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“Chico Martinez, the chauffeur-slash-bodyguard, received a phone call about a family emergency shortly after midnight. He took off for Santa Rosa.”

“That’s why Alton was driving himself.” Zach stared at the drag marks where the tow truck crane had hauled the wrecked vehicle up the hillside.

“It’s possible. The family emergency was genuine, though.”

Zach threw Flint a quick look of surprise. “Was it?”

Flint nodded. “Yep. The call Beacher received a few hours later about a break-in at Beacher Toy Company was not.”

“It was a setup?”

“The butler took a call from a man claiming to be Beacher’s head of security at the toy factory. He said there’d been a break-in and that the safe in Beacher’s office had been emptied. That seems to have been enough to get Beacher in his car and headed full speed down this road in the middle of a rainstorm.”

“But there wasn’t any break-in.” Zach already knew the answer.

“Nope. No phone call originated from the Beacher facility last night.”

“Why did he take the butler with him?”

“Apparently, he phoned Martinez and ordered him to meet him at the toy factory. Which I guess makes sense given that Martinez was supposed to be Beacher’s bodyguard. The butler was supposed to drive Martinez’s car back to the estate, and Martinez would drive Beacher home.”

“So the butler just happened to be in the car.”

“Exactly. The butler couldn’t have been part of anyone’s calculations—unless this entire scenario was cooked up by Beacher.”

“Or Martinez.”

Flint said after a moment, “Or Martinez.”

Zach said, “If Beacher set this up, it seems like bringing the butler along would have done nothing but complicate his plans.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Someone had to have tampered with that car,” Zach said.

“Orsomeone wanted it tolooklike the car had been tampered with.”

That someone being Alton. Zach asked, “How long before the sheriff’s—”

Flint’s gaze met Zach’s. “Funny you should ask. It seems there’s a bit of a pissing match going on between the sheriff’s office, the feds, and the Ensenada Del Sello police department regarding jurisdiction.”

“Bill didn’t seem to have any doubt that EDS held jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, my money’s on Cameron, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be an added delay in getting the vehicle forensics back.” Flint brooded for a moment, then shrugged. “We could stand here and speculate all afternoon. Let’s go have our chat with the lady of the manor, shall we?”

“I guess we shall,” Zach said.

Chapter Fourteen

The enormous Gothic-style gates to the Kaschak Estate slowly slid open, and the Ford Explorer zipped through.

“It’s like a private park,” Zach commented as they wound their way up the wooded hillside.

Flint grunted agreement.

It took another three or four minutes to reach the clearing where the house stood surrounded by towering pines.

The Explorer rolled to a stop, and Flint whistled.