Runaway Heiress

by Jennifer Morey

  Her eyes met his with new contemplation. He felt her honestly assess why she would finally tell him.

  “I trust you with the case, Jasper,” she said in a soft voice. “And I don’t want anyone else to die.”

  “I’m not going to die,” he said with conviction.

  Her eyes closed in a slow, believing blink. Then she drew in a deep breath, let it go and began. “When all of this started, I reached a point in my life where I desperately needed change. I could no longer stand the sight of my father. I hated the sound of his voice. I loathed everything about him. He gave me the Toronto office and at first I thought it was a great career advancement and might be the change I was looking for. It was, at first. I had just met Darien and living in Canada was exciting. But running a confectionery wasn’t what I aspired to do with my life. That was my father’s dream. I always felt I was missing something, that I was meant to do something else, something that meant more to me. I had to make a change in my life. Darien and I were getting closer. He was different from my father. Considerate. Polite to others no matter who they were. He was successful, but not obsessed. He asked me to move in with him and told me I didn’t have to work. He preferred that I didn’t. That was all the encouragement I needed.” She stopped talking as she must have drifted off with whatever memory that triggered. She shook her head slightly. “Looking back, I can see why I made the mistake of jumping into a serious relationship with him so quickly. He was a lifeline, a way out. An excuse.” She looked up at Jasper, spearing him with her striking dark eyes.

  “I flew back to Philadelphia and after visiting my mother, I went to the Loredo headquarters and told my father I quit.” She breathed a wry laugh. “He flew into a rage. ‘What do you expect me to do with the Toronto office?’ He yelled at me. ‘I can’t replace you overnight!’ I told him I didn’t care and left. I went back to Toronto and Darien. Turns out he was furious with me, too. I couldn’t believe I had fallen for someone like my father. I didn’t tell him I was flying to Philadelphia until the morning I decided to do so. That was the first time he hit me. I was shocked. He was nothing like the man I had met. My father wasn’t physically abusive so at least I can claim a difference there. I realized Darien had been playing a role all along. He knew how I felt about my father and was careful not to behave the same way, when in fact he was my father and worse.” She averted her face, still cupping the warm cup on the table. “When I told him I wasn’t accustomed to sharing my life with anyone, he only grew angrier. He told me if I ever did that again he’d lock me in a room. I packed a suitcase that night. But when I tried to leave, his guards stopped me. He did lock me in a room then. He told me the only way I’d ever leave him is if I was dead.”

  Jasper imagined how good it would feel to wrap his hands around that coward’s neck. Weak men were the worst of any society.

  “I kept a low profile after that, and at the same time began to spy on him. We reached a point where he began to trust me again. I could come and go as I pleased. He continued to threaten me. He said I could go wherever I wanted as long as I told him, but if I tried to leave him, he’d find me and kill me.”

  “Was he ever married before?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of. I discovered he was running a drug operation and most who worked for him feared him intensely. One day I followed him to a bar in downtown Toronto. It wasn’t like any place he’d ever gone to with me. It was run-down. Small. Old. And attracted a low-income patronage. I went inside and there was no one there, but I heard voices coming from the back. I stood out in the hall next to the door to an office and listened to Darien talking to a man who sounded like he was in pain. I peeked inside and saw Darien and another man had their backs to the door. They faced someone else tied to a chair. He was bloody, beaten. He saw me watching but didn’t let on he did. Darien accused him of stealing from him. When the man tied to the chair denied this, the other man with Darien picked up a clear wrapped package of drugs and asked him where he got it. The tied man repeatedly said the drugs weren’t his. But Darien ordered the man with him to kill him. He did. He put the drugs down and drew a gun and just...shot him.” She paused as though remembering in vivid detail what she’d seen, which must have been shocking and intensely disturbing. “The man looked at me right before that. He was looking at me when he was shot.” She bowed her head with a shudder.

  Jasper reached over and put his hand over hers. “Is that when you disappeared?”

  Sadie lifted her head. “No. I ran from the building and went straight to the police. I told a detective how dangerous Darien was, how he abused me. I was afraid. He wanted to send me somewhere safe. But I was too scared. I believed Darien would kill me if I left. So I went home and pretended I knew nothing. The detective began to investigate the murder. He questioned Darien who of course denied everything. He kept asking the detective who witnessed the shooting. The detective wouldn’t tell him. I found out a few days later that the man who was shot was one of Darien’s suppliers.”

  “You stayed in the same house with him?” Jasper asked.

  “Not for much longer. Darien was beginning to get more and more suspicious of me. I flew to Philadelphia to wait for the detective to capture the shooter. He never did. I think the shooter found him instead. Darien sent someone after me. Three men. One of them was Steven. He kept the other two from roughing me up, but they all brought me back to Darien. I think that’s why Darien trusted Steven. He helped bring me back home. But Steven didn’t know Darien was beating me. He found out, though, after he brought me home. He forced me to admit what I saw. I thought he was going to kill me. The next few weeks were pure hell. That’s when Steven helped me plan my escape. He saw what Darien really was, and it wasn’t a successful high-tech component manufacturer. If it wasn’t for Steven, I might still be there...or dead by now. He arranged for my new identity and for my money to be transferred to an untraceable international account. First he put it in an account under my name and then transferred it to one in my new name. He knew someone who helped bury the transactions.”

  Jasper had a new respect for Steven and might even forgive him for lying. The lies had been necessary to protect Sadie.

  “I stopped in Philadelphia to say goodbye to my mother and then went to Wyoming. I started the Revive Center and everything was fine until...Bernie.”

  “What about the murder in Toronto?” Jasper asked.

  Her face drooped with regret. “That’s why I kept in contact with Steven. He tried to help me get something else on Darien. Police didn’t have enough to make an arrest and still don’t.”

  “Another cold case.”

  Slowly, Sadie nodded, eyes moistening but not tearing completely. She turned her head.

  She must have lived in constant fear of Darien finding her. Standing, he walked across the room to the window. Now more than ever he yearned to choke the life out of Darien Jafari. Men like him didn’t deserve the air they breathed. Weakness made them monsters. A bully disguising an insecure man.

  Solving Bernie’s murder became infinitely more important to him. Now it was personal. Darien had harmed Sadie and still threatened her life. Jasper had to crush him. But something about Bernie’s murder bothered him in light of the murder Sadie had witnessed. Her ex-fiancé was obsessed enough to haunt her by killing someone close to her, but why place the body in Warren Park? Jasper needed to know that if he ever hoped to solve the case.

  * * *

  Sadie watched Jasper standing at the window. The rain had stopped but clouds still hovered. He returned to the table, seeming oblivious to her while she felt waves of relief for finally letting go of her secret. She also felt closer to Jasper, as though she’d connected more with him. That came with some reservations, mainly because the last time she’d felt this euphoria she’d moved in with a madman.

  Sitting down, he opened his laptop. Curious of what he was doing, she stood an
d moved beside him. He opened a map of Warren Park.

  “The body was found here.” Sadie pointed to a bridge that crossed a narrow part of the lake.

  He studied the photo for endless moments.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Something,” he said. “Anything. There has to be something here we’re missing.”

  She scrutinized the map with him. He switched to a satellite view and zoomed in, going over the entire area where the body was discovered.

  Something in the water caught her eye. “What are those?”

  He zoomed in more over the objects. “Poles.”

  “Trees,” she said.

  “What are we missing?” Jasper asked in frustration.

  The answer slammed her. “Toronto.”

  Jasper looked up at her.

  “Toronto got its name from the Mohawk meaning of trees in the water. Trees grew where a narrow body of water connected Lake Simcoe to Lake Couchiching. Look. This lake narrows where the bridge is located, and there are posts in the water near where Bernie’s body was found.” The more Sadie thought of it the angrier she grew. “That bastard was taunting me, sending me a clue.” Hello, darling, I’m coming for you. “I should have seen that from the start.”

  “Don’t be too upset. We’re not exactly dealing with a sane person.” Jasper stood and went back to the window. “He had a good time toying with you and then tried to kill you. When that failed, he arranged for the attack.”

  She walked across the living area to him. “He shouldn’t have made the clue so hard to figure out. If I’d have died I’d have never known who wanted me dead... Well...I know Darien wants me dead, but I didn’t anticipate he’d go after my friends.”

  “He didn’t want to get caught. Maybe he liked the idea of you not figuring it out until he had you. Then he could have his fun letting you know.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, that’s Darien’s way. He needed to always feel in control.” She wandered away from the window, hugging her arms.

  “The witness who last saw Bernie,” Jasper said, “The one who saw the expensive car and the license plate. Ontario has one sticker in the upper right and the writing is blue. Darien must have been the one to abduct Bernie.”

  She glanced back at him. “Or his assassin. Remember he had another man kill his supplier.” And that man was still running free.

  Jasper turned from the window. “Let’s talk about him for a moment.” He walked toward her. “We know why Bernie was killed. Why was that man?”

  Turning to face him, Sadie shrugged as he stopped before her. “He stole drugs.”

  “Did he? Tell me about him.”

  Why did he want to know? As a detective he’d have lots of questions to ask but she failed to see the importance. Besides, thinking about him always upset her. “His name was Henry Barnes.” She felt ill even saying his name. That poor man. “He had a wife and two kids.” She would never forget the look in his eyes as he was being shot.

  “What did he do for a living? You said he was Darien’s supplier.”

  “He was a buyer for an aerospace company.”

  “He went to meet Darien about a business deal?”

  Where was Jasper going with this? “Must have.”

  “But you said he was killed over drugs.”

  “Maybe that was his other reason for meeting Darien.” Who knew what people did in their spare time? Even the most reputable of characters have been found to have bad sides.

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Sadie didn’t follow him. “Why not?”

  “He had a good job. College educated most likely. A family. Why steal drugs from a man who bought his company’s components. Aerospace components. Rocket engine parts, I read.”

  “You never know with people,” Sadie said, voicing her earlier thoughts.

  “A guy like that wouldn’t travel all the way to Canada to steal drugs. How would he get them back across the border?”

  Good point. “Maybe he sold them while he was still there. Darien acted like he was threatened, like Henry had infringed on his territory.”

  “He was threatened all right, but not over drug turf.”

  She’d never considered that Darien would have another reason for killing that man. Had he told his bulldog to plant the drugs? Make it look like that’s why the man was killed?

  “Did you ever notice anything else about what Darien was doing?” Jasper asked.

  “Illegally?” She shook her head. “But he was good at deceiving me.”

  As she began to think of how deeply Darien had scarred her, Jasper took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. The touch communicated he understood all she said beyond what she actually did say. Darien had done more than deceive her from the moment she’d met him. He’d hurt her. Physically.

  Warmth suffused her and she felt a soft smile spring up onto her face, put there by the melting of her heart.

  Jasper leaned in, a mischievous glint taking over the light in his blue eyes. “So...what should I call you?”

  Her smile expanded. He made light of her own deception, and with his affectionate way, he told her he knew she’d done it innocently. “Sadie.” She’d thought about this a lot over the last five years. “Even if I forgive my father and keep the Loredo name, I will always be Sadie. Catalina did whatever her father wanted. Sadie isn’t that woman. I stopped being Catalina a long time ago.”

  “All right then. Sadie it is.” He lifted her hand and kissed the top just above her knuckles, tickling her insides.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked.

  “I’m going to Toronto. You should go see your mother.”

  “My mother?”

  “I can’t have you with me in Toronto. I’ll send agents with you to Philadelphia. You can wait for me there.”

  Many mixed emotions passed through her. Seeing her mother resonated like a beacon of hope. Seeing her father had her recoiling. That Jasper would arrange for her to see her mother moved her. Despite her lies, he cared for her.

  She missed her mother. Seeing her again was worth the unpleasantness of running into her father.

  “I’ll wait for you there,” she said.

  He smiled at the way she said it. “It will take time to plan. We can lay low here for a few weeks and then go. I need to study Darien before I meet with him. I’ll put some surveillance on him and then decide how and where to meet with him.”

  What would they do in the meantime?

  Chapter 11

  Sadie stayed in bed longer than usual. She didn’t feel very well. Maybe a little extra sleep would calm her churning stomach.

  Over the past few weeks, Jasper had been busy studying Darien. He watched video surveillance and looked through photos and read reports from whoever his company had sent to observe Darien. He probably knew more about her ex-fiancé than she ever did...well...except for his illegal activities. Darien was an expert at covering his tracks. She’d learned that in the five years she’d been in hiding, working with Steven trying to expose his involvement in the murder of one of his suppliers and the detective.

  Her stomach churned some more, not getting better. She rolled onto her back and put her hand on her belly, moaning to the wave of nausea. What had she eaten the night before? The smell of sweet cinnamon rolls filled her next breath. Immediately after, the nausea overwhelmed her. She flung off the covers and propelled herself off the bed, racing to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet before losing what little was in her stomach.

  After rinsing her mouth out, she brushed her teeth and then hopped in the shower. Standing under the spray, the cause of her sickness plagued her. She didn’t feel like she had food poisoning. Dinner had been freshly prepared and brought to their room. Hotels like this didn’t ser
ve bad food. She’d stayed here many times and had never gotten sick. Another possibility kept pushing forward but she kept it at bay. She’d wait and see if the nausea continued.

  She dressed and left the bedroom. Out in the living area, Jasper paced with a phone to his ear. In dark slacks and a light blue button-down dress shirt with a shoulder gun holster he always wore, he captured her as usual. Sometimes he wore jeans but mostly he dressed professionally like this. Her favorite shirt color was blue because it brought out the blue of his eyes. His blond hair was combed but a slight wave to it made him appear a bit messy. He walked slowly toward the double glass doors open to the dining room. The dining room table was full of papers, two laptops and radio communications equipment.

  He’d kept busy with the investigation and had also worked others. Sadie had taken a few trips to the Revive Center but worked mostly from the hotel room. Both of them had dived into work, she suspected, as a way to avoid getting too intimate. She’d enjoyed having him nearby, though. He provided a pleasant view whenever she had a pause in her busy days.

  Dwight had been released from the hospital weeks ago and Sadie had arranged to have him transported back to Wyoming, where Finley would take good care of him. He’d been ornery and protested right up until he’d been put onto a private plane. He wanted to help, but he would be of no help while he healed from a gunshot wound. He hadn’t been able to argue against that. And he’d seen how Jasper had stepped up security. Sadie had never felt safer. Jasper was more than capable of protecting her. Just take a look at the dining room. Darien, or any of his thugs, didn’t know where she was and Jasper had placed a few undercover security guards on them and the Revive Center and was in constant communication with them all.

  “He goes to the coffee shop every morning on his way in to work,” Jasper said into the phone. He must be talking to someone at DAI about the surveillance he’d been conducting on Darien. “Home by six or seven. Sometimes he has meetings at the bar. Did you get anything on the bar owner?” He paced toward her, saw her and lifted a hand in greeting, those eyes she so loved staring at smiling even though his mouth didn’t. “He’s probably being forced to let him use it.” After his gaze traveled down her body and back up, he paced back the other direction. “No, I think I’ve got enough to make arrangements.”