The door to the inner office was closed. Clare could hear low voices on the other side.
An elderly woman with a helmet of tight gray curls sat in one of the two client chairs. She peered suspiciously at Clare and Jake through her reading glasses.
“Mr. Ingle’s with a client,” she announced loudly. “I’m next.”
“Thank you for telling us,” Clare said politely.
Reassured that the newcomers weren’t showing any signs of trying to move to the head of the line, the woman relaxed.
“Hot enough for you?” she asked.
“It certainly is,” Clare said.
“Gonna be a real scorcher tomorrow,” the woman assured her. “Heard it on the news this morning. Lucky we’re not over there in Phoenix. Always ten degrees hotter there than it is here.”
“Heard that,” Jake said.
The door to the inner office opened. A distinguished-looking man in his mid-forties held it for a white-haired lady who was pushing a walker. The man had to be Ingle, Clare decided. He was just as Elizabeth had described. Patrician and conservatively dressed in a white shirt and tie, he had the air of an old-fashioned family lawyer. The kind of guy most people would trust on sight, she thought.
But not her.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Donnelly,” Ingle said in a rich, warm tone. “It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope I was able to answer your questions about the investment to your satisfaction.”
“Yes, you did, Mr. Ingle.” The woman beamed, clearly pleased with whatever had been said about the investment. “It sounds like just what I’ve been looking for.”
“Please don’t hesitate to give me a call if you have any more questions,” Ingle said. “Otherwise, I’ll see you on Friday. I’ll have the papers drawn up and ready to sign.”
“I just want to be sure that my money will be safe,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “At my age one can’t afford to risk the principal, you know.”
“It will be rock-solid safe and insured, just like in a bank.” Ingle smiled. “But you will have the advantage of making at least twenty-five percent return on your money.”
The lie fell into the ultraviolet range.
Unpleasant little frissons of energy snapped across Clare’s senses, sparking the familiar, nerve-jarring fight-or-flight response. Ingle enjoyed his work. The unwholesome lust that tainted the energy pulsing from him sent shivers through her.
Automatically she fought the jangling mental alarms that threatened to overwhelm her senses. Fight, not flight.
Outrage kicked in on cue, dampening the panic.
She glanced at Jake. Energy was coming off him in waves. Of course, it didn’t take any special sensitivity to recognize Ingle’s blatant deception. No legitimate investment adviser could guarantee a twenty-five percent return on a safe, insured investment, not in this market. That kind of profit could only be had at the price of taking a huge financial risk—just the sort of risk that a person living on a modest fixed income had no business taking.
In all fairness, Claire thought, as far as Ingle was concerned, the woman’s money wasn’t going to be put at risk. The senior’s life savings were undoubtedly destined for Ingle’s own private offshore bank account.
Clare looked at Mrs. Donnelly. “Never believe anyone who tells you he can get you that kind of return on a supposedly insured investment,” she said. “Ingle is lying through his teeth.”
There was an audible gasp from the woman seated in the reception room.
Mrs. Donnelly’s jaw sagged. “What on earth?”
“Leave this to me, Mrs. Donnelly,” Ingle said, righteously stern. He took an ominous step toward Clare. “I don’t know who you are, but I do know that you have no right to be here. I’m going to call the police.”
“Suit yourself,” Clare said. “But first you’re going to talk to me and my associate.”
Ingle frowned at Jake. Jake smiled.
Ingle took what looked like an unconscious step back. He glanced at Clare. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”
She reached inside her purse, extracted her wallet and flipped it open to display her driver’s license.
“Clare Lancaster, Arizona State Anti-Fraud Bureau,” she said briskly. She snapped the wallet closed before Ingle could get a close look at it. “We’re here to talk to you about a little matter of investment fraud, Ingle.”
“Fraud?” Mrs. Donnelly repeated, alarmed.
“What’s this?” The woman in the chair grabbed her cane and struggled to stand. “Did you say ‘fraud’?”
Ingle’s initial alarm gave way to anger. “There is no such thing as an Arizona State Anti-Fraud Bureau.”
“Okay,” she said easily. “Make it the Arizona State Anti–Fraudulent Licenses Bureau, Dr. Ronald Mowbray.”
“See here,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “Mr. Ingle’s not a doctor.”
“He certainly isn’t,” Clare agreed. “But he recently posed as one in Phoenix.”
Shock and something that might have been fear flashed across Ingle’s aristocratic features.
Now that was interesting, she thought. Ingle knew her license was a fake, but the mention of his stint as a phony shrink had unnerved him a lot more than the reference to his investment scams.
“Who are you people?” he demanded. His gaze flitted uneasily back and forth between Clare and Jake. “What do you want?”
“We should probably have this chat in private,” Jake said. He looked at the two seniors. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse us?”
“Now, hold on,” Ingle said quickly. “There’s no need for them to leave.”
He really was afraid, Clare realized. So much so that he actually wanted the two women to stay. Maybe he thought their presence offered some protection.
Jake moved, gliding toward Ingle with the lethal grace of the hunter closing in on prey. Clare felt the familiar brush of unseen energy lifting the hair on the nape of her neck.
Ingle probably felt it, too. He was a sensitive, after all. He fell back another couple of steps. Jake pursued him into the inner office.
Clare followed quickly, closing the door on the astonished faces of the two women.
“You can’t do this,” Ingle said. Panic roughened his voice.
“Sit,” Clare said.
“You’re the scam artists, not me,” Ingle shot back, desperate. “How dare you barge in here like this?”