“Get her off me. Get her off me. She’s crazy.”
And then strong hands were reaching down to hoist Virginia to her feet.
“It’s all right,” Cabot said. He braced her with a strong arm around her shoulders. “Everything is under control. You’re safe. Jessica is safe. You can stand down now. It’s over.”
Virginia saw Anson moving forward to take charge of Kate. He glanced at Jessica.
“Give the gun to Cabot and then call nine-one-one,” he ordered.
“Yes,” Jessica gasped. “Right.”
Cabot kept one arm around Virginia and reached out with his free hand to take the gun.
Virginia looked at Jessica.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jessica said. She fumbled with her phone. “I’m okay.” She stared at Virginia, eyes widening. “But you’re not.”
“What?”
Confused, Virginia looked down. There was a rip on the right side of her gray cashmere sweater. A dark, wet stain was starting to spread. She was suddenly aware of the pain.
“Oh,” she said. Her head swam. “Oh, hell.”
“Shit,” Cabot said. “Jessica, tell the operator we need an ambulance. Now.”
“Yes,” Jessica said. She concentrated on her phone.
Virginia was vaguely aware of Cabot lowering her down on the floor and pulling up her sweater. Jessica knelt beside him and handed him the wadded-up cloth cover that had been used to cover the portrait of Abigail Watkins.
“Is she going to be all right?” Jessica asked.
“Yes,” Cabot said. He clamped the makeshift bandage over the wound. “She’s going to be fine.”
For some reason Virginia found the forcefulness of his words amusing.
“Thought you said handguns aren’t very accurate,” she said.
“Not over distance,” Cabot said. “They work just fine when your target is only a couple of feet away.” He raised his voice. “Where the hell is that ambulance?”
“On the way,” Anson said. “Hear the siren?”
Cabot looked down at Virginia. “Don’t you dare faint on me.”
“I have never fainted in my life,” Virginia said.
“Hold that thought.”
Virginia thought she heard a door open, and then there were more voices and a lot of commotion in the back room.
The world was starting to spin. Virginia wondered somewhat disinterestedly if she was dying. If that was the case, there was something important that she needed to say to Cabot.
“I love you,” she said.
“Good to know,” he said. “Because I love you, too.”
“That bitch is fucking crazy, I’m telling you,” Kate shrieked.
Cabot looked down at Virginia. His eyes were very fierce.
“You just have to get to know her,” he said.
Virginia wanted to laugh but she could not seem to muster the strength. The world went away.
CHAPTER 69
“Look at us,” Virginia said. “Are we a couple of hotshot investigators, or what?”
She surveyed the small group gathered in her condo with a sense of deep affection.
Her grandmother, Octavia, was bustling around in the kitchen. Earlier she had made a large pot of tea and now she was constructing sandwiches. It was late and none of them had eaten dinner.
Anson lounged on the sofa. Cabot was prowling the living room. Virginia was dressed in pajamas, robe and slippers and was ensconced on the big reading chair, her feet propped on a hassock. In spite of Cabot’s concerns, the wound in her side had been declared a clean through-and-through, non-life-threatening. She had been stitched up, bandaged and sent home with a bottle of pain pills and a page of instructions on wound care.
She had been surprised to discover that she was taking an unfamiliar satisfaction in the knowledge that she had such a concerned circle of family and friends. After the shooting, Cabot had never left her side. Anson had picked up Octavia and driven her to the hospital. All three of them had stayed with her until she was released.
The police had dropped by to take statements. Virginia knew there would be more interviews in the morning. The Troy Gallery was once again a crime scene. Jessica had consoled her with the reminder that the publicity would no doubt be good for business.
Virginia took another fortifying sip of tea and looked at Cabot. “What made you and Anson come racing to my gallery this afternoon?”
Cabot halted his pacing and looked at her. “Abigail Watkins’s diary. Anson and I started going through it as a team. I read it out loud while Anson made notes on the computer. We were just trying to establish basic facts and nail down a time line. When we got to the part about Abigail being forced to give up twins for adoption, I tried to call you. But I was thrown into voice mail. Let’s just say I got a bad feeling at that point. Anson and I got into the car and drove over to see what, if anything, was going on.”
Anson snorted. “As it turns out, you and Jessica had the situation in hand by the time we arrived. Any truth to that story you told Delbridge? Was there some hidden info in the embroidery that appears in the portraits?”
“No,” Virginia said. “I made it up.”
Anson nodded. “You conned a professional con artist. Nice work.”
Virginia smiled ruefully. “Jessica was right. At least one of those glass paperweights deserves to be in the show.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Octavia said. She carried a plate heaped high with sandwiches into the living room and set it on the coffee table.
Anson and Cabot brightened at the sight. They both reached for a sandwich. Octavia smiled as the men dove into the food.
“One thing I’m curious about,” she said.
“What’s that?” Cabot asked around a mouthful of his sandwich.
Octavia looked at him. “You learned some more about the past. You know that Quinton Zane fathered fraternal twins, one of whom is now dead. But did you discover anything in that diary that might tell you whether or not Zane is still alive?”
“No,” Cabot said, “but thanks to Tucker Fleming, we might have some new leads. He went deep into the Darknet and he found some very intriguing information. Most of it relates to scams and cons that someone has been running in other parts of the world for several years. They all have a few things in common when it comes to style and technique.”
“They’re all pyramid schemes of one sort or another,” Anson said.
“Pyramid schemes have been around forever,” Virginia pointed out.
“True,” Cabot said, “but every con artist has his or her own way of constructing the scheme. Zane’s style is distinctive.”
“Even the smartest crooks take the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach to their work,” Anson said dryly.
“Tucker Fleming believed that his father was alive, so he compiled a detailed file of scams and cons that looked like they had Zane’s signature,” Cabot said.
“The bottom line,” Anson said, “is that, thanks to Tucker Fleming, we’ve got a whole new file on crimes that have a reasonably high probability of having been carried out by Quinton Zane. The file is massive, though. We’re going to need some serious expertise.”
“Xavier, I assume, will be eager to help,” Virginia said.
“If his parents will let him, which is an open question,” Cabot said. “I’ll admit we could use his talents, but in the end the machines can only give us raw data. Finding out the truth about Zane will take some old-fashioned detective work.”
“Max and Charlotte are coming back from their honeymoon soon,” Anson said. “Max used to be a criminal profiler. He’ll be able to offer some insight. We’re also going to need Jack’s help.”
“Jack?” Octavia asked.
“Jack Lancaster,” Cabot said. “My other brother.??
?
“I see,” Octavia said. “And what particular expertise does he bring to the investigation?”
Cabot and Anson exchanged looks.
“It’s sort of hard to explain Jack,” Cabot said.
Virginia noticed that he seemed to be choosing his words with great care.
“He’s an academic,” Anson offered with a touch of pride. “Writes books about the criminal mind. He does some consulting, too.”
“But his approach is a little unorthodox,” Cabot said.
“Define unorthodox,” Virginia said.
Anson snorted softly. “Can’t define it. Not when it comes to Jack. All I can tell you is that most people think he’s weird.”
Virginia smiled. “The older I get, the more I realize that everyone is weird in one way or another.”
“The difficulty in getting a handle on Zane is that—if we’re right and he’s still alive—he’s learned a few things since the disaster with his cult,” Cabot said. “He’s a lot more careful about risking his own neck now. He uses proxies and cutouts and pawns. When things fall apart, as they always do sooner or later, it’s someone else who takes the fall. Not Zane.”
Virginia shuddered. “The puppet master behind the scenes.”
“Yes,” Cabot said.
Octavia looked at him. “Is there anything else you know about him?”
“He likes to use fire to clean up the evidence,” Cabot said. “Several of the projects we have tentatively attributed to him ended with a fire in a warehouse or an apartment or some other structure. Sometimes people died.”
Virginia thought about that. “Zane doesn’t use fire just to destroy the evidence. I’ll bet he sees himself as an artist. Like any artist, he can’t resist signing his work. Sounds like fire is his signature.”
CHAPTER 70
She came awake on the dark tide of a rising anxiety attack.
“Crap, not again,” she said aloud into the darkness. “Damn it to hell.”
It was time to run through the exercise routine. Except she couldn’t because of the stitches in her side.
That left the meds.
It dawned on her that she was alone in the bed. She didn’t need to glance at the clock but she did so anyway. It was one forty-five in the morning. Cabot had probably been gone for a few minutes.
With a sigh, she pushed back the covers and started to sit up on the side of the bed.
Pain lanced through her side. She sucked in her breath on a sharp gasp and froze.
“Okay,” she whispered. Gingerly she touched her side. “That’s not an anxiety attack. It’s actual pain.”
Obviously the pain meds had worn off. She was surprised to realize that the incipient anxiety attack was receding. Nothing like real, honest-to-goodness physical pain to distract the brain, apparently.
She let out the breath she had been holding and cautiously touched her bandaged side. When she thought she had things under control, she pushed herself to her feet.
She was struggling to get herself into her robe when she became aware of Cabot’s presence in the doorway. He moved closer to help her with the robe.
“Need some pain meds?” he asked.
“Yes, but I think the over-the-counter stuff will work. And maybe a medicinal dose of whiskey. How is your arm doing?”
“I’m good, but I will admit that whiskey sounds like an excellent idea.”
“Do private investigators get shot often, or was this case something of an aberration?”
“This case is definitely not the norm.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
They went down the hall to the living room. Cabot eased her carefully into the big reading chair.
“I’ll get the whiskeys,” he said.
He went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard. His laptop was open on the dining counter. The screen was illuminated. Virginia could see what looked like old newspaper clippings.
“Are you going through some of Tucker Fleming’s files?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Cabot carried the glasses into the living room and handed one of them to her. “Fleming had one major advantage when it came to digging into Zane’s background. Rose Gilbert.”
Virginia swallowed some of the whiskey and lowered the glass. “She would have had more background on Zane than the rest of us because of her relationship with Abigail Watkins.”
“Right. And Abigail Watkins knew Zane better than anyone we’ve ever come across because she fell under his spell early on. According to the journal, she was only sixteen when they met. Zane was in his early twenties. Her diary offers us a glimpse into the way the bastard’s mind works.”
“I know we’re in this conspiracy theory together and I’m on board, believe me. But we do have to keep in mind that Zane really might be dead.”
“He’s alive,” Cabot said. “I sent some of Fleming’s files to Max and Jack. They agree with me. Fleming was on the trail of his old man and now we are, too.”
Virginia nodded, accepting that without further argument. “What about Kate Delbridge?”
“I doubt that we’ll get much out of her.”
“Because she has no incentive to help us find Zane?”
“No, because she doesn’t appear to have been all that interested in finding her long-lost father. She was in it for the money, not because she wanted to be reunited with dear old Dad.”
“I wonder if Quinton Zane was aware of Tucker and Kate,” Virginia said.
“If he’s alive, then we have to assume that he knew of the existence of his offspring.”
“Yes, I suppose so. But he never made any attempt to contact them over the years.”
“Why would he? This is Quinton Zane we’re talking about. He wouldn’t have had any interest in his own flesh and blood unless he thought he could make use of them.”
Virginia eased herself back into the chair and concentrated on her whiskey. Both the pain in her side and the last remnants of the anxiety attack were fading. Cabot sat on the sofa, his knees apart, his forearms resting on his thighs. He cradled his glass in both hands.
“I meant what I said this afternoon,” he said after a while. “I love you.”
She knew a sense of warmth that had nothing to do with the whiskey. “I meant what I said, too. I love you.”
“You thought you were dying.”
“Doesn’t change the facts. I meant it. I love you.”
“I think you should know that I have a lousy track record with relationships.”
“No kidding. So do I. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Yes,” he said. “We will. You know, under other circumstances, I would pick you up and sweep you off to the bedroom and we would engage in some hot and sweaty sex.”
“Under other circumstances, I would be thrilled to be carried off to the bedroom. However, given our current physical conditions, I guess we’ll just have to sit here in the dark and tell each other how much we love each other.”
“Works for me. But just so you know, as soon as we get the stitches out, I intend to go back to plan A.”
“That would be the plan in which you sweep me off to the bedroom and we engage in hot and sweaty sex?”
“Right.”
She smiled. “It’s good to have a plan.”
“The plan includes asking you to marry me after the hot and sweaty sex.”
She drew a breath and released it with a sense of certainty.
“Does your plan allow for some modifications?” she asked.
Cabot’s jaw tightened. “It’s too soon. I understand. But I think you should know that sooner or later I will ask because I won’t be able to stop myself.”
“The modification I was about to suggest is that we reverse the sequence of events. You could ask me to marry you now instead of waiting until after we
get the stitches out.”
Cabot did not move, but it seemed to Virginia that there was a lot of energy in the atmosphere. It was the vital, intoxicating energy of joy.
“That first day, when I walked into the office and saw you sitting there with Anson, I felt as if I’d had the breath knocked out of me,” Cabot said. “For a couple of seconds all I could do was just stare at you.”
“I noticed. I thought it was because you thought I was suspicious.”
“No,” he said. He shook his head very slowly, utterly intense, fully in his zone. “No, it was because I knew I’d found something I’d been looking for all my life. I just hadn’t realized what it was I wanted until I saw you. Will you marry me, Virginia?”
“I guess you didn’t notice that I stopped breathing for a couple of beats that day when you walked into the office carrying those two cups of coffee and some pastries. It was as if I’d been walking through an endless gallery filled with boring abstract paintings and suddenly, there on the wall, was an old Renaissance masterpiece.”
“Old?”
She smiled. “I mean that in the nicest possible way. Yes, I will marry you, Cabot Sutter.”
He got to his feet, pulled her gently to her feet and kissed her. It was not a hot tango of a kiss; it was not a kiss that seduced and enthralled. It was a vastly more meaningful kiss—the kind that sealed a vow.
CHAPTER 71
“I worry about them,” Octavia said.
Anson paused his glass of sparkling wine halfway to his mouth. Generally speaking he was not a fan of small bubbles in his alcohol, but the gallery event was a class act and he was determined to show respect.
He looked at Octavia, who was standing next to him. She, too, had a glass of bubbly in one hand. She was dressed in a sleek black pantsuit and high heels. A fine-looking woman, he thought. Smart, too. He had always been attracted to smart women.
“Virginia is your granddaughter,” he said. “Naturally you’re going to fret about her. I worry about Cabot. But for what it’s worth, I think he and Virginia suit each other. They share some serious history. There’s a connection between them. You can feel it when you’re around them. No way to see into the future, but I think that what Cabot and Virginia have is as solid as it gets.”