It was a secret she’d managed to keep from most everyone, although Joe had assumed Ruskin would have known. It was convenient that, at a time when Sandra desperately needed him to get into Carver’s computer, Ruskin was there. Not because Ruskin could provide a password, but because Joe needed to have Sandra believe he could have provided a password.

Yes, Joe thought, I’m damn good with computers. But I’m not that good. It would have been difficult to explain how he’d figured out, on his own, a password that obscure.

But it wasn’t the unearthing of long-hidden information on Lisa Carver that had made the greatest impression on Joe. It turned out she wasn’t the only one Kyle’s investigators had looked into.

Kyle knew that, for his plan to work, he needed someone on the inside. Someone who would have access to Carver’s laptop. Who better than the chief of police, who’d be expected to do a walk-through of the event to make sure it was secure. Not that Joe was Kyle’s first choice. He wondered about the mayor of Garrett Island, but it turned out she would be in France, visiting relatives, on the day of the event. Besides, investigators had found no skeletons in her closet. Would the governor come in from Boston? Evidently not. The administrator of the community center was also going to be away. Kyle’s people looked for some dirt on this Sandra Montrose person who was helping organize the event, but found nothing that would give them any kind of leverage.

But then they looked at Police Chief Joe Bridgeman. That upstanding local lawman, seemingly above reproach.

Well, yeah, for the most part.

Had the Garrett Island council done the kind of digging that Kyle’s investigators had, they might have reconsidered their decision to hire him. He looked good on paper. First of all, he was an islander. Born and raised here. Knew the terrain and its people. A computer whiz from a young age, he went to work for a tech firm in Boston, but that work didn’t suit him. He wanted to be a cop. He enrolled in the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree, graduated near the top of his class. Became a state trooper, did well.

But there was a problem: women.

Two, at least. They came forward and complained to Bridgeman’s superiors. They were both women Joe had pulled over, supposedly for speeding. But what he really wanted was to get to know them. Joe had something of a history of pulling over young women, and once he’d had a good look at them and determined they had potential, he’d put his ticket book away.

Not before getting their names and addresses, of course.