Page 97 of Defending You
“When I heard about what happened in Shadow Cove this summer, about Taggart and Stratton—Whitmore, as you know her.” He shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. “Idiots, both of them, to start the operation again, and in the same place. They were arrogant. They deserved what they got. If they were both dead, I’d be safe. But if Whitmore survives, mine will be the first name she drops.”
“Because you’ve been blackmailing her all these years.”
He waved that off with a flick of his wrist. “She had the money. It didn’t bankrupt her to share it.”
There was the chink in his armor. Once one of his victims’ crimes was exposed, they had no reason to keep paying him. Or to keep from pointing a finger at him.
“I haven’t been able to get to her,” Gagnon said, “though I’ve been working the problem. But on the off chance I can’t silence her permanently, I needed to dispose of the items I stole from Grace Ballentine that night. I was trying to decide what to do with them. I’d taken a box out of the safe to separate her jewels from the rest of my valuables. I was still ruminating on the problem when William came in. He’d been staying with me for a few weeks. His mother needed a break.”
“You’re divorced.”
“Never married her. Never wanted to get bogged down with all that.”
Right. Family could be such a drag.
“The kid wasn’t my idea, and if I’d known about him before he was born…” He shook his head. “Anyway, I didn’t realize he’d seen the jewels. He was involved in some great teenage drama.” Gagnon smirked. “I was trying to be a good dad, trying to help. Later that night, I put the box back in the safe. I didn’t look inside it, never dreaming my own kid would steal from me. When I took it out a few days later, I discovered the velvet bag and its contents were gone.”
“Including the locket you’re so keen on getting back. You said it was your mother’s. Is that why it’s so important to you, or?—”
“Please.” He waved off the suggestion. “Don’t accuse me of sentimentality.”
She should drop it, but she was about to die because of that stupid thing. She wanted to know why. Before she asked, he spoke again.
“Inside that cheap, tarnished locket is an SD card that contains all the information I’ve uncovered about all my…shall we say, clients. My lawyers have access to a drive with the sameinformation, which they’ll share with authorities in the event of my untimely death. But I like having a copy with me, just in case.”
Oh. Wow. She’d stolen the key to taking Gagnon down.
“You didn’t know what you had, but it was only a matter of time before someone opened that locket and found it.”
She was sorry she’d taken it, sorry Asher’d paid for that decision with his life. But if this situation ended in Gagnon’s defeat, she certainly wouldn’t grieve that.
“Can I ask another question?”
“Why not?” He swept his arm around the dingy room. “It’s not as if there’s anything else to do.”
“How did you keep finding us?”
“Oh, that’s easy. The SD card is programmed with a locator.”
A locator? All this time, they’d been traveling with alocator?
“It piggy-backs off phone signals,” he explained. “We started tracking it immediately, guessed you were headed to the police station. We got there ahead of you, just barely. We lost you—the card has to be close to a phone—then picked you up again at a hotel. We were waiting in the lobby, and then you were on the move again. Your bodyguard was quick, getting you out the back and to that train. It took us a while to get ahead of you.”
She was reeling.
All that time, they’d been carrying alocator?
It was a miracle they hadn’t been caught. Howhadn’tthey been caught?
“We’d get an inkling where you were, then lose you,” Gagnon said. “You kept turning off your phones. It was maddening.”
Oh. That explained it. They’d been careful to keep their phones off when they weren’t using them.
“It triggered in that dinky little town last night—Nutfield, but the signal was never strong enough for us to find you. Then it triggered again a few times during your drive today. We finallycaught up with you while you rested a few miles back. Gave us the chance to get in front of you and find this place.”
If only she hadn’t stolen that bag. If only she’d looked through it, maybe opened the locket. If only… There were too many if-onlys to enumerate.
“When your son sold your jewelry, he had no idea what he was setting into motion.”
