A feeling of uncertainty went through her. She’d read his lips to understand him. Was he talking that quietly? He straightened, giving the agents what Alice could only call a warning glance, and left the room.
Alice wasn’t sure what to make of that kiss in front of the agents. Were they now declaring their relationship to the world? She suspected maybe he was telling her not to be self-conscious about revealing their involvement. There hadn’t been much opportunity for them to discuss her statement to the agents. That kiss heartened her more than anything had since awakening and seeing him sitting next to her bed. It seemed to say, Just tell the truth. The time for secrets is done, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.
SHE was pretty tired by the time the agents packed up their equipment and left. It’d been difficult talking about Sissy and the Reeds, knowing that the agents were viewing them strictly in terms of potential collaborators to Addie’s kidnapping. While to Alice, they had been much more. They were a family she was horribly ashamed of, and despised at times . . . but they were family, nevertheless. Or at least she’d thought they’d been. She sent up a silent prayer that Uncle Al had left the trailer, like she’d asked him to. As for the others, it felt grimly inevitable and completely out of her control to do anything to stop the hand of fate or justice. It all seemed so much bigger than her.
It was even harder, at first, to talk about every detail of her encounter with Kehoe, but it got easier once she got a momentum going. When she got to the part about Kehoe planning to throw her over the bluff, the agent paused her. He asked her to recall exactly what Kehoe had said, as best as she could, toward the end. Wincing, Alice repeated what he’d said about Lynn, her suicide, and his threats against her—Alice.
Special Agent Clayton nodded when she’d finished. “That matches up well with what Schaefer overheard as he neared the bluff. Did you realize that Schaefer had been following you regularly, under Kehoe’s orders?”
“No. I mean, I knew Thad was following me sometimes, but I didn’t know it was under Kehoe’s directions. Are you saying that Thad followed me up to the castle last night because Kehoe told him to?” she asked, confused.
“No. Last night, he claims he did it because he was concerned about you. It seems he was no longer entirely convinced that Kehoe had good intentions toward you.”
“He uh . . . said he had a thing for me,” she admitted uncomfortably. “That’s why I thought he was following me, at first.”
“Did you ever reciprocate the interest?” Clayton asked.
“No. I made it clear from the beginning I just wanted to be friends.”
“It seems Kehoe had given Schaefer orders to keep an eye on you as much as possible, get close to you, report back to him about anything noteworthy. According to Schaefer, his father and Kehoe are old friends, so he had an implicit trust in him from the first. Plus, Kehoe was his top boss there at camp . . . the man he needed to impress to get hired as a Durand manager. He felt obligated when Kehoe asked him to get close to you, although he didn’t start to put together until more recently why Kehoe was so focused on you.”
“Do you think Thad just acted like he liked me so that he could follow me easier . . . give Kehoe more information about me?”
“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.”