Promise Not To Tell(69)

“So you think Jenner might be willing to murder you in order to keep you quiet?” Virginia asked.

“I just don’t know,” Kate whispered. “But if she’s using her relationship with Preston to get the kind of inside information she needs to steal from his company, and if she thought that rumors of the affair might put her scheme at risk – maybe. Like I said, it’s just a theory. I’ve got no proof. I can tell you one thing, though. Laurel has a gun.”

“How did you find out about the gun?” Cabot asked.

Kate grimaced. “She told me about it a few months ago. That was before she and Preston started their affair. Laurel and I were friends back in those days. She said she bought the gun because she’d just gone through a nasty divorce. She was afraid her ex might become a stalker. Look, I really have to get to the airport. My flight leaves in less than two hours.”

“Where will you go?” Virginia asked.

“Mexico,” Kate said. “When I was younger my family vacationed down there every year. I know my way around. Please, I’ve told you everything I know. I need to go now.”

“We’ll follow you to the airport,” Cabot said. “Make sure you get safely past security.”

“Thanks,” Kate said. “I would appreciate that.”

“What about your car?” Virginia asked.

“It’s a rental. I’ll turn it in at the airport. When I realized that someone might be watching me, I decided it might be smart to leave my own car in the garage at my apartment building. Obviously that brilliant plan didn’t work. Shit. Still can’t believe someone tried to kill me.”

“It’s a weird feeling, all right,” Virginia said.

A short time later Virginia and Cabot stood inside the bustling Sea-Tac terminal and watched Kate wend her way through the airport security screening lines. When she disappeared, they went back over the sky bridge into the parking garage.

They got into the SUV and sat quietly for a moment.

“It feels like we’re chasing shadows,” Virginia said.

Cabot cranked up the engine. “Old shadows and new ones.”

The cool, distant tone of his voice told her that he had moved into his zone. She glanced at him. In the harsh light of the parking garage his profile was hard, fierce. This was the man she had glimpsed the first day in the offices of Cutler, Sutter & Salinas, a man who could be your best friend or your worst nightmare of an enemy.

Any brute could be dangerous, she thought. What she found so deeply compelling about Cabot was that he adhered to a code, one that involved gritty, old-fashioned qualities like honor, determination and loyalty. This was a man who would walk into hell for those he loved and those whom he felt bound to protect.

“We need to find the intersection between the past and the present, don’t we?” Virginia said.

“Yes.”

“Got any ideas?”

“One.”

“I feel a cryptic martial arts saying coming.”

“Nope, this is a pragmatic detective saying.”

“What is it?” Virginia asked.

“Follow the money.”

“Wow, that’s old-school, all right. But we’ve already followed the money. We know our mothers hid it twenty-two years ago in a secret account.”

“That’s one money trail,” Cabot agreed. “But we are dealing with two, and the second one goes directly to Night Watch.”

“How could the embezzlement that seems to be going on at Night Watch be connected to the money that disappeared all those years ago?”

“I don’t know yet, but there has to be a link,” Cabot said. “I can almost see it.”

Virginia smiled.

“What?” Cabot asked.

“In your own way, you’re an artist, Cabot Sutter.”

“I keep telling you, I’m no artist.”

“You’re wrong. But never mind. Where do we go next?”

“Obviously we need to take a closer look at Laurel Jenner, but first I want to try to get a handle on what Sandra Porter was doing in your back room on the night she was killed.”

“I take it you’re not buying Sandra Porter in the role of drug dealer?”

“Nope. Doesn’t fit. Nothing else in this case is actually about drugs, but it’s interesting that people keep trying to point us in that direction.”

“Porter is dead, so where do we look for answers?”

“In my experience, the home of the dead person is always illuminating. The crime scene tape should be down by now. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can get inside Porter’s apartment.”

“All right. You know, it occurs to me that whoever was driving that hit-and-run car tonight might have been aiming for you,” Virginia said. “Maybe Kate wasn’t the target.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Cabot said. He put the SUV in gear and reversed out of the parking stall. “The possibility did cross my mind.”

CHAPTER 49

Virginia lay awake for a long time, waiting for sleep or an anxiety attack. When neither occurred, she gave up on both and pushed the covers aside. It was one thirty in the morning. For a couple of minutes she sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the night. After a while she heard the door of Cabot’s room open. She knew he was probably headed toward the living room with his laptop.