“MY WIFE?” ALEXANDER MURMURED in disbelief, staring at the black figure on the computer screen.
Swallowing hard, his mind. What did his wife have to do with any of this? It was his company that set up the women’s shelter in Afghanistan. It was his employee who ran it, then apparently decided to take matters into his own hands and smuggle women out of the country. Olivia had never shown an interest in the workings of the shelter. Granted, she was involved with quite a few charities here in the States, but she had absolutely no connection to the shelter.
“Hmm,” the man said, his voice still obscured.
The last of the church bells rang in the background. Alexander glanced at his watch to see it was just after ten in the morning. People across the city were sitting in church, praying for forgiveness for their sins, while he feared he would never have the chance to atone for his.
“It appears you do not know your wife as well as you think you do. You may want to rectify that if you want to find your daughter.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but the screen went black. A flurry of activity erupted behind him as Gibson tried to get the man back on the screen. Alexander knew it was useless. He wouldn’t answer. He’d given them exactly what he wanted them to know, nothing more.
Jumping to his feet, Alexander scanned the faces around him. He wasn’t sure where to begin. All he knew was he needed to get to Olivia before anyone else did. He’d already lost a daughter. He wasn’t going to lose his wife, too. The only thing that gave him any peace of mind was knowing Martin had stayed behind to keep an eye on her.
Pushing through the crowd of agents, Alexander stormed toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Moretti asked.
He spun around. “I need to talk to Olivia, see whether any of this is true.”
“Oh no, you don’t.” He stepped toward Alexander. “She’s a person of interest in this investigation now. I’ll be the one speaking with her.”
“Person of interest? Person of interest?” Fuming, Alexander’s skin prickled with heat. “She’s my wife!”
“If you two are as close as it appears you are…” Moretti leaned into him. “How is it you claim to know nothing of her involvement in this? If this man is to be believed, she violated over a dozen federal laws by smuggling these women into our country!”
“We don’t know anything for sure. Even if she did what that guy wants us to believe, we shouldn’t treat Olivia like a criminal. She’s a better person than me…than any of us.” He glanced around the room, one of the black-and-white passport photos catching his attention. He stormed toward the wall. “Look at this face.” He ripped the photo of Fatima off the wall and held it mere inches from Moretti’s eyes. Alexander could see the anger in his fiery gaze at his disregard for the crime scene.
“It used to be covered with scars and bruises. With all the swelling, you couldn’t distinguish her eyes from her nose. Thanks to my friend, Landon, she got better. She finally had a safe place to call home, and not in the shelter. Here in the United States. And you know what I did? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!” Alexander roared, the regret he felt from failing Landon returning with a vengeance.
“I should have done something, like he asked me to,” he continued, lowering his voice. He returned to the wall, running his fingers over Mischa’s photo. “I could have used my resources to make sure these girls had a better life, but I didn’t.” His shoulders slumping, he faced Moretti once more. “I followed the rules. I didn’t engage. I walked away, even after Landon came to me asking for help. Even after the clinic had been attacked. Even after knowing these girls’ lives were in danger.” He drew in a shaky breath, a year of remorse leaving him as he exhaled. He couldn’t turn back the clock, but he could do what was right going forward.
“If my wife played a part, we should thank her because that means these women…” He gestured to the photos. “These women are all alive today because of her, because of Landon, not because of me. If you want to treat her like a criminal, I know nothing I say is going to stop you. We don’t even know what her role in all of this was, if anything. Instead of jumping to conclusions, I’d prefer to work together to bring all this madness to an end, to bring my daughter back home.” He looked back at the photos. “And find these women before someone else does.”
Alexander stormed out of the house, ignoring Moretti’s orders that he come back and answer his questions. Rushing down the street toward his SUV, he avoided the press the best he could without seeming like a prick, repeating “no comment” over and over again as he fought off microphones and cameras. It took all the restraint he could muster not to punch a reporter in his face when he asked if they had found Melanie’s body.
Finally in the relative solitude of the SUV, Alexander sped away, heading toward his house as he tried to get in touch with Olivia.
“Alex,” she answered, picking up on the third ring. “Is everything okay?”
He hesitated, not sure what to say to her. Did his wife really help smuggle dozens of women out of Afghanistan and into this country? How did she keep that from him for so long? How did Mischa factor in all this? Regardless of what Olivia did or didn’t do, this wasn’t a conversation they could have over the phone.
“Maleek’s dead,” he told her. “He’s an Afghan national.”
“Afghan?” Her voice rose in pitch. He could sense her surprise and unease, as if she were putting the pieces together.
“Yes. And Melanie…” He drew in a breath. “She was here, but she’s not anymore.”
“Where—”
“I don’t know, love, but…” Pausing, he glanced out the window at the snow falling at a steady clip. “I know what they want, what they’re after.”
“You do? What is it?”
Pulling his bottom lip between his teeth, he shook his head, his eyes drooping. “We’ll talk when I get home. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Alex, what—”
“I love you, Olivia,” he interrupted, then hung up.
She probably had a thousand questions about what he found at Maleek’s house, where Melanie could be, why she was taken. He simply couldn’t answer any of those questions without looking her in the eye and asking her the question he feared the answer to. If she was involved, he wanted to be angry. He should have been absolutely furious that she kept it from him for so long. Something like this could have destroyed his company’s reputation.