“Schaefer flatly denies that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“But he saved me,” Alice said, frowning. “He fought Kehoe, and made it possible for me to escape out there by the bluff.”
“He was starting to not trust Kehoe. He started to feel pressured by him to do things he didn’t want to do, and thought that Kehoe seemed like he was losing control. Recently, he realized that his motives were not at all honorable when it came to you. Of course,” Clayton said wryly, “Schaefer was pretty dishonorable himself. On Kehoe’s orders, he intentionally set off Dylan Fall’s home alarm one night a week or so ago.”
“Thad did that?”
“Schaefer himself admitted to it,” Rogers replied.
“But why?”
“That was all Kehoe’s planning. Apparently, Kehoe was familiar with Fall’s security system. He’s been up to the castle a lot for business and social functions over the years, enough to notice details about the security system. The security company is called Home Guard, and the headquarters are right here in Morgantown. Kehoe managed to either ingratiate himself with an employee there, pay him off, or blackmail him; we’re still looking into that. The employee hasn’t been so forthcoming on that angle, so I’m guessing blackmail. At any rate, Kehoe somehow got this guy to do some of his dirty work.” Agent Rogers paused and checked his notebook. “A man by the name of Chester Greeson. The plan was for Schaefer to rattle doors and windows to set off the alarm. Kehoe would have him do it as many times as it took until Fall asked for the alarm to be serviced and checked by Home Guard for a glitch. It seems Fall was vigilant enough to call after the first occurrence. Greeson showed up to do the service check, and programmed an additional disabling code into the system.”
“Which he then passed on to Kehoe, giving him access,” Alice said.
“That’s right,” Clayton replied. “After Schaefer told us what he knew, we paid a visit to Greeson early this morning.”
“Will he admit what he did and point the finger at Kehoe?”
“He already has. That’s how we have the information,” Clayton said.
Alice was relieved by his air of confidence. “So Kehoe had already disabled the alarm when I showed up there because of that fake note?”
“He was inside, waiting for you to arrive. We’re not sure if he knew Fall was upstairs or not. He might have just waited until the cook left and disabled the alarm, then entered. At some point, he put in a call to the camp, though, claiming to be Fall.”
Alice winced, picturing it. “Kehoe got lucky. Dylan had told me there was something important he wanted to discuss with me when he returned from Reno. When I saw the note, I thought it related to that. It was stupid of me to trust it, but Dylan’s earlier mention of something important in combination with the fact that in the note he seemed concerned about my walk up to the castle, telling me to take the safer route and have Rigo escort me . . . well, it sounded like something Dylan would say.
“What will happen to Thad?” she asked Clayton after a pause. She was pissed at Thad for colluding with Kehoe, but thankful he’d saved her. She didn’t trust Thad as much as she had at the beginning of their friendship, but it sickened her to think of him working for Kehoe. . . even if he had eventually seen through Kehoe’s sane act.
“The local sheriff has arrested Schaefer for trespassing after he admitted to setting off the alarm. Sheridan could have come up with a more severe charge, given all that Schaefer confessed. But Schaefer did cooperate fully, and he seems to have come to the realization that Kehoe wasn’t the respectable, high-powered executive his father would have him believe he was. Plus, when he first arrived and heard you screaming down by the bluff, he purposefully broke into the castle. His intent was to set off the alarm—”
“So the police would come,” Alice finished. “Then he confronted Kehoe, giving me time to get away.”
Clayton nodded. “Schaefer claimed he would have been there sooner. But you and Rigo took the road up to the house. He had to give both you and Rigo some distance, or risk being caught. The road up to the castle is a long, clear view. If you or Rigo turned, you would have seen him on it, so he had to stay back and wait until both of you were all the way to the top of the bluff. His account of what happened is probably our best account of how long it was between when Kehoe first knocked you unconscious and when he dragged you out to the drop-off. It sounds as if Schaefer almost didn’t make it in time to stop Kehoe.”
She thought of all the times Dylan had warned her about Thad. She shut her eyelids, suddenly feeling very tired.
*