Promise Not To Tell(94)

Cabot and Anson exchanged looks.

“It’s sort of hard to explain Jack,” Cabot said.

Virginia noticed that he seemed to be choosing his words with great care.

“He’s an academic,” Anson offered with a touch of pride. “Writes books about the criminal mind. He does some consulting, too.”

“But his approach is a little unorthodox,” Cabot said.

“Define unorthodox,” Virginia said.

Anson snorted softly. “Can’t define it. Not when it comes to Jack. All I can tell you is that most people think he’s weird.”

Virginia smiled. “The older I get, the more I realize that everyone is weird in one way or another.”

“The difficulty in getting a handle on Zane is that – if we’re right and he’s still alive – he’s learned a few things since the disaster with his cult,” Cabot said. “He’s a lot more careful about risking his own neck now. He uses proxies and cutouts and pawns. When things fall apart, as they always do sooner or later, it’s someone else who takes the fall. Not Zane.”

Virginia shuddered. “The puppet master behind the scenes.”

“Yes,” Cabot said.

Octavia looked at him. “Is there anything else you know about him?”

“He likes to use fire to clean up the evidence,” Cabot said. “Several of the projects we have tentatively attributed to him ended with a fire in a warehouse or an apartment or some other structure. Sometimes people died.”

Virginia thought about that. “Zane doesn’t use fire just to destroy the evidence. I’ll bet he sees himself as an artist. Like any artist, he can’t resist signing his work. Sounds like fire is his signature.”

CHAPTER 70

She came awake on the dark tide of a rising anxiety attack.

“Crap, not again,” she said aloud into the darkness. “Damn it to hell.”

It was time to run through the exercise routine. Except she couldn’t because of the stitches in her side.

That left the meds.

It dawned on her that she was alone in the bed. She didn’t need to glance at the clock but she did so anyway. It was one forty-five in the morning. Cabot had probably been gone for a few minutes.

With a sigh, she pushed back the covers and started to sit up on the side of the bed.

Pain lanced through her side. She sucked in her breath on a sharp gasp and froze.

“Okay,” she whispered. Gingerly she touched her side. “That’s not an anxiety attack. It’s actual pain.”

Obviously the pain meds had worn off. She was surprised to realize that the incipient anxiety attack was receding. Nothing like real, honest-to-goodness physical pain to distract the brain, apparently.

She let out the breath she had been holding and cautiously touched her bandaged side. When she thought she had things under control, she pushed herself to her feet.

She was struggling to get herself into her robe when she became aware of Cabot’s presence in the doorway. He moved closer to help her with the robe.

“Need some pain meds?” he asked.

“Yes, but I think the over-the-counter stuff will work. And maybe a medicinal dose of whiskey. How is your arm doing?”

“I’m good, but I will admit that whiskey sounds like an excellent idea.”

“Do private investigators get shot often, or was this case something of an aberration?”

“This case is definitely not the norm.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

They went down the hall to the living room. Cabot eased her carefully into the big reading chair.

“I’ll get the whiskeys,” he said.

He went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard. His laptop was open on the dining counter. The screen was illuminated. Virginia could see what looked like old newspaper clippings.

“Are you going through some of Tucker Fleming’s files?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Cabot carried the glasses into the living room and handed one of them to her. “Fleming had one major advantage when it came to digging into Zane’s background. Rose Gilbert.”

Virginia swallowed some of the whiskey and lowered the glass. “She would have had more background on Zane than the rest of us because of her relationship with Abigail Watkins.”

“Right. And Abigail Watkins knew Zane better than anyone we’ve ever come across because she fell under his spell early on. According to the journal, she was only sixteen when they met. Zane was in his early twenties. Her diary offers us a glimpse into the way the bastard’s mind works.”

“I know we’re in this conspiracy theory together and I’m on board, believe me. But we do have to keep in mind that Zane really might be dead.”

“He’s alive,” Cabot said. “I sent some of Fleming’s files to Max and Jack. They agree with me. Fleming was on the trail of his old man and now we are, too.”

Virginia nodded, accepting that without further argument. “What about Kate Delbridge?”

“I doubt that we’ll get much out of her.”

“Because she has no incentive to help us find Zane?”

“No, because she doesn’t appear to have been all that interested in finding her long-lost father. She was in it for the money, not because she wanted to be reunited with dear old Dad.”