Page 154 of Keeping Kasey
“Do I strike you as someone with a team of accomplices?”
He shrugs.
“No. I didn’t have anyone,” I mutter. “Why did Logan have Kade dig up dirt on me?”
It’s something I never got an answer to from Logan, and I figure now is as good a time as any to figure it out.
“He didn’t.”
“I saw the file myself.”
“He didn’t have Kade do it; Moreno did.”
“Why?”
“It’s not your turn.”
I roll my eyes, gesturing for him to go on.
“If you’d had time, would you have gone back for Kane and taken him with you?”
Once again, I analyze the question—it’s such an odd angle for him to investigate. Then again, this particular question could be fueled by James’s obsession with my dog.
I feel a prick of shame as I give him my honest answer. “Probably not. I couldn’t have stayed hidden as easily with him. He was better off at the manor. Why did Moreno look into me?”
“You sure you want to waste a question on something so obvious?”
I don’t say anything, and James sighs.
“You had just hacked both our main bases and gained unlimited access to our most delicate information. Moreno wanted mutually assured destruction in the event things ended poorly.”
“Which they did,” I supply, and James nods. “So then, if you knew so much about me, why is my apartment the only information you used? You had my mother’s address. Why not go after her to draw me out?”
“I thought we should’ve.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Asking the wrong person again,” he says, and when I give him a knowing look, he relents. “But if I had to guess, I think Elise being used against us has made Logan wary of using similar tactics.”
“He had no problem using Mark against me.”
“Mark isn’t family.”
I open my mouth to push the point, but James continues. “Since you got two questions, I have two.”
“No promises.”
“You’d been working on this software for weeks by the time we found you. Why did you make it in the first place, and when were you planning to come to us with it?”
It’s the second time I’ve been asked the question in an hour, and the same stomach-churning pain hits me. I don’t think it matters how many times I’m asked about it—it’s always going to feel this painful… this raw.
I think carefully about my answer. I can’t give him the truth, but for some reason, I don’t want to flat-out lie either.
I settle for giving him the parts of the truth I can.
“I wasn’t sure if software like this was possible in the first place,” I tell him. “I wanted to prove that it could be done. As for bringing it to you… I’m not entirely convinced I would’ve.”
It’s not the whole truth, but it’s a part of it.
