Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“My preference is always to be with you.”
Now they sat side by side at the table facing the agents. Her dogs lay in their beds in the room off the kitchen where they stayed when she was working. Outside the café, she was certain Larado and Dimitri were close.
Decker nodded at her, indicating she should give the agents the information they needed.
“It’s recently come to my attention how the items from Saudi Arabia ended up on the altars of the murder victims. At least, what most likely led up to the murderer using them.”
Howard and Jenkins had placed recorders on the table with her permission. Now they exchanged an alert look. Jenkins indicated for her to continue.
“As you are aware, I was kidnapped at the age of fifteen and spent a year and a half in captivity, held for ransom. The last six months I was held by a man known as Scorpion and his men. Those months were horrific. I suffer from PTSD, and a couple of times I’ve nearly landed in the hospital.”
Rainier’s fingers tightened around hers, and he brought her palm to his chest, over his heart. “When I’m with her, we can combat the episodes together, but if I’m away on business, she has a much more difficult time.”
“I don’t know if you’ve had dealings with my father before, but if you haven’t, he’s a man who wants his way in all things, and he goes to any length to get it.”
Decker held up his hand and leaned in close. “Be careful what you say here. Clarify exactly what you mean.”
Shabina nodded. She was being truthful about her father, but she could understand the lawyer’s worry that if Jack was played the recording, he might sue her for defamation of character. That would be like him. It would never occur to him that she would speak the truth in a court of law and deliver evidence against him, not only for hiring the two university students but his attempt at contacting a known assassin to murder her.
“I would describe my father as ruthless if he wants something. Determined. He wanted me to come home. He claims he wanted me home for my own good, but the reality is my mother is upset and worried for my safety. Jack insisted I give up the café and living here in Knightly and return to Houston. When I didn’t, he decided to act to force me to comply.”
Raine placed two photographs on the table in front of the FBI agents.
“Jack hired these two university students to do whatever was necessary to bring on a PTSD episode. He believed he could bring me home, hospitalize me and get power of attorney so I had no say in my life. That way he could keep me home.”
Shabina thought she would feel an enormous amount of guilt relaying to the FBI what her father had done, but she felt nothing. She truly had cut off her emotions toward him.
“The students have been officially identified as Emil Salhi and Jamal Talbi, both from Algeria,” Raine said. “I will turn over the correspondence and proof that Jack Foster hired them. Both men confessed to Shabina in my presence. Stella Harrison-Rossi, Harlow Frye, Zahra Metcalf and Vienna Mortenson were also present.”
“State your name for the record, please,” Len Jenkins said.
“I’m Raine O’Mallory.”
“Jack sent several items from Saudi Arabia to Salhi and Talbi. Specifically, flowers, two live birds and a number of other items,” Shabina continued.
Decker broke in. “We’ve prepared a list of the items.”
“The men sacrificed the birds to get feathers to leave at my workplace and home. They had taken a box with some of the items on a secluded trail where I go to film the nest of a mated pair of California condors. That trail is closed to all park visitors, but Jack told them it would be a good place to put some of these items. According to the two men, they heard voices coming toward them, and, thinking it was me bringing someone with me, they hastily shoved the box of items in the brush and took off. When they went back, they couldn’t find the box. They thought they just didn’t remember where they’d put it until the items showed up on an altar at a murder scene.”
Shabina fell silent. The agents didn’t have to believe a word she said, but she didn’t see how they could spin it and make her a suspect again. In any case, she felt protected with Decker, Raine and Rainier right there.
“As you can imagine, I am very upset that these men took part in a scheme to essentially push my wife into a PTSD episode,” Rainier said. “They are here on student visas. I asked my boss to pull some strings and have their visas revoked. There is plenty of reason to do so.”