She clutched her backpack like a security blanket, the disquiet in her chest a frantic drumbeat. “We decided this already. I need to be the one to return it to Sal. I need to convincehim that I haven’t done anything wrong. I need to make sure my family will be safe.”
He sighed and pulled a gun from the holster on his chest, aiming it toward her. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Fear slithered through her veins. Gary had agreed to her demand to take the laptop to Moresco herself so easily, almost too easily, and he’d hustled her into the car right after Aleksei had stormed out of the cabin. She’d assumed he was helping her avoid further argument, that he was rushing so they would have time to meet with his on-site team before she met with Moresco. Have time to plan her entry. Time for the FBI to do everything they could to keep her safe.
Had Gary just wanted to get her away from Aleksei? They’d been in the car together for hours, and he hadn’t made one phone call. Wouldn’t he need to be coordinating with his team?
Her stomach dropped the way it had when she’d ridden the Double Shot at the beach for the very first time last summer. She and Sage had held hands as long as they could and screamed like teenagers. That stomach drop was terrifying joy. This one was simply terror.
“You’re working for Moresco.”
“You’re a smart woman. Too smart, and too curious for your own good.”
Her scalp started to itch. “What do you mean?”
“Lily’s been slipping extra invoices into the Moresco files for the past five years, and nobody noticed until you came along.”
It didn’t make sense. Why would Sal ask Gary to give Lily fake invoices to put in the file? And how the hell did Kemper even know Lily?
Five years.
Images of Lily’s tear-stained face in the stairwell filled her mind. Lily had been waiting for her married boyfriend to leave his wife for five years.
“You’re Lily’s boyfriend.”
A genuine smile wiped away Kemper’s haggard expression. He looked handsome. Trustworthy.
“I really do love that woman. She tipped me off as soon as she realized you were messing around in the Moresco files. Our plan was perfect. The office explosion would destroy all the evidence, and the bomb at Aleksei’s apartment would make him look like the perp. Everyone knows he hates Moresco. Moresco would be dead, Aleksei would take the fall, and I, broken by it all, would retire to Borneo, where Lily would join me a few months later.”
Gary wasn’t helping Sal. He was stealing from him.
“You were the one embezzling the money. You’re the one who planted the bombs.”
Kemper nodded, relaxing his arm a bit so the gun pointed toward her abdomen instead of her chest. She needed to keep him talking while she figured out how to get out of this.
“Don’t you have a family?” she asked.
Her family was everything to her. She couldn’t imagine heading to Asia and never coming back.
“My wife and I divorced a few months ago. The house is sold, and she got a one-time payout. Of course, she doesn’t know about the money I have squirreled away in a foreign bank account.”
There wouldn’t be any record of it. Pannetone paid most of the invoices via wire. The funds would go from a Moresco account to some foreign account that may or may not even be in Kemper’s real name. It was brilliant.
“What about your kids?”
“I barely know them. This job is long hours, tons of travel, and shit pay. I started selling tips to Moresco to help pay for college. I betrayed the FBI, my wife handed me divorce papers, and the kids all took her side. It’s the bureau’s fault. I gave themeverything and got shit in return. I deserved more, so I created a situation where I got more. It’s the American way.”
Murder was not the American way.
“What happened to your perfect plan?” she asked.
“Dante never showed up. Moresco went out for espresso, and you went on an unannounced vacation.”
Ice seeped into her bones. They’d wanted her to die in the explosion. Her, Dante, and Sal.
“Lily saw the Moresco kid give you the laptop, but she didn’t think anything of it. After the explosion, when we realized you weren’t in the office, she panicked. She knew you, Pannetone, and the Moresco kid were concerned about some type of fraud. She’d seen Dante leave for the night empty-handed”—he waved the gun toward the backpack on Rosemary’s lap—"so she thought there might be something incriminating on that laptop.”
Gary had orchestrated the whole thing.