She wrinkled her nose, running through his logic. “So I was just unlucky? A ‘wrong place, wrong time’ thing? A convenient target?”
“Maybe, but it’s also possible that you were chosen for some other reason—something that made you valuable to Kelbrook. From what we know about him, I think we can assume that is the more likely option. You were targeted.”
She spread her hands wide. “But I have absolutely no connection to Kelbrook or anyone in that family.”
“You do now,” Owen pointed out. “You were in a Covenant Marriage with one of Kelbrook’s relatives. You’ve got in-laws. Granted, they are afew steps removed on the family tree, but legally speaking, the connection exists.”
“Only because I married Travis.”
“Obviously we need to know more about him. What is it about the guy in the video that makes you so sure it’s Poole? There must be something that pinged your intuition.”
She turned back to the frozen image on the mirror. Owen was right. She needed to think analytically.
“Something about the way he moves made me wonder,” she said. “The person in the video appears to be the right height, the right build. Those things are inconclusive, but I’m sure I remember the watch.”
“What about it?”
“The face is made of diamond amber. Very unusual and incredibly expensive. I think he used it to focus his talent. I remember that it was pulsing when he gripped my arm and told me I had to sign the CM papers. That bothered me. I asked him about the watch. For some reason it seemed important.”
“How did he explain it?”
She struggled to pull up more of the memory. “He said it was a family heirloom. His mother gave it to him shortly before she died and it was all he had left of her after he went into the foster care system. He reminded me that we were both orphans. He said it was one of the things we had in common.”
“He lied. I don’t know how much or why, because I didn’t have time to do a thorough search, but I can tell you that there’s no record of him in the foster system. The details on his birth certificate didn’t check out. As far as I could tell, he lived under an assumed identity from the day he was born. Whoever concealed the truth about his birth had the money to rewrite his entire bio.”
“In a sense, then, we did have something in common,” she whispered. “Neither of us knew the truth about our pasts.”
“No, you two had nothing in common. Poole knew the truth. He chose to hide it in order to deceive you. The fact that you have no clear memories of something as significant as your own Covenant Marriage indicates you were not simply conned, Alice. You were drugged or hypnotized. Maybe both.”
“It makes no sense. Why go to all that trouble just to put me into Serenity Gardens?”
“We’re talking about Dunstan Kelbrook,” Owen said. “That means the goal was money or power.”
“But I don’t have either of those things.”
“You’ve got something that Kelbrook wants badly enough to keep you alive and under his complete control. Badly enough to tell his fixer to hire an outside expert like me to find you. It’s not as if Kelbrook doesn’t have his own in-house security people.”
A fresh wave of suspicion rolled over her.
“That’s an interesting point,” she said, determined to project cool, intelligent confidence instead of the gullibility and naivete that everyone involved in this mess seemed to assume were her fallbacks. “Regardless of my supposed value, why would Kelbrook want to hire an outsider like you to find me if they wanted to keep my disappearance a secret? It seems to me it would have made more sense to use their own people.”
“If Kelbrook had kept the job in-house, it would have been impossible to avoid the risk of leaks. He didn’t want to draw attention to the situation if it could be avoided. I’m sure he could shut down questions from law enforcement—he has connections—but if the media got hold of the story, it would be impossible to contain the damage. The tabloids would have a field day.”
“What made him think you’d keep quiet?”
Owen shrugged. “Initially I’m sure he and his fixer expected me to give them an address, take the money, and go back to my office. That was supposed to be the end of the matter as far as I was concerned. I had noreason to question their motives. He and Twitchell assumed I would think they were doing what was best for you and for the family.”
She chilled. “What will happen when they realize you’re the one who helped me escape the trap at the hotel?”
“They’ll assume my motives are simple and straightforward. I took the risk of grabbing the prize because I intend to sell you back to them for a substantial fee. If we play our cards right, Kelbrook will tell Twitchell to make me an offer. When he does, we’ll find out what you are worth to Kelbrook. That will tell us a lot.”
She could not breathe. “And if you refuse to sell me?”
“He’ll try to take me out of the equation. There wouldn’t be much of a stir if a small-time private consultant who specializes in paranormal inheritance theory suffered an unfortunate accident.”
“Right. He’ll try to kill you. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“It would be the most logical move under the circumstances.”
