Ingle’s brows crinkled. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve been a successful scam artist for several years,” she said. “You obviously have some talent for the business.”
His expression hardened. “What are you implying?”
“Only that you must be a very good observer of human nature.” She injected a note of admiration into her tone. A pro on the opposite side of the fence letting another pro know that she respected his skills. “Don’t tell me what he told you about himself. Tell me what you saw. If you were sizing him up as a prospect for your little investment plan, how would you approach him?”
“Are you kidding?” Ingle uttered a short, harsh laugh. “I wouldn’t have touched him.”
“Why not?”
Ingle gave that a moment of serious reflection. Then he exhaled softly. “Miss Lancaster, my skill lies in being able to discern what a prospect wants most and then convincing that prospect that I can deliver it. But I never did figure out what Brad McAllister wanted. And that’s why I would not have targeted him for any of my investment opportunities. The reason I have survived this long is because I have been very careful when it comes to selecting my, uh, clients.”
Clare was aware that Jake was watching Ingle with the rapt attention of a predator getting ready to go for the throat.
“I would have thought it was obvious what McAllister wanted,” Clare said. “He was after his wife’s inheritance, half of Glazebrook, Inc.”
“I don’t doubt that was his immediate goal,” Ingle agreed. “What I could never figure out was why he wanted it.”
“Money?” Jake asked neutrally.
“McAllister had money, a lot of it,” Ingle said. “If he wanted more, he could have set up another one of his astonishingly successful investment schemes. Trust me when I tell you that in our line he was considered a true artist. He also had a reputation for working alone. Why take on a risky project like going after Glazebrook, Inc.? I mean, think about it. Doping the daughter of a prominent family and trying to convince everyone that she was crazy? Talk about extreme.”
“Yet he got you to assist him,” Clare pointed out.
Ingle winced. “When I look back on it, I still can’t believe I allowed him to drag me into that project. He really must have been a hypnotist. A damned strong one, as you say.”
“There are only a few objectives that would make a guy like McAllister go to all that trouble,” Jake said. “Money, power and love are the top three.”
Ingle nearly choked. “You can forget love as a motivator. Believe me, McAllister didn’t have anything resembling sentimental feelings for anyone.”
“Not even his mother, Valerie Shipley?” Clare asked.
Ingle blinked and turned thoughtful again. “Valerie Shipley was probably the only person on earth McAllister actually trusted. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he loved her. She doted on him, however. I’ll admit I’m not a real psychiatrist, but even I could see that she was obsessed with him in a manner that could only be described as unhealthy. She would have done anything for him and McAllister knew it. He used that weakness to manipulate her.”
“We know McAllister had a lover,” Clare said. “A massage therapist who worked at the Secret Springs Day Spa in Phoenix.”
“Doesn’t surprise me that he was screwing someone,” Ingle said. He started to move one hand in a dismissive gesture, caught Jake watching and hurriedly flattened his palm on the desktop again. “But I can guarantee you that he wasn’t in love with her.”
“All right, that brings us back to money and power as motivators,” Clare said.
Ingle met her eyes. “I’m not saying McAllister did not want those things. He certainly did. But I got the impression that he didn’t want Glazebrook, Inc., just because it was a lucrative enterprise. It was more than that. I think he needed the company.”
“Why?” Clare asked.
Ingle shook his head. “Damned if I know. All I can tell you is that there was a lot going on beneath the surface with Brad McAllister. Speaking personally, I was not inclined to look too deeply.”
“When did you start to get nervous?” Clare asked.
“When you came along and it became obvious that things were falling apart. It made me extremely uneasy when I realized that McAllister wasn’t going to do what most people in our profession do under those circumstances.”
Clare understood. “He didn’t shut down the operation and disappear.”
“Exactly,” Ingle said. “When his wife left him and filed for divorce, I thought for sure McAllister would pull the plug. It’s what I would have done. Instead—”
“Instead, what?” Clare prompted.
Ingle made a small, fluttering motion with one elegantly manicured nail. “Well, I won’t say he panicked. He was too much of a pro for that. But he definitely became extremely agitated. He seemed absolutely obsessed with salvaging what was clearly an unsalvageable operation. I know this is going to sound weird, but it was almost as if—”
Jake’s eyes tightened a little. “As if?”
Ingle spread his hands. “As if failure was not an option. But that should not have been the case, not for an expert. One must always be prepared to abandon a project if it turns sour. It is the first law of survival in the profession.”
“Do you think he might have been working for someone else?” Clare asked. “Someone who would not tolerate failure?”
Ingle frowned. “Hard to imagine McAllister taking orders, to be honest. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”
“What’s that?” Clare asked.
“If he was working for someone it would have been because that person could give him something that he wanted very, very badly. Something he could not get on his own. And if you’re not the one who killed him, Miss Lancaster—?”
“Wasn’t me,” Clare said.
“Then the only other likely possibility is the one you hinted at. Perhaps McAllister was killed because he had failed.”
Jake looked at him. “Does that mean you don’t buy the interrupted burglary scenario, either?”
“No,” Ingle said, “I don’t. You may have noticed that I closed down the office of Dr. Ronald Mowbray the morning after the news of his murder hit the papers. The only reason I went back at all was to make certain I had not left anything behind that could be used to track me down.” He grimaced. “Clearly I missed something. Mind telling me how you found me?”
“The J&J analysts located you,” Jake said.
Ingle sighed. “Of course.”
Clare contemplated things for another moment and then got to her feet. “All right, I think that does it.”
Ingle watched her uneasily. “We have a deal, right? You said you wouldn’t go to the cops if I told you what I know.”
“Relax.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and nodded at Jake, indicating that it was time to leave. “We’re not going to report you to the local police.”
“What about Jones & Jones?” Ingle asked, darting an uneasy glance at Jake.
Jake smiled his wide, cold, predator’s smile. “It isn’t Jones & Jones you have to worry about now, Ingle. You’ve got a more pressing problem.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ingle demanded.
Clare opened the door, allowing him a clear view of the three people waiting in his reception room.
“Meet the family,” she said, gesturing toward Archer, Myra and Elizabeth with a small flourish. “Sure the Glazebrooks are a little dysfunctional, but hey, what family isn’t?”
Archer stalked into the office. Myra and Elizabeth were right behind him.
“So you’re the son of a bitch who tried to make us think our daughter was going crazy,” Archer said softly.
“Hello, Dr. Mowbray,” Elizabeth said with an unholy smile. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve made a miraculous recovery.”
Myra gave Ingle a look that would have frozen whole oceans. “Rest assured, after today you won
’t be doing any more business here in Arizona.”
“No, wait.” Ingle leaped to his feet, horrified. “You don’t understand. I cooperated with Jones & Jones.”
“Here’s the bad news,” Archer said. “We’re not with Jones & Jones. This is personal.”
Chapter Forty-one
“I hope Archer doesn’t do anything too violent to Ingle,” Clare said. She cast a worried glance back toward the closed door of Ingle Investments before she reversed out of the parking space. “I know he’d like nothing better than to beat that bastard to a pulp. I don’t blame him. But the last thing we need now is a lot of attention from the police and the press.”
“Don’t worry,” Jake said. “Archer is a strategist, remember?”
“So?”
“So he isn’t going to take his revenge physically. At least not to the extent that it might land Ingle in the ER. It wouldn’t do much good to turn him over to the cops, either.”
Clare made a face. “Scam artists always seem to skate. It’s a white-collar crime, after all. Worst-case scenario is that you get out on bail and leave the country. Even if you do wind up in court, a lot of your victims won’t testify because they feel humiliated. That’s especially true of seniors.”
“Because they’re afraid to let their adult children know they’ve been conned?”
“Yes. They’re terrified that the kids will conclude they’re losing it.” She glanced at him. “What is Archer going to do?”
Jake savored a little rush of satisfaction. “He’s going to destroy Ingle in the way it will hurt the most.”
“Professionally?”
“Right,” Jake said. “First he’ll force him to turn over the codes to his offshore accounts and a list of people who got bilked here in Tucson and in past schemes, so that as much as possible of the money that was stolen can be repaid.”
“That’s probably a heck of a lot more than the police could accomplish,” Clare said.
“When that’s done, Archer will put a scare into Ingle.”
“How?”
“By informing him that Jones & Jones will be adding his name to its Watch List. If Ingle goes back to his old ways, the analysts will notice fairly quickly. They’ll see to it that local law enforcement is notified. That will keep Ingle on the move, if nothing else. It’s a form of harassment, but it is fairly effective. J&J uses it to deter guys like him who try to put their talents to use fleecing folks and committing other kinds of low-level crimes.”
“Didn’t know Jones & Jones had a Watch List.”
“Probably because you didn’t ever go to work for them.”
“Blame Dumbass Fallon Jones for that.” Clare paused for a stoplight and gave him a quick, searching look. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” He did a quick staccato with his fingers on the seat, realized what he was doing and made himself stop. “Still running hot, that’s all.”
She surprised him with a small laugh. “Call of the wild, huh?”
He wasn’t sure how to take that. “You think it’s funny?”
“No, of course not. Sorry.” The light changed. She accelerated smoothly through the intersection. “But I don’t think it’s such a big deal, either.”
He studied the street scene. He couldn’t help but examine it. His senses were still on full alert, which meant that he was automatically registering the details of his immediate environment, looking for a threat, seeking prey. The phrase “call of the wild” was uncomfortably close to the mark.
Throwback.
Then he thought about how Clare had leaped to his defense when Ingle called him that. Some of the prowling tension inside him started to ease.
“What’s it like for you?” he asked quietly.
She did not ask him what he meant.
“When I first came into my parasenses and awoke to a world full of lies, I had wave after wave of uncontrollable panic attacks,” she said.
“That was before you learned to filter the lies?”
“Yes. The Arcane House experts have very little experience in dealing with my type of sensitivity because it’s so rare. But eventually a parapsychologist realized that my particular senses are hardwired to the good old fight-or-flight response.”
“Sure,” he said, thinking it through. “Lies, in general, even the harmless type, always represent a potential threat, after all. You were reacting appropriately.”
“My therapist helped me create a psychic filter. It wasn’t easy. But the only alternative was to become a total hermit so that I could avoid all lies.”
“Sure glad you didn’t go that route.”
She smiled. “Me, too.”
“You were good back there with Ingle,” he said. “You worked him brilliantly.”
“Not the first time I’ve dealt with scam artists.”
“That was obvious. Fallon sure screwed up by not hiring you.”
“That is certainly my opinion.”
Jake settled back a little, shutting down his senses with an act of will. He needed to think and he didn’t always do his best thinking when he was running hot. One of the downsides to being a hunter.
“You know,” he said, “that part about McAllister getting agitated when the Glazebrook operation went south but refusing to call it off was interesting.”
“Yes, it was. Very interesting. Ingle was right. Most scammers in that situation would have disappeared. There must have been a very compelling reason to make a professional con stick with a bad project after it became clear that it would probably fail.”
“I keep coming back to the possibility that failure was not an option. Historically, the Arcane Society cabals have been very Darwinian organizations. If you want to ascend to the higher levels, you have to prove yourself every step of the way by accomplishing certain tasks that are assigned by the guys at the top.”
“If Brad McAllister was working for this new cabal it means that the organization must have sent him to acquire control of Glazebrook,” Clare said. “He may have been executed when it became clear that he had failed. In which case, the killer is probably long gone.”
“Maybe,” Jake agreed. “But I’m not going to close any more doors; I made that mistake back at the beginning of the investigation. Once was enough.”
“I keep wondering where Kimberley Todd fits into this thing,” Clare mused.
“You and me both. The fact that the analysts at J&J haven’t been able to find her yet may mean that she’s dead and buried somewhere out in the desert. Part of a cleanup operation after the project failed.”
Clare shuddered. “Think they got rid of her because she knew too much?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Maybe that’s why Valerie Shipley was killed, too. You heard what Ingle said. She was the one person Brad trusted. The cabal might have been worried that he confided the plan to her.” Clare tensed. “Good grief, I just thought of something.”
“What?”
“I wonder if Owen Shipley is in any danger. After all, he was married to Valerie. The cabal may decide he knows too much, too.”
Jake contemplated that briefly. “Elizabeth was married to Brad, but so far there’s been no attempt on her life. My guess is the cabal crowd would rather avoid gunning down every prominent resident of Stone Canyon who ever got near McAllister. It would attract way too much attention.”
“Someone tried to gun you down yesterday,” she reminded him.
“I know. But I’m not a pillar of the community. I’m just a passing consultant. Here today, gone tomorrow.”
She slanted him a disapproving glance. “I wish you didn’t sound so cheerful when you talk about someone trying to murder you in cold blood.”
“Sorry. Like I said, it tells me that I’m getting close.”
“Wonder why the cabal wanted Glazebrook, Inc., so badly.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it happens to be an extremely profitable company,” Jake said. “Every organization needs money.”
“Yes, but why Glazebrook? There must be hundreds if not thousands of very successful businesses that generate plenty of cash.”
“But not all are closely held, family-owned enterprises that can be quietly taken over without arousing the attention of a board of directors, shareholders and government watchdogs.”
“I see what you mean,” she said. “Nevertheless, it can’t be a complete coincidence that the cabal chose a very successful company that just happens to be owned by a member of the Society.”
“No big mystery there,” Jake said. “The leader or leaders of the cabal would naturally be inclined to go after companies they can research thoroughly. The genealogy records at Arcane House are open to all members of the Society.”
“Members do tend to marry other members,” Clare said. “They often form partnerships and close friendships with people connected to the Society. You’re right, the cabal would have been able to provide an enormous amount of background material to McAllister before he made his attempt to grab Glazebrook.”
“All right,” Jake said. “So much for looking at the deaths of McAllister and his mother from a cabal conspiracy point of view. Let’s try another approach.”
“Such as?”
“I wonder if we’re working too hard to connect them both to the cabal.”
Clare frowned. “I thought we agreed they had to be connected.”
“It’s a possibility, not a fact. Until you know for sure, you have to be able to step back and come at the problem from different directions.”
“Is that something they teach you at Jones & Jones?”
“No,” Jake said. “I learned it the hard way over the years.”
“Okay, let’s try your approach. Who else would have had a motive to murder Valerie?”
He looked at her. “If you were not a devout conspiracy theorist and if I wasn’t a hotshot undercover investigator for Jones & Jones who was sent out to track down a cabal freak, we’d be looking at an entirely different scenario to explain Valerie Shipley’s death.”
“Think she really did commit suicide?”
“That is still a possibility,” he said. “But if that isn’t the answer then we’ve been overlooking the most obvious suspect, the one person who is always at the top of everyone’s list when a wife is murdered.”