Truth or Dare (18 page)

24

E
than sat on the sofa and watched Zoe serve the tea she had made for the four of them. She had clipped her hair into a loose knot and put on a pair of black slippers that looked like the kind of shoes ballet dancers wore. Her midnight-blue dressing gown was tied snugly around her waist.

He had pulled on a pair of trousers and a tee shirt. Because he could see that his new habit of shaving before bed was starting to worry Zoe, he hadn't bothered to do so that night. The result was that he knew he probably looked more than a little rough around the edges.

Arcadia and Harry, however, were both creatures of the night. They managed to appear oddly stylish at one-thirty in the morning. Arcadia was her customary ice-queen self in a narrow column of a dress that was the color of a pale desert dawn. Harry
was surprisingly natty in a short-sleeved sport shirt decorated with surfboards and palm trees.

“Let me get this straight.” Ethan sat forward on the sofa, elbows resting on his thighs, fingers loosely linked between his spread knees. “You noticed the same senior citizen in a hat and sunglasses twice over the course of two days and you lost the pen that Harry gave you? That's it?”

“Doesn't sound like much to get freaked out about, does it?” Arcadia said apologetically. “Sorry about this. It was Harry's idea to come here tonight.”

“And a very good idea it was,” Zoe said forcefully. “When you add this bit with the little old lady to that edgy feeling you mentioned to me earlier this week, it raises some questions.”

Ethan frowned. “No one told me anything about Arcadia feeling edgy this past week.”

“I thought maybe I was just a bit jumpy because Harry was gone and . . .” Arcadia's platinum-tipped fingernails glinted when she picked up her cup. “Well, the feeling went away so I didn't want to mention it.”

“As far as I'm concerned, it's the camera that bothers me the most,” Zoe said. “From your description, it was not only expensive, it sounds like something a professional photographer would use. Not the kind of equipment an elderly tourist would favor.”

“The lost pen may or may not mean anything,” Harry said. “But if someone is watching Arcadia, it would be logical to assume that he searched her office. Maybe he used the pen to pry open a drawer or poke around inside a file cabinet and it snapped. He figured it would be better to get rid of the pieces rather than leave them behind.”

“It was an inexpensive pen,” Zoe added. “He would have assumed that no one would even notice it was missing.”

Ethan looked at Arcadia. “Notice anything else missing or rearranged in your office? Anything seem different in there?”

Beside him, Zoe abruptly stiffened. She offered no comment, but out of the corner of his eye he saw that the teacup wobbled ever so slightly in her fingers.
What the hell was that all about?

“No,” Arcadia said in response to his question. “And I checked, believe me.”

Ethan switched his attention to Harry. “What about the condo?”

“Everything is fine there,” Harry assured him. “I'd know if someone had got past the new system.”

“All right.” Ethan picked up the notebook and pen that he had placed on the coffee table. “Here's what we've got. Someone
may
be watching Arcadia. If that is true, there
may
be a connection to Grant Loring.”

“Who is supposed to be dead, but I don't believe that for a moment,” Arcadia said evenly. “He is definitely my worst-case scenario. But it's also possible that the Feds have tracked me down.”

Harry looked at her. “How badly do the Feds want you?”

Arcadia exhaled slowly. “I honestly didn't think that I was that important to them. But I suppose they might have convinced themselves that if Grant is still alive I might be able to lead them to him.”

“Except that you can't,” Zoe said. “You don't have any idea where he is. Besides, that scenario implies that they no longer believe that you're dead.”

Arcadia shrugged and said nothing.

“Okay, let's stop there for a minute.” Ethan made a note. “Best case is that it's the Feds. Problem is, it doesn't feel like a Fed kind of operation.”

Harry raised his brows. “The senior citizen with the camera?”

“Yeah. Not Fed style. When it comes to equipment, they're a lot more high-tech. Also, they're big on putting wires on people and sending them into situations to record conversations.” He glanced at Arcadia. “I assume no one has tried to get you to open up about your past lately?”

“No.” She frowned. “You're right. Probably not the Feds. That leaves Grant or one of his former associates.”

“Lucky for you, you've got a real good friend who is also an ace bodyguard,” Ethan said. “And you've got another friend who is a hotshot PI. Harry and I will split up the job. He'll keep an eye on you while I start asking some questions. We'll need Singleton's assistance for the on-line work.”

Zoe looked at him. “Do you think Harry should take Arcadia out of town while you conduct your investigation?”

“It's an option,” he said neutrally.

“No.” Arcadia was suddenly, fiercely, resolute. “If Grant has found me under this new identity, he can find me anywhere. Disappearing again for a while will only delay matters. I'd rather deal with him now and finish it.”

Harry nodded in agreement. “Something to be said for staying here in Whispering Springs. It's a relatively small community and it's our turf, not Loring's. We know a lot more about it than he does.”

“Also, things have changed considerably in the past few weeks,” Arcadia pointed out. “You've got some connections with the local police now, Ethan. You know people around town and at Radnor.”

“None of those contacts will do you much good if he tries to take you out with a bullet,” Ethan said flatly. “Harry's good, but no one is perfect.”

Arcadia held her cup in both hands and studied the depths of her tea as if it were an oracle glass. “I can't be absolutely positive,” she said carefully, “but I don't think that he will try to shoot me dead from a distance.”

They all watched her.

“Why not?” Ethan asked.

“Two reasons. First, Grant is a strategic thinker. It was his forte when he was running his investment empire, and he's not the type to change his stripes. In fact he's almost obsessive when it comes to planning. Keep in mind that he has a reason to be careful. The last thing he'll want to do is give the Feds or his disgruntled former business associates a reason to think that he's still alive.”

“Good point,” Zoe said.

“Running me down with a car or arranging for me to die in a mysterious house fire would be more his style,” Arcadia said.

Ethan saw Harry's hand flex once. It was the only evidence of what he must have been thinking but it was a chilling little movement.

“What's the second reason he wouldn't try to gun you down from a safe distance?” Ethan asked.

“I took out a small insurance policy before I disappeared.”

“What kind of policy?” Ethan asked.

“I have something that Grant wants.” Arcadia lowered her cup to the saucer. “And the only way to get it from me is to make me tell him where it is.”

No one spoke. They all sat there, waiting. Ethan saw the concern mingled with curiosity on Zoe's face and realized that Arcadia had not told her all of her secrets.

“When I realized that the safest thing to do was vanish,” Arcadia said quietly, “I made some arrangements. I stashed money in several different accounts under a variety of identities, and I tried to muddy my trail by checking myself into Candle Lake Manor. After Zoe and I escaped, I changed my identity a second time.”

“Go on,” Harry said quietly.

“I took one more precaution. Grant kept everything that was important to him on a secret computer that he didn't realize that I knew he had. A lot of it was the sort of detailed financial information that could have sent him to jail for a very long time. But as I found out later, there was some other, more dangerous stuff on it, too. In any event, I figured out his password and downloaded the entire file. Then I hid my copy.”

“Tell me about this dangerous stuff,” Ethan said.

“It consists of the details of some scams that Grant pulled on a few folks who are not as easygoing as the Feds when it comes to things like embezzlement.” Arcadia's shoulders were rigid. “I discovered rather late in our marriage that my husband had ripped off some extremely unsavory people. If they ever find out that he's alive and if they learn that he stole a great deal of money from them, they will surely want revenge.”

Harry whistled tunelessly. “If Loring's out there, he won't rest easy until he destroys the copy you made of that file.”

“As I said,” Arcadia continued, “I hid the file. But I didn't tell Grant that I had done so. I thought I had some time, you see. I was trying to decide what my next move should be. But then he attempted to murder me.”

“How?” Ethan asked.

“It was supposed to be an accident. I told you, Grant favors that approach. I had a late evening appointment with a client who lived in a home just outside a resort town in the mountains. Grant knew that my route followed the shoreline of a large lake. He lay in wait for me. Forced my car off the road at a high point above the water.”

“Dear God.” Zoe reached out and put one hand over Arcadia's.

Harry looked like death made flesh.

Ethan kept his mouth shut and made more notes.

“It was night and it was raining hard,” Arcadia went on after a while. “Fortunately, the car landed in a relatively shallow section of the lake. I made it out through the driver's window and surfaced beneath some overhanging tree branches. That was probably what saved my life.”

Ethan paused in his writing. “Loring couldn't find you in the water?”

“No. I realized it was him when he got out of the car and walked in front of the headlights. He had a flashlight. He used it to search the surface of the lake. But he never spotted me because of the trees. I honestly thought I would die of hypothermia before he finally left the scene.”

Harry rested his palm on her knee. Ethan saw his fingers tighten gently.

“After he drove away, I climbed out of the water. I spent the night in an empty cabin. By morning I decided that the safest thing for me to do was disappear until the authorities caught up with Grant.”

“But they never did catch up with him,” Harry concluded.

“No, because Grant fled the country early the next morning. He was reported dead in a skiing accident in Europe two weeks later.”

“Why didn't you go to the Feds?” Ethan asked.

“Frankly, I didn't think they would be able to protect me from Grant. But I did get the word out about that file I had hidden.”

“How did you do that?” Harry asked.

“I used a computer to plant the story in the financial press. It was just a short piece about how, before she died, Grant Loring's wife had confided to an unnamed source that she had copied Loring's private files. I implied that the tragically deceased Mrs. Loring had stashed said files in a secret location. Sadly, she took the secret with her to a watery grave.”

Harry tipped his head to one side about an inch. “ ‘Watery grave'?”

Arcadia raised her brows. “You think that was a little over-the-top for the financial press?”

“Nah. It's perfect for the financial press.” He nodded. “Watery grave. Yeah, I like it a lot. I'll bet they went for it.”

“They did,” Arcadia assured him. “And so did a lot of the rest of the media. That was all I cared about. I knew that, wherever he was, Grant would be watching the papers, networks and the
on-line news sources to find out if my body was recovered and to see how his own disappearing act was going down. I knew the threat wouldn't provide me with complete protection, but I thought it might give me a little bargaining power if Grant ever came looking for me.”