White Lies (The Arcane Society #2)(67)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

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.”