“Yes. But tonight I got curious.”
“About what?”
“Why you didn’t tell anyone the whole truth.” She indicated the news account on the screen. “Something happened in that underwater cave, but I don’t think it was an accident.”
Jack looked at her for a long time. “How did you figure it out?”
“Because I know you, Jack.”
“Think so?”
She felt herself turning red. This was his personal business. She had no right to push for answers. She took a deep breath and uncoiled from the sofa. When she was on her feet, she faced him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have searched for the details.”
He moved one hand slightly toward the glowing screen. “It’s all public knowledge. The high-tech-industry media covered it for days.”
“I know. But still, I shouldn’t have allowed my curiosity to push me into prying into your personal history. I had no right.”
“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, it’s all a matter of public record.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it does.”
“Why?”
“We both know why,” she said. “You let what happened two years ago change your whole future. It doesn’t have to be that way. Not your future with me, at any rate.”
“Where are you going with this?”
Anger flashed through her, overriding her guilt.
“You’re the one who says there’s always a pattern. Well, I can’t find the pattern in your story. Everything fell apart for no obvious reason. Your company financials were sound but you let everyone think your security firm was in deep trouble. You deliberately closed down the business rather than sell it or run it by yourself. I can think of only one reason why you would do that. You’re trying to protect someone.”
Jack made a harsh sound deep in his throat. “You think you’ve figured it out.”
“It’s not that hard to figure out.” She spread her hands wide. “You screwed up. You made a mistake, didn’t you?”
“I’m the ace profiler, remember?” Jack’s voice was raw. “I’m the one who is supposed to be able to see the pattern. But I missed all the clues with Ingram . . . and with someone else. I was a fool.”
“I understand all that. But you didn’t shoulder the responsibility for a failing company that wasn’t, in fact, failing, just because you made a mistake. Who were you trying to protect?”
There was a long silence. She began to despair. And then he shrugged.
“I told myself I wanted to protect Victor’s wife and kids. They all loved him. He was their larger-than-life hero. In the end, I couldn’t destroy that image. It was all they had left.”
She caught her breath. “If it wasn’t about money, what was it about?”
“Victor and I were both on the FBI consulting team. Victor was good with the computer stuff. Very good. He thought he was the smartest guy in the room, and most of the time he was. It was his idea to go out on our own and set up a corporate security company catering to the high-tech industry. I was ready to quit the profiling. I wanted to be in control of my own business.”
“You’d had enough of profiling the monsters.”#p#分页标题#e#
“I was so eager to get free that I jumped at the idea of partnering with Victor. He was the wizard with the online stuff. I was the one who could figure out motives and see the patterns. We should have made a great team. And we did, at first.”
“What happened?”
“Everyone has a weak spot. Victor’s turned out to be a woman. She was very beautiful and she was working for some very bad people. Somehow she got Victor to give her access to some of our clients’ secrets.”
“Industrial espionage?”
“Yes.” Jack went to stand at the window. “And fool that I was, I never figured out what was going on until that spearfishing trip in Mexico.”
“But in hindsight?”
Jack glanced back over his shoulder. His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “In hindsight, I did see the pattern—small stuff. Anomalies that Victor easily explained away. Remember, he was the tech genius, not me. So yeah, I saw the pattern and I refused to accept what it was telling me. But I was starting to ask more questions and Victor was getting very nervous.”
“So he suggested the spearfishing trip.”
“He was the one who wanted to check out the underwater cave,” Jack said. “It had already been explored. There was a guide line toward the bottom of the cave. As long as we kept a grip on the line we would be safe. He motioned for me to go first with the flashlight. And then he took a shot at me with the spear gun. I got lucky. The spear hit my tank. That’s what saved my life.”