Promise Not To Tell(16)

“If she was running for her life, she would have gone down the lane toward the main road,” he said. “Instinct would have taken over. She would have turned left toward town. If she was being chased, the killer would have caught up with her near that curve in the road. That’s where she would have gone over the edge.”

He indicated the direction with one hand.

Virginia considered briefly. “I think I would have headed for the woods. They’re closer to the cabin, and my odds of losing the killer in the trees at night would have been better there.”

Cabot glanced at her, brows slightly elevated as if she had managed to surprise him.

“You’re right,” he said. “That is very clearheaded thinking.”

“Thank you,” she said, careful to keep her tone excruciatingly polite.

Evidently the small bit of sarcasm went straight over his head without ruffling a single hair because he continued walking her through his logic.

“We can assume that Brewster didn’t head for the woods because there were no indications of violence,” he said. “If she had been killed somewhere on land and then dumped over the cliffs, there would have been signs of a struggle. Maybe an indication that she was dead before she went into the water.”

“All right, I understand your reasoning. Why does it matter where she went over the cliffs?”

“Because it would give us a few more solid facts.” Cabot turned to face the cliffs again. “Now, if she had already made the decision to take her own life, she would have gone toward those rocks. It’s the closest point to the water and there’s a sheer drop. Not much chance of accidentally surviving the fall.”

He started walking toward the craggy outcropping. Virginia folded her arms, hugging herself against the sharp wind, and followed.

Cabot did not follow the graveled lane. Instead he cut straight across the muddy clearing. Virginia trailed a few paces behind, not wanting to crowd him.

He stopped just short of the jumble of rocks, reached down and picked up a small, rain-dampened carton.

Virginia hurried to catch up with him. “What is it?”

“A box of household matches,” Cabot said. “The long kind that you use to light kindling in a fireplace.”

Virginia thought back to the occasions when she had visited Hannah. There had always been a fire going in the fireplace. It was the sort of detail you noticed when you had a serious phobia about open flames.

“Hannah kept a box of matches like that on her mantel,” she said.

Cabot looked back toward the ruins of the cabin. “She set fire to the cabin to destroy her last painting and then she ran for this point on the cliffs. Probably didn’t realize she was still holding the box of matches until she got this far. She dropped the matches just before she jumped.”

Virginia took a long breath and let it out slowly. “The authorities are right, then.”

Cabot looked at the box in his hand. “Yes. But the real question is why she thought she had to take such extreme measures.”

“The locals will tell you that she was more than a little crazy.”

Cabot’s eyes were steel-cold. “The locals don’t know what we know about her history.”

“No,” Virginia said. “I’m sticking with my original theory. Hannah believed that Quinton Zane had come back from the dead. She sent me a warning in the form of her last painting and then she destroyed the picture.”

“There’s only one good reason why she would have done that,” Cabot said.

“She was afraid Zane might see the painting.”

“That’s what this looks like.”

“Maybe the hallucinations finally overwhelmed her mind.”

“Maybe,” Cabot said. “We can’t rule out the fact that she might have gotten lost in a delirium. But we also can’t ignore the possibility that she saw something or someone who made her think that Quinton Zane is still alive.”

He started toward the car. She touched the sleeve of his jacket. He stopped at once and turned. He did not say anything, he just waited.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For believing that Hannah Brewster did not kill herself because she went mad. For taking my concerns about Quinton Zane seriously.”

“When it comes to Quinton Zane, I am always serious.”

CHAPTER 7

Tucker Fleming had never before broken into anyone’s home – the online world provided much easier and far less risky ways to steal. However, he had done the research on the Internet and it was clear that burglary was actually a surprisingly simple, straightforward business.

The trick, of course, was to not get caught.

Virginia Troy’s third-floor condo had not been much of a challenge. He’d had to get past the security system at the lobby door, but that was easy. He’d waited until one of the residents, a woman carrying some large packages, had entered, and then he’d offered to hold the door. His toolbox and his spotless uniform bearing the logo of a nonexistent plumbing company had worked like a charm.

Once inside Troy’s apartment, he’d gotten lucky again. The alarm system was an off-the-shelf piece of junk that used old-fashioned wireless technology – easy enough to jam with the highly illegal device he had constructed using components he’d bought online.