Authors: Brenda Jackson
Twenty-Six
C
aden glanced up when he heard the knock on his office door. “Come in.”
Dalton walked in smiling. Caden glanced at his watch and wondered what the hell was going on. It was a Monday morning, and it wasn’t nine o’clock yet. Dalton was in the office at a reasonable time for once, and he was smiling. He must have gotten laid pretty damned good last night.
“What’s going on with you, Dalton? What’s the smile for?”
“No reason. It’s just good to be alive.”
Bullshit. As far as Caden was concerned, every day was a good day to be alive, so there had to be another reason behind Dalton’s megawatt smile. “You have a date last night?”
“No.”
“No date?”
Dalton chuckled. “No, no date. After I left Sutton Hills I went home and watched a game on TV and then went to bed. My team didn’t even win.”
Caden chuckled. “So I heard. I figured you’d be wearing a sad face all day, so, again, I’m asking, what’s up with the smile?”
Dalton slid into the chair across from Caden’s desk. “If you must know, I got a call from that investigator I hired. He’s found her.”
Caden heard the excitement in Dalton’s voice. “You were really serious about hiring a P.I. to find a woman for you?”
“Told you I was, and it’s not just any woman. She is
the
woman. Can’t wait to see her face when I show up and she realizes I’ve found her. That will teach her to throw out a challenge to me.”
There was another knock on Caden’s door. “Come in.”
Jace walked in but, unlike Dalton, he wasn’t smiling. In fact, he appeared disturbed about something.
“And what’s your problem this morning?” Dalton asked his brother, grinning. “Shana cut you off already?”
Jace shook his head. “No. Shana got a call from Marcel Eaton.”
Caden raised a brow. “That FBI guy?”
“Yes. He gave her some disturbing news.”
“What?” Dalton asked, feeling worry vibes coming from his oldest brother.
“Brandy Booker was found dead in an apartment in D.C. It appears she committed suicide.”
“Shit,” Dalton and Caden exclaimed at the same time.
* * *
Shana hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair, thinking her conversation with Marcel just now had been rather interesting. Although the D.C. authorities had ruled Brandy Booker’s death a suicide by overdose, her mother wasn’t buying that story...mainly because of the suicide note that was left.
In the note, Brandy told her parents she’d been depressed lately and didn’t want to live anymore and that was the reason she was taking her life. She asked her mother and father to forgive her. She also told them to tell her sister she loved her.
The only problem with this account was that Brandy Booker didn’t have a sister. She’d been an only child. Her mother was convinced her daughter had left that intentionally misleading statement as a clue that she was being forced to end her life. If that was true, then by whom?
This wasn’t, strictly speaking, an FBI issue. The reason Marcel had contacted her at all was because, at the time of her death, Brandy’s Granger Aeronautics ID badge was found in her purse along with her other belongings. Since the FBI had recently worked a case involving Granger, the FBI was notified about Brandy. So far, there was nothing to connect the two cases.
Shana stood and walked over to the window. It was a beautiful September day, and her view of the mountains was excellent. Unlike that morning, when fog had blanketed the city, there wasn’t a trace of fog anywhere. And the sun was peeking out over the mountains.
She drew in a deep breath. She hoped she wasn’t becoming paranoid like Jules had said, even though she had been teasing at the time. But Shana was beginning to wonder, especially with the recent events surrounding Granger Aeronautics. The kidnapping of Jace had been bad enough, but then Caden’s accident Saturday night, which she wasn’t completely sure was an accident...and now Brandy’s suicide this weekend. And Brandy’s death had come right before they planned to question her about why she had been snooping around in Dalton’s office.
She turned at the knock on her office door. “Come in.”
She wasn’t surprised when Jace and his brothers walked in. She could tell from the looks on Caden’s and Dalton’s faces that they were as shocked as she and Jace were about Brandy.
“I need a drink,” Dalton said, heading for the coffeepot in her office. She figured he’d prefer something a lot stronger, but he would make do with coffee for now. It was still early.
“All of us will need a drink before this is all over. I just hung up with Marcel, and there’s more.”
Dalton turned and looked at her. “
Christ.
And here I thought that today would be one of those rare days where everything went my way.”
Ignoring Dalton, Jace crossed the room to Shana. He could see the troubled look in her features. “What else did you learn?”
“Brandy’s mother doesn’t think it was suicide. She’s trying to convince the D.C. authorities that her daughter had no reason to take her life. She believes Brandy was murdered and forced to write that note.”
Caden frowned. “What makes her think that?”
“The suicide note itself. In it, Brandy apologizes to her parents for ending her life, and then she asked them to tell her sister she loved her.”
“Brandy doesn’t have a sister.”
Everyone in the room turned and looked at Dalton with raised brows. He shrugged. “In one of our conversations, Brandy mentioned she was an only child. That was the same day she’d also said both her parents used to work here.”
“Her parents used to work here?” Shana asked, quickly walking over to her computer. “Jace, did you know that?”
“No. That’s news to me,” Jace said, still staring at his brother.
“And I don’t recall that information coming up in my investigation of everyone here at Granger,” Shana said, sliding into her chair and rebooting her computer.
Jace came and leaned on the edge of Shana’s desk. “And just what else did Brandy tell you?” he asked Dalton.
Dalton shrugged for a second time while pouring his coffee. The thought of Brandy’s death bothered him. “Not a whole lot. Her mother left here to embark on a career in nursing. Her father left the company shortly after his divorce from her mom and moved to Texas. I believe she said that was eight or nine years ago.”
“This listing shows five Bookers who have worked for Granger Aeronautics since the company was founded,” Shana spoke up to say. “There was a Rosalyn Booker who left the company nine years ago, and her husband, Neil, left the year after she did. But according to this, he didn’t leave voluntarily. He was fired.”
“Why?” Caden asked, taking the chair across from Shana’s desk.
“It doesn’t say. We’ll have to pull old employment records to find out. The reason I didn’t link the three is because Brandy checked ‘no’ on her employment application where it asks if any relatives work or have ever worked for the company.”
Jace raised a brow. “I wonder why she did that.”
“Probably because her father was fired, and she was afraid the connection would jeopardize her chances of being hired,” Caden surmised.
“Yet she took a chance and told Dalton,” Jace said, staring at his brother.
Dalton took a sip of his coffee. “I guess I’m the kind of man women feel they can confide in.”
“When? During pillow-talk time?” Caden inquired.
Dalton frowned. “Let me go on record as saying that although Brandy was a hot number, she and I never slept together. She and I were never involved.” He then looked over at Jace. “Are you going to call everyone together and tell them? Brandy was well liked in this department.”
“Yes. But first I’ll tell Shelton Fields, because they’d been involved in an affair. I’ve called a meeting for ten o’clock to tell the staff.”
“Do you think she’d been depressed about the breakup?” Caden asked. “What if Brandy had assumed there was more to the affair than Shelton intended? He sure didn’t have any problems dropping her when the going got rough.”
“I don’t recall Brandy being depressed at all,” Dalton said. “After her breakup with Shelton, she had moved on to her next conquest.”
Jace lifted a brow. “How would you know?”
“She mentioned she was seeing someone. Some older guy, but she didn’t give any details. Whoever he was, she was falling for him fast. She didn’t give good old Shelton another thought.” Dalton lowered his head. “I guess we’ll never know why she was snooping around my office.”
“Bruce was here earlier,” Shana said, referring to the computer expert she hired on occasion. “He took Brandy’s hard drive and will call me if he finds anything. I mentioned to Marcel that Brandy was to be questioned when she returned on Wednesday. He was interested in that piece of information but said if the authorities rule her death as suicide, there’s no reason for the FBI to get involved unless we discover something.”
“But what about her mother’s accusations? It does seems funny she would write about a sister on her suicide note when she didn’t have one,” Caden said, frowning.
“Yes, it does,” Shana agreed.
Dalton glanced at his watch. “I hate to run, but I have an appointment.”
Jace raised a brow. “This early? With whom?”
“That private investigator I hired,” he said, heading out the door.
Shana gave Jace a questioning look. He shook his head and said, “Don’t ask.”
Twenty-Seven
A
jubilant Dalton entered Emory Harris’s office all but whistling. The man’s secretary looked up and smiled.
“I believe Mr. Harris is expecting me,” Dalton said.
“Yes, he is,” she said, standing. “Right this way, Mr. Granger.”
Moments later, Emory Harris was rising to his feet when Dalton entered his office. “Mr. Granger, like I told you on the phone this morning, I found the woman you were looking for,” he said, gesturing for Dalton to take the chair in front of his desk.
“I began work on your case on Friday.”
Dalton nodded. “And you were able to find her this quickly. I’m impressed.”
The man chuckled. “You shouldn’t be. In fact, I feel bad about taking your money. This was the easiest case I’ve had in a long time.”
Dalton lifted a brow. “Really? What made this one so easy?”
“Two reasons. The first is surveillance footage. I went to that club and got the owner to let me see the surveillance tape for that night. At first, he gave me some crap about privacy laws, so I had a friend of mine who works at police headquarters request a copy for me. Imagine my surprise when I watched the footage and immediately recognized the woman you’re looking for.”
Dalton wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Just what kind of work could this woman be in that she was easily recognized by Harris?
“And how were you able to identify her so easily?”
Harris smiled. “And that’s reason number two. I always make it my business to know a colleague.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your girl is a P.I. like me and a damned good one.”
Dalton blinked.
A private investigator?
He recalled the night he’d first met her she’d told him she was looking for a man. He’d thought he knew what she meant. Now it seemed he’d been wrong about that.
“Yeah, like I said, Sweet Pea is a damned good investigator.”
“Sweet Pea?”
“It’s a nickname she was given by other local P.I.s. Her agency is the J. B. Sweet agency, so we call her Sweet Pea...although I’m probably eighty percent certain J. B. Sweet isn’t her real name.”
Dalton frowned. “Why would she make up a name for her agency?”
“She’s a woman. Most people prefer to have a man handle their investigative work. By using initials, she makes sure, initially anyway, you don’t know whether she’s male or female. Once face-to-face contact is made, she has the opportunity to convince the client she’s the right person for the job.”
Harris took a sip of his coffee then added, “And then a lot of private investigators use fictitious names for privacy as well as protection. The last thing you want is for someone—like a deadbeat dad you’ve had arrested—to show up on your doorstep or in a dark alley. Nothing wrong with playing it safe.”
But did she have to look so damned sexy? Dalton wondered. He drew in a deep breath. Shit, he didn’t care what the woman did for a living. He had to see if he still found her as desirable as he had that night. Dalton had a strong feeling that he would.
Minutes later, he was walking out of Harris’s office with the address of the private investigator known as Sweet Pea safely tucked in his pocket.
* * *
“Come in.”
Jace walked into Caden’s office and went straight for the chair in front of his brother’s desk and sat down. He was certain his face still had an ashen look. Telling the staff about Brandy’s death had been hard on him. Brandy had been well liked and had gotten to know a lot of people during her three years with the company. No one should get to an emotional state that would make her choose death over life.
“Well, that’s over,” he said. “A lot of people are in shock, and understandably so. Of course, some approached me afterward expecting me to divulge details.”
Caden nodded. “What about Shelton? How did he take the news?”
“Worse than I expected. And according to Shelton, Brandy dropped
him,
not the other way around. He said she even threatened him with a sexual-harassment charge if he spoke to her or came near her again, which was why he’d been keeping his distance. Now, that’s strange,” Jace said, shaking his head.
He didn’t say anything for a minute and then he said, “The reason I came here is to talk about you, Caden.”
Caden looked surprised. “Me?”
“Yes. It’s about the other night, when that car almost hit you.”
Caden rubbed a hand down his face. “I’ve been trying to forget about it.”
“I can appreciate that and I do understand. But we need to talk about a possibility we haven’t discussed.”
A bemused expression showed on Caden’s face. “And what possibility is that?”
Jace leaned back in his chair and then said, “That it was no accident, and that someone tried to kill you.”