“Driver, change of plans,” I said. “Take me back to the summer house.”
A swift turn and we were back on our way to the house I’d just left. He must have followed me.
Damn it. I was losing my touch.
I couldn’t allow him to find my records in that house. I’d kept everything, including all the information I’d had at the house on Mulberry, here. My entire house of cards would tumble if they found this property.
And I just couldn’t afford that. Not yet.
I got out of the car once we had gotten to the carpark and headed inside, turning off my alarm system, not that he would have heard it anyway. I put my bag down on the side table and pulled out my gun.
It was so unladylike to shoot, but I’d had no time to develop a poison that would go unregistered in his system. I honestly hadn’t put much thought into the idiot looking into me. He was on his last nerve with his boss, so I was guessing that was why he had so much time to investigate me. The little twerp had unraveled secrets I’d long since buried, and it annoyed me that he’d done it so quickly.
Not only that but to have given the information to the only detective to actually have half a brain was dangerous. There was something about Detective Garrick that I couldn’t put my finger on, but I knew he wasn’t someone to be underestimated.
That both scared and excited me at the same time.
I took my heels off to move through the house unheard as I watched on my phone for where the cameras were picking him up. He’d found my office, and probably thought he’d found the motherload.
Fool.
No one actually keeps their important stuff in an office. That would be too easy.
I moved down the hall and toward the door he was behind. My heart was hammering, and I felt a little giddy at being able to catch him in the act.
As I approached, I could hear him shuffling through the business and estate papers I had on my desk. I pushed the door open, silently I moved inside the room and closed the door with a click. Stanley jumped and turned around, his eyes bugging out of his head.
“Care to tell me why you’re snooping through private property?” I asked him, my gun trained on him.
“You wouldn’t shoot me,” he said, his voice weak. “It’s not in your nature.”
“Sure, I don’t like guns but when in need, they come in handy,” I said. “And as far as the police are concerned, you’re an intruder and I feared for my life.”
“You won’t get away with it,” he said, feeling a little more confident. “They’re onto you now.”
“Are they?”
“Yes, Garrick has all the proof he needs to bring you down.”
“Then why hasn’t he? Why isn’t he here with you now? Perhaps he’s been leading you along all this time.”
Stanley smiled, and it annoyed me that he thought he had me. “The fact that you know who I’m talking about tells me he’s on your trail too. He’ll find the piece he needs, and he’ll bring you to justice.”
“Justice?” I repeated the word as if it were poison to my ears. “There is no justice in this world. If you did some real investigative work, Stanley Dale, you’d know the people I’ve taken out are no upstanding men. They are filth, and they deserved every bit of pain I brought them.”
I pushed back the pain of my past, a brief glimpse into what I’d kept hidden for years was all he would ever get to see.
“I’ve got everything I need Maurelle, and now, so does he. It’s a matter of time before he brings you down.”
“Whatever you think you have, it won’t be enough. There’s always one detective who thinks they can grab me. You aren’t the first to unravel my true identity but you never gave it to him, did you? You never gave him the full file you did on me. You think I didn’t know when you hacked into my original name and got the file on who I was when I was young?”
“You didn’t stop me.”
“No, I needed to see how easy it was for you to get everything you needed,” I told him. “Never mind, I erased the trail after you were done. You may have printed it out for safe keeping, but the original file no longer exists. There’s no way to prove your ramblings, especially not now that you’ve lost the faith of your boss and everyone at the newspaper. No one will ever believe you. Matter of fact, no one will ever see you again.”
“Don’t underestimate Detective Garrick,” he said, an odd tilt to his tone. “He’s better than you could ever imagine. Take my life, I don’t care, but they’ll be taking yours in return.”
I stepped forward. “Let them try.”
