She didn’t let him finish his threat. “I won’t move.”

Avery looked at Jilly again. She must have been satisfied with her appearance because she finally opened the car door and got out.

“Showtime,” Kelly whispered.

Jilly ran up the first flight of stairs, raced along the outside corridor until she found the number she was looking for, and then stopped. Avery watched her spread the collar on her blouse so that cl**vage would show. She smoothed her tight skirt, and then rapped on the door.

Avery’s stomach lurched. She heard her voice calling out, “Darling, it’s me, Jilly.”

Tony Salvetti opened the door.

Chapter 39

THE TRIAL IN SHELDON BEACH DIDN’T DRAG ON LONG. THE attorney prosecuting the case was competent and effective, and with the evidence at hand, he was able to convince a second jury that Dale Skarrett had broken into Lola Delaney’s home with the intent of kidnapping Avery Delaney. In the process of committing the felony, he had caused the premature death of Lola Delaney.

Skarrett insisted on testifying, which was a big mistake. He mumbled and squirmed, and by the time the prosecuting attorney got finished with him, the felon was screaming obscenities at him for twisting everything he said.

Skarrett insisted that he hadn’t used Avery as a shield and that he was really only trying to assist the child to her feet when her grandmother fired the gun. He couldn’t explain why he’d taken his belt off and beaten her nearly to death except to say that he was simply trying to coax her into going with him to see her mother.

The photos of Avery in the hospital proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Skarrett had left her in that hallway to die. Within an hour, the jury rendered its verdict, and Skarrett was led back to prison, where he belonged.

John Paul stayed in Sheldon Beach with Avery through the entire trial, and Carrie flew in the day before Avery was scheduled to testify. The aunt had been to hell and back, and he expected to meet a shattered woman. She wasn’t, though. If she was devastated by her husband’s betrayal, she didn’t let it show.

In between her calls to her staff in Bel Air, John Paul told Carrie he was going to marry Avery. She didn’t want to hear that. If her niece was going to marry, she should find a man with potential . . . and money. What kind of life would she have, married to a carpenter?

Oh, yes, Carrie was one tough cookie . . . and meaner than a crocodile when she didn’t get her way.

He really liked her.

Chapter 40

MR. CARTER WILL SEE YOU NOW.”

“Thank you.” Avery straightened her skirt and smiled at the receptionist as she walked to the door.

“You want me to go in with you?” John Paul asked.

She shook her head. “You’ll wait here?”

“For as long as it takes.”

She opened the door and stepped into the freezer. She’d come prepared this morning and was wearing a long-sleeved jacket.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Have a seat, Delaney.”

He didn’t look happy, but then, she’d never seen Carter smile before, so she wasn’t certain if he was still angry with her or not.

She sat in the chair facing his desk, folded her hands in her lap, and said, “Sir, if you’re going to fire me, I’d like the opportunity to preempt and resign first.”

“Why?” he asked.

He’d stood when she entered the room but now took his seat behind the massive desk.

“Resigning would look better on my résumé.”

“No, I’m asking you why you think I’m going to fire you?”

“Because I didn’t follow procedure,” she said.

Her hands were trembling. She wasn’t certain if it was due to the frigid air in the office or the fact that she was so nervous. He had the ability to turn her into an insecure twit simply by looking at her.

“I should have figured it all out much, much sooner, but in my defense, sir, I was busy jumping in and out of fivers and dodging bullets. I didn’t have time to analyze the data, but I should have made the time,” she hastily added so that he would know she was taking full responsibility for her mistakes. “I also used your name to force Agent Kelly to let me ride in the tail car, and you were very specific with your order that I should never do that again. I broke the chain of command. I didn’t let the agents assigned to protect me do their job. Sir, I ran from them. I did. Oh, and I also bothered you during your monthly poker game when I called you that night from Walden Point, and everyone at the Bureau knows how sacred your poker games are to you.”

She thought she noticed the corner of his mouth turn up just a little. Was he about to smile or sneer?

He leaned forward and stacked his hands on the desk. “Just so you know, I had a full house, Delaney, but you used the priority code, so I had to fold. Why did you call me instead of going through channels?”

She might as well tell him the truth. She didn’t have anything to lose. “I knew you’d listen to me and tell me if I was right or wrong. I also knew you’d help me, and we had to move fast. Because you gave the okay, we could do that.”

“Go on,” he urged.

“While the agents were getting things set up in Florida, I called Aunt Carrie and told her that John Paul and I were staying at Milt’s Motel in Walden Point and that she would be brought there to stay with us until Skarrett’s trial. I knew she would call her husband, Tony, and tell him to come there. And, by the time she did that, agents were monitoring Tony’s phone calls and e-mail.”

“And if she hadn’t called him?” Carter asked.

“Then I would have,” she said. “But she did tell him, and just as I suspected, Tony contacted Jilly and gave her the news that Carrie and I would be together in Florida. Then he booked a flight there for himself.”

She took a breath and continued. “By the time the agents pinpointed Jilly’s location, she and Monk had vanished, but of course we knew where they were headed.”

“Walden Point.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I really hated using my aunt that way, blatantly lying to her, but it was the only thing I could do. After everything was in motion, thanks to the agent you put in charge, Tom Kelly, I called Carrie back and told her she’d be staying in Colorado for a while longer, and I told her why.”

“How did she take the news about her husband?”

I broke her heart, Avery thought. “It was . . . difficult for her to accept. She’s a strong woman,” she added. “She’ll survive.”

“It was John Paul Renard who figured out how Monk would strike, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. We moved to a houseboat while the trap was being set at the motel. The agents made it look like we were still there. It was John Paul who found the trip wire on the stairs leading to the tower, and he and Agent Clayborne got ready.”

“Okay, I want to know. How did you put it together?”

“The Politicians, sir.”

He raised an eyebrow. She nodded. “I was sitting on the beach . . . thinking about the situation, and that case came to mind. They had their own agenda, remember? They wanted everyone to think they were politically motivated, but it was really all about money. That got me thinking about agendas, I guess you could say. I realized I wasn’t seeing the forest because of the trees. So I did the same thing I had done when I was working on the Politician case. I took it all apart and looked at each piece. Everyone had his own agenda,” she added. “Monk and Jilly and Skarrett and Tony Salvetti.” She couldn’t bear to call the bastard her uncle now, not after what he had done. “They each wanted something desperately.

“It was what Jilly wanted that made everything fall into place. Carrie told me about the letter that Jilly had left for her. She said Jilly accused her of stealing her dream and giving it away. That kept nagging at me. I had read all of Carrie’s diaries, and I knew what Jilly was capable of. I also knew how patient she was. She’d wait years to get even. I asked myself what she wanted most. Money? Revenge? Then it clicked. Jilly wanted to be a star. She craved adulation and attention. Carrie took her dream away from her. Carrie went to Hollywood and became successful and powerful. She made people stars. In Jilly’s mind, Carrie had taken her dream. She blamed Carrie for all her failures. We found proof of her obsession when the agents confiscated her belongings.”

Carter nodded. “Agent Kelly told me they found a tape in Jilly’s purse. It was a copy of a commercial you starred in when you were a teenager.”

“Yes,” she said. “I think the commercial started it all. Jilly saw it on television, and I imagine became quite enraged. She began plotting and planning way back then. She knew who I was. Evidently Jilly felt Carrie had given her dream to me, and she was going to get even.”

“She held on to that dream for over twenty years?” Carter asked.

“Oh, yes. She has a twisted, inflated opinion of herself,” she said. “I asked myself, who did Jilly think could get her dream back? Who could make her a star?”

“Tony Salvetti.”

“Yes,” she said. “He was still co-owner of Star Catcher. I didn’t want to believe Tony was involved with any of this. John Paul said that, on some level, I must have known all along because I never called to tell Tony where I was.” She glanced down at her engagement ring and lovingly adjusted it on her finger.

“It was so easy for Jilly. When she met Tony, she found an angry, bitter man. Carrie and he had merged two companies. When they got married, they were supposed to run the business as equal partners, but Carrie started bringing in the accounts. She slowly squeezed Tony out of the operation until he didn’t have any power at all. He told Agent Kelly that Carrie was trying to emasculate him. He knew he would lose everything when she divorced him, and that was inevitable because she was becoming more and more distrustful, especially after she discovered over a hundred thousand dollars was missing from their accounts. Tony told Carrie that the money was in the bank and that it was an accounting error, but she certainly would have had the company books audited.

“Jilly told Tony she had a connection that would solve the problem for them both. She knew a man serving a sentence in a Florida prison who could help them get a hit man.”

“Dale Skarrett?”

“Yes. She went to Skarrett and promised to help him get out of prison. If he would give her the name of a killer for hire, she would get rid of Carrie and me, and there would be no one to testify against him. She told him that Tony Salvetti was willing to put up the money to get rid of his wife. Jilly also promised Skarrett that she would be waiting for him when he got out. He was still obsessed with her. I’m sure she would have found a way to keep him believing she loved him long enough to get the stolen diamonds. She also promised him she would get rid of the judge who had sentenced him.

“And that brings us to Monk. When Jilly met him, she found a killer for hire, but she also found a lonely man. It took nothing for her to win him over. As it turns out, she didn’t even have to offer him the money that Tony had given her. He fell madly in love and was willing to do anything she asked. So, nobody was the wiser. She could keep the money for herself.”

“Who came up with the idea of putting all those women in the Colorado house?”

“Jilly,” she answered. “She does like to complicate things. The drama appealed to her, and making Carrie suffer was an added bonus. Monk had already taken the contract to kill Anne Trapp, and he’d also taken money from Dennis Parnell to blow up the mountain house. Parnell was convinced the judge would award the estate to his ex-wife,” she explained. “And I can only imagine what he must have felt when he found out the judge had awarded the house to him.”

“Monk was a busy boy.”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“Did you see it on the news?” he asked. “Eric Trapp finally broke down and confessed. He’s going to go away for a very long time. If your aunt hadn’t given us that letter from Anne, we wouldn’t have had the evidence we needed. Trapp told the interrogator his wife was taking too long to die.”

“Just like the Politicians,” Avery said, “greed motivated all of them.”

“Amazing,” he said then, “the way Jilly manipulated Salvetti and Monk and Skarrett. She was the piper and they were dancing to her tune, none of them knowing what she was up to. I talked to Agent Kelly a little while ago,” he said. “Skarrett still isn’t admitting much, but Salvetti’s talking. The odd thing is . . .”

“Yes?”

“Neither one of them will say a bad word about Jilly. They’re still singing her praises.”

That didn’t surprise her. “I’ll bet she’s not talking, though.”

“No, she’s still stonewalling. You’re going to make a great field agent, Delaney.”

“Perhaps, with the proper training, I could be good, but sir, I don’t want to, not anymore. If I’ve learned anything during the past weeks, it’s that life is too short, and I don’t want to waste another minute going after men and women who are beyond hope. I want to make a difference before it’s too late.”

She stood and waited until he walked around the desk. She shook his hand. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re really going to resign? I can’t talk you into staying?”

“I’ve made up my mind, sir. I need to leave.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

“Now that the trial and the parole hearing are over and Skarrett is back where he belongs, I’m going to spend a couple of weeks with my aunt, and then I’m moving to Louisiana and going back to school to get my teacher’s certificate.”

“I’m going to miss you,” he said. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He opened the door for her, and as she walked past, he said, “One more thing, Delaney.”

“Yes?”

“Good work.”

Chapter 41

THE DETECTIVE LED AVERY AND JOHN PAUL DOWN A LONG hallway to what he called their screening room.

“You’ll be able to see her through the glass, but she won’t be able to see you,” he explained before he opened the door and stepped back.

Avery didn’t move.

“She’s in the interrogation room now with two detectives,” he explained.

And still she didn’t budge.

The detective glanced at John Paul. “I’ll just let you take your time,” he said before he turned and walked away.