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Sloane fell silent She’d never seen her father like this It’s not that he was a rock He wasn’t But he’d always been the positive force in the fah her mother was the family powerhouse—‘the Barracuda,’ as she was known in the publishing world—there was a quality about her father thatfoundation Sloane felt the saressive nature froht He loved life, and life loved him To see hi reason— a solution to this ordeal
For a long hter in her from the professional It was a pretty tall order Life-threatening danger was part of her world, not theirs She was a trained FBI agent She was also an expert in Krav Maga—“contact colish—a self-defense technique so forceful and effective that it was used by the Israeli Defense Forces Plus, she was thirty-one years old Her parents were in their late fifties She was young, strong, and vital—ically
And her parents?
They were regular people with regular lives They’d lived and worked in Manhattan Two years ago, they’d tried retireolf That lifestyle didn’t last long They’d both missed the New York scene So they’d moved back
To this
“Sloane?” her father pro she wasn’t sure she could provide
She stared straight ahead, keeping her e to need protection”
“Yourabout this She thinks the break-in was just a randolary”
“Then it’s time you told her It’s her life, too This isn’t a secret you can keep anymore”
“I shouldn’t have kept it at all I just wanted to forget”
“Yes, well, forgetting doesn’t work Neither does hiding things fro Mo the art theft How long do you think it’s going to take before they connect the two?”
“There’s no reason they ever should—unless you tell them” Her father’s barb found its roup and I are persons of interest Nothing aps in the provenance of Dead or Alive Anyone who’s sh to kill and whose actions are so deliberate is sh to destroy any paper trail that leads to his wide open, with no proof ofWe’re not even sure if we sold a fake or an original How uilty can we look?”
“So when the FBI interviews you, you plan to leave out the part about witnessing theup the file and fortune cookie “And now you’re withholding physical evidence”
“It’s the only way Especially after what happened tonight If I open ation, and our faet of a murderer I won’t do it Robberies happen every day of the week No one’s going to connect the break-in to the Rothberg It’s not like I owned the painting” Matthew paused, looking like a cornered rat “Did I do the right thing by calling you? Or are you going to go to the FBI? They’re your former employer I’m your father My future—our whole family’s future—is in your hands”
There it was, pure and simple, laid out in the most basic way possible