Chapter 11

11

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1:10 P.M.

SAGE WAITED UNTIL THE BIG black SUV carrying Cora Winslow had driven past before pulling onto the road, keeping a safe distance behind them. He wasn't taking any more risks, especially after he'd been confronted by that old-lady librarian that morning.

The old woman had rattled him, which was embarrassing. He should have said he was waiting to research something, but did he? Noooo. He'd mentioned Cora Winslow. Said he had a date with her.

She'd claimed that Cora wasn't coming into work that day, so he'd gone back to the Winslow house and followed Cora back to the library from there. But then the tall blond bodyguard had spied him tailing them once they'd departed, losing him in a move that had been pretty damn impressive.

And now things were starting to get interesting. Why had Cora Winslow come all the way to Baton Rouge?

And who the hell was Alice VanPatten? He'd searched online while Cora had been inside the VanPatten home, finding that Alice was an interior designer and wife to Richard. But there was no meaningful connection to Cora. Not yet, anyway.

He wondered if his grandfather knew.

He wondered what he'd be revealing if he asked, although it didn't really matter. Sage would have the upper hand in any conversation with his grandfather from here on out.

At least I didn't intend to shoot Joy Thomas. It really had been an accident.

His grandfather, however, had fully intended to kill Medford Hughes. He'd gone into his secret safe in the study, taken two guns, and had returned hours later with only one gun.

The news of Medford's death had already hit the news by then. Dead by a bullet to the head. It wasn't hard to add two and two and get four. But Sage had already figured it out by the time the news had broken.

He'd followed Burke Broussard and two of his men—and a dog—from Cora Winslow's house to Medford's. He'd parked a block away and used his long-range microphone to eavesdrop.

And had been stunned to learn that Medford was dead in his car. The guns his grandfather had removed from his safe had then made sense.

Mind. Blown. No pun intended.

That Alan had killed Medford Hughes had been a shock. His grandfather had not, to Sage's knowledge, ever killed someone. Like, ever.

Medford must have figured out that the laptops were stolen. Well, Medford had to have known that all the laptops that he was asked to break into were stolen. He just didn't know where all the prior laptops had come from.

Sage thought about the Broussard laptops with a smirk. More likely than not, Medford had been tipped off by the Broussard logo on the laptop's lid. His grandfather might not have been able to see that level of detail, but Medford would have.

Sage hadn't been one hundred percent sure that Alan had pulled the trigger, until he'd learned that the stolen Broussard laptops had been found in the back seat of Medford's car.

That tidbit had come courtesy of the cops, who were talking about the crime scene loudly enough to wake the dead. Sage had barely needed the long-range microphone to hear every word they said.

Medford was supposed to look like he'd shot himself in the head, but the cops didn't think that was the case. Medford's wife was dead, too. Alan had killed them both.

That was harsh.

The wife was an addict—drugs and gambling—but she hadn't deserved to die. Unless Medford had told her what he'd found, which was possible.

Sage still didn't know what his grandfather was up to, but he was going to find out. He dialed Alan's cell phone, smirking when the man answered.

"What?" Alan's voice was flat and angry.

Or maybe guilty. Sage guessed it depended on how many people his grandfather had killed over the years. What if Medford hadn't been Alan's first kill?

He wondered if Cora's father had been. But he still didn't know why.

Why was important.

"Who is Alice VanPatten?"

"Who?" Alan asked impatiently. "Don't waste my time, Sage."

Such a pompous bastard. "If I thought I was wasting your time, I wouldn't have called, Grandfather. A simple answer would be nice. Do you know who Alice VanPatten is with relation to Cora Winslow?"

There was a moment of silence, a long, long moment. "What are you talking about?" Alan asked, his voice now quiet.

And maybe a little scared.

The scared part pleased Sage greatly.

"Alice VanPatten lives in Baton Rouge with her husband. Cora Winslow just left here with her bodyguards. Broussard's people. They stayed about a half hour, and Cora looked shaken when she came out."

Another beat of silence, then all hell broke loose. "You've been following Cora Winslow?" his grandfather thundered. "I never directed you to do that."

This was good. Alan was getting hot and bothered. Which meant Sage had struck a nerve.

He feigned confusion. And guilt. "I'm sorry, Grandfather, but you actually did. At least I thought you did, which was why I followed her to Broussard's yesterday morning. Was I wrong?"

Alan huffed. "No, you're right. But we're done following her. Don't do that anymore. If her bodyguards see you…"

Sage wouldn't mention that he'd already been caught tailing her once that day. "You don't know who Alice VanPatten is?"

"I do not. And I'm ordering you to leave the woman alone."

Hold on. Hold the fuck on. Was that fear in Alan's voice?

Sage had obviously hit the jackpot. He just needed to figure out what the payoff was. "Cora or Alice VanPatten?"

"Both of them," Alan snapped. "Stay away from both of them. You will only do what I instruct you to do. You will not follow either of those women. You are hereby forbidden to do so."

Forbidden? Really?

Did his grandfather not know him at all?

Sage made his voice meek. "Of course. I promise."

"All right."

It was clear that Alan didn't believe his act, so Sage abandoned the fake meekness. "I heard that Medford Hughes died. It was on the news this morning."

"He killed himself," Alan said, with just the right amount of sorrow.

His grandfather was too good at this.

"His wife's dead, too."

"I know. I saw the same report. A murder-suicide. It's tragic, but I'm surprised Medford didn't snap before now. His wife's condition has been weighing heavy on his heart for a long time. Either way, it's a tragedy. I'm devastated for them both."

"Yes, it is." The news hadn't mentioned the Broussard laptops and Sage was tempted to throw that detail into the conversation just to rile the old man, but he held himself back. He'd wait until he figured out what Alan was up to. "I guess I'll head on back to New Orleans. Do you need me for anything more?"

"Not at this time. I'll call you if I need you again."

Alan ended the call and Sage checked the time on the dash clock of his rented Camry. He had time to get back to New Orleans before his grandfather finished at work. Sage's friendly guard would still be on duty. No one would tattle back to Alan that Sage had slipped into the neighborhood.

It was time to try to open that safe.

The Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 3:00 P.M.

Burke, Molly, and Antoine were waiting for them at Cora's kitchen table, and it looked to Phin like they'd been busy. There was an easel and a whiteboard with markers and sticky notes.

Food, too, which was a welcome sight. Phin was starving.

Molly held up a hand when the three of them entered the kitchen. "The three dishes on the stovetop have no fish or shellfish. Those are Cora's. All the stuff on the countertops is for the rest of us."

Cora's smile was grateful, but shaky. "That was kind of you, Molly, but I'm not hungry just yet."

Phin made her a plate anyway. "Eat," he commanded quietly when he put the food in front of her. "You need to eat something."

Val sat beside Cora, her own plate piled high. "He's right. We need you brainy and alert. You've had a shock, and I know what that feels like. But you can do this, Cora."

Cora squared her shoulders. "Brainy and alert, huh?"

Val grinned. "Yep. Too bad about the fish allergy. It's supposed to be good for braininess."

"That's not a word," Antoine complained.

Molly held out her phone. "It is. It's right here in Merriam-Webster." She put the phone away and picked up a marker. "We've made some notes while you were gone. Just the case basics."

Organizing what they did and didn't know was Molly's strength. Phin took the chair on the other side of Cora and studied the whiteboard. What they already knew was organized by category.

There were the highlights of the receipts Molly had logged in, the information Antoine had gathered on Jack Elliot's CPA practice, and everything they knew about Alice Bergeron VanPatten.

Then something new caught Phin's eye. "What are those numbers in the lower right corner?"

Antoine looked pleased with himself. "I found your father's old computer in the attic while you guys were driving to Baton Rouge. Your mother had buried the computer in a box with sheets and blankets, probably so that the machine didn't get damaged. I plugged it in and voilà." He gestured to the numbers Phin had asked about.

Cora slowly lowered her fork on the plate, frowning at the whiteboard. "Are those bank account numbers?"

Antoine held out his hand and Burke slapped a twenty onto his palm with a sigh. "You were right," Burke grumbled.

"I bet Burke you'd recognize the numbers as bank accounts," Antoine explained, tucking the twenty-dollar bill into his shirt pocket. "But they're not just any numbers. They're Swiss bank account numbers."

Cora sat back in her chair, expression dazed. "What?"

Antoine nodded. "There was a Word document on the computer with your mother's name as the title. I thought it was odd, because the rest of the files were named in a consistent format—a subject with the date in European style. Day, month, year. This document is a poem, though." He passed the document to a frowning Cora.

"A poem?" She scanned the piece, her frown growing. "It's from ‘The Courtship of Miles Standish' by Longfellow. John Alden loves Priscilla Mullins, but she's being courted by Standish. Why would he leave my mother this poem?"

Burke held out his palm and Antoine pouted as he gave Burke the same twenty he'd taken earlier. "Burke bet you'd recognize the poem. We had to google it. It's not the poem itself that's important. It's the way the paragraphs are lined up. They're grouped oddly, not like the way the original poem was written."

"It was a cipher," Molly explained. "The first letters of each paragraph make up the password to a section of the hard drive your father had partitioned off."

Cora rubbed her forehead. "Partitioned off?"

"A hard disk partition is a way to split up a hard drive," Phin told her. "You can store different documents in different sections and password-protect each section individually."

"Like my password-protected folders," Cora said.

Phin lifted a shoulder. "Kind of. But it also allows the use of different operating systems on the same computer. It's more efficient and makes the machine more productive."

Antoine's brows shot up. "Where did you pick that up?"

"A product of my misspent youth," Phin confessed. "I partitioned the computer I had to share with my brothers and sister. It was the only way to have privacy. I…" He grimaced, feeling his cheeks heat in embarrassment. "I journaled."

Antoine coughed. "That's your deep secret? You were a journaler?"

Phin shook his head. "It's what I wrote in the journal. I had issues with anxiety and anger even before I went into the army. Journaling was the best way I knew to keep my head level. But it wasn't anything that I wanted my family to read. They would have worried about me more than they already did."

Cora reached under the table and squeezed his hand. "I journaled, too. It helped. I needed a therapist to recommend it, though, so you were ahead of me."

He wasn't sure what to say, so he squeezed her hand in return, touched at the support.

Antoine had sobered. "I get it. Well, the partitions your father created, Cora, are password-protected remarkably well. I can't get into any of the others. Only the one with the password from the poem. It has a document with the Swiss bank account numbers."

Cora blew out a breath. "If my mother saw this, I never knew about it. Maybe she did, but she was so hurt by his leaving that she didn't notice that it was a code. We might never know. Do you know which bank the account is in?"

Antoine nodded. "It's a Swiss bank, but they have a branch downtown. I can't do more without you. Well, not quickly."

"And because it's a Swiss account, it hasn't been closed out," she said. "About ten years ago, the Swiss set a sixty-two-year deadline for account owners to claim their funds. At least we have a little time," she added dryly.

"Librarian trivia?" Phin asked, earning him a real smile.

"Yeah. Another project I was helping a student to research." She drew a breath. "I suppose we have to assume that whatever money is in that account came from this eraser side business."

"That makes sense," Burke said gently. "Are you okay, Cora?"

"No, but I will be. Meeting Alice turned my brain inside out. Everything I'd thought about my father has been a lie. I thought he was alive. I thought he'd left us to start another family. I thought he was cheating with Alice." She looked down at her hand, still holding Phin's. "I almost wish all those things were true. Now I know my father was a paid killer. Or at least he killed once." She looked up and her eyes were filled with tears that hurt Phin's heart. "Did he just erase people like Alice, giving them a new start, or did he kill for greed and gain?"

Burke passed a box of tissues across the table. "We don't know, but we're hoping there's more on that old computer."

Cora dabbed at her eyes. "So what next? And I don't mean about the money. I don't care if it's one dollar or a million. I don't think I could take it, knowing it was blood money. Even if most of it wasn't for killing, at least some of it was."

"Jarred Bergeron might have been an anomaly," Burke said. "He was shooting at them at the time, after all."

"According to Alice," Cora said.

Burke nodded. "Yes, but you believed her, didn't you?"

Cora sighed. "I did."

Burke looked at Phin. "Did you?"

"I did," Phin said. "She had much more to gain by lying and telling us that she didn't know Jack Elliot. She had much more to gain by not letting her husband open the door."

"I agree," Val said. "I believed her, too."

"Well," Burke said, "hopefully, Jack kept files on his eraser clients like he did with his accounting clients. I think that's what's next, Cora. It makes the most sense that someone from that side of your father's life killed him. It could have been someone like Bergeron, trying to stop him from rescuing a client. It could also have been a client, especially if your father didn't deliver."

Phin had been turning the facts over in his mind the entire way back from Baton Rouge. "Burke, when did Cora and her mother get the first letters? How long after Jack disappeared?"

"Her mother received a letter the day after the foundation was poured," Burke said. He gave Cora a look of sympathy. "Antoine and I found the letters your mother kept. They were in another one of those boxes in the attic."

Cora went still. "I thought she burned them. I saw her burn them."

Burke shrugged. "She might have burned them later, but she kept the first few. I set them aside in case you want to look at them."

Cora's lips trembled. "I don't think so. What did he say to her? Or whoever wrote the letters?"

Burke hesitated. "He said that he was leaving. That he had a girlfriend in another state and that she was pregnant with his child. It was a very cold letter, not at all like the letters written to you."

"So she not only wouldn't look for him, but she wouldn't read any other letters he might have left for her," Cora said. "Like the poem on the computer."

"That's what we think," Burke agreed. "The signature on the letters looks like your father's, though."

"Can we get a handwriting analysis?" Val asked.

"I'm setting that up," Antoine answered. "But we should also find out if the Terrebonne Parish sheriff has done one."

Cora rubbed at her temple. "Detective Goddard said it was on his list. I think we need to talk to him again. He's the one leading the investigation in Houma."

"Tomorrow," Val said. "You need to recharge after today."

Cora's smile was wry. "Because you already tried to call him, but the operator told you that he was out on another case and would return your call as soon as he could."

Val rolled her eyes. "I did. I thought you were asleep when I did that."

Cora waffled her free hand. She still held Phin's hand with the other. "I was in and out. Mostly out, but I did hear that part." She looked up at Phin. "Why did you ask about the date of the letter?"

"Because only his killer would know exactly when he was killed. Only his killer would have known that he needed to act fast to keep your mother from looking for your father. I wonder if his killer knew about his Swiss bank account."

Molly got up and wrote the question on the whiteboard. "I've wondered that, too. What else are you wondering about, Phin?"

Phin took a moment to organize his thoughts. The partitioned hard drive just raised more questions. "Why would he keep the receipts where Cora's mother could find them? They had to have been in plain view because she boxed them up."

Antoine nodded. "You mean, if he had the hard drive all partitioned up and secret, why leave the receipts out where she might start asking questions?"

"Exactly," Phin said. "I think it was so she'd see it as a clue and start digging in his computer, but she didn't because she was so hurt at being left for another woman. But he was worried that one day he might not come back. He'd nearly been killed by Jarred Bergeron just a few weeks before. A lot of us had letters ready for next of kin when we were deployed."

Phin remembered the one he'd written in excruciating detail. He'd told his family that he was sorry for so many things. Things they'd never been aware of. Things they hadn't caused, like his anger and anxiety. And that he'd felt like a stranger in his own home more often tha n he'd felt like a legitimate part of them. He was glad they'd never read those letters. He'd burned them when he'd been discharged.

And then you left them without a single word.

He'd make up for that. He would.

"Jack had to have been aware of how dangerous his work was," Phin went on. "So he left his wife clues in case he didn't come home. I wonder if his killer knew that, too."

Cora blinked. "You think that's what someone is looking for in my house? The clues he left behind?"

He met her startled gaze. "I don't know, but it's a possibility."

Molly wrote that on the whiteboard. "A decent possibility, actually."

"But why look for these clues now?" Cora asked. "Why not back then?"

"You don't know that they didn't," Phin said gently.

She sucked in a breath. "Oh. I never thought of that."

"That's what we're here for," Val said, patting her shoulder. "Clearly, it's come up again because the body was found and identified. It wasn't just that the body was found, because that was six weeks ago. The break-ins didn't start until after he was identified. That means that whoever put him in that foundation wasn't paying attention to the news saying someone had been found during demolition. They didn't focus on Cora until his photo was publicized, after they'd ID'd him."

Molly scribbled. "You're right, Val. Keep going, people. What else has you scratching your heads?"

"Why the building in Houma?" Phin asked. "That was a very specific time frame—after the pilings and subfoundation were readied and the next day when the foundation was poured. How did his killer know about that building?"

Molly kept writing. "His killer was in Houma or somehow connected to the construction. Good thought, Phin. What else?"

"Did he have a partner—or partners?" Phin asked.

"You asked that of Alice," Val observed.

Phin shrugged. "That's a lot of work for one person, gathering clients, vetting them to make sure they weren't undercover cops or Feds, because this was an indie operation. Someone had to be arranging the new identities and the logistics of the client's erasure. WITSEC has a whole division of people to manage this."

"Here's a question, Molly," Antoine said. "Who knew where Jack was the night he died? His client, clearly, but who else? Whoever the client was running from, like the case with Jarred Bergeron? Or maybe a partner?"

Molly wrote it down. "Cora, did you have any break-ins here in your house in the days after your father disappeared? Did any of his things go missing, like he might have tried to come back for them? If I'd killed someone and tried to make it seem like they'd left of their own volition, I'd want some of their things to disappear with them. Photos or trophies from high school, or even a passport. Your father's passport was in one of the boxes in the attic."

"My mother never told me anything like that, but I was only five and I think she was trying to shield me from the worst of it. I was devastated that he wasn't coming home. I didn't understand that he'd found another woman, but I heard my mother crying to my grandmother that he'd found another family. That I understood." She sighed. "I hated him so much."

"You should have, given what you knew," Phin said. "Don't beat yourself up."

She shrugged halfheartedly. "It's hard."

"Who might your mother have confided in back then?" Molly pressed.

Cora frowned. "My grandmother, but they're both gone and neither of them left diaries or journals. Mama depended a lot on Harry Fulton over the years, and he knew her from before I was born. He's my attorney."

"The one you were talking to yesterday?" Antoine asked. "Before we approached you?"

"Yes. He was at my christening. Harry's always been around. He might know something. I can call him and ask." She reached for her phone with her free hand, but Phin stopped her by grabbing that one as well.

"Wait. We need to check him out."

Cora's brows arched. "What? Why?"

"I didn't like how he treated you yesterday. Getting in a cab and leaving you there when you'd been chased through the city because he had appointments ."

Cora stared up at him, outrage flashing in her eyes. "You think Harry's involved? Harry? " Her voice rose on each word. "That's not possible. It's just not." Then her outrage crumpled into something sad and vulnerable. "Is it?"

Phin wanted to lie to her. He wanted to tell her that her old friend was perfectly trustworthy, but he couldn't do that. Not yet, anyway.

"Maybe not," Phin said, not wanting to hurt her, but the man's attitude had rubbed him wrong. "Let's just be careful, okay? He was in your life at the time that the letters started coming."

Cora's mouth opened, then closed. Her whole body seemed to sag. "Okay," she whispered. "Dammit."

"Did he know what color dress you wore for that first Christmas?" Phin asked, thinking of the letter to Cora that he'd read. "After your father disappeared?"

Cora was quiet for a moment before she nodded. "Yes. He accompanied my mother and us to church that Sunday. He always accompanied us to church. I've wondered about that green dress for twenty-three years. I thought that maybe my father was close by at the time, that he'd come visit me or even come back to us. But he never did. Knowing they were written by someone else changes everything. But I still can't believe that Harry is involved. I just can't."

"Did Harry have feelings for your mom?" Phin asked gently.

Cora hesitated, then nodded miserably. "Mama always laughed it off, but my grandmother used to ask him when he was getting married and he'd say that my mother had stolen his heart so he had none to give another."

Molly sighed. "Okay. He goes up on the board." She wrote Harry's name and added Motive: Jealousy? "He's a possibility we need to rule out. This might have been a simple case of Harry wanting Jack out of the way."

Cora swallowed, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue that was already wet. Phin grabbed another from the box and she offered him a watery smile of thanks. "I still think you're wrong about Harry," she said stubbornly, but Phin could see that she doubted her own words. "But I know you have to check."

Phin hated having put that wounded look in her eyes. "What about Medford Hughes? Was he around twenty-three years ago?"

"No," Burke said. "He didn't move to New Orleans until ten years ago. That doesn't mean he wasn't involved. He could have been a partner. If Jack did have a partner, they didn't necessarily work in the same city. It might have been preferable if they didn't."

"But Medford didn't kill himself," Antoine said. "He was murdered. And he wasn't the one to steal the laptops—wrong body type. He was a network guy. Possibly brought in to find out what we'd stored on our hard drives. I think Medford was set up, personal opinion."

"I agree." Burke studied the board. "My brain keeps coming back to Phin's point about a partner. Erasing people is hard work. Let's assume Jack did have a partner. How did they meet? How did they communicate? What happened to the partner after Jack died?"

"Some of that might be behind the partitioned drive," Antoine said. "I'll make breaking into it my highest priority."

"Do we know any more details about the crime scene at the office?" Phin asked. "Did they find any blood traces?"

"No blood at our office," Antoine answered, "except for Joy's, of course. There are the bullets from Medford's crime scene. Cops won't disclose anything, but the bullets are currently in the ballistics lab, waiting their turn."

"How do you know if the police aren't disclosing it?" Cora asked, then shook her head. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

Antoine grinned. "You learn fast. I'll keep peeking in on them. When they have ballistics results, I'll pass them on."

Cora frowned. "Doesn't your brother—the police captain—get mad when you hack into the NOPD's files?"

Antoine shrugged. "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies."

Burke shook his head. "So we're going to keep searching the attic, Cora. And Antoine's going to work on getting into the partitioned hard drive. I'll take the lead on checking out Harry Fulton. If he looks clean, we can approach him with questions about break-ins immediately after your father disappeared. Someone could have been looking for your father's records, either a partner or a client. We need to know who."

"And we need to know who wrote those letters to Cora," Phin said. "Can we get a sample of Harry's handwriting?"

Cora sighed wearily. "I have letters Harry's written over the years. A few cards he gave my mother. I'll find them."

Burke looked over to Phin. "I got a few of those locks put on the windows, but I'm not as fast as you are."

Phin was relieved. He needed something concrete to do. "I'm on it. Cora, you can sleep in your room. It was the first room I did this morning. I'll work on the rest right now."

Her smile was sweet. "Thank you."

Uptown, New Orleans, Louisiana

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 3:15 P.M.

Sage slipped into his grandfather's study, unseen by anyone in the household. His stepgrandmother was at her weekly standing appointment at the hair salon. She'd gotten her hair done every Wednesday at three o'clock for as long as he could remember.

She had to look nice for the church services. Camera-ready even. One never knew when the camera would pan over the faces of the people listening to his grandfather with rapt attention. Lexy was always ready for her close-up.

Sage glanced at his phone as he closed Alan's study door. He'd slipped the guard at the gate a hundred dollars to text him if his grandfather came through. Sage didn't expect Alan to come home early, but he didn't want to be surprised.

He walked to the bookshelf, finding the hinged area only because he knew where to look. The workmanship was remarkable. If he hadn't seen Alan open it, he'd never have known it was there.

Carefully he tugged on the edge, just like he'd seen his grandfather do in the camera feed. The bookshelf swung open and there was the safe.

It was old. Maybe a hundred years old, like the house itself. He pulled out his phone and opened the notes app where he'd listed all the dates that were important to his grandfather.

Alan's birthday? He twisted the dial and tugged at the handle. Nope.

His first wife Anna's birthday? Nope.

He tried Lexy's birthday. Both of Alan's wedding anniversaries.

He tried all of Alan's children's birthdates, including his aunt Jennifer's, whose birthday he'd found in the public record after a lot of digging.

None of those worked.

He tried his own father's death date. That wasn't it, either.

Frustrated, he went back and tried all the dates again, just in case he'd made a mistake. But none of them worked.

Dammit.

He was going to have to go with plan B. From his pocket he took the smallest fiber-optic camera he owned and positioned it along the hinge of the secret bookshelf so that the lens pointed directly at the combination dial. It wasn't ideal and wouldn't give him a full view, but he'd be able to figure out the combination. Placement anywhere else would result in the view being blocked by his grandfather's hand as he spun the dial.

Sage stood in approximately the same place his grandfather had stood when he'd opened the safe. The camera was visible if you knew it was there, but he was hoping his grandfather didn't look too closely.

Besides, Alan's eyesight was pretty awful these days. He probably wouldn't be able to see it, even if he tried.

Sage wondered how Alan had even gotten himself to Medford's house the night before. Although after seeing the guns he'd taken from the safe, Sage was suspicious of everything his grandfather had claimed.

The man he'd thought he'd known was a stranger.

Were Alan's eyes really going bad?

That probably was true. His grandfather hated weakness. He considered having to be driven around and having to use special glasses to be embarrassing. So the eyesight thing probably was true.

Reluctantly, Sage closed the bookshelf. He'd have to wait until Alan opened it again to see the safe's combination. Then he'd be back.

His phone buzzed with an incoming text.

Hellfire and brimstone heading your way.

Shit. Alan had come home early.

Sage quickly put his tools away and made sure he hadn't left evidence that he'd been there. He slipped out of his grandfather's study, making his way to the back staircase used by the help.

Maybe he'd get lucky and his grandfather would go straight to the safe.

He really needed to see what it contained.

Until then, though, he'd go back to watching Cora Winslow. The librarian was turning out to be very interesting.