Secret Sisters

  “That’s me,” he said. “Generous to a fault.”

  She laughed. The sound was light and feminine and real. It warmed all the empty places inside him. For a time he could make believe that he didn’t have a few issues of his own.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Daphne was pretty sure that Gillian Burns had once been slim and sexy, and her surgically enhanced breasts had probably looked great in a tight-fitting, low-cut top. But she was closing in on seventy now. Her figure had been transformed into a gaunt, unnaturally proportioned caricature of a Hollywood starlet. The too-short, too-snug dress, the high heels, and her strawlike blond hair added to the overall sense of wrongness.

  The smoking certainly hadn’t helped, Daphne thought. Gillian’s face had a hollow cast and an unhealthy color that no amount of cosmetic surgery could conceal.

  “Sure, I remember Carl Seavers,” Gillian said. She snorted. “He was the office star. A young hotshot. The other brokers hated his guts because he always picked the winners. Made everyone else look bad, y’know? But he died a long time ago. Murdered along with a woman who worked in the office. Sharon something. Why are you two interested in him?”

  Daphne looked at Abe and waited for him to take the lead. They had agreed on their cover story before arriving at the restaurant to interview Gillian. She had been cautious during the introductions, but once they had been seated at a table, curiosity and a martini had overcome her initial wariness.

  Daphne thought there might be another factor at work, as well. Gillian bore all the earmarks of a woman who had lived hard and fast in her younger days and had no doubt had a lot of male friends. She was the kind of woman who had probably once viewed other women as rivals.

  But now the men were gone, and because Gillian had not bothered to form close friendships with any of her female acquaintances along the way, she found herself alone. A conversation with strangers probably went a long way toward filling an otherwise empty afternoon.

  “A family member has asked us to look into the circumstances of Carl Seavers’s death,” Abe said. He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Some patent issues have come up. That, in turn, impacts the inheritance.”

  “Huh.” Gillian shrugged. “Didn’t know Carl had any family. He never mentioned his relatives.”

  “You know how it is when there’s money involved,” Daphne said. “Turns out there is always family, however distant.”

  “You got that right.” Gillian munched the olive that had graced the martini. “If you’ve got money, there will be plenty of people around at your bedside when it’s your time, and each and every one of them will be only too happy to pull the plug. Die broke and you don’t even get a phone call at the end.”

  Daphne exchanged glances with Abe. Neither of them spoke.

  Gillian grunted. “Well, I can’t tell you much. I was the receptionist at the brokerage firm where Carl and Sharon worked until they were killed. I lost my job when the company was bought up by one of the big national chains. That was my last halfway decent job. Do you know how hard it is to get a good-paying job after you turn forty-five or fifty?”

  “The murder of the brokerage firm’s star stock picker must have come as a shock to you and your colleagues,” Abe said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Gillian gulped some more of her martini. “The rest of the brokers pretended to be horrified by the news, but if you ask me, none of them cared about him. In fact, I think they were all happy that he was gone. He was their competition, you see.”

  “What about Sharon Richards?” Daphne said.

  Gillian made a face. “She was one of the brokers. Good-looking, young, and sexy as hell. She knew how to work it, too. She’d sleep with anyone who could do her a favor. She and Carl were an item. Guess she figured that if she gave him what he wanted in bed he’d share some of his stock picks with her. But if that was the plan, it sure as hell didn’t work out well.”

  “No,” Abe said. He made a note on his computer. “You and your colleagues must have had some theory about the murders.”

  “Most people figured it was a drug thing,” Gillian said. “Pretty sure the police thought so, too. It was no secret that a lot of brokers used—cocaine mostly in those days.”

  “Do you think that Carl Seavers was using drugs?” Abe asked.

  “That’s the weird part.” Gillian pursed her hard mouth and shook her head. “I would have sworn that he was the one guy in the office who was clean. Didn’t even drink much. He was obsessed with his computer, though. When he wasn’t working on it, he carried it around like it was made of solid gold.”

  Daphne knew without looking at him that Abe had gone on high alert. But when he spoke his voice was calm and professional—just a busy investigator trying to cover a lot of ground.

  “Was Seavers a gamer?” he asked. “Did he get obsessed with computer games?”

  “No, at least I don’t think so,” Gillian said. “I teased him sometimes. Asked him if he was using his computer to watch Internet porn because he was always so intense when he was on the damned thing. He said no. Told me that what he was doing was a lot more fun because it was going to make him rich.”

  Daphne folded her arms on the table. “Any idea what he was doing on the computer?”

  Gillian shrugged and waved one heavily veined hand in a vague gesture. “Computer stuff. Symbols. Weird words. You know what I mean. There’s a name for it.”

  “Do you think,” Abe said carefully, “that Carl Seavers might have been writing code?”

  “Yeah, that’s it, code. See, I don’t think he was a gamer, but I figured he might be trying to invent one or maybe a program or something. I hear there’s plenty of money in that business.”

  “You’ve been very helpful, Gillian.” Abe turned a page in his notebook and contemplated a name as though it were unfamiliar to him. “Just a couple more questions. There was another man working in the office at the time that Carl Seavers and Sharon Richards were murdered. Egan Webster.”

  “That prick?” Gillian rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, I remember him. The son of a bitch was married with a couple of kids, but he’d sleep with anything that wore high heels and a skirt. He came on to me a few times, but I always told him to get lost.”

  There was bitter pride in her voice.

  “Did you refuse him because he was married and had a couple of kids?” Daphne asked.

  Gillian snorted again. “I suppose I could lie and tell you that was the reason. But the truth is, there was something about the guy—something real cold and a little scary. Never could put my finger on it. He was good-looking, I’ll give him that. And he had a vibe that brought in the business. You should have seen his client list. It was filled with old people who turned over their life savings to him to invest. Amazing. Heard he moved to Washington State and set up his own hedge fund. Made a damned fortune. Which, between you and me, is very hard to believe.”

  “Why do you find it hard to believe that Webster was so successful?” Abe asked.

  “Never saw all that moneymaking brilliance on display when I knew him,” Gillian said. “I’d say he was just average when it came to picking stocks. As often as not, he sold whatever Carl was pitching. Hell, everyone in the office tried to sell whatever Carl was pitching. But I guess Webster must have had some hidden talent. Of all the guys in the office, he was the only one who went on to the big time.”

  “Thank you very much, Gillian,” Abe said. He took out his wallet and removed some large bills. “This should cover your tab at the bar today.”

  Gillian looked at the money on the table. Her tattooed brows rose. “Hell, that’ll cover my tab for the whole damn month. Thanks.”

  Abe gathered up his notes and his computer and got to his feet. Daphne followed him out of the booth.

  Gillian looked out the window at the view of the La Jolla street scene.

  “
Got to tell you, this is damn strange,” she said.

  “What is?” Daphne asked.

  “Haven’t thought much about Webster and Seavers for a couple of decades. Then, out of the blue, I get people coming around wanting to talk about the past.”

  Daphne held her breath. She did not dare to look at Abe.

  “Someone else inquired about the Seavers murder?” he asked.

  “Yeah. A young woman came around a few months ago. Pretty. Real sweet. Bought me drinks, just like you. Said she was a journalist doing background research on Egan Webster on account of his son was getting set to run for office in Washington State. Forget the name of the son.”

  “Travis Webster?” Abe asked in the same disinterested manner.

  Gillian’s head jerked in a quick, pleased nod. “That’s it. You know how reporters like to dig up dirt on politicians. Not that the pols don’t deserve it, if you ask me. Anyhow, this gal wanted to know all about Egan.”

  Abe set his computer back down on the table, opened it, and brought up the photo of Ramona Owens that Tom Lomax had taken. Without a word he turned the screen so that Gillian could see it. She squinted.

  “Yeah, that’s her,” Gillian said. “Can’t remember her name.”

  Daphne cleared her throat. “What did you tell her?”

  “Pretty much the same thing I told you.” Gillian downed the last of her cocktail. “Like I said, sort of strange that I’d get so many people coming around asking about Webster after all these years. But I guess that’s how it goes when someone runs for office.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Okay,” Abe said. “I think we may just possibly have the first, faint glimmering of a full-on conspiracy theory.”

  “What, exactly, are you thinking?” Daphne asked.

  They were sitting on the bench that she had come to think of as their bench. The parade of dogs, joggers, and bicyclists looked the same as it had earlier—same high-end athletic gear, same high-end and not-so-high-end dogs. The only difference this time was that she was eating popcorn and Abe was drinking a caffeine-charged soda.

  “I’m thinking that maybe the young and very talented Mr. Seavers developed a sharp stock-picking program,” Abe said. “And I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, Egan Webster murdered him and stole the computer that contained the program.”

  Daphne exhaled all the way to her toes. She hovered there at the bottom of the breath for a beat and then inhaled.

  “That’s quite a theory you’re working on,” she said.

  “I know, but it ties things together.”

  “Well, it would explain why Webster’s financial talents blossomed in the years following his departure from his old brokerage firm,” she admitted.

  “Yes.”

  Daphne munched some popcorn while she thought about that. “The thing is, we’re talking about not just one, but two murders. There was a woman killed at the scene, too.”

  “Maybe just collateral damage as far as Webster was concerned.”

  “If you’re right, that’s a pretty serious accusation. And one we probably could never prove.”

  “Keep in mind that this whole thing started with a secret so dangerous that Edith Chase was afraid it could get you and your mom and Madeline killed. A secret that made her afraid to go to the Cooper Island police. It was so dangerous that she sent you and your mother away from Cooper Island, and then she quietly shut down the resort and took Madeline out of state.”

  Daphne stopped munching popcorn. She watched the bright sun spark on the water. “Webster was a very powerful man. At the time, he more or less owned Cooper Island. He probably owned the police chief.”

  “Webster had a hedge fund empire to protect and maybe a couple of murders to conceal.”

  “And now he’s got a son who is about to go into the big leagues of politics,” Daphne said. “As the father of a U.S. senator, Egan Webster will have even more access to power than he had as the head of a successful hedge fund. Even more to protect.”

  “If any of this is even close to the truth, then we have to assume that whatever was in that briefcase would be enough to implicate Webster in the murders of Carl Seavers and Sharon Richards.”

  “Madeline’s grandmother called it insurance,” Daphne whispered.

  “What?”

  “The contents of the briefcase,” Daphne said. “Edith Chase referred to it as insurance.”

  They meditated on that in silence for a time.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Daphne asked eventually.

  “Depends. Are you thinking about the very attractive journalist who interviewed Gillian a few months ago?”

  “Uh-huh. Ramona Owens. Where does she fit into this thing?”

  “I have no idea,” Abe said.

  He took out his phone. Jack Rayner must have answered on the first ping because Abe started talking almost immediately. Daphne watched the parade on the jogging path while she listened to the one-sided conversation.

  Abe rattled off the facts and followed up with his own speculations. The call ended abruptly.

  “Well?” Daphne said.

  “He likes my theory,” Abe said. “But he pointed out that it leaves us with a couple of real big questions: Who has the briefcase now and what do they plan to do with the contents.”

  “So what happens next?”

  “We go back to Cooper Island and await developments.”

  “Is Jack sure there will be developments?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Is he always right about that kind of thing?”

  “Always. Remember, he used to consult for the FBI.”

  “What kind of consulting?”

  “Profiling. He was very, very good at it. People said he had a knack for predicting what the bad guys would do next.”

  She sank against the back of the bench and stretched her legs out in front of her. “You like doing this kind of work, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Probably appeals to the old gamer in me. In some ways it’s the ultimate game.”

  She shook her head, very certain now. “More like the ultimate art. Get it right and you pull a little truth out of chaos. You’re an artist, Abe. That’s what you are. And what’s more, you’re a very good artist.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “I printed out your media schedule.” Xavier pulled a sheaf of papers out of his briefcase and set it on the desk. The pages were neatly stapled in the upper left-hand corner. “It’s on your smart phone as well, but I know you prefer hard copy when it comes to this kind of stuff.”

  “Thanks.” Travis leaned forward in his chair and picked up the schedule. He leafed through the list of interviews. “Looks like you pulled in a lot of coverage. Nice mix.”

  “There’s a bunch of small, local, and regional stuff in the morning—radio and TV. I even threw in the Cooper Island High School newspaper. Sorry about that. But you know the rule.”

  “Never neglect the hometown media.”

  Xavier went to stand at the window. “The locals can make or break you, especially at the beginning. The kids will probably be thrilled. Even if they’re not, their parents will be, and it’s the parents who vote.”

  “Right.” Travis set the schedule on the desk. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “That’s it, at least for now. I gave Patricia her schedule a few minutes ago. I think you’re both up to speed, but I’ll be following around right behind you like a faithful puppy dog in case there’s a glitch.”

  “What about Mom and Dad?”

  “I see them next. I’ve got their talking points. The trick will be to make sure Dad doesn’t go off-message. He’s used to being the star of the show, you know. It’s not going to be easy for him to step back and let you go into the spotlight.”

  “I know. Thanks, you?
??ve done a hell of a job, Xavier. I appreciate it.”

  Xavier turned around to face him. His blue eyes were alight with enthusiasm and anticipation. “Hey, we’re just getting started. This is just one step on the way to the White House. We’re going to change the world, remember?”

  “I remember,” Travis said.

  After all these years he was still in awe of Xavier’s ability to counterfeit human emotions. Xavier could project whatever he wanted you to see. At the moment he was doing an excellent job of portraying the loyal younger brother who wanted nothing more than to help his big brother fulfill a grand destiny. He was so good in the role that there were times when Travis found himself wanting to buy the act.

  But he had learned long ago that with Xavier, it was all an act. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only one who could see the cold-blooded snake just beneath the surface.

  “Well, that’s it for now.” Xavier turned to go toward the door. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

  “One more thing before you go,” Travis said. “Any word on what caused the explosion out at the old hotel yesterday?”

  Xavier paused, one hand on the doorknob. “Dad talked to Chief Dunbar and the fire chief. The blast and the fire have been labeled suspicious, but that’s mostly because Madeline Chase and Rayner insist that there was someone else at the scene—a woman who told them that she was Tom Lomax’s granddaughter.”

  “Yeah, I heard that much. Mom doesn’t believe Lomax had a granddaughter, but that doesn’t mean someone isn’t pretending to be related to him. The question is, why? Lomax didn’t have anything worth stealing. Everyone around here knows that. And why try to kill Madeline Chase and Jack Rayner?”

  “Beats me.” Xavier got the door open. “You’ll have to ask them.”

  Travis leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Speaking of Rayner, everyone on the island is aware of the confrontation that took place between the two of you at the Crab Shack. What, exactly, happened?”