Secret Sisters (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Jack came awake to the rumble of his cell phone. He opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented by the realization that he was not alone in the bed. He had gotten used to sleeping alone in the past two years. He was not accustomed to the feel of a warm, soft body lying next to him. But he could definitely get used to sharing a bed with this particular warm, soft body, he concluded.

The phone rumbled again. Madeline stirred.

“Your phone,” she mumbled. “Not mine.”

“I knew that.”

Reluctantly he disentangled himself and sat up on the side of the bed. He reached for the phone and grunted when he saw the code on the screen.

“Is this some kind of joke, Abe? I'm in the same house, remember? Right down the hall from you.”

“I was trying to be polite,” Abe said. “I didn't want to barge in unannounced. Thought I'd call first.”

Jack looked at Madeline, who was watching him from the
shadows. He couldn't see her expression, but he knew she was wide-awake and listening. He turned his attention back to the phone.

“Good thinking,” he said. “What the hell is so important you had to wake me up at one o'clock in the morning?”

“I just got an interesting ping. Woke me up. You know that search you had me run on the recent travel records of everyone involved in this case?”

The edgy vibe in Abe's voice would have been amusing under other circumstances, Jack thought. Abe was jacked up on adrenaline.

“You got something?”

“I think so. I did a search for Ramona Owens using the Anna Stokes ID. I got a very interesting hit.”

“Talk to me, Abe. You know I'm not into the melodrama.”

“She made a trip to Denver about three weeks ago while Daphne was on the cruise. She stayed one night. What do you want to bet she was the one who tossed Daphne's apartment and stole her computer?”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, that's pretty much the same thing I said. Think that means I might be executive material, after all?”

“I doubt it. It's all in the nuance.”

“I lack nuance?” Abe said, offended.

“Forget nuance. Have you got anything else?”

“Not yet.”

“Have you told Daphne that we may know who tossed her place?”

There was a short pause on the other end of the connection.

“As a matter of fact, I did mention it to her,” Abe said.

This time his voice sounded oddly strained.

“Before you called me?” Jack asked.

“I figured Daphne had a right to know first. After all, it was her
apartment. Well, that's all I've got for now. See you in the morning. Get some sleep, boss.”

“Wait, don't hang up—”

The line went dead.

Jack glared at the device. Madeline giggled. He glared at her. She had levered herself up to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“What's so funny?” he asked.

“You,” she said. “Confused and disoriented because someone hung up on you before you could hang up first.”

He set the phone down on the night table. “You know, keen detective that I am, I'm starting to suspect that Daphne and Abe are getting very . . . friendly.”

“I've noticed that, too,” Madeline said. “Forget Daphne and Abe. Did Abe just tell you that Ramona Owens was the person who searched Daphne's condo?”

“Looks like it, yeah. Now all we have to do is figure out who she was working with.”

“Someone who was willing to murder her.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Someone who was willing to use her and then kill her.”

“Xavier?”

“He's certainly at the top of the list of possible suspects.”

“There's a list? I thought Xavier was our only viable suspect.”

“One thing you learn early in my business—there is always a list until you get all the answers.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“Xavier is out of control,” Travis said. “He's been under too much stress lately and he's going to snap. This time he could do some real damage. You know that as well as I do.”

Egan was standing at the window of Louisa's study. He did not turn around, but he closed one hand into a fist.

Louisa, seated at her desk, reached for a tissue. “The doctors at the Institute were so sure that this time they had found the right balance of medications.”

“Maybe they did,” Travis said. “But that doesn't mean that Xavier is taking the drugs that were prescribed. We all know he very nearly murdered Madeline Chase and her consultant, Rayner.”

“No, we don't know that,” Louisa said. “There's no proof. No one saw Xavier. Madeline and Rayner claim there was a woman on the scene.”

At that Egan did turn his head to look at her. “Louisa.”

She subsided. “When he was a boy they told me it was just anger management issues.”

She said it as though there were still some hope for a simple diagnosis. The word
management
, after all, implied that the impulsive rages
could be controlled with counseling and meds. But there was no hope of a good outcome, Travis thought. He had to make his parents understand. They were the only ones who could deal with Xavier when he went over the edge. And the former golden boy of the Webster clan was right on the brink.

“We need to get him out of the way until after the election,” Travis said.

“That's over a year from now,” Louisa said. “He'll never consent to return to the Institute for an entire year. He calls it a prison.”

“It's for his own good, as well as the good of the family,” Travis said.

“If we could just make Xavier understand,” Louisa whispered.

She was pleading now, Travis thought, just as she had always pleaded Xavier's case.

“If we don't do something, he's going to kill someone,” Travis said quietly.

“No,” Louisa whispered. “No, he would never go that far.”

“Or maybe get himself killed,” Travis added deliberately. “Rayner is in the security business, remember? For all we know he's carrying a gun.”

Louisa's mouth opened. Shock widened her eyes.

“No,” she said. “Oh, no. Rayner wouldn't dare—”

“Don't be so sure,” Travis said. “Rayner isn't the kind of man who is easily intimidated by people like Dad.”

Egan turned his head, eyes narrowing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Travis said deliberately, “that you can't buy off Rayner and you won't be able to scare him away.”

“This is all Madeline Chase's fault,” Louisa said. “I don't understand why she's here in the first place. She doesn't want that old hotel. No one wants it. If she leaves, Rayner will leave. Why does she insist on hanging around?”

Travis started to pace the small space. “She made it clear that she thinks Tom Lomax was murdered. She wants answers.”

“That's the job of the police,” Louisa said. “They're convinced the killing was the work of a transient who no doubt left the island immediately.”

“Enough.” Egan held up one hand. “Travis is right. We can't control Madeline Chase and Jack Rayner. But we can exert some influence over Xavier.”

“He won't go back to the Institute for a whole year,” Louisa warned. “Not willingly. He's not a boy any longer, Egan. We can't just pack him up and ship him off. Not this time.”

“I've got one tool left in my tool kit,” Egan said quietly. “I can make Xavier's greatest wish come true. I'll give him what he needs to set up his own hedge fund—access to his inheritance. I'll tell him that he can have the money but he has to establish the headquarters offshore.”

Travis raised his brows. “That's not a bad idea.”

Louisa dried her eyes and turned thoughtful. “It might work. At least for a while.”

Travis stopped in the middle of the room and looked at Egan. “In other words, you're going to bribe him.”

Egan turned back to the window. “For the good of the family.”

“I just hope it works,” Louisa whispered.

The despair in her eyes was too much. Travis went to the door and let himself out into the hall.

Confronting his parents had been a gamble. He had talked it over with Patricia first, just as he did all of the important decisions now. She had agreed it was the only available option. Egan and Louisa had always been able to exert some control over Xavier through a combination of bribes and threats. Xavier was amenable to both. He was, after all, a very talented survivor. In the end, he would not do anything that might jeopardize his income and future inheritance.

Travis went down the hall and turned in to the foyer, eager to escape his parents' house.

Xavier was lounging in the arched entranceway, one shoulder propped gracefully against the wall, arms folded across his chest. He smiled his sorcerer's smile.

“Have a nice chat with Mom and Dad?” he asked.

Travis stopped. “It was a chat. Not sure I would characterize it as nice.”

“Did my name come up?”

“We discussed the plans for the trip to Europe that everyone seems to think is vital to add some foreign policy cred to my candidacy.”

“Is that right?”

“Can we talk later, Xavier? I have to work on my announcement speech with Patricia.”

“Sure. I'm available anytime for you, brother.”

Travis started to open the front door, but he stopped when he saw the hot, jealous rage that burned in Xavier's eyes.

He'd seen that look before at various times in the past. Xavier's eyes burned with a hellish fire just before he lost control. Everyone in the family knew the look. It wasn't the first time they had been forced to deal with the problem of the golden boy.

Keep your enemies close.

Travis stopped and glanced at his watch. “You know what? That damned speech can wait. I'm sick of it already and I haven't even finished the final draft. What do you say we go and grab a beer at the Crab Shack?”

Xavier thought about that for a few beats. Then he shrugged and pushed himself away from the wall.

“Why not?” he said. “I've always got time for a beer with the next senator from the great state of Washington.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Madeline dreamed . . .

. . . She walked through the scorched ruins of the burned-out hotel, searching each room for Daphne. The hallway on the second floor was endless. Each door she passed was marked with the same number—209.

The dreamscape was rendered in the colors of midnight. Icy moonlight slanted through empty windows. A terrible urgency drove her, but she could not move any more quickly. She had to open each door. She could not miss a single room.

It was her fault that her secret sister was trapped somewhere in the ghost hotel . . .

Somewhere in the endless gray of the dream world a clock struck the time . . .

The dreamscape shifted and blurred . . .

She came awake on a surge of adrenaline. Her eyes snapped open. She saw Jack silhouetted against the window. He was looking out into the darkness. His cell phone glowed in his hand.

She realized that the shifting sensation she had sensed a few seconds earlier had been the movement of the mattress as Jack got out of bed.

“The motion sensor app just pinged,” he said.

“There's someone out there?”

“Maybe. Could have been a large animal or a falling tree branch. The sensors aren't foolproof.” He turned away from the window and picked up his trousers. “I'm going to wake Abe. Whatever you do, don't make a target of yourself by turning on the lights. Understand?”

“Yes.”

She pushed aside the covers and got to her feet, barely aware of the cold floor.

Jack took the holstered gun out of the bedside drawer. Fear zinged through her, icing her blood.

“Jack—”

“I'm going to take a look outside. You and Daphne will stay here with Abe. Understood?”

She wanted to argue. She thought about saying something intelligent such as
let's call the cops
, but it would take a while for help to arrive. She reminded herself that Jack knew what he was doing.
Let the man do his job,
she thought.

She stepped into her slippers, grabbed her robe, and followed Jack out into the dimly lit hall. Abe, clad in only a pair of briefs, was standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He and Jack were talking quietly. When Abe saw Madeline, he ducked back behind the door and peered around the edge, embarrassed.

“Get some clothes on,” Jack said to him. “Make sure Madeline and Daphne put on their shoes in case you have to get out of the house in a hurry. This guy likes to set fires. Wait downstairs in the main hall. That will give you plenty of options for getting out of the house. Once
you're in place, everyone stays silent. The idea is to make him think we're all still asleep.”

“Got it,” Abe said.

He disappeared back into his room.

Jack glanced at Madeline. “Remember what I said. Stay away from windows.”

She clutched the lapels of her robe, fighting the urge to beg him to stay inside, behind locked doors. But locked doors offered no protection from a crazy person who liked to start fires. Her grandmother had died behind a locked door.

“Jack, be careful,” she said instead.

“That's the plan,” Jack said.

He did not wait for a response.

Madeline went past Abe's room, intent on knocking on Daphne's door.

“Never mind,” Daphne said behind her. “I'm awake.”

Madeline turned around. Daphne emerged from Abe's room, pulling a robe around herself. She was flushed. Her short hair was wildly tousled.

“Oh,” Madeline said. She stopped with that because she could not think of anything else to say.

Daphne smiled. “Turns out Abe is also a night person.”

“Oh,” Madeline said again.

Abe emerged from the bedroom strapping on a holster. He was dressed in his cargo pants and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. He had his glasses on now, and he peered at Madeline and Daphne in turn with an air of calm authority that caught Madeline by surprise. She noticed that Daphne blinked a couple of times, too.

“You heard the boss,” Abe said. “Grab your shoes, ladies, in case we have to make a run for it. We'll wait for Jack downstairs.”

Madeline looked at Daphne and knew that they were both experiencing the same unnatural sensation of intense focus. It was as if the world had narrowed down to encompass only the old house and the four of them.

Without a word, she went back into her bedroom. Daphne disappeared through the doorway of her own room.