Of course Paige had figured it out. Goddammit, the woman was smart. Thorne sighed. Which was why I sought her out in the first place.
‘I hired her to track him once, after one of our meetings,’ Thorne admitted, still unwilling to give up and acknowledge his plans. Not because he didn’t trust the others with the information, but because he didn’t want to put targets on their backs. Because they would insist on accompanying him, and if this was Tavilla’s work . . . he was not a man one wanted to make angry. ‘I wanted to know who I was dealing with before I got in too deep.’
‘And?’ Jamie pressed. ‘What did you find, Paige?’
She shrugged. ‘His address. That’s all I was asked to find. I didn’t even know who the guy was at the time.’
‘You didn’t ask?’ Gwyn asked, sounding incredulous.
Paige looked amused. ‘No. I was hired by a client to find a specific piece of information. Found it. Job done.’
‘When did you know it was his contact you’d followed?’ Jamie asked, genuinely curious.
‘Just now,’ Paige said with a smirk.
‘And you’ll take us there?’ Gwyn pressed, clearly not amused.
Paige shook her head. ‘No way in hell am I taking you there. But I will accompany Thorne, should he require assistance of a personal security nature.’
‘I do not need assistance,’ Thorne growled. ‘And I sure as hell don’t need a bodyguard. I’m going to wait to hear from him before I do anything.’
‘And if you don’t?’ JD asked quietly. ‘Then what?’
‘Then I’ll see.’
Everyone shook their heads. ‘No way, Thorne,’ Sam said. ‘We’ll follow you if we have to.’
Thorne rubbed his eyes. ‘Let’s see what happens. I sent him a message and I will wait. For now, let’s debrief, because it’s still possible this has nothing to do with Tavilla and everything to do with Patricia Segal.’
It was clear that nobody believed him. Shit. This was the downside of associating with smart people. They could cut through BS like a hot knife through butter.
Still, he was grateful to have every single one of them on his side. ‘Sam? What did you find out about the bar?’
Frederick gave Thorne a side-eye, obviously unhappy that he hadn’t answered his question and silently promising that the matter was not dropped. Still, he nodded at Sam. ‘Go ahead, Sam.’
Sam shifted Ruby off his lap so that he could reach for his computer bag. ‘Basically, Barney, the owner of the bar where Thorne was lured, wasn’t there that night. He’d been given four tickets to see the Orioles. Right behind the dugout. The gift was anonymous, the tickets in an envelope thumbtacked to his office door. Just said, “Thanks, boss.” Barney figured it was from his employees and went to the game. His employees have since denied giving him the tickets.’
‘Which would have been too expensive for them anyway, most likely,’ Thorne murmured. ‘Four tickets behind the dugout would run you a grand, easily, and that’s if you could get your hands on them to begin with.’
‘Irresistible lure,’ Jamie agreed, because he was also an O’s fan and had box seats. ‘Did Barney save the envelope?’
‘No,’ Sam said. ‘He felt awful when he heard about what happened to Thorne. He was pissed that his place had been used that way, that he’d been manipulated. Immediately gave me the security tapes from Saturday night, but they were all conveniently blacked out. Not one usable image.’
‘Of course,’ Thorne muttered. ‘Did Barney give this info to the cops?’
Sam shook his head. ‘He said some asshole cop named Brickman showed up, swaggering around like he owned the joint. He didn’t tell him diddly. But he said he would if a nicer cop showed and if Thorne said it was okay.’
‘Tell him it’s fine to spill,’ Thorne said, almost smiling, because that sounded like Barney.
‘I will. Now, after I left Barney’s, I went door to door along that road, asking other businesses for their tapes. Most of the folks were receptive, especially because Barney wrote me a note saying “Help this guy.”’
Thorne did smile now. ‘Did you get anything good?’
Sam inclined his head. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I’ve been sitting here going through the files while we waited for you to get here. A liquor store caught your Audi. It drove by as it left the bar, but no other cars followed. You can see the vague outline of two people in the front seats. Neither was as tall as you. I know how much space there is between the roof and your hard head.’
‘Thanks,’ Thorne muttered.
‘Any time, boss. These guys were a good four to six inches shorter. So, still tall. There’s no sign of you. I’m betting you were knocked out, on the floor of the backseat or in the cargo hold. The car passed at twelve forty.’ He brought the image up on his laptop and turned it so that everyone could see the screen. It was exactly as he’d described.
It gave Thorne an odd feeling in the pit of his gut to know he’d been unconscious at that point. And that Patricia Segal would have still been alive.
‘So you were drugged then already,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve heard through the grapevine that the ME confirmed my TOD estimate for Patricia based on the lack of rigor.’ Which either meant she’d heard it from the current ME, or that she’d peeked at the autopsy report. ‘She hadn’t been dead more than four hours before Gwyn found the two of you.’
Alec Vaughn looked up from his laptop. ‘Can you give me those files, Sam? I’ll see if I can clean up the video at all. Maybe we can get descriptions on the driver and his sidekick.’
Sam dug in his computer bag and tossed Alec a thumb drive. ‘They’re all there.’
Alec caught it with one hand. ‘Thanks.’ He bent back down to his laptop, seeming to tune them out again.
‘I passed around a photo of Patricia at Barney’s,’ Sam went on. ‘Nobody had seen her there, so I’m thinking she was brought to your house from somewhere else or transferred to your vehicle somewhere along the way, because your security video shows only your Audi being driven into the garage.’
Thorne sat up straighter. ‘You got my home security videos?’
‘Well, not from the DVR in your house,’ Sam said. ‘The whole unit was gone. But they hadn’t counted on your cameras uploading video to the off-site server. When they arrived, there were at least three people sitting upright in the vehicle.’ Again he brought the image up on his laptop and turned it to show the group. All three faces were covered with ski masks. They hadn’t been taking any chances.
Sam pointed at the screen. ‘There’s a shadow here that could be the top of a woman’s head. No sign of you, Thorne, so I’m still betting you were in the cargo hold.’
‘That’s how they got into my house,’ Thorne said, that odd feeling in the pit of his gut growing exponentially. How simple it had been for them. I locked up, but didn’t set my alarm, he thought, wanting to bang his own head into a wall. ‘How did they exit?’
‘Here,’ Sam said. ‘It was at one ten on Sunday morning.’ He played the video, in which Thorne’s Audi could be seen exiting the garage, backing out of the driveway, then driving away. He fast-forwarded. ‘It comes back five minutes later and there’s just the one guy driving. He stays in the house for two hours.’
Thorne winced. ‘He was there that long? No telling what he was doing.’
‘Drinking your bourbon, mostly,’ Sam said. ‘One of your back porch cameras provides a partial view of your kitchen. He comes in periodically to have a swig. Always has the damn mask on, though.’
‘Why?’ Phil asked. ‘If they believed they’d disconnected the security cameras, why cover his face?’
‘He probably worried that Thorne would wake up,’ Gwyn said quietly. She looked as freaked out as he felt. Probably because she knew what it felt like to have a killer walking freely through her home. ‘They gave him a lot more GHB than they needed to. They were overcompensating.’