He liked cooking for Madeline, but it would be even better cooking for her tonight because he would be cooking for the woman who would soon be his wife. The future looked brighter than it had in a long time.#p#分页标题#e#
He walked toward the elevator lobby. The insurance broker and the marriage counselor who shared the same floor of the building had closed for the day. The remaining two offices were empty, victims of the last recession.
A janitorial cart stood in the hall. Mops, brooms, toilet brushes, and bottles of cleaning products poked up out of the cart like alien foliage. There was no sign of the janitor.
Jack was still some distance away from the elevators when he heard the door of the emergency stairwell open behind him.
“Don’t move,” Travis ordered quietly.
Jack stopped.
“Turn around,” Travis said. “Slowly. Open your jacket. I want to see if you’re armed.”
Jack turned around. Travis was dressed in the green uniform of the building’s janitorial service.
Jack peeled back one side of his sport coat.
Travis snorted. “No gun, huh? What’s up with that? You sure as hell had one on Cooper Island. But you come home to Arizona, land of open carry, and you stop wearing a gun to work? So much for the big-time security expert.”
“I’m more of a security analyst.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I analyze people like you. Try to figure out what they’ll do next. Got to admit, you surprised me, Travis.”
“No shit.”
“If you were half as smart as everyone thinks you are, you would have been out of the country by now, headed for that island where you’ve been stashing the profits you skimmed off your father’s hedge fund operation,” Jack said.
“You know about the offshore bank? Well, it doesn’t matter. The feds can’t touch me there.”
“Did your father ever realize that you were siphoning off the money?”
“Nope. Never. He just kept thinking that the old program wasn’t working as well as it once had. But three years ago I tweaked the system just a little. I knew I would need a lot of cash to get into the political game.”
“Why didn’t you just ask Egan to bankroll a run for office?”
“What Egan Webster gave, Egan Webster took away. Dear old Dad used money to control people. I didn’t want him to be able to control me.” Travis gestured toward the door of Rayner Risk Management. “Let’s go. Inside.”
“Why?”
“Shut up and do as I tell you.”
Jack keyed in the code and opened the door. Travis followed him into the small reception area and closed the door. He surveyed the office with a derisive expression.
“You’re really a small-time operator, aren’t you? How the hell did you land the Sanctuary Creek Inns account?”
“I must have been very persuasive. Out of curiosity, is this going to be one of your mysterious explosion-and-fire spectacles like the ones you used to cover up Edith Chase’s murder and to try to get rid of Madeline and me at the Aurora Point Hotel?”
“You put it all together. I’m impressed. In answer to your question, I don’t have time to set up another arson scenario. No point anyway, now that Xavier’s gone.”
“Because the idea on those other two occasions was to let Xavier take the fall if it turned out there was any serious investigation.”
“That was the plan. Shit. How the hell did you and Madeline Chase survive the garage explosion? There was a rumor going around that you told the cops you took cover in the old lube pit.”
Jack ignored the question. “What was it like sending Xavier out in that boat you’d rigged to explode? Must have been a little weird arranging the murder of your own brother.”#p#分页标题#e#
“You want to know how it felt? It was a huge relief. The golden boy was a walking time bomb.”
“A time bomb you set off the night you sent him out to torch the house where my clients and I were staying.”
“Xavier was like one of those old-fashioned clocks—want to see him explode? Just wind him up and point him in the right direction. I pointed him straight at you that day. Figured that even if he failed, which he did, I would at least be rid of him.”
“What did you do to set him off?”
“Earlier that evening I took him out for a few beers and explained that good old Mom and Dad were getting ready to send him back to the Institute. I told him it was your fault. Then I put the idea of torching the house in his head. I assured him that after he’d had his revenge on you and Madeline Chase, I’d have the boat ready for him to get away from the island before Egan and Louisa realized he was gone.”