“Yes. She locked all the doors to keep us safe from Mr. Trager in case he chased after us. Then she got her big pruning shears out of the closet. I will never forget the sight of her holding those shears, ready to defend us against Trager. But he didn’t come after us. Because he was dead at the bottom of the basement stairs.”
“You did the world a favor, Grace. But there is always a price to be paid for that kind of thing.”
“Yes.”
Julius removed his arm and walked slowly around the basement. The beam of his flashlight swept back and forth in a search pattern.
“There isn’t any logic to what has been going on when we look at things in terms of the present,” he said. “We need to view them from the past.”
“How do we do that?”
Julius was silent for a long moment. “You said that Mrs. Trager was watching the boy for her neighbor that day.”
“That’s right. The poor kid just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Devlin said, the police believe that Trager intended to drown Mark and hope the authorities would think the death was just another lake accident.”
“What about the family?” Julius said.
“The Ramshaws? I don’t know much about them. They moved to California soon after the Trager murder. Mom said they felt they needed to get Mark away from the town where he had been kidnapped. I’m sure he’s had a few nightmares over the years, as well.”
“Not the Ramshaw family,” Julius said. “Trager’s family. Did he and his wife have any children?”
“No,” Grace said. Then she stopped for a beat, remembering some of the things she had overheard in the past. “But Trager had been married before. I remember my mother talking to Billings, the chief of police at the time. I overheard him saying something about Trager having a history of domestic violence and that his first wife had divorced him. Why?”
“I’m not sure. Just looking for connections.”
Grace managed a shaky smile. “Is this how you go about analyzing investments?”
“Pretty much. The trick is to look for the stuff that is hiding in the shadows.”
“You know, there’s a Witherspoon affirmation that sums up your approach to problem solving.”
“What’s that?” Julius asked.
“Look deep. The important things are always just beneath the surface.”
“I think I’ll stick to my rules.”
“Trust no one and Everyone has a hidden agenda.”
“When it comes to words to live by, I believe in simplicity,” Julius said.
“Whatever.”
“Don’t tell me that’s a Witherspoon affirmation.”
“Sometimes it’s the only appropriate response to a situation,” Grace said.
Thirty-Nine
Ralph Trager had two children by a previous marriage, a boy and a girl,” Grace said. She studied the information she had pulled up on her computer. “The names were Randal and Crystal. The first wife never remarried but she moved in with a series of boyfriends for a while.”
“I’ll bet that didn’t go well,” Julius said.
“It looks like she had really bad taste when it came to men. A couple of the boyfriends sold drugs for a living and one was arrested for abusing the daughter.” Grace sat back in her chair. “How many times have we heard that sad story?”
Julius picked up the coffeepot and carried it across the kitchen to the table. “What happened to the first wife and kids?”
“Let’s see.” Grace leaned forward and scrolled through more data. “Looks like the former Mrs. Trager and the daughter, Crystal, died in a car crash. Randal, the son, went into foster care, moved through a series of homes and then just sort of disappeared for a couple of years.”
“Probably decided life was better on the streets. Anything else?”
Grace scrolled through some more data. “Randal held a series of part-time contract jobs, most of them involving computers and programming. Looks like he had an aptitude for that sort of thing.”
Julius looked out over the lake. “Go on.”
Grace went back to her screen. “He came to a bad end. He was arrested on fraud charges and got six months and probation. He died in a boating accident soon after he was released.”
“So it looks like everyone in Trager’s family is dead.”
“Yes.” Grace picked up her mug. “What a tragic scenario.”
Julius leaned back in his chair and swallowed some coffee. “It’s also a very convenient scenario.”
Grace looked at him over the top of the mug. “Are we back to trust no one?”
“We are,” Julius said. “In light of this new evidence, we need to reevaluate our findings on all of the characters in our little drama.”
“What’s to reevaluate? We’ve already checked out everyone involved.”
“But now we’ll do it from another perspective,” Julius said. “We’ve got a situation that involves fraud, and at least one character in our story did time for fraud.”
“Yes, several years ago, but Randal Trager was killed after he got out of jail.”
“Maybe.”
“Devlin’s right, you really do think like a cop. Maybe you missed your calling.”
“I don’t like guns,” Julius said.
“Okay, that might have been a problem for you if you had pursued a career in law enforcement.”
A phone rang. Julius this time. He glanced at the screen and took the call.
“What have you got for me, Eugene?” he said.
He listened attentively for a few minutes.
“That would explain a few things,” he said. “Including his career path. Thanks, Eugene. You’ve done some really fine work on this. Yes, I will let you know how it all comes out. No, you cannot quit to go work for the FBI. It doesn’t pay nearly as well as Arkwright Ventures does.”
Julius hung up and looked at Grace.
“Well?” she prompted.
“It appears that Sprague Witherspoon may have had a secret past, one he tried to bury a long time ago. It may explain the blackmail.”
Grace’s heart sank. “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me Sprague was a criminal.”
“He did time under another name for fraud.”
“Damn.” Grace closed her eyes. “I really, really admired him, you know.”
“I know,” Julius said gently.
She opened her eyes. “I’ll bet that after he got out of prison he reinvented himself for good and committed himself to helping other people make new lives for themselves. When you think about it, that’s a very inspiring story.”
“That’s definitely one way of interpreting the facts,” Julius said.
She beetled her brows. “It’s my interpretation of the facts until proven otherwise.”
“There is the little issue of his possible gambling addiction and the embezzlement thing.”
She glared.
He moved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “Fine. Innocent until proven guilty. Whatever.”
The rumble of a vehicle pulling into the drive stopped Grace before she could start asking questions. She got to her feet and went out into the living room. The familiar logo of an overnight package delivery company was emblazoned on the side of the large van parked in front of the house. She watched the uniformed driver climb out. He came up the front steps, a box in one hand.
She opened the door.
“Grace Elland?” he said.
“That would be me.”
“Got a package for you.”
“Thanks,” Grace said. She glanced at the return address and recognized the name of the Seattle chocolatier. “Candy. This is a surprise.”
“Sign here, please.”
She scrawled her name and took the package. The deliveryman got back into the truck and ru
mbled down the drive toward the road.
Grace carried the box of chocolates back into the kitchen and set it down on the table. She tore off the outer wrapping.
“Truffles,” she said. “My favorite. Someone knows me well.”
Julius eyed the box with narrowed eyes. “Boyfriend?”
“I told you, I don’t have one at the moment.” She picked up the envelope that had been taped to the top of the box. “Well, except for you, that is.”
“Good to know that I count as a boyfriend.”
She ignored the sarcasm and ripped open the envelope. For a moment she could only stare at the signature.
“Oh, shit,” she said.
“Not what most people say when they open a box of truffles,” Julius said. “Don’t keep me in suspense. Who sent the candy?”
“Millicent.”
Forty
This is too creepy,” Grace said.
She sat at the kitchen table and stared at the rows of elegant chocolates. It might as well have been snakes or scorpions in the box, she thought. All right, maybe not quite that bad. Nevertheless, she was very sure she would not be eating the truffles.
“According to the label, the box was sent yesterday directly from the store,” Julius said. He looked down at the chocolates from the opposite side of the table.
“Overnight delivery,” Grace said. “But Millicent was unconscious all day yesterday and last night. As far as we know she still isn’t awake She couldn’t have sent this box of candy.”
“You got an email from her yesterday morning and all indications are that she was unconscious at the time it was sent,” Julius said. “If Millicent is the sender, she could have scheduled the email and the chocolates before she was drugged. Probably thought she could cancel both if everything went according to plan.”
“But something went wrong, so the email and the chocolates got sent automatically. But why me?”
“Looks like you were her backup plan,” Julius said. “Better take a close look at that candy.”
“Not the candy.” Grace held up the small white card. “It’s all right here in the note.”
She read it aloud.
Grace, if you’re reading this, it’s probably because I’m dead. I don’t think that there are any good affirmations for this situation. It sucks. Consider this my will. I’m leaving my retirement savings to you even though I know you’ll probably hand it over to that ungrateful bitch, Nyla. I can’t bring myself to do it, that’s for sure. I hope you will at least keep a commission for yourself, but you probably won’t do that either. It must be hard always trying to do the right thing. But I will say it was rather entertaining watching you do it. It was fun knowing you for the past year and a half, so at least do me a favor and enjoy the chocolates.
The note was followed by the name of a bank Grace had never heard of and a long string of numbers.
“Offshore account?” Grace asked.
“I think, under the circumstances, we can assume that’s the case.” Julius sat down at the table and opened his laptop. “Easy enough to find out.”
A short time later he had the answer.
“It’s an offshore account, all right. And all you need to access it is that number she wrote on the card. There’s a sizable sum involved here. A few million.”
“So she was embezzling from Sprague.” Grace propped her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in both hands. “She seemed—seems—like such a nice person. Always so cheerful. Lots of positive energy.”
“I have a hunch that knowing she was raking in a tidy little fortune and setting it aside for her retirement was the reason she was always so cheerful and positive.”
“Well, this does answer one question,” Grace said. “We now know where the money went. And we know that Sprague wasn’t embezzling the funds.”
“We know something else, too,” Julius said. “Miss Cheerful probably didn’t try to kill herself. She was looking forward to an early retirement and the pleasure of spending the cash that she had stashed in that island bank. I wonder how she planned to bring the money back to the States without arousing the interest of the authorities.”
“In a suitcase?” Grace suggested.
“Carrying a few million bucks through customs is a high-risk game.” Julius shook his head. “This kind of money needs to be scrubbed clean.”
“I suppose the next step is to call Devlin,” Grace said without much enthusiasm. “And then I’ll have to chat with the Seattle cops. Again.”
“Dev comes first.” Julius took out his phone. “Someone is going to get the credit for what amounts to a very big break in the case. Might as well be him.”
“I suppose so,” Grace said.
Julius smiled briefly. “Trust me, Dev is on our side.”
“I’ll take your word for it. But I’m going to call Nyla and tell her that I think we found her inheritance.”
“That note and the account number are evidence,” Julius pointed out in a neutral tone. “We are going to give both to Dev.”
“Fine, whatever,” Grace said. She took out her phone. “But Nyla has a right to know that we found her money.”
Julius checked his watch. “I’ve got a meeting in Seattle this afternoon. No sense dragging you along. Can I trust you to stay with Irene at her shop?”
Grace glared. “I’m not a kid. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You’re a woman with a stalker—a stalker who may be escalating. You need a babysitter.”
“Right. Yes, of course, I’ll stay at Irene’s shop. When will you get back?”
“I should be home by dinner. Just make sure you are with Irene and Dev until I return.”
Forty-One
It was all falling apart. The biggest score of his life was crashing and burning around him. If he didn’t get out fast he would get crushed in the rubble.
Burke tossed the hand-tailored, neatly laundered and folded shirts into the suitcase and went back to the closet to zip the designer jackets into a carrying bag. He had spent a fortune on the clothes he knew he needed for the job. He was not going to leave them behind.
He had put the plan together with the precision of a military commander preparing for battle. Every detail, from a résumé so solid it could have withstood a high-level government background check—not that the government was that good at background checks—to the dates on his driver’s license, had been engineered to perfection.
The timing had been perfect at every step of the way until that first mistake. He had told himself that leaving the vodka bottle at the scene of Witherspoon’s death was a harmless whim. It was an error but a survivable one.
Finding out that Nyla’s inheritance had vanished had come as a stunning shock, however. He’d almost cut his losses the day he realized that someone else had gotten to the money first. He’d torn the Witherspoon offices apart and then hacked the three computers in a desperate effort to find the key to the cash. He knew the thief had to be a member of the staff. It was the only answer that made sense.
Then Millicent had made him an offer that seemed too good to be true. For a while it looked like it would be possible to salvage the situation.
Now Millicent was in a drug-induced coma and might wake up and start talking at any minute. Another mistake. She should have died. He’d searched her apartment and gone through her computer but he had found no clue to the missing money. Without the account info, there was no way to get at it. It might as well be buried at sea.
The old rage rose out of nowhere, washing through him in a red tide. He had planned so damned carefully.
He dropped the suit carrier on the bed and slammed a fist against the wall of the bedroom. It hurt like hell and it dredged up old memories from his childhood—stuff that he hated remembering—but he felt better almost immediately. His heart rate slowed and his breathing went back
to normal. Sometimes a man just had to let off a little steam.
The apartment security intercom buzzed, startling him. He debated whether or not to answer it and then decided to pick up.
“This is Grayson at the door station. Miss Witherspoon is here to see you, sir.”
Shit. The last thing he needed was a visit from Nyla. But he survived by adhering to certain rules. The first rule of a well-run con was to stay in the role until you were out of town. With one person dead and another in the hospital, it was very, very important to stick to the rules.
“Please send her up, Grayson,” he said. “Thanks.”
He ended the call and looked around the bedroom. He had to make certain that Nyla didn’t realize he was planning to fly out of Seattle that afternoon.
He left the bedroom, closing the door on the scene of the open suitcases.
The doorbell chimed. He took a breath and focused on channeling Burke Marrick, scion of a wealthy Southern California family that had made its money in real estate.
When he opened the door he saw Nyla’s face and knew at once that everything had changed. She was in tears but they were tears of joy.
She threw herself into his arms.
“I just got a call from Grace,” Nyla said. “I can hardly believe it, but she says they found my money. That bitch Millicent Chartwell was the embezzler. I should have known. She handled all of Dad’s money. She hid millions in some damn island bank and more money is going in every day, thanks to the website and blog revenue.”
Forty-Two
It was four-thirty by the time Julius walked out of the office. An early winter twilight, made even darker by a heavy cloud cover, had settled on the city.
He paused just inside the parking garage and did a quick visual scan. There were a handful of other people heading toward their cars. Office workers, he concluded. Nothing looked or felt wrong.
One little mugging and you start acting like you’re back in a war zone every time you walk through a garage. Get a grip, man.
He took a last look around before he opened the driver’s-side door of the SUV. Again, nothing appeared out of place. He got behind the wheel, took out his phone and called home.