Secret Sisters(97)

“But your FBI pal is keeping an eye on him, right?”

“Definitely. Joe is extremely interested in Travis because he and his team would really like to know what happened to the millions Egan Webster made by defrauding investors in recent years. The money is probably stashed offshore, but there’s always a chance Travis can lead them to it. If the funds are recovered, it would be a major coup for Joe’s team.”

“You think Travis knew his old man’s secrets?”

“What I think,” Jack said, “is that Travis is a little tougher, a little smarter, and maybe even a little more ruthless than Egan Webster realized.”

“Any evidence that he murdered a few people the way his old man did?”

“No hard evidence,” Jack said. “But it was Travis’s decision to run for office that seems to have triggered the entire chain of events. It started with the murder of Edith Chase.”

“You’re sure the hotel fire was murder?”#p#分页标题#e#

“Given all that’s happened, her death is just too damn coincidental.”

“They say coincidence happens.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“So you’re thinking that Travis is a little more dangerous than some people think.”

“Right.”

Garrett exhaled deeply. “Egan Webster wouldn’t be the first man to underestimate his own son.”

Jack nodded, but he did not speak.

The night settled more heavily around them.

“Charlotte likes your Madeline,” Garrett said after a while. “So do I.”

Jack focused on the glowing jewels scattered across the valley. “I like her, too. A lot. But she’s not my Madeline.”

“You said Travis Webster’s world is falling apart and that makes him hard to predict.”

“So?”

“So your world fell apart two years ago. But you’re not unpredictable like Webster. We all knew you’d get back on your feet. But in the process you made some tough rules for yourself, thinking they would keep you from screwing up again.”

“I got blindsided two years ago.”

“It happens to everyone sooner or later,” Garrett said. “Okay, maybe not quite as spectacularly as it happened to you, but still, it happens. And you won’t be able to protect yourself with a lot of hard rules.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Might be time to reconsider those rules of yours. Cut yourself some slack, son.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is simple. You made those rules two years ago. That means you’re the only one who can break them.”

Garrett turned and walked back through the garden and into the house.

Once again Jack was alone in the night.





CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT


She heard the muffled sound of a door opening and closing somewhere inside the big house. It was the second time she had caught the faint noise in the past few minutes. Two people had gone outside into the desert night. Both had returned. One had retreated to the far end of the house. The other one was coming down the hall toward her. She knew from his stride that it was Jack.

The wall of windows in the great room where she sat looked out over a portion of the cactus garden. She realized that he had probably noticed the glow of the computer screen when he had started back into the house.

Max stirred, stretched, and got to his feet.

She sensed Jack’s presence even as Max trotted across the room to greet him. The little frisson of awareness that shivered through her was probably nothing more than her body’s response to a subtle shift in the shadows or maybe a faint change in the currents of air that drifted through the room. But it would always be like this, she realized. She would always know when he was nearby. In the past several days she had somehow become tuned to him.

“Working late?” he asked.

She turned her head to look at him. He watched her from the entrance of the big room. He was dressed in what she had come to think of as his uniform: dark trousers, a black crew-neck T-shirt, and low boots.

Automatically she started to blank the screen of the computer. But her fingers paused over the keyboard.

“No,” she said. “My curiosity got the better of me.”

She set the computer on the end table and turned the device around so that he could see the screen. She knew his eyesight was excellent, but she was pretty sure that even he could not read the small print on the computer from where he stood.
#p#分页标题#e#
The familiar, icy stillness came over him. Then, very deliberately, he walked closer. He stopped when he was a short distance away from the computer.

“Your grandmother knew the facts when she hired me,” he said without inflection. “You knew them, too.”