She took a breath and continued. "By the time the agents pinpointed Jilly's location, she and Monk had vanished, but of course
we knew where they were headed."
"Walden Point."
"Yes," she agreed. "I really hated using my aunt that way, blatantly lying to her, but it was the only thing I could do. After everything was in motion, thanks to the agent you put in charge, Tom Kelly, I called Carrie back and told her she'd be staying
in Colorado for a while longer, and I told her why."
"How did she take the news about her husband?"
I broke her heart, Avery thought. "It was… difficult for her to accept. She's a strong woman," she added. "She'll survive."
"It was John Paul Renard who figured out how Monk would strike, wasn't it?"
"Yes. We moved to a houseboat while the trap was being set at the motel. The agents made it look like we were still there.
It was John Paul who found the trip wire on the stairs leading to the tower, and he and Agent Clayborne got ready."
"Okay, I want to know. How did you put it together?"
"The Politicians, sir."
He raised an eyebrow. She nodded. "I was sitting on the beach… thinking about the situation, and that case came to mind.
They had their own agenda, remember? They wanted everyone to think they were politically motivated, but it was really all
about money. That got me thinking about agendas, I guess you could say. I realized I wasn't seeing the forest because of the trees. So I did the same thing I had done when I was working on the Politician case. I took it all apart and looked at each piece. Everyone had his own agenda," she added. "Monk and Jilly and Skarrett and Tony Salvetti." She couldn't bear to call the bastard her uncle now, not after what he had done. "They each wanted something desperately.
"It was what Jilly wanted that made everything fall into place. Carrie told me about the letter that Jilly had left for her. She said Jilly accused her of stealing her dream and giving it away. That kept nagging at me. I had read all of Carrie's diaries, and I knew what Jilly was capable of. I also knew how patient she was. She'd wait years to get even. I asked myself what she wanted most. Money? Revenge? Then it clicked. Jilly wanted to be a star. She craved adulation and attention. Carrie took her dream away
from her. Carrie went to Hollywood and became successful and powerful. She made people stars. In Jilly's mind, Carrie had
taken her dream. She blamed Carrie for all her failures. We found proof of her obsession when the agents confiscated her belongings."
Carter nodded. "Agent Kelly told me they found a tape in Jilly's purse. It was a copy of a commercial you starred in when you were a teenager."
"Yes," she said. "I think the commercial started it all. Jilly saw it on television, and I imagine became quite enraged. She began plotting and planning way back then. She knew who I was. Evidently Jilly felt Carrie had given her dream to me, and she was going to get even."
"She held on to that dream for over twenty years?" Carter asked.
"Oh, yes. She has a twisted, inflated opinion of herself," she said. "I asked myself, who did Jilly think could get her dream back? Who could make her a star?"
"Tony Salvetti."
"Yes," she said. "He was still co-owner of Star Catcher. I didn't want to believe Tony was involved with any of this. John Paul said that, on some level, I must have known all along because I never called to tell Tony where I was." She glanced down at
her engagement ring and lovingly adjusted it on her finger.
"It was so easy for Jilly. When she met Tony, she found an angry, bitter man. Carrie and he had merged two companies.
When they got married, they were supposed to run the business as equal partners, but Carrie started bringing in the accounts.
She slowly squeezed Tony out of the operation until he didn't have any power at all. He told Agent Kelly that Carrie was trying
to emasculate him. He knew he would lose everything when she divorced him, and that was inevitable because she was becoming more and more distrustful, especially after she discovered over a hundred thousand dollars was missing from their accounts. Tony told Carrie that the money was in the bank and that it was an accounting error, but she certainly would have
had the company books audited.
"Jilly told Tony she had a connection that would solve the problem for them both. She knew a man serving a sentence in a
Florida prison who could help them get a hit man."
"Dale Skarrett?"
"Yes. She went to Skarrett and promised to help him get out of prison. If he would give her the name of a killer for hire, she would get rid of Carrie and me, and there would be no one to testify against him. She told him that Tony Salvetti was willing to put up the money to get rid of his wife. Jilly also promised Skarrett that she would be waiting for him when he got out. He was still obsessed with her. I'm sure she would have found a way to keep him believing she loved him long enough to get the stolen diamonds.
She also promised him she would get rid of the judge who had sentenced him.
"And that brings us to Monk. When Jilly met him, she found a killer for hire, but she also found a lonely man. It took nothing for her to win him over. As it turns out, she didn't even have to offer him the money that Tony had given her. He fell madly in love and was willing to do anything she asked. So, nobody was the wiser. She could keep the money for herself."
"Who came up with the idea of putting all those women in the Colorado house?"
"Jilly," she answered. "She does like to complicate things. The drama appealed to her, and making Carrie suffer was an added bonus. Monk had already taken the contract to kill Anne Trapp, and he'd also taken money from Dennis Parnell to blow up the mountain house. Parnell was convinced the judge would award the estate to his ex-wife," she explained. "And I can only
imagine what he must have felt when he found out the judge had awarded the house to him."
"Monk was a busy boy."
"Oh, yes," she said.
"Did you see it on the news?" he asked. "Eric Trapp finally broke down and confessed. He's going to go away for a very
long time. If your aunt hadn't given us that letter from Anne, we wouldn't have had the evidence we needed. Trapp told the
interrogator his wife was taking too long to die."
"Just like the Politicians," Avery said, "greed motivated all of them."
"Amazing," he said then, "the way Jilly manipulated Salvetti and Monk and Skarrett. She was the piper and they were dancing
to her tune, none of them knowing what she was up to. I talked to Agent Kelly a little while ago," he said. "Skarrett still isn't
admitting much, but Salvetti's talking. The odd thing is…"
"Yes?'
"Neither one of them will say a bad word about Jilly. They're still singing her praises."
That didn't surprise her. "I'll bet she's not talking, though."
"No, she's still stonewalling. You're going to make a great field agent, Delaney."
"Perhaps, with the proper training, I could be good, but sir, I don't want to, not anymore. If I've learned anything during the
past weeks, it's that life is too short, and I don't want to waste another minute going after men and women who are beyond hope.
I want to.make a difference before it's too late."
She stood and waited until he walked around the desk. She shook his hand. "Thank you, sir."
"You're really going to resign? I can't talk you into staying?"
"I've made up my mind, sir. I need to leave."
"Have you decided what you're going to do?"
"Now that the trial and the parole hearing are over and Skarrett is back where he belongs, I'm going to spend a couple of weeks with my aunt, and then I'm moving to Louisiana and going back to school to get my teacher's certificate."