Runaway Heiress

by Jennifer Morey

  “Bingo,” Sadie said.

  Henry must have discovered Darien was re-exporting the sensors.

  “He must have diverted the shipment from Dubai,” Jasper said. “Let’s see if we can find anything showing the ultimate destination.”

  Sadie searched the rest of the files. She found a purchase order listing another company in Iran. Within that documentation her gaze caught on the name of that company, which showed it as a subsidiary of SpaceTech.

  “Do you see that?” she asked Jasper, turning her head to find his warm and close to hers.

  He met her eyes and a moment of intimacy passed between them. “Yes.” Then he took over the mouse from her and opened another shipping document, this one from a courier out of Dubai. It showed the same part number.

  Jasper straightened. “I’ll make a call. We’ll let officials bring him in for that. Then we can enlighten them on the murders.”

  Would he be charged in both countries? Would he serve out his time in the United States? Sadie didn’t care as long as he was locked up for the rest of his life.

  “Do you have a jump drive?” he asked.

  She stood, opened a drawer and retrieved one. “This one is empty.” Figuring he needed all the files, she copied them and then handed him the USB device.

  Jasper’s radio went off and Sadie listened as the gatehouse guard announced the arrival of Matias Loredo.

  Chapter 15

  “I’m not going to see him.” Sadie stormed from one end of the library to the other.

  Jasper admired her butt before she pivoted and faced him for a trek back toward him. He could understand her tizzy, especially not now, after learning he betrayed her location and identity to Darien, but he had to talk to him.

  “He couldn’t have known what Darien was hiding,” Jasper said.

  “He knew about the murder.”

  That was significant. Matias knew what Sadie knew—that Darien had conspired to kill his supplier and she’d seen the murderer carry out the order. “Let him explain his side. If you don’t then I will. It might reveal more information.”

  She looked at him as though silently asking, Didn’t they have enough? Sadie was obviously more than ready for this to be over, but it wasn’t over until Darien was caught.

  “Let him in,” Jasper told the gatehouse guard.

  Sadie gaped at him.

  “You don’t have to see him,” he said.

  Moving toward her, he slid his hand behind her head and kissed her.

  * * *

  Hearing Jasper talking in the waiting room off the front entry, Sadie stopped.

  “I told you she doesn’t want to see you.”

  “She let me in the gate.”

  “No, I let you in the gate.”

  “I came a long way. I dropped everything to make this trip. You can’t stop me from seeing her. I need to talk to her. Now.”

  Oh, did that sound like her father. Sadie moved next to the door, staying out of sight.

  “I’m not one of your employees,” Jasper said. “If Sadie doesn’t want to see you, you aren’t going to see her. You’ll have to go through me, and...” Jasper paused as though making an assessment. “Something tells me the only thing tough enough about you is your callous management style.”

  “So, she talked to you about me.”

  Sadie peeked around the edge of the door. Both men stood near a console table that ran behind a sofa, their sides to her.

  Jasper didn’t respond. He’d laid down his law. Enough said. He wouldn’t let Matias have his way just because he made a demand. Love spilled over the core of her soul. Or affection. Or the buddings of real attraction. Whatever this thing inside her was that had manifested out of nowhere. Jasper would honor her wishes at all cost. No man would get past him, least of all her materialistic, overbearing father.

  “Did she tell you the only time I communicated with her was when I had something disparaging to say about my workers? That I am a tyrant?” In one of his expensive silk suits, her father looked the same as she remembered. His silver hair was neatly trimmed and combed.

  “That’s close. She also said you were a supremacist and that she despises supremacists. Something along those lines.” Jasper said that so casually that Sadie almost let loose a laugh.

  She inched around the edge of the doorframe again and saw her father speechless—if only for a second—for the first time in her life.

  “You called her Sadie,” he said at last. “Her name is Catalina.” His brittle tone sent her back in time, the sure indication of the onset of one of his domineering talks.

  “Her name is Sadie now. If you knew anything about her, you’d know she isn’t Catalina, especially not anymore.”

  “She’s had five years to convince herself she doesn’t belong at Loredo. She does. She’s a great businesswoman. My daughter has all of my most valuable traits. There’s no one else I’d rather leave my dynasty to than her.”

  My daughter grated on Sadie. As if she belonged to him, as if only the fact that he’d created her, a near clone in his view, mattered beyond all else. While a small part of her argued it wasn’t that simple, she closed herself off to any softening.

  “Don’t you get it?” Jasper had leaned toward Matias’s face. “She doesn’t want that for herself. And she is a great businesswoman. Look what she’s done with the Revive Center. Or are you going to ignore what she’s built because it doesn’t follow your way?”

  Sadie watched her father closely. He met Jasper’s cool, righteous eyes and intruding proximity. She had never seen him hesitate like that before.

  “I didn’t come here to win her over,” he finally said. “I know that won’t happen overnight.”

  He planned to win her over? What did that mean? Would he try to charm her back to Loredo?

  “Darien came to see me,” he said.

  Whoa. What? Sadie moved out from the protection of the wall. They saw her at the same time.

  Her father turned and faced her. “Catalina...” He cleared his through and seemed to catch himself. “Sadie. You changed your mind.” His eyes were different. Was that contrition she saw? Gladness. Triumph, yes, but not overpowering.

  “No. Darien came to see you. Why?” She walked slowly into the room and stopped a few feet away from both men.

  Jasper stood tall and alert without interfering. He’d shown her how much he understood and cared about her feelings regarding her father. And he supported her.

  “He had all sorts of questions about you and a man named Jasper who confronted him in public.” Matias turned to Jasper. “I assume that’s you?”

  “What did you tell him about me?”

  “Just what Ana Sophia told me. You were from some type of cold case detective agency and were helping Sadie solve a murder of one of her homeless people.” Matias was all business now. Matter-of-fact and seeming unaffected.

  Didn’t Jasper want Darien to know who he was? The element of surprise could sometimes work out favorably.

  “Why did you tell him about me?” Sadie asked. “Why did you tell him where I was?”

  “That’s why I came here. Ana Sophia said you were attacked. I couldn’t believe Darien would be behind such a thing, but then he came to see me and he was so angry. He turned into a completely different person.”

  Sadie folded her arms, not happy at all her father so easily took the man’s side.

  “One minute he exchanged pleasantries with me and the next he went off on a tangent about how you sent some sort of secret soldier after him. His animosity toward you shocked me. He didn’t reveal that before then.”

  “Darien is an expert at fooling people, making them believe he’s something he’s not.”

  Her father moved toward her, stopping closer than she liked. �
��He fooled me. He told me it wasn’t him at that bar. He said you were too far away to see clearly. He thought whoever you saw kill that man in Toronto must have also killed the detective.”

  “Of course he’d deny any involvement. The killer did murder the detective, but Darien directed him to do so.” Seeing her father in this new light, where he’d become a victim of another person, changed her perception—some. That he had fallen so easily for Darien’s lies only convinced her more how little he actually knew her.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” her father asked.

  She couldn’t respond.

  “I would have never have told him where you were if you’d have come to me. If you’d have informed me of your plans.”

  So he could control her some more? “I needed to get away from you, too, Dad.”

  “I could have protected you.”

  Still, he ignored all she’d confessed to him, all her feelings. “I’m fine. And I will continue to be fine.”

  Matias glanced at Jasper, who’d stayed quiet through their talk. Then he returned his attention to Sadie. His usual stern face had softened. In his eyes she could see his regret, or regret for not recognizing a problem sooner so he could have fixed it sooner.

  She waited for him to organize his words.

  “I came here to apologize and to see what I can do to earn your forgiveness.” He seemed genuinely sincere. “For both exposing you to Darien and for driving you away.”

  Sadie faltered. She could almost believe him. Could it be she’d broken through her father’s stubborn drive to achieve?

  “You need more time, I understand.”

  “Do you?” She had her doubts.

  “I’d like you in my life.” He smiled. “Your mother will have you in hers, so I can’t fall behind her, right?”

  If that was his attempt at humor, Sadie didn’t laugh. He sounded too much like the father she despised. But he’d taken a step forward. She’d take that for now.

  * * *

  Jasper curbed his desire to follow where his male instinct led. Sadie had changed into something more comfortable after dinner, nothing sexy, just a simple white cotton gown that fell to her ankles. But it was so her. Few had glimpses of both sides of her, the sexy beauty and the mountain recluse. All in one fabulous body.

  Taking a steaming cup of tea, she headed for the family room. Jasper followed, feeling tethered by her femininity. Sitting on the gray sectional, she started flipping channels. He sat beside her as she landed on a chick flick about an aspiring actress whose clumsy personality keeps the rejections coming.

  Sadie glanced at him as though waiting for his protest.

  He just grinned. “This is one of the better ones.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “Parts. Once I went over to Kadin’s house for a work party. We celebrated moving into the new building.”

  He watched her mull over what that could mean. More cases required more staff. The growth of DAI needed men like Jasper.

  “He’s talking about relocating to a bigger city,” Jasper said.

  She turned to him, wariness cooling her eyes. “Where?”

  “Not New York. That’s where his daughter was kidnapped and murdered. Maybe California or Texas. All the detectives are weighing in.”

  “His daughter was murdered?” No longer retreating behind her protective barrier, she seemed deeply moved.

  Jasper nodded. “When she was a young girl. Kadin came from the New York PD. He was a good detective then. After his daughter was killed, he made it his life’s mission to take down bad people. He’s practically a celebrity. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him.”

  She faced the television, something taking her mood down. “I don’t pay attention to crime on television or in the news. I avoid that whenever possible.”

  Ever since that Canadian detective had been murdered and up until Bernie.

  “There were a lot of detectives at that party?” she asked.

  Parties were much more palatable for her. Jasper liked that about her, but she should face the things that hurt her in her past. That’s something he’d learned. Recently.

  “Just about all of them. Kadin and his wife, Penny, Brycen Cage and his wife, Drury. They came down from Alaska. He’s running a new division there now.” He chuckled with a thought. “It took a woman like Drury to bring him back to his roots.”

  “He’s from there?”

  “Not born, but he worked there before he started his show. Still does them but not on the scale he used to.” When she didn’t ask any more questions, seeing how insight into his place of employment engaged her, he resumed the party attendees. “Rachel and Lucas Curran were there. They live in Bozeman. His father owns one of Montana’s busiest private air transportation and tourism companies. He works remotely but travels a lot to the office and runs things for Kadin. He’s the business operations brain of the company. And then there’s Reese and Jamie Knox.”

  “The security expert.”

  “The security expert.” He smiled. “It took a lot for him to get her to leave her hometown in the southwestern mountains of Colorado. I’d say she’s a lot like you but she was a sheriff’s deputy.”

  “Not a rich heiress?” Although she smiled he sensed she may have taken some offense.

  “I’m not saying you aren’t tough.”

  “Maybe tough enough not to be swayed by a man who won’t relocate.”

  Who said he wouldn’t relocate? He didn’t voice his thoughts. Why bother when he wasn’t sure where he’d like to live? Close to DAI. He liked being in the thick of the action. Her curt declaration bit at him, though. Was she really that sure?

  Rather than reveal his reaction, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her mouth, then drew back to her dark, warming eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

  His phone rang, interrupting what might have progressed into the bedroom. Seeing Kadin’s name on the cell phone screen, he had to answer.

  “Kadin.”

  “Jasper. How’s Sadie holding up?”

  “Better now that we know Chad will be all right.” Jasper stood, feeling the need to move. Kadin didn’t call unless he had something important to say.

  Sadie followed his steps a few feet away with her eyes.

  “Any news on Jafari?”

  “Not yet. He’s on the run, but he won’t be able to avoid detection for long, with both Canadian and US authorities looking for him.”

  “Good. I didn’t call for that but I thought I’d get an update while I had the chance. Someone came to see you today. Someone who’s been calling for days now even when told repeatedly you aren’t here and we don’t know when you will be. She won’t say why she’s calling so I haven’t given her your number.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Her name is Kendra Scott. She says she’s not leaving until she talks to you.”

  “Why would I talk to her? Why is she insisting on me?” Most insisted on seeing Kadin.

  “Get ready for this one,” Kadin said. “She says it’s related to her twin sister, and her twin sister was married to your uncle.”

  The floor may as well drop out from under his feet.

  “I told her Kaelyn didn’t have a twin sister,” Kadin went on, “but she said they were both adopted by different parents.”

  Kadin must have learned all about Jasper’s uncle and Kaelyn when he’d brought Jasper on as a DAI detective, but he must not have discovered the adoption piece.

  “You’re slipping if you missed that in my background check.” He’d known Kaelyn had been adopted but she never told him about a twin.

  “I didn’t feel I needed to dig that deep. Still don’t. You’ve never disappointed me.”

  Had any of his detectives? Kadin was good at picking the bes
t.

  Jasper saw Sadie watching him intently. She must have sharpened her attention as soon as she heard Kaelyn’s name.

  “With things wrapping up there, when can you come back and meet her?” Kadin asked.

  First Jasper felt a familiar bolt of excitement over starting a new case, which surprised him given this case would involve his uncle and revisiting Kaelyn’s death. Just Kendra’s association with Kaelyn would spur up ugly memories. But, also surprising, he didn’t dread that. In fact, he thought it might be good for him.

  Maybe not for his relationship with Sadie, however. The soon-to-be mother of his child.

  “As soon as Jafari is captured.”

  “I can send two of our best to guard her. Nobody will get past them.”

  Kadin wanted him back as soon as possible. Jasper could tell. He also didn’t doubt he’d send top guards with Special Forces experience.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t been back already. We know the killer is dead. All we need now is the man who conspired it all.”

  Normally he would have left by now. He looked at Sadie and saw her attentively watching and listening.

  “You’re a valuable asset here, Jasper. People need you here.”

  Working on-site gave him hands-on availability and he had quicker, more secure access to resources. Kadin didn’t say, but he’d prefer Jasper didn’t work remotely. The keen-minded man knew what Sadie was coming to mean to him.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Call me when you have a date.”

  “Will do.” He ended the call and stood there looking across the family room, old paintings tying colors together with the rest of the room.

  “Was that Kadin?” Sadie asked, jarring him from his roaming thoughts.

  “Yes.”

  “Someone is asking for you?”

  “Kaelyn’s twin sister.” That she had a twin and that twin had gone to DAI looking for him had him more than curious. He could see it had triggered interest in Sadie as well, but a different kind.

  “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know. She refused to say. She’ll only talk to me. Kadin wants me back at DAI as soon as possible.”