Secret Sisters (5 page)

“You were the one who told me that Edith referred to the contents of the briefcase as an insurance policy. Maybe someone has decided to collect.”

“That is a very unnerving thought.”

“Either way, we need to find Daphne and her mother. I'll get someone on it immediately.”

“Okay.” Madeline paused. “You mentioned a second front.”

“It looks like we'll be spending a fair amount of time on Cooper
Island. We need to put together a cover story to explain my presence here.”

“The investigation starts here?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “And it will probably end here.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“If I'm right, this thing has its roots in the past. And this is where the past is buried.”

“Under a gazebo.”

“Some of it is under the gazebo. Evidently the rest is walled up in room two-oh-nine of the Aurora Point Hotel.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Daphne Knight stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom of her new condo and contemplated the chaos the intruder had left behind. The bastard had invaded her new home—her private space. It dawned on her that she ought to be feeling some strong emotion—rage, violation, fear—something.

Instead, she was strangely numb, just as she had been for most of the past year. The Mediterranean cruise had done little to boost her spirits. Walking into her home a short time ago and discovering that it had been vandalized while she was away had not caused the appropriate degree of shock and outrage. She was just exhausted.

Her phone rang. She turned away from the sight of her ruined home office and looked at the screen. For a couple of seconds she stared at the unfamiliar number, trying to make sense of it.

She took the call and pressed the phone very tightly to her ear.

“Yes?”

“Daphne? This is Madeline Chase.”

“Maddie? Is that really you?”

“Yes, it's me,” Madeline said. “Daphne, it's so good to hear your voice. It's been too long. Eighteen years.”

Eighteen years, Daphne thought. But the bloody scene in the maintenance building was as sharp and clear as ever. She knew that memory played tricks over time and over distance. It was entirely possible that she had invented and reinvented some of the details of that terrible night in an effort to deal with the trauma.

But some things had been seared into her so deeply that she could never forget them. Even after all this time they came back to haunt her dreams. The sight of Maddie crushed beneath the man named Porter. The image of Edith Chase plunging the huge pruning shears into Porter's back again and again. The vision of Tom Lomax smashing Porter's head with a gardening hoe. The blood had spurted in fountains.

So much blood she was afraid that she was too late, that Maddie was dead.

“Daphne, are you still there?” Madeline's voice, already strained, tightened still further. “I've been so worried. Please tell me that you're okay.”

“Yes, yes, I'm okay. I'm fine. Hearing your voice is a shock, that's all. I'm afraid you caught me at a bad time.”

“I'm so sorry. I would offer to call later but this is really important. I have to talk to you.”

“It's all right. I'm just a little shaken up at the moment. My condo was burglarized while I was away on a cruise. The police just left.”

“Oh, damn. Are you sure you're safe?”

Daphne took the phone away from her ear and looked at it, bewildered by the alarm in Madeline's voice. It seemed a little over the top. House burglaries were hardly uncommon. And it wasn't as if she and Madeline had remained close. Eighteen years was a long time.

She put the phone back to her ear.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “The police took a report and asked me
to draw up an inventory of any stolen items. They were very nice and very professional, but they didn't hold out much hope of catching the creep.”

“What was taken?”

“As far as I can tell, just my computer. Standard procedure for home burglars, the cops said. But all my important files are stored in the cloud. The place is a mess, though.”

She looked at the papers and files that littered her office. The sketches she had done for the proprietor of a clothing boutique in Boulder had been dumped from a file drawer. Her collection of books written and illustrated by nineteenth-century architects and interior designers had been yanked out of the glass-fronted bookcase and dropped on the floor. Framed photographs of the finished interiors she had created for clients in and around the Denver area had been yanked off the wall and smashed. Here and there shards of broken glass sparked in the late-afternoon light.

“Daphne, I'm calling about something really important.”

“I assumed as much. I heard that your grandmother was killed in a hotel fire. I'm so sorry.”

“You knew she was gone?”

“My mother found the obituary online and sent it to me. To be honest, I hadn't realized that Mom was still watching for that sort of thing. For a few years after we left Cooper Island she was obsessive about any hint of news relating to the island and your grandmother, but I thought that she had put it all behind her by the time she remarried.”

“Your mother is married?”

“She was. She's widowed now. Her second husband suffered a stroke a few years ago. Mom is alone again but this time she is a very wealthy widow. Turns out rich widows are never alone, at least not for long. She's having a good time.”

“Where is she?”

“I'm not sure. I'd have to check the itinerary. She's on a round-the-world cruise with some friends. I joined her for a couple of weeks while her ship was touring the Med, but she's still on board. She's got another month before she returns to Florida.”

“But she's alive.”

“Very much so. Maddie, don't get me wrong, it's great to hear from you after all this time, but what's going on here? Why are you so nervous?”

“I have some very disturbing news. We need to talk.”

Daphne caught her breath. “This is about the past, isn't it?”

“I'm sorry, but yes, it's about the past. It may be nothing. Or it may be something terrible. We need to figure out what is happening. I'm going to have to ask you to come to Cooper Island.”

Daphne went cold. “You're serious.”

“This is secret-sisters serious, Daph. Please believe me.”

Secret sisters.
The words were a beacon of light in a world that had gone uniformly gray. Secret sisters did not lie to each other.

“You've got my full attention,” Daphne said.

“The company that handles security for Sanctuary Creek Inns has someone standing by to escort you here to the island,” Madeline said. “He's in Phoenix now. He can be in Denver by early this evening.”

Daphne tightened her grip on the phone. “Just to clarify, you're talking about a bodyguard, aren't you?”

“I'm afraid so. Here's what we know—there's a possibility that Grandma was murdered because of what happened that night. And now Tom Lomax is dead, too.”

“Tom? The nice old man who helped your grandmother—?” She could not finish the sentence. Eighteen years of silence was like quicksand. You couldn't just step out of it all at once. You had to pull free inch by inch.

“Tom was killed in the lobby of the hotel late yesterday,” Madeline said. “I was the one who found him.”

“Maddie.”

“I think the killer was still there when I arrived.”

“My God.”

“It's okay, he heard the sirens and ran off. But now you tell me you've had a break-in and your computer is gone. This could be nothing, but we can't take any chances. We need to get to the bottom of this thing. Hang on; Jack Rayner, the head of my security firm, wants to talk to you.”

In spite of everything, Daphne almost smiled. At the age of twelve, Madeline Chase had talked like a future executive, and it sounded like she had fulfilled her destiny. Even as a girl, she'd had a knack for going straight to the bottom line.
Stop dreaming, Daph. You don't want to be an actress when you grow up. The odds of actually becoming a star are horrible. Besides, you're my best friend. I can't stand the thought of you having a lot of bad cosmetic surgery.

Another voice came on the line—a man this time. His voice was infused with the calm, professional authority of someone who knew something about dealing with dangerous people.

“This is Jack Rayner. Where are you?”

“My condo. Why?”

“I want you to leave now,” he said. “Do not take time to pack. Don't try to grab any valuables—just your car keys, ID, and whatever you've got in your purse.”

“Go where?”

“The airport. Plenty of built-in security. I just gave my agent the go-ahead to fly to Denver. His name is Abe Rayner. He'll have ID. He'll escort you to Cooper Island.”

Daphne groped to keep ahead of the flow of instructions. “Rayner?”

“My brother. Now focus on getting to the airport. You'll be safe there.”

For the first time in a long while, Daphne experienced a surge of strong emotion—fear. Tom Lomax and Edith Chase were dead and someone had just vandalized her condo. Her survival instincts were kicking in.

“Okay,” she said. “I'm leaving now.”

“I'll stay on the phone until you're in your car,” Jack said.

Daphne turned away from the ruined office. She went back downstairs. The luggage she had taken on the cruise was still sitting, unpacked, in the front hall. She grabbed the roll-aboard suitcase—it wasn't as if she had disobeyed instructions and taken time to pack it, she thought. It was already packed.

No matter what happens, we will be secret sisters forever.

It was an oath sworn by two terrified girls of twelve who were forever bound by the terrible events of a night filled with blood and panic.

Daphne ran for the door.

Some things you had to believe in. An oath taken in girlhood between best friends who had seen more violence than anyone should have to witness in a lifetime was one of those things.

Besides, it was not like there was anything left for her in Denver.

CHAPTER NINE

Louisa Webster paused in the doorway of the great room and looked at her husband. Egan stood at the wall of windows, meditating on the sweeping view. In the distance other islands in the San Juans could be seen; some, like Cooper, were large enough to support small communities. But many were so small that they were only visible at low tide.

The fading light of the rain-stricken day transformed the dark, cold water into hammered steel. The cloud cover hung low over the island. She knew there were plenty of sunny days on Cooper Island, but it seemed to her that it was always like this when she and Egan were in residence—an unrelenting shade of gray.

A fire burned in the big stone fireplace, but no one had turned on the lights in the room.

She remembered her first impression of Egan all those years ago. He had been so arrestingly attractive in so many ways—a tall, broad-shouldered, athletically built man with a mane of blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, and classically chiseled features. Very little had changed over the years. Like a charismatic televangelist, he managed
to project the image of a man endowed with the wisdom that came with maturity coupled with the energy of a man in his prime.

And like a successful televangelist, he'd always been able to seduce his audience—investors, politicians, friends, women. He had a gift for convincing others that he could make dreams come true. He had employed that talent to make a fortune.

Unlike the average televangelist, Egan had delivered on at least some of his promises—specifically those relating to wealth. He'd made a good living as a stockbroker in the early years, but after establishing his own hedge fund, Egan had been golden. It was as if he could not miss. His ability to predict markets had made him a legend and opened doors in the political, social, and financial worlds.

But the glossy trappings of his successful fund concealed a secret, one that was growing more dangerous by the day. From the outside, Egan still appeared to be the master of his universe, but she knew the truth. The great moneymaking engine that he had constructed twenty years ago had begun to wind down. Egan had privately blamed the problems on the volatile nature of the global economy—the unpredictability of oil, the financial troubles in the Eurozone, the surging influence of China.

She listened to his excuses, but she knew the truth. She wondered when his investors would start to get nervous. There had been some turnover among the top clients recently, but most were still satisfied with their monthly statements. After all, those statements still glowed with the luster of gold. But she wondered how long Egan could continue to dazzle his audience. Successful hedge funds often followed a predictable trajectory—fast out of the gate, astonishing results for a time, and then a crash-and-burn.

But if there was one thing she knew for certain about Egan, it was that he was a survivor.

She walked partway into the gloom-filled room.

“Travis and Patricia have agreed to join us for dinner this evening.”

Egan turned away from the gray vista. “And Xavier?”

With the ease of long habit she suppressed the little whisper of despair that always fluttered, wraithlike, at the edge of her awareness. Xavier was better now. Stable.

“His assistant phoned with regrets a short time ago. The campaign team is due in from Seattle this afternoon. He wants to take them out for drinks and a meal at a local restaurant. Something about giving them a taste of life here on the island so that they can convey a sense of Travis's small-town upbringing to the media.”

Egan grunted. “For the most part Travis and Xavier were raised in Seattle.”

“Yes.”

The silence stretched taut between them. She had stopped loving Egan years ago when she realized that the womanizing would never cease. She had finally accepted the reality of their relationship. He had never truly loved her. He had coveted her beauty and her family's money. She had brought him both, but she had made the mistake of giving him her heart, as well.

Whatever they'd had back at the start of their marriage had long since evaporated. But they were forever bound by their two sons. Xavier and Travis had inherited so many of their father's gifts—his striking looks, his blue eyes, and his talent for mesmerizing an audience.

But beneath the surface they were very different men. It was Travis who held the promise of a brilliant future in politics. He was preparing for his first run for office, and Louisa knew that meant Egan now had to deal with the one thing he was not good at—accepting the fact that he was not going to get something he wanted very badly.

He had long been obsessed with the vision of one of his sons becoming a U.S. senator and eventually taking the White House. Egan's problem was that he had always believed it was Xavier who was destined to
wield great political power, not Travis. For years he had convinced himself that Xavier was his true heir—the strong one; the son who was capable of the ruthlessness it took to survive in the tough worlds of finance and politics. But it had become clear that Xavier's flaws ran too deep. It was Travis who was headed for the Oval Office.

Egan turned back to the window. “I talked to Travis about the wisdom of making Xavier his campaign manager.”

“What did he say?”

“The same thing he told you.”

Louisa's stomach tightened in a knot of anguish. “‘Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer.'”

“In this case, keep a certain member of your family where you can watch him.” Egan snorted softly. “He may be right. Travis is weak in some ways, but he is not naïve—at least not when it comes to Xavier.”

“Xavier has been stable for some time now,” Louisa said. But she knew it was the mother in her speaking, not the realist. “The medication they started him on at the Institute last year has been working well, and managing Travis's campaign seems to have given him direction and focus. Travis says Xavier is doing an excellent job. He knows how to charm the media.”

Egan clasped his hands behind his back. “We both know it's just a matter of time before there's another . . . incident. We've managed to keep things under control in the past, but we had the advantage of privacy. That's gone now. If Xavier has another break he could destroy Travis's election chances. That can't be allowed to happen. There is too much at stake.”

“What can we do?”

“I've been considering our options. There aren't many. But Xavier has been demanding access to his inheritance. He wants to prove that he has a talent for the hedge fund business. I'm thinking of granting his request. Let him set up his own fund with his name on the wall.
That may satisfy him and occupy his attention, at least long enough to ensure that Travis gets elected.”

Hope flickered somewhere deep inside Louisa. It had been so long since she had experienced the sensation, she almost failed to recognize it.

“That is . . . a brilliant idea,” she said slowly, thinking it through. “It just might work.”

Egan's jaw jerked once. “For a while.”

“Yes. For a while.”

Nothing could cure the darkness in Xavier. They both knew it, just as they both knew that it was only a matter of time before the fire inside their golden boy exploded into flames again—possibly quite literally.

Louisa turned to leave. “I have an appointment with the event planner.”

“I heard that Edith Chase's granddaughter is in town,” Egan said over his shoulder. “What was the girl's name? Margaret? Mary?”

“Madeline,” Louisa said. “Madeline Chase.”

“I understand that she was the one who found the body of the old man who was taking care of the Aurora Point property.”

Louisa paused in the doorway. “That's true. There's a rumor going around that now that Edith Chase is gone, Madeline will sell the hotel. Evidently she's brought in a consultant to help her evaluate her options.”

“If she has any sense, she'll sell,” Egan said. “Never could understand why Edith hung on to that old hotel.”