by Cassie Miles
He stepped onto the front porch, closed the door behind himself and inhaled a deep breath. The killer was one of them. He knew it and so did they.
Chapter Sixteen
Sasha took her laptop into Dooley’s office—a large space filled with oak file cabinets, a giant desk and half a dozen mounted heads on the walls. Avoiding the marble-eyed gazes of the taxidermy collection, she sat behind the desk and placed the screen on the desktop so she could talk to Damien.
As soon as his computerized face appeared, he asked, “Are we alone?”
She looked up at a snarling bobcat. “Kind of.”
“What does that mean?”
She turned the computer so he could see the collection. “Dooley is big on protecting the environment, but I guess he’s also a hunter.”
“What the hell is that thing?”
She followed his computerized gaze. “Moose. He’s got a beard. Did you know mooses had beards? That doesn’t sound right, does it? Mooses? Should it be meese?”
“Sasha, pay attention. Are there any other people in the room?”
“No, sir.”
Reinhardt and Andrea were already on their way back to the hotel. Moreno and his entourage were in the dining room sharing tea and special gluten-free coffee cake with Katie and her husband. Brady had made himself scarce after Damien pointed out that he was the enemy.
Though she understood that attorneys and police sometimes had different agendas when it came to crime, she’d always thought they were after the same thing: justice. Damien would tell her that she was being naive. So would her brother Alex. They’d remind her that the duty of a lawyer was to represent their client, whether they were guilty or not.
But it didn’t feel right. If Reinhardt was responsible for the murder of his wife, Sasha wanted to see him in prison. Maybe she was in the wrong profession.
Outside the window, the wind whooshed around the corner of the big house. The snow had begun to fall in a steady white curtain.
She confronted computerized Damien. “If you’re coming up here this afternoon, you should get on the road. The weather is starting to get nasty.”
“Duly noted.”
“I spoke to the property manager at the condo this morning. She stocked the refrigerator with your standard food order.”
“And there’s champagne for us in the fridge, right?”
For us? “Three bottles.”
“There were supposed to be four.”
“I opened one the first night,” she said.
“You naughty girl,” he said with a smirk. “Did you try the hot tub?”
“Yes.” Hoping to squelch any flirting, she added, “I remembered to bring my bathing suit.”
“Clothes aren’t really necessary. Not in the privacy of the condo.”
She was beginning to feel as if the proper attire for a spin in the hot tub with Damien would be a suit of armor. “Anyway, the condo is ready for you. The property manager assured me that the dead bolt on the balcony door has been installed.”
“Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you staying there?”
“After the ninja break-in, I didn’t feel safe. I booked a room at the hotel last night.”
She was certain that Damien wasn’t going to appreciate her plan to spend tonight with Brady, but her mind was made up. When it came to her job, she’d do what was required, but her sleeping arrangements were her own private business.
“I’ll be at the condo tonight,” he said. “You can move back.”
“I have other plans.” Hoping to avoid a discussion of where she’d be sleeping, she changed the topic. “What time do you think you’ll be arriving? I can set up appointments with the CBI agents.”
“What are these plans of yours?”
“Staying with a friend.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sasha. I was looking forward to spending time with you. We could discuss your future with the firm.”
Talking about her career goals with a senior partner was a hugely tempting opportunity. She’d been employed at the Three Ss for only a year. Most legal assistants went forever without being noticed. Damien hadn’t actually said anything that would cause her to mistrust him. “I’d like to have that talk. I hope to get started taking classes to learn mediation in the spring.”
“I’m sure you do.” When he straightened his necktie, playing for time, she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. “Right now we’ll focus on the needs of the Arcadia investors. Reinhardt and his sexy little real estate agent, Andrea, are the top suspects. They both have motive. If you hadn’t witnessed the murder, he’d be in custody right now.”
“What’s their motive?”
“The oldest in the book,” he said smugly. “Money and revenge. Pay attention, Sasha, you might learn something.”
She put up with his condescending attitude to get information. “Tell me all about it.”
“Reinhardt’s ex-wife was receiving alimony, and she kept digging into his finances, finding bits and pieces he might owe her. She did the same with Andrea.”
“They were partners,” Sasha recalled.
“It bothers me that Lauren was also working for Westfield,” he said. “The autopsy showed that he was murdered. He took a blow to the skull before he fell down the stairs.”
She gasped. It was hard to imagine someone killing that sweet, elderly man who loved his cats so dearly. “That’s horrible.”
“The Denver homicide cops are looking into any connection between that murder and the death of Lauren Robbins. They figure one murder leads to another.”
“What could possibly be the motive for killing Mr. Westfield?”
“I don’t know. There’s some question about a dude-ranch property that Westfield wanted to acquire. Do you know anything about it?”
“I’ve been there,” she said quickly. “Moreno is also interested in buying the dude ranch to set up an ashram for his followers.”
“The same property?”
She nodded. “Andrea is the real-estate agent, and I think she was setting up a bidding war between Moreno and her cousin.”
“And Reinhardt?”
“I haven’t heard anything about him and the dude-ranch property,” she said. “It’s too far from the ski lodge to be a good development for condos.”
“That’s good. He doesn’t need any more strikes against him.” Damien’s hand reached toward the screen, preparing to close down their communication. “I should be in Arcadia by three o’clock. When I arrive, we’ll make appointments with the CBI. We’ll have a nice dinner and a soak in the hot tub.”
His face disappeared. Though she hadn’t actually told him that she wouldn’t be waiting for him at the condo, Sasha was even more convinced that she didn’t want to put herself in that position. She might be naive, but she wasn’t fool enough to think Damien was interested in discussing her career.
During the conversations she’d had with him over the past few days, he hadn’t once asked about her safety. The only time he’d perked up was just now when he talked about champagne and hot tubs. Her brother had it right when he’d said that the condo was a bachelor pad; Damien wanted her alone with him so he could seduce her. The never-forgotten chords of “Trashy Sasha” played in her head.
She closed the computer and looked up at the bobcat on the wall and snarled back at it, baring her teeth. No way, Damien. She’d sleep outside in the snow before she spent the night under the same roof with him.
In the hallway outside the office, Brady was waiting for her. Seeing him immediately brightened her mood. Leaning against the wall opposite the office, he squinted down at a small notebook, concentrating hard. For some reason, he was wearing purple latex gloves. Looking up, he gave her a crooked grin. “Either I need glasses or I finally fou
nd somebody with worse penmanship than mine.”
“Let me see.” She held out a hand. “I’ve gotten pretty good at translating chicken scratches for lawyers.”
He hesitated. “This is evidence. I shouldn’t let you look at it. Matter of fact, I shouldn’t be looking, either.”
“Evidence, huh? That’s why you’re wearing the gloves. You don’t want to leave fingerprints.”
He held up a purple hand. “I’ve been carrying a boxful of these around in my SUV for a couple of years. This is the first time I’ve worn them.”
“They’re cute.”
“That’s what I was going for.” He held the notebook toward her. “Can you tell what this says? It looks like something about a Dr. Cayman at an office in a southern bank.”
She glanced at the scribbled abbreviations. The letters D and R were in capitals. In small letters, it read “off-s-bnk.” She took her cue from the one clear word.
“Cayman,” she said, “might refer to the Cayman Islands, a place with many offshore banks.”
“I got it.” He nodded. “Off-s-bnk. What about the doctor?”
“I’m not sure, but I think that’s an abbreviation used by auditors for a discrepancy report, referring to an accounting problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“A discrepancy,” she said, “is a difference between reported transactions and actual money. If we could access Lauren’s business records for that date, we might have more information.”
He snapped the book closed. “Grab your jacket. I need to get back over to the hotel and talk to the CBI agents.”
Since the investors’ meeting was officially ended, Sasha had no particular reason to hang around at Dooley’s ranch, especially since she and Brady would be returning here later. They made a speedy exit through the kitchen door and hiked through the snow toward the barn.
His SUV was parked outside a rustic little two-story log cabin nestled under a spruce tree. “Your house?”
“I never gave you the grand tour,” he said. “Well, that’s the barn. Over there is a bunkhouse. This is my place. Me and my dad built it when I was a teenager. Tour over.”
She climbed into the passenger side of the SUV. “Did your dad live at the cabin, too? I don’t understand the whole family dynamic here at the ranch.”
“Nobody does,” he said. “This property has been in our family for over a hundred years, so it gets kind of twisted around. The bottom line is that Dooley owns most of the acreage and runs the ranch. He’s been a widower for seven years but has a lady friend who lives in Arcadia. Dooley has four kids, but only one of them is interested in ranching.”
“That would be Daniel,” she said, recalling the name from some documents. “And he’s married with three kids.”
Brady drove along the narrow road toward the front of the big house. “Daniel and his wife have a spread of their own where she trains horses. Their kids are off in college. When he’s in town, Daniel works with Dooley. Someday he’ll inherit the ranch.”
“What about you? What do you inherit?”
“I don’t really think about it.” He peered through the windshield at the steadily falling snow. “I’ll always help out at the ranch, but it’s not my whole life. When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was be a rancher like Uncle Dooley. I loved riding and being outdoors. I still do.”
His words ended on a pensive sigh. Brady didn’t often talk about himself, and she wanted to hear more. “What changed your mind?”
“I want to make a difference.” He gave a little shrug. “Being in law enforcement makes that happen. When people get in trouble, I’m the first one they call.”
She thought of the first time she’d seen him, when he responded to her 911 call. His presence had been a huge relief. When she saw his wide shoulders and determined eyes, she’d known that he had come to help her. “You like your work.”
“That’s why I hate giving up on this murder. I want to make it right.”
At the moment, she was less interested in the murder and more focused on the lawman who wanted to solve it. He was so deeply involved in his work that it was an extension of him. Sasha had never felt that way about her job. Sure, she liked the prestige of being employed by a high-power law firm, and the paycheck was decent. But she lacked a passion for the law.
“There must have been something in your childhood,” she said, “that made you want to be a deputy.”
“I always used to root for the underdog, always took care of the runt in the litter.” He tossed her a grin. “If I hadn’t become a deputy, I would’ve been a vet.”
“Tell me about your dad.”
“He died eight years ago in a car accident. His death was mercifully fast, unexpected. One day he was here. The next he was gone forever. It left me with unanswered questions. I don’t think I ever really knew my dad. He was a good man. Quiet. Kindhearted. He loved being a cowboy.”
Though his expression barely changed, she felt the depth of his emotion. “And you loved him.”
“Yeah, I love both my parents. You remind me of my mom. She’s a city gal, real pretty and real smart.”
A gentle warmth made her smile. “You think I’m pretty.”
“And smart.”
At the intersection with the highway, he turned right. On a clear day, the chairlift and the ski lodge would have been visible in the distance. Through the snowfall, she could hardly see beyond the trees at the edge of the road. “Do people ski in this weather?”
“It’s a winter sport.”
“You never told me why it was so important to see the CBI agents.”
“The evidence in the notebook,” he said. “I didn’t obtain it in the usual manner. I kind of swiped the notebook out of the glove compartment in Lauren Robbins’s car, and it’s been weighing on my conscience like a twelve-ton boulder.”
Obviously, he had already gone through the notebook. “Did you find any clues?”
“The best one is that offshore bank note,” he said. “Other than that, it’s just random jotting. She only had a few big clients like Westfield and she took them out to dinner and to sports events. Andrea owed her money but not a lot. And she really hated Reinhardt.”
“How could you tell that from an appointment book?”
“On his birthday, she sent him dead roses and cheap wine.”
Sasha chuckled. “That’s pretty funny.”
“Maybe for the first year after the divorce or the second, but they’ve been split up for five years. It was time for her to move on.”
“Unless she saw him with her cousin and that triggered her anger.” Sasha tried to put herself in Lauren’s shoes. Being betrayed by a girlfriend could be painful. She remembered Damien’s words. “The oldest motives in the book are money and revenge.”
“But Lauren didn’t kill anybody. She was the victim.”
“I don’t know if this helps or not, but Damien told me that the Denver police have classified Westfield’s death as a homicide. And they think it might be connected to Lauren’s murder.”
“It adds a new wrinkle.” He hooked into his hands-free phone. “The sheriff won’t be answering his radio. I’m going to try to get him on the cell phone to find out where the CBI agents are.”
As they drove the last few miles toward the hotel, she realized that she’d blabbed confidential information. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Brady was a cop. He’d know what other cops had discovered.
As Brady drove into the valet parking area at the hotel, he finished his phone call to Sheriff McKinley. He turned to her. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“The CBI is on their way to arrest Reinhardt.”
Chapter Seventeen
Brady rushed into the lavish hotel lobby with Sasha right b
eside him. Unless the CBI had come up with conclusive proof, he thought the arrest of Reinhardt was premature. His gut told him that Reinhardt was a tough contractor who had earned his millions the hard way and knew that murder was bad business. Reinhardt had already figured out the way to handle his ex-wife. When Lauren gave him trouble, he paid the woman off.
Waiting for the elevator, his cell phone jangled. It was McKinley.
Brady answered. “What is it, Sheriff?”
“We’re up here on the concierge floor, and Reinhardt is gone. We’ve got to assume he’s making a run for it. If you see him, arrest him on sight.”
Even before he disconnected the call, Brady had a pretty good idea where he would find Reinhardt. When he’d searched for the body of Lauren Robbins, he’d been all over the hotel, but he knew better than to start combing the back hallways and the laundry room. The interior and part of the exterior of the hotel were visible on surveillance cameras, and there was only one man who could make a fugitive disappear from these premises: Grant Jacobson.
He glanced down at Sasha. “Stick close to me.”
“What are we doing?”
“We’ll know when we get there.”
He went to the security offices behind the front desk. In the room with all the camera feeds, he found Jacobson sitting alone, watching the monitors. Brady ushered Sasha inside and closed the door.
“Grant Jacobson, your name came up at a meeting this morning.”
“Did it?”
As Jacobson pushed back from the desk and stood, his gaze darted toward his private office at the back of the room. That glance was what Dooley would call a “tell.” Jacobson was concerned about something in that rear office.
“Somebody suggested that we should have a private police force to secure and protect the resort, and that you should run it. I had to tell them it was a bad idea. A sheriff’s department is different from private security.” Brady nodded toward the closed door to Jacobson’s private office. “Is he in there?”
Jacobson rubbed his hand across his granite jaw. “You’re pretty smart for a cowboy.”
