse.”

“Yes, your parents were both very outspoken in their politics. It was a hot topic of the times.”

Gianna tucked that new fact away in her memory banks for safekeeping. She hadn’t known her parents were passionate about politics. Her childhood memories didn’t include politics. Why would they?

“So what happened?” asked Chris.

“Leo accepted the money. A lot of money. Your father didn’t know about it at the time because he left the business details to Leo. All your father knew was that he was able to continue his research and design in peace and earn a good living from their company. He didn’t realize this company’s investment was keeping them afloat.”

“Wait. I thought the sale of their cordless technology made them successful.” Chris’s tone was sharp.

“It was. But Richard would never have been able to finalize the design without this company’s money first keeping their doors open for several years. After the sale he found out about their silent backer, who’d naturally received the lion’s share of the money.”

“What did my father do?” whispered Gianna.

“Threatened to expose a dirtier side of this South African company if Leo didn’t cut ties. Once he was aware of the deal Leo had made with them, he started digging. One side of this company’s profits came from arms dealing. You can imagine what sort of mess that was back then. There’d been a United Nations voluntary arms embargo against South Africa since the early sixties.”

“So you’re saying Leo managed to tie Berssina Tech to arms dealers?” It sounded like a Cold War spy novel to Gianna. It was unreal and hit home simultaneously, causing her stomach to churn and her head to throb.

“The car accident happened within a week of Richard taking his complaints to Leo.”

“But how did he decide the wreck was deliberate? Maybe it was
just an accident
,” Gianna pleaded. “What if he was wrong? He stayed away from me all these years based on a guess?”

“It was the fourth attempt on his and his family’s lives in five days,” Saul said gently.

Gianna’s lungs struggled to work. She couldn’t speak. Or breathe.

“One of the first attempts was with the gas line in your home. If your mother hadn’t seen someone outside the house and immediately investigated one morning, the two of you might have died. Your father had already left for work.”

“Is that why we abruptly went on vacation?” Gianna whispered. She remembered being pulled out of school, her parents telling her they wanted to take a trip. She’d been excited, convinced they were returning to their carefree, globe-trotting ways. Instead it’d been a car trip across the country. She hadn’t cared; it’d been the three of them alone and on an adventure for the first time in months.

“Yes. There’d also been an incident with your father’s vehicle and an attempted mugging outside his office. But when he realized that someone might have tried to blow up his home with his family, he took action.”

“He told you of his suspicions?” Chris asked.

“Not until after. He called me in the middle of the night after the car accident. He’d gotten you”—he nodded at Gianna—“to safety and he needed his own medical help. I left immediately. He begged me for silence, hoping the killers would accept his and your mother’s deaths as sufficient and leave you alone.”

“But . . . there was a body . . . it washed up on shore a few weeks later . . .” Her voice trailed off at the sad expression on her uncle’s face. “Who was he?” she whispered.

“I don’t know for certain. Just know that man died of natural causes and no one had claimed his body.”

“You placed him there?” she squeaked.

“Not me personally. But it was the last bit needed to take those men off your family’s trail.”

I’ve been pushed into a movie. A horror film.

This wasn’t her life.

“Where was my father all this time?”

Her uncle moved his gaze to look out the window at the gray skies and buildings. “He was never the same man after that night.”

“Who would be?” Chris pointed out.

Saul met his gaze. “No, I mean with his head injury. I got him to a different hospital than the one Gianna was taken to that night and checked him in under a false name. He almost didn’t survive.”

“But he walked several miles with me.”

“He did. And to this day I don’t know how he did it. It must have taken every ounce of his will and determination to get you to safety, because the man who called me that night was near death. He’d cracked his skull and suffered a horrible blow to his brain from the accident.”

“The car did go over the cliff, right? I remember the ocean and the rocks, and climbing back up to the road.”

“It did. The tide later covered the front end of the car. Your mother was dead on impact, your father said. He’d left the vehicle’s doors open before he left with you, hoping to confuse whoever had run him off the road. You probably wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t been in the backseat.”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t remember how the accident happened. I remember the feeling of flying . . . of being weightless and hurtling through the dark and then an explosion of sound and being jerked against my seat belt. I think I must have been asleep in the back of the car and woken up as we went over the edge.” She put her hands over her ears as an echo of screams rang in her head.

Were they real? Or imagined?

“I stayed with you in the hospital,” Saul told her. “I had my closest assistant watching over your father in the other hospital. I was afraid to go near him, fearing I’d lead your mother’s killers to him. The press responded immediately to your story, and I was in the limelight every minute.”

“The other hospital didn’t wonder about the man with the head injury in their care?” Chris asked.

“I don’t think so. We checked him in under the name of a trusted friend of mine and used his medical insurance. His bills were paid, so they didn’t look too closely. It wasn’t like today where you have to show photo ID at every doctor’s appointment.

“Your father had a serious brain injury, Gianna. He wasn’t the same person when he could finally form a coherent thought.” Saul looked deadly serious. “There were months when he didn’t even remember that he had a daughter. Or a wife.”

Her heart cracked in half.

“He didn’t recognize me half the time. I swear an angel was sitting on his shoulder the night that he managed to get you to safety and call me, because he wasn’t capable of doing anything like that for the next year. He was lucky that the accident happened not far from my city. He’d been afraid to fly out to see me, worried they’d track his name if he bought tickets. He told me that he and your mother had argued about where to go. She didn’t want to involve me, but he’d thought I could help. Another hour of driving and you would have been in my home.”

A wet warmth touched her lips and she blinked hard, wiping the tears with the back of her hand.

“Richard’s never been the same. The official diagnosis was a TBI. A traumatic brain injury. All that did was slap a label on what he suffered. It offered no prognosis or glimpse of his path to health. Everyone suffers differently and many are never the same.”

“He didn’t know me?” Gianna asked softly.

“Some days he did. On those days he knew that he had to stay away from you. The one logical conclusion that he managed to maintain from the first day of the injury was that any interaction he had with you could lead to your death and his. That fact he
always
remembered. Even on the days he forgot how to tie his shoes, he knew he needed to stay hidden.”

Chris took her hand and squeezed it. She felt a subtle tremor shoot through his grip.
How much of this story does he identify with?

“Where has he been living?”

“Here and there. He’s been in and out of a few rehabilitation centers for people with brain injuries. I made certain he was financially taken care of. He even managed to marry a woman for a few years down in Baja. It was good for him. He lived a very simple life by the ocean, and she helped take care of him. I thought he was getting much better, but she died about five years ago. He had a bit of a setback after her death, but he was able to function almost normally in society by then.”

“Did he visit you? At the house?”

“No, I always went to him. I didn’t want him to see where you’d grown up. The more you stayed out of his mind, the better he functioned.”

Her cheeks flamed like she’d been slapped.

“It was for the best, Gianna,” Saul said gently. “Emotions were very hard for him to process.”

“Why was he here?” Gianna asked. “How did he come to be in my cabin?”

“That’s where I get a bit confused,” answered Saul. “I hadn’t heard from him for several months. The last few times I talked with him, he seemed obsessed with Leo Berg. After years of not caring, suddenly he was upset that Leo had changed the name from Berssina to BergTech. He worried that you weren’t getting any money from the company, even though I assured him Leo always paid.”

“He did. Leo has always been nothing but wonderful to me.”

“Your father didn’t think so. Several times he ranted on the phone to me that he thought Leo wanted you dead so he no longer had to share the company’s profits. Other times he’d claim that the South African company had hired someone to make that happen, so they’d have more profits, too.”

Ice formed in Gianna’s throat. “He thought someone wanted to kill me?”

“Why didn’t you warn her? Or call the police?” Chris interjected. “Christ. She’s got a daughter.”

Saul held up a hand. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what Richard was like.”

“No, I don’t, because the two of you decided to keep him from me and Violet for the rest of our lives!”

“Richard didn’t think rationally. His brain was never the same. People who suffer TBIs often have anxiety and panic attacks. They’re easily overstimulated and can’t deal with everyday tasks like a trip to the grocery store. I was used to hearing Richard’s crazy stories. He never got over the feeling of being hunted. He thought people were following him almost every day of his life.” Saul’s gaze went from her to Chris, pleading for understanding. “I’d learned to never take what he said at face value.”

“It almost got Gianna and Violet killed! Maybe if they’d been warned, they wouldn’t have been alone in a cabin in the middle of the woods!” Chris’s grip on her hand tightened.

“You did what you could,” Gianna said slowly, looking at her uncle. “That’s why you had the tracking on our phones. That’s why you came immediately when you heard I had a close call.” Small pieces slipped into place in her brain. Her uncle always wanted to know where she was going and what she was doing. Even when he lived three thousand miles away.

“What else could I do? Tell you to look over your shoulder for assassins?”

“Wait a minute. So who killed Richard?” Chris asked. “And tried to kill Gianna? Who did Richard believe was after him? And why would anyone kill Richard after he’d been in hiding all these years?”

Saul leaned forward. “I’ll make some calls and get his apartment searched. The last time I visited him, he was living in a place outside of Palm Desert. Maybe there’s something there that will indicate what he thought was going on.”

“I’ll want to go see it.” Every cell in Gianna’s body wanted to see where her father had lived. After the crushing news of the last hour, her heart had finally found something to latch on to. “Don’t let them throw out anything.”

“I’ll be right back.” Saul pulled out his cell phone as he vanished into the bedroom.

“This is crazy,” Chris stated. He didn’t let go of her hand. It was a small tether keeping her grounded after the events of the morning. She clung to it.

“My father was murdered for something he knew,” Gianna said. She had no proof; it was simply what her heart and head told her.

“I think you’re right,” said Chris. “And I believe it’s connected to his old company or that South African business. Why would they kill your father now? What threat could he pose to them? It sounds like he was a very confused man.”

Her heart ached for the years with her father she’d missed. She didn’t care how messed up his brain had been; she’d deserved to know him. Violet had deserved to know her grandfather. “It must have been big. My father hid for all that time, believing they’d kill him if they knew he lived.”

“Somehow he got on their radar.”

“What did he do?” whispered Gianna. “They killed him and came after me and Violet.
Violet!
” She whirled to face him. “We need to tell her. No! Wait. Don’t tell her. Tell Jamie and Michael. Maybe they should take her to the police.”

Chris already had his phone out and was tapping a text. “I’m reaching out to Michael. But really, Gianna.” He stopped and a serious hazel gaze held hers. “I’d want Michael watching over Brian instead of any cops. He’d give his life for your daughter.”

Gianna stared back at him. “He doesn’t know her . . . or me . . . why would he do that?”

“That’s who he is,” Chris said simply as he finished his text.

I believe him.
Calm settled over her. Her daughter would be safe with Chris’s brother.

“He says he’s heading home immediately. He’ll call Jamie right now and let us know promptly if anything is wrong.”

“The landlord will give a key to one of my assistants,” said Saul as he stepped back in the room. “I’ll arrange for someone to drive out to Palm Desert. The landlord said he’d been about to enter the apartment because the rent was a few days overdue, and Richard hadn’t returned his phone calls. He says he can’t remember seeing him for the past several weeks.”

“We need to call Detective Hawes,” said Gianna. “She needs to hear all of this.”