Tucker’s fingers stilled, and surprise flashed in his eyes before he could hide it. He hadn’t thought that I would figure it out. I’d been right when I felt I was trying to solve two separate but connected puzzles. One had been figuring out that Porter was the Dollmaker. And the other one was about Tucker giving me the one clue that had led me straight to Rivera.
“Now, I don’t know exactly what happened. If you followed Porter from the mansion that night and realized that he was dumping a body at the nightclub, or if you found out about the dead woman some other way. But you wanted to get rid of Porter and Rivera, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So you drew my spider runes on that dead girl’s palms, knowing that someone in the police department or coroner’s office would recognize the symbols as my personal rune. You also realized that Bria would find out about the marks sooner or later, that she would tell me, and that I would be pissed off enough to investigate.”
Tucker didn’t say anything, but his mouth quirked up into the faintest smile. That was all the confirmation I needed.
“But you still had another problem to solve. Porter had been very careful, and nothing linked him or Rivera to any of the victims. You had to point me in that direction somehow, so you decided to leave a little clue behind for me to find.” I tapped my fingernail against the top of the gold tube. “A very expensive brand of lipstick that you somehow knew that Porter used in his ritual.”
Tucker eyed the lipstick, but he still didn’t say anything.
“But then you had another problem. Where to leave the lipstick so that I would find it. You checked with your sources, probably the same cop who tipped you off about the Dollmaker investigation, and you heard about Elissa Daniels. You realized that Porter had grabbed her and was going to make her his next victim. Now, I don’t know if you found out that she was Jade’s sister or if you just followed me back to Jade’s house when I drove her home from the police station. But that night, you broke into Jade’s house, getting as far as opening the kitchen door. I imagine that you were going to leave the lipstick behind somewhere in the house for me to find. But I heard you creeping inside, and since you couldn’t afford to be seen, you slipped away.”
He tipped his head at me. “It seems that I’m not the only one with good hearing.”
I ignored his compliment. “But you still needed to plant the lipstick somewhere. So I imagine that you started following me around, waiting for your chance. Somehow you realized that I was heading back to the scene of the crime at Northern Aggression. You managed to get there ahead of me, and you finally planted the lipstick for me to find. But once again, I almost caught you, and you had to leave in a hurry. But you didn’t really care, did you? Because you knew that I would find the lipstick and that I would trace it back to Rivera. Then one thing would lead to another, and I would most likely kill him and Porter and solve all your problems for you.”
A faint smile lifted Tucker’s lips. “That was the idea, although Damian almost ruined everything by sending his men over to Ms. Jamison’s home. I didn’t realize that he had his own sources in the police department or that he would be smart enough to send his men over there to destroy any files she had. Still, you killed them in the end, and the men were another link back to Damian, so it all worked out for the best.”
I shook my head. “I have to hand it to you. Clever, Tuck. Very, very clever.”
He gave a modest shrug. “I do try to be efficient about these things.”
White-hot rage burned in my heart that he had so thoroughly used me, along with more than a little embarrassment, especially since I hadn’t realized what was really going on until I’d been tied to that chair in Porter’s cottage. The only saving grace was that I’d rescued Elissa. But the real irony of the situation was that I probably wouldn’t have been able to save her if Tucker hadn’t manipulated me. Without that lipstick trail to follow, I never would have connected Rivera and Porter to the Dollmaker, and I never would have found Elissa in time. So as much as it pained me to admit it, I owed Tucker.
At least enough to let him walk out of here alive today.
“How is Miss Daniels, by the way?” Tucker’s black gaze flicked past me, and I knew that he was looking at her on the other side of the restaurant.
“She’s still alive,” I snapped. “Not that you really care.”
He shrugged again. “No matter what you think about me, what Porter did to those women was an abomination. I wanted to stop it the moment I learned about it.”
“So why didn’t you?”
His mouth puckered, as though he’d bitten into something rotten. “Let’s just say politics and leave it at that.”
“Politics? Really?” I snorted. “Is that why you went back to the mansion and beat Rivera to death?”
For the first time, a genuine smile played across his face, although his black eyes remained stone-cold. “Oh, no. That was just fun. Believe me, Damian had it coming. He’d hurled one too many insults my way over the years, when he was nothing but a lousy drunk. The only useful thing about him was his massive family fortune, and his problems were starting to outstrip even that.”
I could almost sympathize with him there. I would have enjoyed hurting Rivera too. I waited for Tucker to go on, but he didn’t elaborate, and I knew that he wouldn’t say any more about Rivera. So I decided to change course.
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “Since we’re having such a civilized conversation.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you kill me when you found me lying next to Porter on the riverbank?”
Tucker blinked, as if he hadn’t expected me to remember that. I’d thought that the man in black had seemed familiar, and later on, after Jo-Jo healed my concussion, I’d remembered that he’d been bundled up just like the man in the car that had driven away from Northern Aggression. Once I’d realized that Tucker was the one who’d planted the lipstick at the nightclub, the connection had been obvious.
“I didn’t think that murdering you when you couldn’t fight back was very sporting,” he murmured. “Besides, you’d done the hard work of killing Porter. I figured that you’d earned a brief reprieve.”
“Is that also why you brought my knives to me?”
He shrugged again. “Damian gave the knives to me after Porter took them off you. I had no use for them.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t,” I said. “But do you know what’s really funny? How many times you’ve tried to kill me versus how many times you’ve helped me. I’d say they’re about even now.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
I might not have one of my knives in my hands, but I could still hurt him. “I’m talking about the night that Mab burned my family’s mansion to the ground. How you saw me in the woods but pretended you didn’t. How you dropped some money on the ground and just walked away.”