The Cassandra Sanction by Scott Mariani Page B

six hundred thousand euros in her account.’
    ‘Where’s the money now?’
    ‘My parents refused to accept it, even though legally it passes to them. Said they wanted to donate it all to their church.’
    ‘And nobody’s calledin any big debts that you know about?’ Ben asked.
    ‘No debts. If she’d been worried about money, I’d have known about it. She’d have told me.’ Raul narrowed his eyes at Ben, as if he could see where he was going with this line of thinking. ‘You’re wondering why she didn’t just withdraw the money from her account, if she needed it.’
    Ben nodded. ‘There’s always a reason why people do thethings they do. A cash withdrawal would have left a paper trail. This looks like a deliberate attempt to cover her tracks. She was nervous, edgy. Something was frightening her.’
    Raul pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow. He was silent for a while, thinking so hard that Ben could almost hear his brain grinding. ‘I know what happened. The bastard was extorting money out of her. Blackmail, forsomething.’
    Ben had already considered that idea. ‘For what?’
    ‘I don’t know. But it would explain why she needed money without leaving a trace.’ Raul worked it over for a few moments longer, then shook his head. ‘No. Why would someone blackmail her for twenty thousand euros when she was worth so much more? And why would she have to disappear afterwards? The blackmailer suddenly turns kidnapper?That doesn’t make sense either. If they’d simply kidnapped her in the first place, they could have asked whatever ransom they wanted.’
    ‘Or,’ Ben said.
    Raul looked at him again, pale with worry. ‘Or what?’
    ‘There’s another possibility, Raul. One you need to be ready for.’
    ‘I’m ready.’
    Ben took a long draw on the cigarette, and flicked ash out of the crack in the window. ‘Supposeyou’re right and there’s some weirdo extorting money from her for some reason we don’t know yet. She doesn’t want anyone to know, and selling her jewellery is the only way she can think of to raise the money quickly and quietly, without leaving a trail. She can’t go to a respectable jeweller, either, not if she wants to avoid any kind of paperwork, records, receipts, official evaluations. That’swhy she ends up having to go to a piece of shit like Braunschweiger, even though she knows she’ll get a fraction of what the items are worth. She’s willing to take the loss. So, she gets the twenty thousand cash, passes it straight over to the blackmailer, in the hope that it’ll all go away, but then it turns out the twenty thousand was just the start. Maybe he starts pressuring her for twentymore, or fifty, or a hundred. She refuses.’
    Raul stared at him. ‘And?’
    ‘There’s a confrontation. Maybe he threatens her. She’s defiant. It gets violent. Maybe he never intended to hurt her, but he kills her in the struggle. He makes it look like suicide.’
    ‘I keep telling you, she’s alive,’ Raul said. ‘She’s in danger, but she’s alive.’
    Ben took another draw on the cigarette andblew smoke. ‘That’s what you believe, or what you want to believe?’
    ‘It’s neither. It’s what I know.’
    Ben shrugged. ‘Fine. Then let’s take that as our bottom line. She’s alive, and she’s scared and in danger.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then consider this alternative scenario,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe she didn’t need the money to pay off someone else. Maybe she needed it for herself. We could be gettingthis all wrong. Imagine the situation from another angle.’
    Raul blinked. ‘What other angle?’
    ‘Stalkers are cowards. They’re also delusional enough to believe that they might actually have a chance of scoring with the person they’re obsessed about. If some creep was hanging around, it’s more than likely he’d have been making a nuisance of himself for a while. Typically, these types of peoplewill try to insinuate themselves into the victim’s life in all kinds of