White Lies (30 page)

“How did McAllister know you’d be a good candidate for the scam in Phoenix?” Jake asked.

Ingle shrugged. “He said he’d heard about me. Admired my work. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. When he told me he was running an operation involving the Glazebrook family, I had some second thoughts. Like I said, I’m not used to playing in those circles. But everything went off like clockwork, at least at first.”

“Then what happened?” Clare asked.

Ingle smiled coldly. “Then you showed up, Miss Lancaster. You snatched Elizabeth away so fast, McAllister was left flailing. Took him a while to understand what had hit him. Congratulations. I doubt if many people were capable of taking him by surprise.”

Clare stilled. “He talked to you about me?”

“Yes,” Ingle said. “He told me that you were a problem that he had not anticipated but eventually he indicated that he had a plan to deal with you. Frankly, I more or less expected you to suffer an unfortunate but highly convenient accident. When McAllister turned up dead instead I figured you’d just moved a little faster than he had, that’s all.”

“You thought I killed McAllister?” she asked.

He elevated one brow. “You were the one who found the body. I knew you had a motive. You wanted to save Elizabeth from McAllister’s clutches. True, it wasn’t the motive that the rumors attributed to you, but it seemed like a reasonable one to me.”

“You knew that I wasn’t having an affair with Brad McAllister,” she said.

“Didn’t seem very likely under the circumstances.”

Jake watched him with a feral stare. “You were aware that Miss Lancaster was in mortal danger from McAllister but you made no move to warn her?”

“I assure you it was just guesswork on my part,” Ingle said, politely innocent. He grimaced. “Not like I knew what the guy was really thinking. I doubt if anyone knew what was going on in McAllister’s head. The longer I worked with him, the more I realized he was some kind of wack job.”

Clare leaned forward slightly. “Why do you say that?”

“Hard to explain.” Ingle reflected briefly. “At first he came across as another pro. Talked a lot about how we were in the same business. He said I was too good to be working at such a low level. Made me feel like I was his equal. I knew it wasn’t true but for some reason he actually convinced me that I could become what he was, a serious player.”

“In other words,” Jake said, “he conned you, just like he conned everyone else.”

Ingle’s mouth twisted. “There’s an old saying to the effect that the easiest person to sell to is another salesman.”

“Or, in this case,” Clare said coolly, “the easiest person to scam is another scam artist.”

“I, of course, prefer the term ‘salesman,’” Ingle said.

“I suspect that McAllister was a hypnotist of some kind,” Clare continued. “A powerful one. What do you think?”

“That possibility crossed my mind after I saw how he had dazzled everyone in Stone Canyon, including Archer Glazebrook,” Ingle admitted. “I once asked him about his particular talent.”

“What did he tell you?” Jake asked.

“He claimed he was a sensitive but not a strong one. A four on the Jones Scale. Good with numbers and strategy.”

“Everything hetold you was probably a lie,” Clare said. “But what about the things you observed?”

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 yousaw. 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.

McAllister 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 heneeded 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.”

“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. “Whatis 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’thelp 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.