Promise Not To Tell(64)

“Cabot and I talked to the couple who operate the B and B where we stayed last night,” Virginia said. “They had no problem believing that Rose might have been in the drug business and that she might have made some dangerous enemies.”

It was late afternoon. They were gathered in the offices of Cutler, Sutter & Salinas. She was sitting in one of the client chairs. Anson was behind his desk. Cabot was standing at the window.

Xavier was hovering in the doorway of one of the darkened offices, trying to be inconspicuous. But Virginia could tell that he was following the conversation very intently, clearly fascinated.

Neither she nor Cabot had gotten much sleep, and they had spent a long morning talking to the investigator who had showed up to take charge of the crime scene. She had napped a little during the ferry crossings but she was starting to become aware of the heavy weight of stress and exhaustion. It occurred to her that she and Cabot were seriously sleep-deprived.

Not that all of the factors that had contributed to her current state of exhaustion were negative, she reminded herself. Every time she thought about the passionate lovemaking in the chair, she got a little thrill. Yes. You can do normal, woman.

Cabot had called ahead to tell Anson that they were on the way home, but he had saved the harrowing details and the news about the discovery of the diary pages until they were all in the same room. It was clear he had meant what he said when he told her that they would no longer trust the security of their phones.

“Did you remind the investigator that this was the second major fire on the island in the past few weeks?” Anson demanded.

“Sure,” Cabot said. “He said to let him know if any new evidence came to light, but until then, he’s sticking with the rival-smugglers theory.”

“Cops like the easy answer because it’s usually the right one,” Anson said.

“Occam’s razor,” Cabot said grimly.

Xavier stared at him. “What’s that?”

“Never mind,” Cabot said. “I’ll explain later.”

“Point is, in this case, the simple answer is bullshit,” Anson growled. He winced and glanced apologetically at Virginia. “Apologies for the language.”

His old-fashioned manners made her smile a little.

“I may have mumbled something just as bad or worse when Cabot was in the process of lowering me down that laundry chute,” she said.

Anson blew out a small sigh. “You two had one hell of a close call. Good thing you remembered the laundry chute.”

Xavier stirred a little, clearing his throat. “What’s a laundry chute?”

They all looked at him.

“Just what it sounds like,” Virginia said gently. “A long chute that runs from the basement straight up through a house. You chuck dirty laundry into it on the upper floors. It falls into a cart at the bottom. In the old days, most multistory houses had one. The bigger the house, the bigger the laundry chute. The Lost Island B and B had a large one.”

Xavier regarded Cabot with something close to awe.

“Excellent,” Xavier said.

Cabot did not seem to notice the little flash of hero worship. He was focused on the view outside the window.

“The trip was not a complete loss,” he said. “Virginia discovered some photocopied pages of a journal that Abigail Watkins kept. They date from the days of the California compound and they confirm that we’re on the right track. Among other things, there are references to a secret bank account that Virginia’s mother and mine used to hide at least some of the money that Zane’s operation raked in. Evidently four women in the compound knew where the key was hidden: Kimberly Troy, my mother, Hannah Brewster and Abigail Watkins.”

Anson whistled softly. “And now all four are dead.”

“Which leaves Virginia,” Cabot said. “I am convinced now that someone thinks she can lead him to the key.”

“Well, well, well,” Anson said. He sounded very satisfied. He turned to Xavier. “Tell ’em what you found.”

Cabot turned around at that and pinned Xavier with a piercing look.

“You came up with something?” he said.

Xavier reddened under the close scrutiny and he stammered a little at first.

“You were r-right,” he said. His voice firmed quickly. “The little children’s book turned out to be a simple code, but it’s got nothing to do with computers, at least, I don’t think so. Mr. Salinas and I did the math problems and put the answers together. Mr. Salinas said the result could be a numbered account in a bank – maybe one of those places the mob guys and drug runners use to hide their money.”

Virginia looked at Anson. “An offshore account?”

“I believe so,” Anson said. “Once we decided we might be looking at a bank account, we went back through the picture book and started looking for some clues that would give us the location of the bank. We came up with a possibility. There’s an island in the Caribbean with the same name as that of the magical kingdom in the math book. For several decades it’s been doing a very brisk business with folks who like to conceal their money offshore, no questions asked.”

Cabot’s eyes heated a little. “That fits. Did you try to access the account?”

“No,” Anson said. “Figured we’d hold off until we could talk to you and Virginia. Technically the account probably belongs to her now. She is her mother’s heir.”