Untouchable

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “It tells me Zane may have scrubbed Pitt’s online life. I’ll call Xavier first thing in the morning. He may be able to pull up something more about Jessica Pitt.”

  “I’m sure Xavier is good,” Winter said, “but there may be a more efficient way to find out if Jessica Pitt was seeing someone in secret at the time of her death.”

  “How?”

  “Ask someone who knew her.”

  “One of her friends?” Jack nodded. “Good idea. You can clean up social media to some extent but it’s a lot harder to erase people’s memories.”

  “I doubt if she had a lot of close friends,” Winter said, “at least not the kind she would have confided in. She sounds like the type of woman who would have viewed other women as competition. But one thing I think you can be sure of—she would have been a regular at her spa.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “Charges for various services at a place called Timeless show up every week on her credit card statements.”

  Winter put down the pen. “In my experience, everyone talks to their spa therapists.”

  Jack’s eyes heated. “Huh.”

  “Just so you know, the spa business runs on tips.”

  “Oddly, I am not surprised. Burning Cove is about a four-hour drive from here. If we get started early in the morning we can be there by noon.”

  “We’re not going to fly?”

  “No. I don’t have any ID’s for you to use. Besides, given the security at airports these days, it will be just as fast to drive.”

  “You should get some sleep,” she said.

  “Me? What about you?”

  “I assume that since we are on the run we are going to sleep in shifts,” she said. “Neither one of us will be comfortable if the other one isn’t keeping watch.”

  Jack gave her a speculative look. “Sounds like you’ve done this kind of thing before.”

  “I know how to stay awake at night when necessary. I taught myself the trick a long time ago. It’s just a matter of focus.”

  “I assume you learned the skill while you were in the foster care system?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I did. Don’t worry. I won’t fall asleep.”

  “What, exactly, do you plan to do if there’s a mysterious knock on the door?”

  “I’ve got a flashlight in my carry-on. I can put someone in a trance fairly quickly with light. Hmm. Maybe we should buy a gun tomorrow.”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Easier said than done in California,” he said. “There’s a waiting period and other restrictions. My brothers know people. I’m sure one of them could arrange for someone to loan me a gun but between you and me, it’s not a practical idea. I’m not a very good shot.”

  “Hmm,” she said.

  He eyed her warily. “What?”

  “I just figured, given your mission and all, that you would know how to use a gun.”

  “My mission?”

  “Your work,” she clarified. “Solving cold cases.”

  “One of the things I like about cold cases is that they are cold. People are a lot less likely to shoot me when the crime I’m investigating happened twenty or thirty years ago. I leave the hot cases to my brothers.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. Well, anyway, about tonight. We’ll be sleeping in shifts, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Why don’t you sleep first?” she said. “You’re the one who has been doing most of the work tonight.”

  He gave that some thought and then he nodded once, silently acknowledging that she could do the job.

  “Wake me in four hours,” he said.

  “All right.”

  He went into the other room. She heard the bed squeak a little beneath his weight. And then there was nothing but silence.

  She sat in a chair, composed herself and found a focus.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “I can’t talk about one of my clients.”

  The aesthetician’s name was Melanie Long. She was a walking advertisement for the industry in which she labored. At fortysomething her skin had been rendered porcelain-smooth by the assiduous application of exfoliating products and peels. The natural contours of her face had been artistically enhanced with injections of various chemicals.

  Winter was sure Melanie had also had some surgical work done, but it was very good work.

  The Timeless spa was an exclusive establishment in the heart of the exclusive town of Burning Cove. The entire town, spa included, had obviously been constructed according to some very rigid architectural rules. Virtually all of the buildings—gas stations, shops, private homes and hotels—looked as if they had been designed as a Hollywood version of the Spanish Colonial style.

  Red tiles gleamed on the rooftops. Whitewashed stucco walls reflected the dazzling California sun. There were swimming pools, gardens and shady courtyards everywhere. And the whole lot was perched on rolling hills that overlooked the sparkling Pacific Ocean.

  It was, Winter reflected, the same ocean that Eclipse Bay overlooked, but Southern California was a very different world and there was a very different lifestyle to go with it.

  It had not been difficult to discover the name of Jessica Pitt’s regular aesthetician. Winter had walked up to the front desk and pretended to be an acquaintance of Jessica Pitt. She had requested an appointment with Pitt’s aesthetician. Sorry, can’t remember the name. She and the receptionist had commiserated briefly and solemnly about Pitt’s terrible accident and then Winter had learned that Melanie Long was very popular and booked out for the next two months. The receptionist had offered the name of another therapist.

  “No, I’ll wait for an appointment with Melanie Long,” Winter had said. “I know that Jessica would have selected the best when it came to aestheticians.”

  When she was finished she had walked out of the spa and joined Jack, who had waited in the rental car. He had pulled up the spa’s website, which featured pictures of each of the masseuses, aestheticians, acupuncturists, brow designers and nail technicians. When Melanie Long had emerged from the spa’s lobby around one o’clock in search of lunch, it had been easy to recognize her.

  They had waited until she was seated beneath an umbrella on a restaurant patio, a very small salad and a glass of sparkling water in front of her, before they approached. Initially she had been startled and wary. But after Jack had explained that they were investigating the death of Jessica Pitt, she had been clearly intrigued. Thank goodness for all the CSI and cop dramas on television, Winter thought.

  “We’re not asking you to gossip about a client,” she said smoothly. “We’re just trying to clear up some loose ends for the insurance company.”

  Melanie gave her a steely smile. “You mean, you’re trying to find something that would give the insurance company a reason not to pay off.”

  “I’m shocked, shocked by your cynicism,” Jack said. “Yes, we are working for a corporate entity, but here’s the good news for you—we are in a position to compensate you for any useful information.”

  “You mean you’re going to bribe me?”

  “Think of it as a gratuity,” Winter said.

  “How much gratuity are we talking about?” Melanie asked.

  Jack took out his wallet and put two crisp bills on the table.

  Melanie eyed the money. “Thought it was just drug dealers who carried nice, fresh hundred-dollar bills.”

  “Drug dealers and insurance company investigators,” Jack said.

  “Interesting.” Melanie studied him intently. “Add another bill and we’ll talk.”

  “I’ll do that if your information is good,” Jack said.

  Melanie considered briefly and then scooped up the two bills. “Okay, not bad for five minutes’ work. What do you want to know?”

  Winter leaned forward a little.
“We’re trying to find out if Jessica Pitt was seeing anyone at the time of her death.”

  “If she was, she didn’t mention it to me,” Melanie said. “That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”

  “She seems to have been a woman who always had a man in her life,” Jack said. “Are you sure there wasn’t one?”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t seeing someone. I’m just telling you that if there was a potential new husband in the picture, she didn’t talk about it during our skin therapy sessions.”

  “What did she talk about?” Winter said.

  Melanie shrugged. “Mostly how she was going to screw her ex.”

  Winter did not risk a glance at Jack but she could tell that he had gone very still.

  “Just to clarify,” he said carefully, “are you telling us that Jessica Pitt was sleeping with her most recent ex-husband?”

  “I didn’t say she planned to sleep with him,” Melanie said. “She wanted to screw him, as in she wanted revenge.”

  “Did she want revenge because he divorced her?” Winter asked.

  “She wanted revenge because he tricked her into signing a complicated prenup that left her with a lot less than she thought she was going to get out of the marriage.”

  “What did she think she was going to get?” Jack asked.

  “Half ownership in the ex’s business.” Melanie shook her head. “I’m no financial genius but I could have told her that wasn’t ever going to happen. But evidently she believed that the guy was her ticket to the big time. Then he dumped her and she found out about all the fine print in the prenup. She was pissed.”

  “Any reason why she thought she would end up with a piece of his company?” Jack asked.

  Melanie grimaced. “Jessica was really smart when it came to financial stuff. She had an MBA. She was working for the West Coast office of a big Wall Street firm when she met husband number three.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Jack said. “I didn’t find anything online that indicated Pitt had an MBA or a career in the financial sector.”

  Winter caught his eye and knew immediately that he was adding another layer to his rapidly evolving conspiracy theory. It was easy to see that he was already convinced Zane had gone online and scrubbed away a few key details about Jessica Pitt—details that might cause a committed investigator to keep digging into Jessica Pitt’s life.

  Melanie was still talking. It was as if, now that the floodgates had opened, she didn’t see any reason to turn off the torrent of information.

  “Jessica told me over and over again that she was the one who had taken her husband’s firm to the next level in the financial world,” Melanie said. “I think he owns some kind of investment company.”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “Tazewell Global. It’s a hedge fund.”

  Melanie nodded. “She said Tazewell owed her. All she could talk about in the weeks before her death was how she was going to make him pay.”

  “Did she happen to mention that she might be getting a little help with her revenge project?” Winter asked. “Maybe from a friend?”

  Melanie looked like she was trying to frown in deep thought. Her eyes narrowed a little but the skin on her forehead did not move.

  “At her last appointment Jessica said something about meeting a friend in Las Vegas. She wanted to look good. I asked her if she was going to fly. She said, no, she was going to drive. I was surprised because it’s a good four-and-a-half- or five-hour drive from here, depending on traffic. But she said she was looking forward to a road trip.”

  “One more question,” Jack said. “Did Jessica Pitt smoke?”

  Melanie looked horrified. “Of course not. She cared way too much about her skin to take up smoking. What made you ask that?”

  “According to the first reports of the accident, the investigators concluded that Jessica Pitt was smoking and fell asleep at the wheel,” Jack said.

  “She may have fallen asleep but she would not have been smoking,” Melanie said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “An obsession with revenge is exactly the kind of thing that Quinton Zane could work with,” Jack said.

  “As your faithful sidekick, I feel it’s my job to remind you that you’re making a big leap here,” Winter said. “There are a lot of questions that we haven’t answered, as in, why would Zane want to manipulate a woman who harbored a grudge against her ex? And why use Jessica Pitt in the first place?”

  They were sitting in a shady sidewalk café drinking cappuccinos. Well, she was drinking a foamy cappuccino. Jack was drinking an Americano, straight up. No milk, no sugar.

  Twenty minutes ago they had both concluded a precision strike on a couple of clothing boutiques. The result was that they each had a few shopping bags filled with some new, grossly overpriced stuff. All the purchases had been made with cash, specifically Jack’s cash, because she’d had exactly forty-seven dollars and change in her wallet when they had left Eclipse Bay and Jack was adamant that they not use credit cards.

  Life on the run certainly complicated the simple things, like doing laundry, she reflected.

  “Good question.” Jack swallowed some of his Americano and lowered the cup. “If Zane targeted Jessica Pitt, he had a reason, and that reason most likely involved her ex-husband and the ex-husband’s hedge fund.”

  “We still don’t know if Zane was behind what happened to Jessica Pitt.”

  “It was Zane, I’m sure of it now.”

  “Because Jessica Pitt is dead?”

  “Because Jessica Pitt died in a fiery crash on a lonely desert road and because all traces of her business background were scrubbed from social media and the Internet.” Jack paused to finish his coffee. He set the cup down and opened his laptop. “And it’s that last bit that interests me the most at the moment.”

  “If someone wanted to alter Jessica Pitt’s life story, why not erase that third marriage?”

  “Because it would be next to impossible, not to mention extremely time-consuming, to try to erase all public records of a marriage. Too many people would know about it, for one thing. You can change your identity online, but erasing a life is a lot harder. Zane would have been working quickly. He probably figured that getting rid of Jessica Pitt’s obvious connections to the financial world would be enough.”

  “Enough to do what?”

  “Stop someone like me from looking any deeper into Pitt’s past.”

  Jack went to work on his laptop. Winter drank the rest of her coffee and thought about powerful obsessions. They probably didn’t get any stronger than a lust for revenge.

  After a while, Jack tapped one final key and looked up. His eyes had the cold, intense glitter that she had learned to recognize. It was the look she had seen so often in Eclipse Bay when he was deep in the research of a cold case.

  “Husband number three was Grayson Fitzgerald Tazewell,” Jack said. “He’s the founder and CEO of Tazewell Global. The headquarters is in San Francisco. Tazewell has been married four times. Jessica was number four. He has one son by his first wife, who died several years ago. The son is now married and lives in Seattle. He started his own venture capital firm there. A successful business as far as I can tell.”

  “Got a photo?”

  “Yeah, there’s one of the son, Easton Tazewell, and one of the father, Grayson.”

  Winter leaned forward to get a better look. Easton and Grayson bore a striking resemblance to each other. Both were handsome, broad-shouldered men. Easton’s hair was still blond but his father’s had gone almost white. The picture of Easton had been taken at what looked like a black-tie charity event. His wife, Rebecca, was also in the photo. The picture of Grayson showed him on a golf course.

  She lounged back against her chair. “Are you thinking that if Zane is involved in this, his goal was the hedge fund?”

  “Maybe, but n
ot because he needed the money. A hedge fund would be an ideal front for him, though. Private hedge funds are notoriously opaque. If you aren’t very close to the seat of power, you have no idea of what is happening at the top. Some of the big funds have operated billion-dollar pyramid schemes for years. They get away with it because the financial records and transactions are anything but transparent.”

  “I see where you’re going with this. Who would know more about the workings of a secretive hedge fund than an ex-wife who understood the financial world?”

  “And who would have more reason to want revenge against the owner of the fund than an ex-wife who believed that she would become an equal partner in the firm?” Jack said. “Jessica Pitt gave Zane the inside information he needed to move in on Tazewell Global. When he was in position, he got rid of her.”

  “When he was in a position to do what?” Winter said. “And why that particular hedge fund?”

  “We need to know more about the fund,” Jack said. He unclipped his phone. “One of Cutler, Sutter and Salinas’s clients is a lawyer who is well connected. If he doesn’t know anything about Tazewell Global personally, he’ll know who to ask. I’ll have Anson give him a call.”

  “And then you and I need food and sleep. Also, I want to take a shower and change clothes.”

  “Good plan. We’ll find a hotel.”

  “I saw a beautiful one on the way into town. The Burning Cove Hotel.”

  “Not that one,” Jack said. “Way too many cameras in a place like that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “You must think that I’m a complete fool, just another easy mark.” Grayson Tazewell flattened both hands on the top of his desk and shoved himself to his feet. His voice was a low, harsh rasp. His face was red with fury. “Easton was right about you all along. What made you believe that you could walk into my company and take control? Tazewell Global is mine. I built it from nothing. I would rather see it destroyed than hand it over to a fast-talking con man like you.”