Promise Not To Tell(63)

The heat was on in the room but Virginia suddenly felt very cold. She looked at her phone.

“Oh, crap,” she said. “Do you really think that someone is tracking us?”

“Given what happened yesterday, we have to assume a worst-case scenario.”

“Do we ditch the phones?”

“No. If someone is following us around, that would be an immediate red flag. We’re just going to be very, very careful about using our phones. I doubt if someone has been able to hack my phone. Max asked some of his connections in the cybersecurity business to assist us with the encryption. But it’s possible that yours has been compromised.”

She looked at her phone and shuddered. “Lately, from time to time, I’ve had the creepy sense that I’m being watched. I just chalked it up to the fact that my anxiety attacks have been getting worse.”

“Sounds like your intuition was trying to tell you something.”

“Do private investigators believe in women’s intuition?”

“This PI believes in intuition, period.”

CHAPTER 43

Kate left the door of her office open and kept an eye on the hallway for nearly an hour. Eventually Laurel went past. Unlike some of the other employees, she did not pause in the doorway to make friendly conversation. No surprise, Kate thought.

She and Laurel had had a prickly relationship for months. Except for the occasions when they were obliged to work together, Laurel mostly ignored her. But lately Laurel’s disinterest had undergone a subtle change. Kate was pretty sure it was animosity that she saw in the other woman’s eyes these days.

She knows that I know, Kate thought, or that I’m suspicious. Maybe it was time to get the issue out into the open.

She waited a few seconds and then got up and went out into the hall. She was in time to see Laurel disappear into the women’s restroom.

Kate followed her into the stainless-steel-and-tile room. Only one stall was occupied. She and Laurel were alone.

Kate fussed with her hair and watched the closed stall door in the long mirror above the row of sinks. Laurel finally emerged. When she saw Kate, an expression of wariness flashed across her face but she recovered quickly. She went to the nearest sink and turned on the faucet.

“Hi,” she said. Her tone was barely civil.

“Hi,” Kate said. She tried to inject some warmth into her own voice. “Did you hear the latest on Sandra Porter? They’re saying she may have been involved in a drug deal that went bad.”

“I heard,” Laurel said.

She rinsed her hands very quickly and reached for a paper towel.

“I never suspected that Sandra had a serious drug problem,” Kate said. “Did you?”

“I barely knew her. She was in IT.” Laurel dropped the crumpled towel into the wastebasket and went toward the door. “I only talked to her when I had a computer glitch.”

“Same here,” Kate said.

Laurel paused at the door. “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut. Spreading gossip and rumors is a dangerous business, especially for someone in your position.”

Kate sighed. “This isn’t about poor Sandra, is it? You’re the one who’s afraid of gossip. You know that I have a pretty good idea that you’re sleeping with the boss. Talk about a dangerous business.”

Laurel flushed a furious shade of red. “I swear, if you start a rumor like that, I’ll make sure you pay.”

“Are you saying it’s not true?”

“I’m telling you that my personal life is none of your damned business.”

“Sure. But you might want to remember the first rule of workplace affairs: when they’re over – and sooner or later they always end – it’s always the lower-ranking employee who gets fired. In this case, that would be you.”

Laurel looked as if she was about to explode in fury. But in the next instant stunned comprehension lit her eyes. She smiled an ice-cold smile.

“You’re jealous,” she said. “That’s what this is all about. You want Josh Preston. You think that if I’m out of the way, he’ll notice you again.”

“That’s not true.”

“Bullshit. I get it now. Trust me, you were nothing but a weekend fling. And speaking of workplace rules, here’s one you might want to keep in mind – you can be replaced. Anyone can write content.”

She spun around, yanked open the door and went out into the hall. The staccato tap of her footsteps faded quickly.

Kate stared at her reflection in the mirror. There was no escaping the reality of the situation.

Confronting Laurel had been a very big mistake.

CHAPTER 44

“No way the local cops could go with the theory that you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Anson growled.

“Keep in mind that there aren’t any local cops on Lost Island,” Cabot said. “The investigator who showed up to look into the fire and the death of Rose Gilbert was from one of the neighboring islands. He said it looked like a gang hit. He reminded me that the area has been notorious for drug running since the days of Prohibition.”

Anson grunted.

“It used to be liquor that was shipped from Canada to the West Coast of the U.S.,” Cabot continued. “These days it’s meth, cocaine, heroin and, lately, exotics from the other side of the world. There’s also some human trafficking going on as well. The smuggling business flows both ways, and the islands offer ideal places to dump a hot cargo or pick up a shipment.”