?“So, between threatening to smother him and firing that shot near his head into the wall—” Sheryl said.
?“Oh, you know about that?” Stewart chortled, pleased with himself.
?“—Randall gave up the account numbers and the passwords.”
?“He cried like a baby and gave me everything I asked for.”
?We continued past bins of trash that were lined up on the right side of the hallway and moved toward a big open room that had several filthy windows, which let in dappled sunlight.
?“Gotta hand it to you,” Stewart praised. “Pretty clever that you figured out a lot of it.”
?“Where did the money go?” Sheryl said.
?“I transferred it to accounts of mine offshore. Once I took care of that, I sent Candy uptown.”
?“So she was gone by the time you suffocated Randall.”
?Stewart seemed to revel in the memory. “That was a joy I didn’t want to share with anyone. The bastard who ruined my life sucked his last breath—or tried to—with me pushin’ that pillow on his face. I felt him die.”
?Sheryl kept going. “Then you came back to the hotel—”
?“Yes, where Hypno was having some fun with Candy.”
?“Which is why she was naked.”
?He gave a lopsided shrug. “One last ‘dance’ shall we say? I let myself into the room, Hypno threw on some clothes and dragged Mark out as I—well, let’s just say I took care of the problem.”
?“Leaving your silhouette on the wall.”
?Stewart stopped. “What’s that?”
?“There was blood spatter on the wall. It showed a big person—left-handed.”
?“Nobody bothered me about it.”
?“Then you had Hypno return the gun,” Sheryl said, “while you went back to Mark’s room and left that incriminating email—”
?“He didn’t even have a password on his laptop. Piece of cake.”
?Hypno was beginning to hold her head up herself and blinked rapidly as we reached a large garage-style door in the big room, obviously one of the hotel’s many loading docks.
?“What about Jon Kane?” Sheryl asked.
?“With Candy gone, Hypno told Kane that Watkins had the pipe with the records, and that fool spent the weekend following you like a puppy. Deflected suspicion from us and kept him out of my way.”
?“And when Mark paid for the pipe, you gave him the smaller pipe with the GPS so you could track us.”
?“I was coverin’ all the bases. I wanted to make sure that the police couldn’t prove that there was more than one pipe with Watkins’ fingerprints. I tracked you two and Jon Kane on my phone. I knew when Mark was arrested, I could track when he was released, and I saw you two come back to the ballroom at the hotel.”
?“Which is why you were outside the door when we came out. You weren’t going to any lecture.”
?“It was a good thing I did. I saw you with the other pipe.”
?Sheryl went on, “So, you got Hypno to be our mugger.”
?“Got the pipe back, didn’t we?” he smirked.
?“After we copied the files.”