Page 24 of Broken Empire
I met his cool gaze. “I’m just processing everything,” I replied. “Like you said before, it’s a huge shock.”
“I understand,” he said, nodding curtly. “We’ll give you a few more minutes to process.”
With that, he turned the volume on the movie back up so everyone could hear the screams, sobs, and gurgling sounds from the remaining victims as the masked executioner slashed their throats. I steeled my jaw and watched, refusing to let anyone in this room see how much it disgusted me.
“Cut!” the director shouted. “Good job, everyone!”
Another male voice spoke up from somewhere behind the camera. It was familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. “What did you think?” he said.
“I… I feel sick,” a soft feminine voice replied.
“It’s okay. Nothing is going to happen to you tonight,” the man said. There was a rustling sound, and the rest of the conversation was cut off.
I felt a flash of heat in my cheeks, followed by an icy prickling across my scalp. It was Shay’s voice on the video. Someone had forced her to watch that horrific scene in the woods.
On a good note, it meant she was alive.
On a bad note, she wouldn’t be alive for much longer. The man who’d spoken to her clearly said nothing was going to happen to hertonight, implying something would happen to her at a later date. It could even be tomorrow.
No. No fucking way.
My pulse accelerated with a mixture of panic and fury, flooding my body with adrenaline. I had to get Shay away from these sick Schöneberg fucks before it was too late.
I started replaying the snippet of conversation I’d heard in my head over and over, unable to shake the creeping feeling that I’d missed something that could aid in my hunt.
Why did that voice behind the camera sound familiar to me? Who the fuck was it?
When the answer finally hit me, it felt like a bucket of ice-water had been dumped on my head.
It was Robert Lind.
As soon as that sank in, my mind started spinning, connecting all the dots and angles until a bigger picture emerged.
Murray said the tape he’d just shown me was from the DC chapter of the Schöneberg Group. Robert lived and worked in DC, so that tracked.
Robert was also Cori’s stepdad. He’d been in New York a lot recently because of her car accident, so he could’ve accessed her phone to send and delete those messages to Shay a few nights ago.
Also, as a Schöneberg member, he could’ve contacted my older brother—his fellow member—and told him to send those emergency messages to me and pretend to know nothing about it afterwards. No need for phone hacking at all.
It seemed obvious now. Robert took Shay.
Christ.I couldn’t believe it. He’d disguised himself very, very well. I genuinely thought he was a good guy after he helped me take down the Riordan and Vandenberg families, but obviously I was mistaken, because he was actually the sort of man who took women hostage without a second thought and arranged for them to be killed in snuff films for profit.
Memories from the first meeting I ever had with him suddenly flashed in my mind. One particular statement he made that day stood out to me like a glaring neon sign, even though it seemed totally innocuous when he first said it.
Back in the day, I was quite close with your parents,he’d said.We only drifted apart after I moved to DC. You know how these things go.
Bile rose in my throat as another wave of clarity crashed over me. This could be the answer to the question of what happened to my mother twenty years ago.
Robert had admitted that he used to be close with both of my parents. Close enough that my mother might’ve called him ‘Bobby’ as a nickname…
When she left a voicemail saying she was going to see someone with that name on the day she left, my father assumed she was referring to her best friend Bobbi Klein. But it could’ve been Robert instead. After all, Bobbi had always denied having plans with my mother that day, and she was out of state at the time anyway.
My mother also said she was heading to Kingsford Tower to meet with her mysterious acquaintance that day, and the Kingsford was a regular Schöneberg haunt that any members could access. Even members from different states, I was willing to bet. It made sense that Robert would want to meet there as it would’ve been familiar territory to him, leaving him with the upper hand.
On top of all that, he was also the sort of man who had no problem stealing women away, no matter who they were, as evidenced by what he’d done to Shay.
I was certain now. My mother had no intention of meeting up with Bobbi Klein on the day she decided to leave my father. It was Robert all along.Hewas the last person to see her, and he was the reason she disappeared that day.
