In the wake of Webster’s death, rumors of past improprieties related to the operations of his hedge fund and questions concerning its current financial status have begun to surface. The FBI has opened an investigation.
There is also speculation that a murder investigation into the unsolved deaths of two of Webster’s former colleagues will be reopened . . .
Madeline looked up from the computer screen. “I can’t believe it. Louisa shot Egan right after we left on the ferry.”
Daphne and Abe had been waiting for them at Sea-Tac Airport. The four of them were gathered around a small table in the first-class lounge, waiting for the flight to Phoenix. Abe had collected a small mountain of free snacks on a plate that he had placed in the center of the table—little plastic-wrapped packets of white and yellow cheese and crackers, small packages of carrots, some hummus dip, and cookies. They were all drinking coffee.
“Are you really shocked?” Jack asked. “She probably found him packing to take off in the yacht. It was the last straw.”
“He was going to leave her and Travis and Travis’s wife to deal with the wreckage,” Madeline said.
“Webster pushed Louisa one step too far,” Daphne said. “So she shot him.”
“When you look at it from that angle, I suppose it isn’t surprising,” Madeline said. She sat back in her chair. “Maybe the real question is, why did it take her so long to do it?”
“She had probably made her peace with her marriage,” Daphne said. “After all their years together they had formed an alliance. Webster provided a financial empire and, in turn, she gave him a son who was on the road to a seat in Congress and, eventually, maybe even the White House.”
“But it was all built on lies and murder,” Abe said. “Someone discovered the truth about the past and set out to clean it up and, as a side benefit, get rid of the rather nasty problem of Xavier at the same time.”
“My money’s on Travis,” Jack said.
Madeline looked at him. “You think he’s the one who set events in motion?”
“I think,” Jack said, “that Travis Webster is a chip off the old block—Egan Webster’s true son and heir. When he decided to go into politics he did some serious opposition research on his own family and came up with the same troublesome anomaly that we did when we went looking—his father’s sudden, meteoric rise in the investment world.”
“He must have stumbled across the mystery of Carl Seavers’s murder and started looking under rocks,” Madeline said. “I wonder how he got as far as Porter, or, rather, Norman Purvis.”
Jack helped himself to a packet of cheese. “Remember, Travis had an inside source of information—his mother.”
“If Travis confronted Louisa with questions about the past, she might have confided that once upon a time she hired a private investigator to follow Egan. And maybe she happened to mention that she never got the results of that investigation because Purvis disappeared.”
“With that much background information, Travis would have been on his way to piecing together the whole story,” Jack said. “He must have figured out that Purvis headed for Cooper Island and vanished shortly after arriving there. I’ll bet his initial conclusion was that his father had killed Purvis and dumped the body.”
“It would have been a logical assumption,” Abe said.
“How did he figure out that wasn’t what happened?” Daphne asked. “Assuming we’re right, what led Travis to conclude that Purvis made it as far as the hotel before he disappeared?”
“It’s not like there would have been a lot of options when it came to places to stay on Cooper Island,” Madeline pointed out. “Eighteen years ago, the Aurora Point Hotel was the only large inn on the island. The rest of the places were small B-and-Bs. It’s impossible to remain anonymous at a B-and-B.”
“So Travis concluded that Porter-Purvis had checked into the Aurora Point eighteen years ago but never checked out?” Jack shook his head. “Maybe. But it seems like a stretch. I’ll bet he turned up something much more conclusive.”
“The dead sister.” Abe straightened abruptly in his chair, put aside a cracker, wiped his fingers, and started tapping very fast on his computer. “The one who died from an overdose a few months ago. Remember her? It was her car that Porter-Purvis was driving the night he checked in at the Aurora Point. Here we go. Sandra Purvis.”
“That’s it,” Jack said. He looked satisfied. “Travis Webster tracked down the sister and got enough information to convince him that Purvis had made it to the Aurora Point before he disappeared. He then realized that the only person around who might know what happened eighteen years earlier was the eccentric caretaker.”
“Travis used Ramona to cozy up to Tom Lomax and pump him for information about Porter-Purvis,” Madeline said. “She hit the mother lode when Tom told her about the briefcase in the wall, the one that contained an insurance policy.”
“But why would he do that?” Daphne asked.
“I’m just winging it here,” Jack said. “But I can envision a scenario in which Tom thought he could use the contents of the briefcase to blackmail Egan Webster.”
Abe paused in midbite. “Why would Lomax suddenly decide to blackmail Webster?”
“Because he thought he could get money out of Webster,” Jack said patiently. “A lot of money.”
“Again, why?” Abe said. “By all accounts Lomax didn’t give a damn about money.”
Madeline picked up her coffee cup. “Tom had discovered a long-lost granddaughter. Maybe he wanted to do what a lot of grandparents try to do for their offspring—provide an inheritance.”
They sat quietly for a time, absorbing the story.
“Can’t prove some of it, not yet,” Jack said. “But most of the pieces fit.”
“It’s so sad,” Daphne whispered. “Poor Tom. He must have been so thrilled to discover a granddaughter.”
“A secret isn’t a secret if more than one person knows it,” Jack said.
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Abe said. “You need a new slogan, boss. That one is getting old.”
“It’s not a slogan, just a fact,” Jack said. “I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on the case, but there are a few loose ends to tidy up.”
“Such as?” Daphne asked.
Madeline tapped the side of her coffee cup a couple of times. “The mysterious Ramona Owens.”
“Right.” Jack drank some of his coffee. “I’d sure like to know where she came from and how she hooked up with Travis Webster.”
“Well, I’m not an ace detective like some people at this table,” Madeline said. “But maybe—just maybe—Travis inherited other aspects of his father’s less-than-sterling character.”
Daphne leaned back in her chair and shoved her fingers into the front pockets of her jeans. “You mean, maybe Travis is a womanizer, too?”
“Just like dear old Dad,” Madeline said. She shuddered. “If we’re right, he seduced her into playing the role of accomplice and then murdered her when she was no longer of any use to him.”
“The Websters are one vicious clan,” Abe observed. He unwrapped a packet of cookies and put them on Daphne’s plate. “Marrying into it must be a lot like marrying into a mob family.”
“It’s starting to look like Travis is the meanest one of the bunch,” Jack said.
“If we’re right about any of this, there’s a very good reason to believe he’s a murderer several times over,” Madeline said. “Think the FBI will figure it out?”
“My buddy Joe has enough to run with now,” Jack said. “It may take him a while to sort it all out, but I know him. He won’t stop until he gets to the end.”
“If Travis is not just the meanest but also the smartest member of the Webster family, he’s probably already on board the family yacht, headed for some convenient island,” Madeline said.
Jack unwra
pped another packet of cheese. “Maybe.”
Madeline decided that was all they were going to get out of him for now. She smiled at Daphne.
“It will be good to go home. You can stay with me until all the loose ends are snipped off. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
Daphne smiled. “That sounds like a most excellent plan.”
“You two can spend all the time you want catching up,” Jack said around a mouthful of cheese. “But you’re not going home, Madeline. At least not to spend the night. You and Daphne will stay at my folks’ house until I get the all-clear from Joe.”
Madeline looked at him. “Why can’t we stay at my place?”
“Better security at my parents’ house,” Jack said.
Daphne frowned. “You’re really concerned about the loose ends?”
“It’s always the loose ends that cause the most trouble,” Jack said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The late-afternoon temperature had hit eighty degrees, but the desert cooled down rapidly after dark. Still, Madeline was comfortable lounging on the patio in trousers and a lightweight pullover. The outdoor heaters kept the slight chill at bay.
The home of Jack and Abe’s parents was a graceful combination of modern and traditional Southwestern design that looked as if it had been sculpted out of desert rock. It was located on a hillside overlooking the town of Sanctuary Creek and commanded sweeping views of the valley and the mountains beyond.
Not everyone appreciated having unexpected houseguests thrust upon them, but Charlotte and Garrett Rayner could not have been more welcoming.
Spring nights in the desert were very different from nights in the Pacific Northwest, Madeline thought. The vast evening sky; the scents of the wild, rugged landscape that was never far away, even in an urban area; the calls of the creatures that buzzed, chirped, and howled into the darkness: It all made for a different world—her world. She was home, even if she was going to be spending the night in someone else’s house, and it felt good.
She was not alone on the patio. Charlotte and Daphne were with her. It occurred to her that neither she nor Daphne had been alone at all since Jack had arrived on Cooper Island to take charge of the investigation.
Jack, Abe, and Garrett were in the kitchen, working on dinner. From time to time masculine laughter spilled out onto the patio. Max, the friendly beast of a dog, had joined them. Something told Madeline that Max was no fool. He had obviously figured out that the kitchen was the source of his next snack.
Garrett Rayner had proven to be a man straight out of the Old West. One glance at him and it had been obvious that Jack had inherited his lean, tough build, his edgy profile, and his hard-to-read eyes from his father.
Charlotte was a vivacious woman with a flair for the dramatic. Tonight she wore a long sweep of a maxi dress in the brilliant, bold colors of a Southwestern sunset. Her black hair was shot with silver. She wore it tied back at the nape. Gold and silver bangles clashed musically whenever she moved one of her graceful hands to underscore a comment.
Two bottles of white wine on ice sat on a nearby table. One bottle was empty. Madeline was pretty sure that no other wine had ever tasted so good. She knew it was the knowledge that Cooper Island was far away and that she and Daphne were safe among newfound friends that made the difference.
She met Daphne’s eyes and realized they were both thinking the same thing. It was so easy to read each other’s thoughts, just as they had done when they were girls. She raised her glass a couple of inches in a wry toast.
“To the end of a very, very long day,” she said. She smiled at Charlotte. “And to the very, very kind people who have welcomed a couple of strangers into their home.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Daphne said. She raised her own glass and downed a healthy swallow.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said. “But rest assured, we are all delighted to meet you. From what Jack and Abe have told us, you have all been through some extremely exciting times in the past few days. Fires. Explosions. Murders. It must have been downright horrible. Who knew the hotel business could be so dangerous?”
“I promise you, our problems are not the norm in the field,” Madeline said.
“You know, when Jack told us that he was going to quit the FBI profiling work and start a high-tech security firm with his friend, we all figured he’d be bored to tears within months,” Charlotte said. “But that didn’t happen. Then his friend was killed in a diving accident and the business went bankrupt. Garrett and I were sure Jack would go back to the profiling work at that point. Instead he told us he was going out on his own. It’s been a struggle, and he has refused to let us help him out financially. That’s why he was so elated to get the Sanctuary Creek Inns account. You are his first major client.”
“So I’ve been told,” Madeline said. “The good news is that we don’t get a lot of serial killers checking in to Sanctuary Creek Inns, but as my grandmother liked to say, running a hotel is like operating a version of Fantasy Island. Every time the plane lands, a bunch of strangers arrive to spend the night. You never know what you’re going to get.”
Daphne nodded. “It’s true that when you stay in a hotel you have an expectation of anonymity. There’s a sense of having entered another world, a place where no one knows who you really are.”
Charlotte chuckled. “I suppose that sense of anonymity is why so many people go to hotels to meet prostitutes, sleep with other people’s spouses, and make shady financial deals.”
“Okay, there is that aspect of the business,” Madeline said. “But I assure you Sanctuary Creek Inns does not cater to those markets.”
Charlotte laughed.
“On the bright side, there is a lot of fun in the fantasy business,” Madeline continued. “We get to help make dreams come true with weddings, honeymoons, anniversaries, birthdays, and other kinds of celebrations.” She paused to clear her throat. “Not to mention the occasional boring corporate seminars, drunken fraternity reunions, and wild bachelorette parties.”
Charlotte looked intrigued. “How often do you find a guest dead in bed in one of your hotels?”
“Okay,” Madeline admitted. “It happens. But usually from natural causes, I swear it.”
“We’ll take your word for it,” Charlotte said. She gave Madeline a considering look. “You love it, don’t you?”
“The innkeeping business? Yep. Guess it’s in the blood.”
“What do you think? Will Jack be satisfied with the hotel security business?”
“You’ll have to ask Jack. But yes, I think it will suit him in the long run.”
Charlotte watched her with rapt attention. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know this for certain,” Madeline said carefully, “because Jack and I have never actually discussed it, at least not in so many words. But I think that he’s had enough of the horrors and the nightmares that must go with criminal profiling work. He still needs to do what he does best—protect others from the bad guys—but he knows that he needs to do that in a way that will allow him to have a more normal life.”
She took another sip of wine and reached into the bowl for a tortilla chip. She paused with the chip halfway to her mouth when she realized that Charlotte was gazing at her, mute.
Madeline lowered the chip. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have speculated about Jack’s motives. I had no right to try to guess his intentions.”
“It’s fine.” Charlotte’s smile was a bit wobbly. There was a sheen of moisture in her eyes and a slight crack in her voice. “It’s just that I found your observations on my son’s career move very—insightful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better see how dinner is coming along.”
She came up off the lounger, bangles clashing, the skirt of her brilliant dress swirling around her. She had a paper napkin in one hand. She used it to surreptitiously blot her eyes as she
went through the open slider door.
Chagrined, Madeline looked at Daphne. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Daphne said. “Abe told me that Jack’s family was very concerned about him for a time after his business partner died. They were afraid that Jack blamed himself for not being able to rescue his friend. Survivor’s guilt and all that. Evidently the friend’s wife and family made it clear that they held him responsible for the death, as well. Jack’s fiancée dumped him. Then it turned out the business was on the verge of bankruptcy. Jack lost everything he had put into it. There was a lot of bad press. It was a huge mess all the way around.”
“And Jack took responsibility for all of it.”
“Yes, according to Abe.”
“He was protecting someone,” Madeline said.
Daphne started to answer, but she stopped abruptly, lips parted, and looked past Madeline.
“How do you know that my son was protecting someone?” Charlotte asked quietly.
Madeline froze. But it was too late to turn back.
“It’s what Jack does,” she said.
There was a tense silence before Charlotte spoke again.
“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what Jack does. Not everyone understands that. I’m very glad that you do, Madeline.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“I’m going to take the afternoon ferry,” Patricia said. “I’ll stay in a hotel in Seattle tonight.”
She put the carefully folded designer dress that she had bought for the birthday reception into the suitcase. She wasn’t sure why she was bothering to take it with her. It wasn’t like she would have another opportunity to wear it, at least not in the foreseeable future. She had chosen the dress because it was the perfect dress for the Candidate’s Wife. It was just the right shade of blue, decorously cut to show a discreet amount of bosom and leg; expensive but not exorbitantly so. Classy but not high-class.
The Candidate’s Wife had to walk the fine line between being subtly glamorous and in-your-face flamboyant. She had to appear to be a person in her own right and at the same time exhibit absolute belief in her husband’s ability to change the world.