Promise Not To Tell(24)

Understanding slammed through Virginia.

“He would have needed a bookkeeper,” she whispered. “One he could control. My mother. He needed her skill set.”

“Zane built a highly profitable business, but he was the CEO. He couldn’t spend his time dealing with the day-to-day financial aspects of his operation. He needed someone he could trust to handle the money.”

“No one knows the secrets of a business operation as intimately as the bookkeeper,” Virginia said. “Mom must have realized what was going on.”

“Yes.”

“But if Zane was running a successful business, why did he torch the compound and destroy the people who were bringing in the cash for him?”

“Good question,” Cabot said. “My brothers and I have given that a lot of thought. The only conclusion we’ve been able to come to is that for some reason, Zane decided that it would be in his own best interests to pull the plug on the cult operation and move on. He used fire to destroy as much as possible.”

“Covering his tracks and silencing witnesses,” Virginia said. “But that all happened twenty-two years ago. Why kill Hannah Brewster now, after all this time?”

“Because something has happened,” Cabot said evenly, “something that has brought Zane or someone else out of the shadows. Whoever that person is, he either viewed Hannah Brewster as a threat or else he wanted some information he thought she had. Given that I think Brewster took her own life, I’m almost certain that it was the latter.”

“She had some dangerous information and she died in an effort to take her secret to the grave. But at the same time she sent me a warning.”

“She must have believed that you were in danger.”

CHAPTER 13

A double tap, just like a pro. Sandra Porter, aka crazy stalker bitch, was no longer a problem.

Tucker couldn’t get the scene out of his head. He prowled through his house, a glass of ice-cold vodka in one hand. It was not his first. Talk about a real-world video game. It was thrilling. Exciting. Over the top. He was definitely playing in the big leagues now.

The problem was that the killing of Sandra Porter had left him riding a razor-sharp edge of panic. Some part of him kept waiting for the cops to knock on his door.

He was still amazed that the two shots hadn’t drawn any attention. Well, it was Pioneer Square, after all. Gunshots at night weren’t exactly unheard-of, and in this case the noise had been muffled by the old brick walls of the gallery and the reverberating music of the nearby clubs.

Just two shots. Like a damned pro.

Belatedly he remembered the gun. It was in the pocket of his jacket. He should probably get rid of it. After a couple of moments of close thought, he decided he would hang on to it. He could always ditch it in Elliott Bay if it became necessary.

He stopped in front of the living room window and looked out at the small bungalow across the street. The only light was the one that burned over the front door. The elderly couple had gone to bed hours ago.

The neighborhood was incredibly boring. He would have preferred to live in one of the downtown condos or apartment towers near the cafés, coffeehouses and bars. But he’d inherited the house from the drug-addicted woman who’d called herself his mother. He was going to make a lot of money when he eventually sold the place. Meanwhile it offered the advantage of privacy. He was the youngest person on the street and no one paid any attention to him.

For what had to be the thousandth time, he went over every detail of the scene in the gallery. He was sure he had left no trace of himself behind, but the body would be discovered when the shop opened on Monday morning – if not sooner. And then the cops would be involved.

It was only a matter of time before the police showed up at the offices of Night Watch and started asking questions. It was, after all, what cops did. And they always looked hard at the boyfriend or the husband.

He had told Sandra that they had to keep their relationship a secret because everyone knew that Josh Preston, the head of Night Watch, was a real prick who strongly disapproved of office romances. Sandra had agreed. But now he had to wonder if she had become careless or downright vindictive when the relationship ended.

He turned away from the window. He had some cleanup work to do. Earlier he had tossed Sandra’s phone into Elliott Bay. They had never had sex in her apartment – he had insisted they go to hotels for that, and he had always used a fake ID to check in. Nevertheless, just to be on the safe side, he’d detoured by her place a short time ago and taken a quick look around. He had been relieved to see no obvious evidence of their relationship. Not much evidence of any kind of a life at all. Sandra had been obsessed with her online games, but aside from that she had been a real loser.

He had never intended for the affair to last any longer than necessary. Sandra Porter was hardly any man’s idea of a sex goddess. She was a loner with no family or friends and had zero social skills. But he had needed her coding talents to get the app working. Seducing her had been so easy. He had assumed getting rid of her would go just as smoothly. He had been wrong.

Mentally he ran through the checklist. He had taken care of her phone and he was sure her apartment was clean. Now he had to fire up his computer and spend a few hours making certain the bitch had not left any clues to their relationship online. It wasn’t like he had to scrub all traces of a connection between them, he reminded himself. He and Sandra had been colleagues, after all. It was only natural that their paths had crossed occasionally. He just needed to make sure that nothing pointed to him as an ex-lover.