Promise Not To Tell(84)

“Sure. Let’s start with motive. Your company is in trouble. You burned through the first round of venture capital months ago and you need more. But a while back you realized that someone on your staff was embezzling from you. You couldn’t go out for more cash until you stopped the bleed. But you were desperate to keep the financial situation as quiet as possible. The rumors of embezzlement would have ruined your chances of attracting new money. You didn’t dare hire an outside cybersecurity firm. Too much chance of a leak to the financial press. So you set out to find the embezzler yourself. After all, you used to be one of the hotshot wonder boys of the tech world.”

“For your information, I’m still damn good.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Cabot said. “You conducted a secret investigation of your own employees. In the course of prowling through their online lives, you didn’t find the embezzler, but you did discover that Tucker Fleming was on the trail of what might be a fortune – the money that went missing when Quinton Zane’s cult was destroyed. You found out that Fleming believed he was Zane’s biological son.”

“Sounds like Fleming was mentally unbalanced.”

“The fact that Fleming was obsessed with Zane and Zane’s cult made it easy to manipulate him, didn’t it? You sent him a series of well-disguised messages. You made him think that his father was communicating with him. Fleming desperately wanted to believe that he really was chatting with his father. You thought you could just sit back and let Fleming run, maybe lead you to the missing money.”

“You’re sounding as mentally unbalanced as Fleming.”

“You figured you’d let Fleming take all the risks. You planned to wait until he found the money. At that point you would have moved in and grabbed the cash. Of course, you would have had to get rid of Fleming in the process, but that wouldn’t have been complicated.”

Josh grunted in disgust. “You really are crazy.”

“Unfortunately for you, things started going wrong. That’s the problem with trying to control an obsessed individual like Fleming. He was erratic and unpredictable, and ultimately he screwed up everything. After he burned down that house outside of Wallerton and tried to murder a young man in the process, you knew you had to end the game. The cops were looking for him. If they found him, there was a very real risk they might find you.”

“You can’t prove any of this.”

Cabot ignored him. “You murdered Fleming sometime late last night or early this morning. But you made a few mistakes. Probably because you were in a hurry. One of your mistakes was using Laurel Jenner’s gun. I’m sure you planned to return it to her gun safe sometime today. After that you intended to call in an anonymous tip to the cops.”

“I’m going to be charitable and go with the theory that you’re delusional. You’re just not making any sense.”

“How about we talk business now? Will that sound more sensible?”

“What business could I possibly have with you?”

“Back at the start of this thing, I had the same goal as you,” Cabot said. “I thought Virginia Troy would lead me to the money her mother tucked away all those years ago. But things didn’t work out as I planned. You were right. It was all a fantasy.”

“You’re saying the money is gone?”

“As far as I can tell, Kimberly Troy, with the help of some friends, did manage to conceal a fortune in an offshore account. But someone got to it – probably years ago.”

“It’s gone?” Josh went still. “Who found it?”

“I have no idea. Maybe one of Quinton Zane’s followers. Hell, maybe Zane himself.”

“Quinton Zane is dead.”

“So they say. But you know how it is with those Internet rumors. Can’t believe any of them. The bottom line here is that the money disappeared. That brings me to you.”

“Yeah? How the fuck did that happen?”

“You were the person who was sending messages to Fleming, pretending to be his father.”

“Bullshit.”

“I know you did a lot of research into the history of Zane’s cult in order to sound authentic.”

Josh’s eyes burned with a cold fury. “How do you know that?”

“One of the first things you learn in my business is that lovers always know more about each other than even they realize.”

“Are you talking about Laurel Jenner?”

“She didn’t take kindly to having her gun stolen and used in a crime, by the way,” Cabot said. “Turns out she caught you searching online for information about Zane’s cult a few times. But let’s get back to our business arrangement.”

“What business arrangement?”

“Here’s my offer. I’ll keep quiet about the game you were playing with Tucker Fleming. Hell, I’ll even throw in a freebie – he was the guy who was embezzling from you, so now that he’s dead, Night Watch will stop bleeding cash. In exchange, I want fifty percent of whatever you get when you go out for your next round of funding for Night Watch.”

“Do you really believe you can blackmail me?” Josh asked very softly.

“I prefer to think of it as a business arrangement.”

“You are just a dumb PI who is playing way out of his league, Sutter. There’s no way you can prove that I spoofed Fleming, let alone that I killed him.”