Page 148 of Keeping Kasey
“The least I could do?” She scoffs, and for a moment, I could swear there’s pain hiding just beneath her anger, but it’s gone too quickly for me to be sure. “You spent four months moping around your mansion, surrounded by a family that loves you. You have no idea what that time was like for me. Then for you to—” She stops, releasing a heavy sigh with a shake of her head. “Trust me when I saythe least I could dois survive being anywhere near your cancer of a family.”
“Then tell me what happened,” I whisper.
She turns to look out the window.
The urge to demand answers is strong, but it won’t make a difference. If Kasey doesn’t want to talk, nothing will make her.
I’m starting to share her sentiment. WhyamI trying?
But even as overtired and irritated as I am, I can’t quite shake the sight of those tissues piled on her bedside table. She doesn’t sound congested, and her puffy eyes are enough evidence.
She was crying.
And since she won’t tell me why, my brain comes to its own conclusion that she’s so miserable being back here, it’s driving her to tears.
Still—and it must be purely masochistic of me at this point—when I walk her to Ford’s office a matter of minutes later, I try one last time.
“Kasey,” I say, stopping her from entering the office. She turns to face me with an annoyed expression. “Are you okay?”
“I will be just as soon as I get away from you,” she says, closing the office door behind her.
“Nothing,” Matteo states.
James shifts in his seat. “Nothing?”
“I went through every buyer for this exact pattern of wove paper over the last three months—over three hundred names, by the way—and none have ties to any of our known enemies.”
“There’s no way you could’ve been thorough in that search,” James says.
“Which is why I’m having Ford run them through the system to see if any of them have connections that could point us in the right direction, but I doubt it will.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
“I think this is a distraction,” he answers. “Whoever did this could’ve easily used untraceablecopy paper, but they chose a kind that was in rare supply, like they wanted us to follow it as long as possible.”
James’s tone conveys his distaste for the idea as he asks, “You think we should give up?”
“I didn’t say that, but I think whoever did this is trying to keep us busy.”
I lean back in my desk chair. “They clearly have a motive to get the list, and distracting us increases their chances of getting it. But we can’t just give up. It’s still the only lead we have.”
Matteo nods. “I say we base the next steps on whatever Ford finds. If he comes back with a compelling lead, we can follow it. If not, we should consider stopping the search.”
James pinches the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. “We can’t afford to stop the search. We needsomethingto go off of.”
“We also can’t afford to devote time and energy to a decoy that won’t get us anywhere,” Matteo says.
I direct my words to James. “Tell Ford to come to me the second he has something, and take over for him with Kasey while he’s with me.”
“Isn’t Damon with her?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I have him with Michael. Ford is the only one with her today.”
James nods, pulling out his phone—presumably to relay my expectations to Ford.
When Matteo and James leave my office, I lean back in my chair and close my eyes.
It might be worth getting behind on my work if I can get an hour of sleep.
