by Lexi Blake
She didn’t like her sister being called a puzzle piece, but she understood the way an investigator’s mind worked. Her sister would have said the same thing. “Katie had been investigating Kronberg for a long time before she died. I didn’t even realize she was working on a story about them until I got hired there. My sister was older than me and she was pretty much wholly devoted to her career. I didn’t talk to her often, and neither did Mom. When my mom mentioned she should look me up because I was in Germany, my sister got upset.”
Tucker frowned. “Your sister was investigating Kronberg before you got the job?”
She nodded. This was one thing he wouldn’t know even if he did remember his old life. She’d played Katie’s job close to the vest. She almost never talked about what her sister did for a living. “She’d been living in Europe for a couple of years at that point. She often got published by French and German news outlets. She was fluent in German. Mom was stationed at Ramstein for most of Katie’s childhood. I spent a couple of years there, but she moved us to Texas when she left the Army.”
Tucker looked at the man who’d been there the day he’d left her, the man who’d probably been with him as he’d left for Argentina. They shared a long look that made her wonder.
“What?” They were obviously having a whole conversation made up of eyebrows rising and heads tilting. They had oddly similar gestures.
The dark-haired man nodded to Tucker.
“Rob thinks your internship might have been out of the norm for Kronberg,” Tucker began.
The door opened again and Rebecca was followed by the gorgeous Scot who Roni had learned the doctor had recently married.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Rebecca said with a frown.
“We’re not late. They started without us.” Owen held a chair out for his bride before sitting beside her. “We’re a good ten minutes early.”
“I was hoping to get to talk to Dr. Croft,” Rebecca admitted. “Big Tag doesn’t usually slide into his seat until two seconds before he’s supposed to be here, and then he often sleeps with his eyes open.”
“Not when he’s attempting to meddle in someone else’s marriage,” the British man with dark hair said. Knight. Damon Knight. “Then he’s bright and early.”
“You’re welcome, married man,” Tag shot his way.
She got the feeling this group could devolve quite quickly if she let them. “Why was my internship odd?”
“What are you talking about?” Rebecca asked.
“Something about my internship at Kronberg has set off alarm bells for Tucker and the other one,” she said, looking to the man across from Tucker. “Ron?”
“Robert,” he replied. “I go by Robert, though I’ve been told my name is Russell Seeger.”
Something about the name sparked a curiosity. Memory was a funny thing. Even when one’s hadn’t been wiped, it could still play tricks on a person.
“I was told you remember seeing him,” Taggart began. “Robert, that is. You saw him in Paris?”
She shook her head. “I’ll talk about it after they tell me what it is about my internship that bugs them.”
Tucker’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t changed his tells. His jaw always formed that hard line when he didn’t want to do what he was about to do.
“If you expect me to trust you at all, I need some honesty,” she prompted.
He turned her way and she got the feeling this was another of those times when he would like to touch her, when all she had to do was reach out and he would take her hand in his.
She couldn’t do it.
“You aren’t the usual candidate they look at,” Tucker began.
“She was an excellent intern,” Rebecca argued.
Tag held out a hand. “No one is saying she wasn’t good, but Robert has been looking into Ms. Croft’s background and he and Tucker have spent the last year studying Kronberg and their practices. Let’s not get sensitive. I’d like to hear them out.”
She sat up, bracing herself. “I would, as well.”
“Robert mentioned that Kronberg could be a bit snobby when it came to their intern program,” Tucker began, obviously picking his words carefully.
“I went to a state school.” She could guess where this was going. Did they think she hadn’t considered this? At the time she thought she’d hit the lottery, but later on she’d known there had been a more sinister purpose to the invitation. “Kronberg recruited me because they knew my sister was investigating them. They wanted to use me against her, or they hoped I could be a reasonable voice my sister would listen to.”
“Did they approach you about your sister?” Damon asked.
“She was mentioned in my last review, but it was more of a reminder that I signed a nondisclosure agreement and I couldn’t share information with her. It wasn’t until after she died I thought they brought me in to keep a close eye on the situation with my sister. I wasn’t there for my talent.”
“You were quite good,” Rebecca insisted. “Before my world exploded, I thought about looking you up to take a job at the Huisman Foundation with me.”
“It doesn’t matter if I was good enough or not.” She didn’t allow herself to dream anymore. “The truth is they came after me because my sister was investigating them. A representative from Kronberg prodded me to apply, and that’s not how they operate.”
“But they do,” Rebecca insisted. “They recruited me.”
“You are a star in the neuro world. Everyone knows you’ll get a Nobel one day,” she pointed out. “I was in the top fifteen percent of my class at a state school. I had good grades and references, but nothing stellar. I should have realized there was something odd about it, but all I could think of was I would get to work with some of the best doctors in the world and I would get to do it close to my sister. Hell, my German wasn’t even very good.”
Though it was much better now. Living in Bavaria and having a desperate need to fit in had made her fluent. She’d spent long hours perfecting her accent so no one would question the odd shop girl.
Except she didn’t have a reason to hide, according to Solo. They’d known where she was the whole time. It made her sick to her stomach. She’d wasted years and they could have taken her when they wanted to. It was one of the reasons she’d decided to come in.
That and the fact that no matter how much she denied it, she’d wanted to know if Steven Reasor was still alive.
She still wasn’t certain, and that was a problem.
Solo had her tablet in front of her, and her fingers worked the monitor. “I’m sending you all the report detailing the interviews I’ve already done with Roni and her mom. She wasn’t directly threatened with her sister, but I think it’s obvious the bigwigs at Kronberg are still worried Katie Croft left behind information Roni could use against them.”
“It’s been years,” Roni said. “If I had something, I would have used it by now. I would have used it to protect my daughter.”
“What exactly made you decide to hide your identity? Was it just the threat? Or was there something else?” Taggart asked.
She didn’t like to think about that day. She hated it now because it might have been the day she’d made a huge mistake. “Hope McDonald fired me herself. It was the last time I saw her.”
“Can you walk us through that timeline?” Tag asked. “We’ve got some information on her movements, but I would like to hear it from your side.”
“It was a week after Steven left,” she explained. “This was the week after I saw her in Paris. She came to where Steven and I were staying and explained that he’d taken a job with her in Argentina.”
“And I was there.” Robert was watching her intently.
“Yes, I think she brought you in case I freaked out on her or something.” She’d asked for honesty and she intended to give it back to them. Even when it hurt. “She showed up with Robert, though he didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, we weren’t there to talk,” Robert agreed. “You re
alize, of course, that I don’t remember this at all.”
She nodded. “You didn’t do anything beyond stand behind McDonald and when she asked you to take Steven’s laptop and tablet, you made sure you had them. Like I said, she told me Steven wouldn’t be coming back to Germany with me. She basically told me I was stupid to have believed that Steven truly wanted me. She implied that Steven was using me to make her jealous, and then she said she would see me back at Kronberg.”
Robert leaned forward. “Tucker, just because she said it doesn’t mean it’s true. You know we’ve never found anyone who would say you were her lover.”
She glanced toward Tucker and he’d gone a pasty white, his eyes on the table in front of him as though he needed a moment to gain his composure.
“I never saw McDonald be affectionate with you,” Rebecca said. “Not once. I did see her flirt with a lot of men, but not you.”
“We could have been hiding it since she was my boss,” Tucker said, his voice tight.
“Or she could have been lying so Veronica was so angry she didn’t ask questions,” Knight pointed out.
“We all know she was good at manipulating people,” Taggart added.
“It worked.” She was starting to wonder if she hadn’t made a horrible mistake. “I didn’t ask any questions. I went back to work and hoped I didn’t bump into Steven again.”
“Why were you in Paris with him?” Taggart asked.
“Because I thought we were starting a relationship. He told me he was interviewing for a job that would get him out of Kronberg. He said he wanted to go back to the States and this job would make that happen for him. We spent the night together at an apartment he said he used when he was in Paris.”
“She’s given me a general description of the place,” Solo offered. “It was close to the Tuileries Garden, so that narrows it down a bit. I’m hoping I can find the actual building because I would love to know who owned the apartment.”
“That would be helpful.” Taggart turned his attention back to Roni. “So you spent the night with him and he went to his interview the next morning. Did he say anything before he left? Did you go with him? Were you supposed to meet him? He didn’t tell you who he was interviewing with?”
“If he was close to taking a job in the States, he would have been far along in the interview process,” Rebecca mused. “At the level he would have been looking at, he likely would have multiple interviews. He could have done the initial interviews on the phone or over the Internet, but there would be several in-person meetings. Had he been gone a lot in the weeks prior?”
She had never thought about that. “No. Steven was married to his job. I was there for almost a year and he didn’t even take weekends off. McDonald would come and go, but Steven was always there. It was a surprise that he wanted to go to Paris for the weekend. He left the apartment before dawn. At the time I didn’t think much about it. He was always a careful man and he was never late, so I thought he was being proactive. But now that I think about it, he didn’t have a suit with him. All he had was a duffel bag. He wouldn’t have carried a suit in a duffel bag.”
“I’m not a fan of suits,” Tucker said with a weak laugh. “So I was obviously lying about what I was doing.”
“I think we can say that’s a safe bet,” Taggart agreed. “He was gone for too long, wasn’t he? Did you try his cell?”
“I did. Many times,” she admitted. “I got worried when he didn’t show up that afternoon. Then McDonald and Robert were there. She basically threw a bunch of lady aggression in my face, told me she pitied me, and walked away with all of Steven’s things. I shouldn’t have let her take his stuff.”
She’d missed a chance. She should have hidden his computer the minute she’d seen McDonald walking up to the building. Her sister would have. Her sister wouldn’t have been so worried about her tender feelings that she’d stopped thinking at all.
“You should have done exactly what she wanted you to do.” Tucker leaned her way, a serious look on his face. “If McDonald thought for a second that you knew something you shouldn’t have, she would have taken action. She would have either killed you or wiped your memory and left you with nothing. I’m glad you gave it up. You being safe is all that matters.”
The man knew how to say all the right things. He was looking at her, his face so earnest. As she’d watched him last night and this morning, she’d been struck by how open he seemed. Where Steven had been shuttered emotionally, only giving out glimpses of what he was feeling when they were alone, Tucker was an open book. His emotions played across his face with no mask to hide them.
“Thank you for all the feels, Tucker,” Taggart said with a shake of his head. “You’re going to let her walk all over you. Back to the actual matter at hand. When did you see McDonald next?”
“About a week later.” Everyone was making notes now. She’d spent so much of the last few years of her life trying to go unnoticed that being the center of attention was unnerving. “It was two days before my sister died. I hadn’t talked to Katie in weeks though. I’d been ducking her calls because I didn’t want to explain how I’d screwed up my love life. I was pretty depressed. McDonald showed up at the lab and I asked if Steven was with her. I wasn’t asking because I wanted to see him. I wanted to avoid him, to tell you the truth. I was still pretty raw. She had the angriest look in her eyes. She told me he was done with me and walked away. I took that to mean I was fired. I’d asked to move teams and they’d told me no. I’m ashamed to say I walked out. I was unnerved.”
“That seems sudden. Is there anything else you remember about her that day?” Knight stared at her as though he could see inside her head.
“She wasn’t herself.” She could still see the crazy look in McDonald’s eyes. “I know she’d spent a lot of time upstairs in the corporate offices. When she came down, she didn’t talk to anyone but me. She ignored everyone else, even people who tried to talk to her.” There was something else. Something that hadn’t seemed important at the time. “Someone said her father was with her.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” Solo’s eyes had widened.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was important until now,” she explained. “And I didn’t see him, but I remember Arthur Dwyer talking about it. He was in some of those meetings. You should talk to him. I would be surprised if he isn’t still at Kronberg. I think he took over for Steven.”
Rebecca sighed. “We did talk to him and he didn’t bother to mention he was in those meetings. He did tell us he saw you with Steven at the airport.”
“How would he have seen us?” That didn’t make sense.
“He said he was at the airport,” Rebecca replied.
There were some things she definitely remembered. “Oh, he couldn’t have been. We left on a Friday afternoon. We went straight from work. Arthur got angry with me because I wouldn’t stay and help him with an experiment he was running. I know he turned in his findings so there’s no way he was strolling around the airport. That particular experiment would have taken him all weekend, and he would have to babysit it. And there was no way he would have seen us together at the office because Steven made sure we left at two different times. Anytime I saw Steven outside of work, he was careful no one would catch us.”
Taggart grinned, a baring of teeth that could only be called predatory. “Oh, I’m interested in talking to Dwyer myself. I would love to know why he lied about that. I think we’ll have to go a bit deeper on that man. But thank you, Ms. Croft. This helps us with a timeline. Did you know anyone who spent time in Argentina?”
“There were three other members of her original team who went with her, but I wasn’t close to any of them. After McDonald left, Arthur’s group then became the lead team working neurology at the Munich office. I never talked to anyone at Kronberg again.” She looked around because there was a tension in the air she didn’t understand. “What?”
“From what we can tell, everyone who went with McDonald to Argentina
is dead,” Rebecca said quietly.
“Or mind wiped,” Tucker added. “When you look at it that way, I was lucky.”
“You’re the only person who worked directly with McDonald in those last days who still has a heartbeat and a functioning brain,” Taggart pointed out. “And now you’re out in the open.”
“And someone figured out where my London safe house is the same day I move you to it,” Solo pronounced grimly.
Someone was looking for her. She’d placed them all in danger again.
Chapter Five
Tucker knocked on the door to Roni’s apartment and hoped she would actually answer. The morning’s conference had turned into a whole afternoon of questions from Ian and Damon and Solo. Ezra had rejoined the group and gone over every second of those last few weeks.
Not every second. She’d glossed over the time they’d spent in bed. According to her, they hadn’t left the apartment in Paris the whole day they’d spent there. He was fairly certain they hadn’t been watching television.
They’d been busy making a baby. Violet.
The door came open and Roni’s eyes went wide. “Hey. Is everything okay? They said they didn’t need me again until tomorrow.”
“I wanted to come by and see if you needed anything.” He held up the box he’d had delivered moments before. “Like a pizza. I figured you hadn’t had time to stock your kitchen.”
She breathed through her nose and a dreamy look came over her face. “Tell me it’s pepperoni. American pepperoni, and not those pepper things you get when you order pepperoni over here.”
“This is all-American pepperoni, and it’s from my favorite pizzeria in the city,” he explained. “Trust me. We’ve tried them all. One of the cool things about losing your memory is getting to try all the foods again because you have no idea what you like. Although I tried kale and that wasn’t so cool. I decided to discount all hard-core greens at that point. But I did experiment with about a thousand ways to eat a pizza.”
