“That’s exactly what we believe happened.”

“We?” asked Gianna.

“Yes, your father and I.” Saul held her gaze. “I’m sorry, honey. But your father got mixed up with some very bad people.”

“Who?” Chris asked sharply. “Who would try to kill a family?”

Chris’s face was calm, but Gianna knew this revelation must have brought an overwhelming rush of memories and stress. He’d hid behind a false identity for years to protect his family from a killer. No one knew evil better than Chris.

“None of what I’m about to tell you has been proven. These are deductions your father and I came to over the years.” Saul reached over and touched Gianna’s knee. “Everything we did was out of love for you. It was for your own protection.”

She couldn’t move. His words didn’t comfort. She saw her uncle’s fingers on her knee, but she couldn’t feel them. She’d shut down her peripheral nerves as she tried to keep her head above the sucking black water of confusion and lies. All of her energy focused on staying upright in the chair and not screaming. She didn’t want to hear about love; she wanted to know why.

“Your father and his partner Leo Berg were making big strides in cordless technology in the early eighties with Berssina Tech and competing with the big guys on certain levels in the industry. Your father called it ‘a race to build a better mouse.’”

“They sold their cordless mouse technology to one of the biggest computer hardware developers of the times,” Gianna said for Chris’s benefit. “It was an enormous deal for Berssina Tech. It was the cornerstone that funded all their other technologies. If it hadn’t happened, I don’t know if the business would have survived, let alone have paid Leo and me all these years.”

“Did Berssina make other big strides in technology?” Chris asked.

“Not like that one,” answered Saul. “Gianna’s father was the engineer and Leo was the business side. Once Richard was gone, there never was another brain quite like his.”

“Who were the people Richard shouldn’t have gotten involved with?” Chris asked.

“Leo had been approached by a South African company who wanted to invest in Berssina. Richard had a problem with this company’s politics and refused to agree to accept their money, but Leo felt that money was money.”

“You’re talking about apartheid,” Gianna said slowly. “You’re saying my father would never have accepted money from a company that actively supported racial segregation. Or worse.”

“Yes, your parents were both very outspoken in their politics. It was a hot topic of the times.”

Gianna tucked that new fact away in her memory banks for safekeeping. She hadn’t known her parents were passionate about politics. Her childhood memories didn’t include politics. Why would they?

“So what happened?” asked Chris.

“Leo accepted the money. A lot of money. Your father didn’t know about it at the time because he left the business details to Leo. All your father knew was that he was able to continue his research and design in peace and earn a good living from their company. He didn’t realize this company’s investment was keeping them afloat.”

“Wait. I thought the sale of their cordless technology made them successful.” Chris’s tone was sharp.

“It was. But Richard would never have been able to finalize the design without this company’s money first keeping their doors open for several years. After the sale he found out about their silent backer, who’d naturally received the lion’s share of the money.”

“What did my father do?” whispered Gianna.

“Threatened to expose a dirtier side of this South African company if Leo didn’t cut ties. Once he was aware of the deal Leo had made with them, he started digging. One side of this company’s profits came from arms dealing. You can imagine what sort of mess that was back then. There’d been a United Nations voluntary arms embargo against South Africa since the early sixties.”

“So you’re saying Leo managed to tie Berssina Tech to arms dealers?” It sounded like a Cold War spy novel to Gianna. It was unreal and hit home simultaneously, causing her stomach to churn and her head to throb.

“The car accident happened within a week of Richard taking his complaints to Leo.”

“But how did he decide the wreck was deliberate? Maybe it was just an accident,” Gianna pleaded. “What if he was wrong? He stayed away from me all these years based on a guess?”

“It was the fourth attempt on his and his family’s lives in five days,” Saul said gently.

Gianna’s lungs struggled to work. She couldn’t speak. Or breathe.

“One of the first attempts was with the gas line in your home. If your mother hadn’t seen someone outside the house and immediately investigated one morning, the two of you might have died. Your father had already left for work.”

“Is that why we abruptly went on vacation?” Gianna whispered. She remembered being pulled out of school, her parents telling her they wanted to take a trip. She’d been excited, convinced they were returning to their carefree, globe-trotting ways. Instead it’d been a car trip across the country. She hadn’t cared; it’d been the three of them alone and on an adventure for the first time in months.

“Yes. There’d also been an incident with your father’s vehicle and an attempted mugging outside his office. But when he realized that someone might have tried to blow up his home with his family, he took action.”