All A Heart Needs B&N (28 page)

He stepped off the elevator on the first level of the parking garage. As he walked towards his van, his gaze caught on the shiny silver bumper of a vintage Corvette. The license plate read TOPVG8M. His heart began to beat faster as he pieced out the letters TOP-OF-GAME. Hadn't Clark used that expression in their first conversation? He'd said that Robert had been at the top of his game until he got too greedy.

His head spun, memories suddenly colliding in his brain. The images that usually waited for his dreams flashed in front of his eyes.

Here in the dark garage, with the light bouncing off the bumper and the license plate, he felt like he was back in his nightmare.

Orange flames licked the night sky like a monster. Small pops turned into loud bangs, the fire leaping toward the sky with each one. Sirens in the distance. People moving around. Stacy screaming. Then she was in front of him, pleading with him as fire swirled around her.

He looked away. He was blinded by light.

"Look to the light, Sean."

He turned his head. A car was going down the street very slowly. The driver was looking at the fire. As the vehicle came under the light, he saw the license plate—TOPVG8M.

Sean's breathing came hard and fast. That license plate was right in front of him.

He moved his gaze toward the front of the parking space and saw the sign:
Reserved for Clark Hamilton
.

The truth slammed into him.

Clark Hamilton had driven by Robert's house the night of the fire. He hadn't stopped or tried to rescue Robert. And there could only be one reason why he hadn't done either of those things.

Clark had wanted the house to burn down. He'd wanted Robert to die. Why?

To pay Robert back for stealing from him? Or to protect his own secrets?

Robert had to have had something on Clark. It was the only answer that made sense. So who was the bad guy? Was it Robert or was it Clark? Or had they both been doing something shady?

He'd sort that out later. Right now he needed to warn Jessica. Clark wasn't in his office. He could be anywhere. He could be on his way to Jessica's house.

God!

What if Sally hadn't been the one to break into the house? What if it was Clark? What if there was something in that house that hadn't been destroyed in the fire?

Sean ran to his van and jumped inside, speeding through the parking garage, anxious to get outside so he could get a signal on his phone. As soon as he hit daylight, he called Jessica. It went straight to voicemail. "Jess, get out of the house, go to Nicole's. It's important. Call me as soon as you get this," he said.

He called Emma next, but she didn't answer either. He left her an urgent message to call back, then tossed the phone on to the console and prayed he was wrong about Clark.

He was only ten minutes away. They were going to be the longest ten minutes of his life.

* * *

Jessica was deep into the back of the attic when she found a box full of file folders that appeared to be related to Robert's business. Her heart sped up. Maybe she'd be able to find evidence of Robert's alleged swindling. They'd been looking for proof of something. Hopefully, she'd just found it.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled out the first file. She flipped through the papers seeing charts and diagrams and a breakdown of investments, but not knowing what the client wanted to invest in, she had no idea if anything was wrong. She moved on to the next file and the next, reading notes Robert had made in the margins of some reports. His words always had to do with making a move, changing over to a different stock or bond or mutual fund. He seemed to be meticulous in his notes and very thoughtful. But he was also working with big money. Some of the accounts were in the millions. Had he seen all those zeroes and decided he wanted a bigger cut? Had he suddenly realized how much control he had over the money and how much trust his clients had placed in him? Most people probably wouldn't know what Robert was doing with their money and as long as they were making money, they wouldn't care.

But what if they stopped making money? What if they suddenly wanted their money back and Robert couldn't deliver? That had to be when things had fallen apart.

That was certainly what Clark had implied. But there were usually two sides to every story. What was Robert's side?

It took her a half hour to work her way through the files, and she came up with nothing. Maybe there was nothing to find.

She shoved the box to the side and reached for a long cylinder lying on the floor. It was labeled
Blueprints for House
. That was curious. Had Robert been planning to remodel the house? She opened the lid and pulled out what she expected to be architectural drawings. But the envelope inside the cylinder had nothing to do with a home remodel. There was one word written across the front,
Clark
.

The word gave her a jolt.

She opened the file and saw a list of financial transactions, copies of checks, bank statements, and then a small notebook. It was some sort of a journal, she realized as she began to read. Robert had jotted down a chronology of events, beginning with what he'd titled
The Hook.

She read the following paragraphs with fascination, a sense of shock growing within her as she realized that Robert was revealing exactly what had happened in his company, how it had started, and then how it had grown. She moved on to
The Swindle
.

That's where Clark's name began to figure prominently.

Robert had been putting together a case against Clark, she realized.

Robert hadn't stolen the money, taken the clients for a ride; it had been Clark.

Her chest tightened as she read on. The evidence was damning. Clark could go to jail for what he'd done.

Had Clark known that Robert was building a case against him? Had he thrown Robert out of the business too late, not realizing that Robert already knew everything?

The last part of the journal was titled
The End.
Robert listed a series of steps he intended to take, including talking to the Security Exchange Commission and the district attorney's office.

But the end hadn't come because Robert had died.

Maybe the fire hadn't been an accident or suicide but rather murder?

Her mouth went dry. Fear ran through her as she realized what she had in her hand—everything she needed to destroy Clark Hamilton.

She slowly got to her feet. She needed to call Sean. She patted the pocket of her jeans and realized she'd left her phone in the kitchen.

The sound of footsteps made her jump. She whirled around, expecting to see Sean or maybe Sally, but the man facing her stole the breath right out of her chest. It was too late to run. Clark Hamilton was blocking her way to the door, and he had a gun in his hand.

She'd never seen a real gun up close, and the sight of it sent terror through every inch of her body.

"You know," Clark said, his gaze landing on the file in her head.

"You said Robert stole from the company, from the clients, but it was you," she said, desperately trying to stall until help could arrive. Not that anyone was on their way. Sean was down in Seascape talking to Lana. But Sally had promised to come by after her husband left. There was still hope that her nosy neighbor might barge in.

"I made a mistake," Clark said with a dismissive shrug.

She was shocked by his casual disregard for what he'd done. The man had no conscience. "That's what you call cheating people who trusted you with their money—a mistake?"

He gave her a small, evil smile. "No. My mistake was not making sure this whole house didn't burn down. I thought the papers were in Robert's office next to the garage. Apparently, I was wrong."

She swallowed back a growing knot in her throat. "You set the fire? You killed Robert and his daughter?"

His expression changed for a split second, a glittering glimpse of regret that vanished quickly. "I didn't know Stacy was here. I didn't see her."

"But she was here, and she died. How could you kill a child?"

His jaw tightened. "I told you I didn't know she was home. I never meant to hurt her. But Robert backed me up against the wall. He was going to turn me in. All he had to do was look the other way. He owed me that. I was the one who made us all the money. It was me! My brilliant mind! Her death is on him, not me."

She couldn't believe how Clark had turned the story around in his head. "How did it happen? Did you argue, fight? Was it planned? Or did you just get the idea when you got here?"

"I came over to talk to Robert, but when I arrived, he was unconscious."

"What? That doesn't make sense."

"I don't know what happened to him. The garage door was open, so I walked right into the house. Robert was on the floor of the kitchen. He was out cold. He must have fallen and hit his head on something." Clark shrugged. "I didn't know. I didn't care. I looked through his office, but he had tons of files in there. I didn't have time to go through everything, so I decided to set a fire. It was remarkably easy. It was almost as if Robert had set it up for me."

A smile crossed his disgusting mouth, then he continued. "I shut the garage door and dragged his body over to the car. I opened up the hood. Then I knocked over everything that could burn, kerosene, gasoline—it was all right there for me. All I needed was a match, a spark and then boom. Robert went out in a blaze of glory. I was only sad that he would never know who killed him. I would have liked him to see my face one last time."

"You were friends," she said in bewilderment.

"He betrayed me."

"You betrayed him."

"No, I made him. And then he wanted to take me down."

"He threatened to go to the police," she guessed.

"Of course he did. It was a pointless threat. I always knew there was a possibility he would find out what I was doing, so I took care to make sure he was involved. His signature was on many of the transfers of money. He couldn't take me down without taking himself down."

"But he was still going to try," she said. "That's why he kept this file."

"No one takes me down. No one." There was no apology in his voice, no hint of remorse, no effort to pretend he was anything other than a murderer, which made Jessica realize that there was no way he was letting her out of this attic.

Her stomach turned over at the realization. Clark was going to kill her. He had to; she knew too much.

Her heart ripped in two as she thought about her son. She couldn't leave Kyle alone. He'd already lost his father. He couldn't lose her, too. She had to find a way out of this. She had to fight so she could live, so she could be a mother to her son.

Her gaze darted around the attic. Clark was standing between her and the stairs. He was a big, square man, who probably had at least eighty pounds on her and he had a gun. She wasn't going to be able to rush him or get past him. But there had to be a way. She couldn't just give up.

"I would have preferred to kill Helen," Clark said in a voice that seemed almost hazy, as if he was losing all touch with reality. "After the fire, I wondered if Robert had confided in his beloved mother, but it quickly became clear that she knew nothing. She never liked me, you know. She tried to talk Robert out of going into business with me. She said she didn't trust me."

"I guess she was right," Jessica said.

His lips tightened. "She was a bitch. Maybe you are, too."

"I have a child," she said desperately. "A son. I'm all he has. Whatever you're thinking, you need to reconsider. I don't care about what you did. You can have these papers. They don't mean anything to me. I just want to go on with my life. I won't tell anyone. I don't feel compelled to share your crimes with the world."

"People always say that, but it's never true. As soon as you're safe, you'll tell someone, maybe the man you were with the other day."

She shook her head. "I can keep a secret. This has nothing to do with me. I'm just a renter. I don't care about the Emery family."

"You cared enough to come and talk to me."

She had no answer for that.

"Hand me that file," he ordered.

She hesitated for one second, afraid she was going to lose the only leverage she had. Then again, maybe if she complied, he'd let her go. She extended her hand, and he grabbed the file with greedy fingers.

"Now your cell phone."

"It's downstairs," she said, holding up her hands. "You can see it's not in my pockets."

"I wish it hadn't come to this," Clark said. "But I've protected my secrets for twenty years, I can't let you destroy everything now."

"I promise I won't tell," she repeated.

"I know you won't tell, because I'm going to make sure of that."

"If you shoot me, they'll know it was murder. They'll figure it out. Sean won't stop looking for answers. He'll find you. It's better if you just let me go."

"I don't need to shoot you. I'm going to burn down the whole house, not just the downstairs. And you're going to be nothing but a pile of ashes, just like Robert."

It was now or never. She tried to rush past him, but he flung her aside like a rag doll. She landed in a pile of boxes. She struggled to get up, to fight. Then the gun came down on the back of her head, and pain exploded in her brain. As she sunk into unconsciousness, all she could hear was the sound of the stairs coming up and the attic door closing.

Sean had only felt this kind of panic and terror once before—when he was eight years old, when he looked out of his bedroom window and saw smoke coming from around the corner, and he knew, somehow he knew. The memories hit him again, but this time things were going to be different. This time no one was going to die.

He tried to tell himself that it was possible Clark wasn't at the house, that he didn't know they were on to him, that he still felt confident that his secrets were safely hidden away.

But someone had stolen the computer. Was that Clark? Or was that Sally?