“Isn’t that the man from Selnoa who hung his wife from the bridge?”
“No, that was my dad. My dad did that. Massio Crossbow, not Declan.”
“She was your mother, then,” Sidney says.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Thank you. Good riddance.”
A blink, then, “Have some more bread, dear.”
I eat some more. “The moment the trial starts and Renne opens her mouth, she’s dead. That’s unless they get to her before the trial. Which they will.”
“They haven’t gotten to her yet, and it’s been over a year.”
“That’s probably because they have nothing on him, so they can’t put him on trial. They probably don’t have enough evidence. They’re still collecting, wiretapping, hoping for a miracle that probably won’t come. But let’s predict they get something on him and let’s speculate they even arrest him, and let’s say they have a judge willing to risk his life to bring the man to trial. Then they will have to disclose that there’s a witness. And not just any witness. A nurse. Everyone loves nurses. They care for people. Renne is the perfect witness. She can put the man away for life.”
Roy crosses his arms over his chest. “What’s your point?”
“If you don’t give me the guy’s name today, she’s as good as dead.”
“We told you everything we know. Do you have more pictures to show us?”
With a heavy sigh, I pull up a picture of my uncle Endo. I recall him saying he sank the yacht of a family that owns the island across the coast here. I doubt the family is stupid enough to commit a massacre in their own backyard, but people get carried away while using drugs.
“I remember him,” Roy says, and the certainty in his voice makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
I lace my hands at the back of my neck. “You sure?”
Roy rolls his eyes. “Of course not! I don’t know any of the men you showed me.”
He had me there. He really did. “I see where Renne gets her temper from.”
“You seem to know our daughter well,” Sidney says.
“Not well enough.”
“You seem interested in her. Going through all this to come here and speak with us.”
“I told you, I need to protect my brother.”
“Is that all?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Renne is a nice girl,” Sidney says. “Adventurous. Silly. But with a good heart.”
“You don’t have to sell me on her good nature.”
“Let’s just say she does end up on the stand and she testifies.” Roy interrupts our conversation. “They’ll convict him, and he’ll be put away, and then all this will be over and Renne will come home.”
“I explained to you what will happen with her.”
“Mr. Pembroke says otherwise. He told us they will secure her before, during, and after the trial.”
HOLY SHIT. Daniel Pembroke, the man my uncle Cass has been hunting for over a year, is behind all this? Is it possible that Renne witnessed the fallout between my uncle and Pembroke? The one where Pembroke took out all my uncle’s people and forced him to give up a load of arms? Pembroke took Cass hostage and tried to get him to reveal the locations of my uncle’s depositories. All the names of all the people he’s ever worked with. Governments. Kings, even.