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room and took some of the cash. We’re still reconstructing the scene. But he left the building via the elevator at that point. The car he threw his phone into was near the Metro station, so we think he may have gone that way, or he might have taken a cab. We’re having some trouble getting the surveillance video from the Metro station analyzed.”
    “Maybe you should leave him alone,” Sarah said.
    “Sarah,” Alexandra commented. “We need to find him.”
    “Seriously,” Sarah replied. “Think about it. He’s taking Andrea underground, because someone is trying to kill her. Will you get that through your head? The last thing he needs is to have the cops breathing down his neck. And frankly,” she said, looking now directly at Bear, “you need to spend more time figuring out who is trying to hurt Andrea and less time trying to stop her from getting away from them.”
    Bear frowned. “I’m going to be straight with you, but you’ve got to be straight with me. Why didn’t any of you tell me the IRS was investigating the family? Don’t you think that might have been relevant information?”
    Carrie stared at Bear, stunned. “What are you talking about?”
    “Don’t bullshit me. The IRS seized your sister Julia’s offices this morning. They’ve had an investigation running for some time.”
    She turned to Alexandra. “Do you know anything about this?” At Alexandra’s head shake, she said, “This is the first I’ve heard of it. I haven’t talked with Julia since the middle of the night last night. She’s on her way here, last I heard.”
    Bear shook his head. “No one’s questioned you? Asked any questions? Sent even a letter in the mail?”
    “From the IRS? Nothing.”
    “I don’t get it.” Bear looked genuinely puzzled.
    “Neither do I. Just in case you missed it, we’ve been basically housebound since the day Andrea arrived in the States.”
    Bear leaned forward and looked closely at Carrie. “Look, Carrie, I know you and I haven’t exactly hit it off in the last few days. But I need you to level with me. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with all of this stuff, but you can bet if what I’m hearing about the IRS is true, you’ll have agents coming to see you. FBI, treasury agents, who knows what. You’re certain you know nothing of this?”
    Carrie looked him in the eye. “I’m certain.”
    “All right,” he said. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you’re safe. You and your sisters and your daughter. What I need you to do is keep talking to me. You hear me? You have to let me know what’s going on.”
    Carrie took a deep breath and sat back. She looked up at the ceiling. Did she really have any good reason to trust Bear Wyden? So far nothing in her experience led her to trust any federal agent. She remembered all too well sitting in a room across from Janice Smalls and Jared Coombs only a year ago as they prepared to destroy Ray’s life.
    Something about Bear, though … made her want to believe. He wasn’t a soldier—he never had been from what she knew. He looked nothing like Ray. He was a barrel of a man, with few social niceties. But the fact was, she needed to trust him.
    Before she knew what she was doing, she said, “I think this is all somehow related to whoever my father is.”
    “Secretary Thompson?”
    “No,” she replied. “No. Apparently, he … is not my father.”
    Bear nodded. “I suspected so. Nor is he Andrea’s.”
    “That’s right.”
    “What makes you think that has anything to do with all of this?”
    Carrie shrugged. “Obvious, isn’t it? No one’s ever tried to kill any of us before. But now, when we’re getting blood tests related to a genetic disease? Are you familiar with the term Occam’s Razor?”
    Bear shook his head. “Afraid not.”
    “Basically it’s a principle used in science—in short, if you have a bunch of competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions is most often correct. You start