Runaway Heiress Read online

  The big Swiss-looking man stared without blinking, giving her an unexpected spark. He liked what he saw, apparently. It had been a long time since a man made her feel this way, and with only a look. She found herself also compelled to stare, taken in by his Viking good looks. His thick blond hair waved slightly in a breeze and she could see the brilliance of his blue eyes from here. She barely noticed the other man, who put on sunglasses, his military short black hair and a dark suit made him look like a star in Men in Black.

  Is this what all the Dark Alley detectives looked like? My-oh-my, was she in for a treat. Before she let her excitement get too carried away, she scanned the area as she always did when she went out in public, checking for anything suspicious. She saw nothing unusual. A few people walked along the street and didn’t pay her any attention. A man glanced over at her car but after a few seconds moved on. A few cars passed on the street.

  She started walking around the front of the car when she noticed an approaching car slow. Both the driver and the passenger were watching her. That caused her some alarm. Had they recognized her? She stopped, wondering if she should get back into her car. She looked for a place to get out of sight. Only the Dark Alley Investigations building would give her that.

  She started to turn when she saw the man in the passenger seat of the dark sedan draw a gun.

  She screamed and tried to duck for cover, but the man fired and a bullet slammed through her. The impact sent her jolting backward. She hit the ground hard, vaguely aware of the Viking rushing to her and his partner firing back at the passing car before everything went black.

  Chapter 1

  Sitting on an uncomfortable hospital room chair with his legs outstretched, elbows on the armrests and fingers teepeed together, Jasper Roesch watched Sadie Moreno sleep. Rest in unconsciousness, more like. She’d gone through twelve hours of surgery and a day of intensive care before the doctors rolled her into a recovery room. She’d survive her gunshot wound, which had narrowly missed her heart.

  The tall, slender Spanish-looking woman had long manicured nails. The nursing staff had put her ample head of jet-black hair up. Her Angelina Jolie lips were pale and dark circles shadowed the skin beneath her eyes. But even the signs of her close brush with death didn’t diminish her beauty.

  Three knocks on the door brought him turning to see a well-dressed man with neatly trimmed and combed brown hair and nickel-gray eyes.

  “Jasper Roesch from Dark Alley Investigations?” the man queried.

  Jasper stood and faced the man. “That’s me. And you are?”

  “Steven Truscott.” He stepped forward. “Sadie’s security officer.” After a brief shake of hands, the man looked over at Sadie. “She said she was going to hire one of you.”

  “I figured she had a reason for showing up at DAI.” And that reason ended up shooting her. “How did you find out she was here?”

  “The doctor called her home and her estate manager notified me.” Steven said. “Your agency called before the hospital. The estate manager passed the number on to me. Kadin Tandy said you were here watching over Sadie until I arrived.”

  The founder of DAI had let Jasper know Sadie’s security officer would be coming to the hospital to explain a homeless man’s murder case. He’d thought it odd someone like that would show up rather than a family member.

  “I was assured her safety would be your top priority,” Steven said. “I can’t be with her all the time.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Sadie runs an organization for the homeless. She has three facilities, one in New York, one in Dallas and headquarters in San Francisco. I work intermittently at her headquarters.”

  “Her address is in Wyoming.”

  “She works remotely.”

  He did, too, if he only worked intermittently. Many people worked from their homes, but something about this didn’t add up. Sadie worked from her home but the one person who came to see her at the hospital is her head of security who works remotely as she did.

  “She prefers reclusiveness,” Steven added, as though he felt he needed an excuse. Jasper would have questioned him further if he hadn’t turned a grave face to Sadie.

  “I worried something like this would happen,” Steven said. “She’s been after the police to catch Bernie’s killer. I kept telling her to stay out of the investigation. A woman like her stands out in a crowd.”

  Who wouldn’t be after police to catch the criminal who’d killed someone close to them? Bernie, he presumed, was one of her homeless men and the victim of murder that had brought her to DAI’s door.

  “Is there a reason she should stay out of the investigation?” Did she just want to avoid the public? Jasper hadn’t heard of her so she couldn’t be so famous for that to be a threat.

  “As I said, she prefers to remain reclusive.”

  The more he talked with this man, the more suspicious he became. He questioned a lot of criminals, many of them experts at lying. Steven was no expert, at least not when it came to Sadie. Maybe her being shot had caught him off guard.

  “Has anyone notified her family?” he asked.

  “I’m the closest she has to family. Her father passed several years ago. She was his sole heir.” He eyed Jasper as though sharing a piece of gossip. “Holdings in an oil and refining corporation.” So, Sadie had inherited her wealth, but hid herself from the rest of civilization in Wyoming. Why?

  “What about Bernie King?” Jasper asked. “Who is he to her?” For Sadie to hire DAI to investigate his murder meant she cared more than she might if Bernie was just another one of her homeless people.

  “Bernie is a special friend.”

  Movement from the hospital bed shifted Jasper’s concentration. Sadie began to open her eyes. He went to stand beside her, Steven going to the opposite side of the bed.

  “Steven?”

  “Yes, Sadie, I’m here.”

  Steven took her hand and held it while Sadie groggily smiled up at him. “I thought you went home.”

  “I did. But then someone from Dark Alley Investigations called and told me what happened.”

  Steven had been here recently? Jasper wondered if that was how the shooters had found her. He also noticed she had no accent. She looked Spanish but she must have been raised in the United States. He hadn’t had time to dig into her background yet.

  Sadie’s brow twitched in confusion. Memory must elude her after enduring the trauma she had. She slowly turned her head and soft chocolate-brown eyes fringed with thick dark lashes found him. Their clear, dramatic beauty struck him. The unexpectedness made him clamp down on the attraction. She stared at him for endless seconds, confusion going to recollection and then purely personal observation.

  “This is Jasper Roesch,” Steven said. “The founder of DAI put him on Bernie’s case.”

  “Oh.” She stared at him awhile longer and then her brow twitched again. “Where am I?” She looked around the room.

  “You were shot outside Dark Alley Investigations,” Jasper said.

  She stared at the ceiling awhile and then seemed to connect more dots. Driving up to DAI, getting out...

  “I remember going there, but I don’t remember what happened after I got out of my car.”

  “Someone drove by in a stolen car and shot at you,” Jasper said. “There were two, a driver and a passenger. They both wore hats and sunglasses.” Kadin had run the plates. The car had been found outside town.

  “She was coming to see you about the murder of Bernie King,” Steven said to Jasper. “He was a homeless man going through Sadie’s reestablishment program at the Revive Center. There are no leads.”

  Jasper nodded a couple of times. “I’ve got a call in to the lead investigator. I’ll meet with him and get all the details.”

  “I saw you in fron
t of Dark Alley Investigations,” Sadie said to Jasper.

  “Yes. I saw you, too. You were a little hard to miss.” While he meant because of the men who’d shot at her, she was hard to miss for an entirely different reason. He wondered if he revealed too much about how seeing her had impacted him. A moment of awareness of the effect of that first sight passed between them.

  Jasper shook off the distraction. “The doctor said you’d be released by the end of the week, but you’re going to need time to recover. I’ve got some security guards ready to accompany us to your house.”

  “I don’t need security. I have my own.” She looked up at Steven with a soft, exhausted smile that revealed how much she valued the man, maybe as a family member but probably more as her head of security. She valued his protection.

  Jasper began to have a lot of questions. Sadie had her own security, worked remotely and liked reclusiveness, although he didn’t quite believe that. Steven had seemed to throw that out for Jasper.

  What were the two of them hiding?

  “Don’t argue with the man, Sadie,” Steven said. “You said it—this about more than murder.”

  “I’m only talking about getting us there safely. I’ll evaluate what you’ve got on your property and decide if it’s enough,” Jasper said. “How’s that?”

  “Thank you,” Sadie said tiredly. “I don’t want to tell anyone they’re out of a job.”

  He didn’t care where the security came from, as long as it was solid. If hers met DAI requirements, they’d be fine. And they’d spare DAI the resources.

  Sadie’s head rolled to the side and she stared across the hospital room.

  Steven put a reassuring hand on her arm, above the IV.

  “Why would the killer come after me like that?” she asked. “I thought I was safe here.”

  “Shh,” Steven said. “Get some rest.”

  Jasper had to agree the killer going after her seemed extreme. And why would more than one? There had been two in that car.

  Jasper refrained from asking why she had to be safe. He’d like to question Sadie without her esteemed security head in the room.

  “We’ll discuss the case in detail once I’ve had a chance to review the file,” he said.

  “I hope you have better luck than the San Francisco police,” Sadie said.

  “If I relied on luck I wouldn’t be working for DAI,” Jasper said.

  Her exhausted eyes found his and he felt her appreciation. “That’s nice to hear, Mr. Roesch. It’s upsetting to think Bernie’s murder will go unsolved. He was so dear to me.” Sadie paused, seeming to fall into thoughts of the dead man, who clearly was someone close to her. Did she get close to all of her homeless people or did only a few stand out?

  “He had so much going for him,” she gave him a hint by saying. “Not every homeless person is as successful as he would have been. He was so close to starting a new life.”

  And now whoever had killed him may have a reason to stop her from hiring an agency like DAI to investigate his murder.

  “Who knew you were going to hire DAI services?” he asked.

  “Just Steven. He talks to the police in San Francisco for me and comes to meet me occasionally.”

  For her? “Do you mean he’s taken over keeping in contact with the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s true now,” Steven interjected, “But at first Sadie badgered the police to work harder on his case.”

  “And you think they didn’t like the badgering?” Why had she withdrawn from her badgering? Why hand that task over to Steven? Was it a rich woman thing or would the answer tell him more about her reclusiveness?

  “No. We thought she’d be safer if she let me look into things.”

  There was that hypersensitivity to safety again. He’d table that for a while. “Have you told anyone? Talked to anyone about the murder? Friends? Family?”

  She stared at him as though thinking it an unusual question. “No.”

  “You don’t talk to anyone other than Steven?” No one?

  She looked up at the ceiling in thought and then back at him when something must have come to her. “I did tell my friends at The University Club. And my household staff all know.”

  He’d check all of them out when he arrived at her house. “University Club? What is that?”

  “It’s a women-only club in London,” Steven said. “She flies there almost every month.”

  “What about closer to home?”

  “I live in a very remote area near Jackson Hole. I do go to the golf club, but I’m not close to anyone there. I belong to an online social club and have gotten a little chatty with one of the other members.”

  As wealthy as she was, he wasn’t surprised she belonged to elite groups, but an online social club sounded more mainstream.

  “What kind of social club?”

  “Dating. It’s a special interest group, not only for the purpose of dating. I meet people who like to hike, that sort of thing.”

  “And you’ve met a man on this site?”

  She nodded.

  “Would that person have any reason to stop you from investigating Bernie’s murder?”

  She breathed a laugh and then winced, digging her head back into the pillow in pain.

  “Easy, Sadie.” Steven put his hand on her arm again, catching the edge of her hospital gown and moving it down her shoulder a fraction, revealing part of the bandage on her chest.

  “No,” she said to Jasper. “I haven’t even met him yet.”

  “Would he have any other reason to go after you?”

  She rolled her head from side to side, a silent response.

  “What about events? Dates? Anything like that?”

  “I attend all of my fund-raiser events. That keeps me very busy.”

  “Anyone come to mind at any of those who might be worth checking out?”

  She thought awhile. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “We’ll look into that more later. Right now, you should get some rest like your friend here suggested. You have a long road ahead of you for recovery. We’ll head to your place as soon as you’re released.”

  Sadie’s brow creased slightly. “We?”

  “I’ll require a room close to where you sleep.” He wouldn’t negotiate this part. DAI had a strong policy on client safety.

  “Where...what are you saying? You’re going home with me?”

  “Somebody almost succeeded in killing you, Ms. Moreno. Long-distance comms aren’t going to work.” Something much more up close and personal was her only option. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

  As her incredible eyes softened into acquiescence, he almost dreaded what would happen when she regained her strength.

  * * *

  Sadie lived in the Tetons, soaring rocky peaks and steep forested slopes her view from every window of her English fairy-tale home. Landscaping painted the property near the house. The manicured lawns and gardens would be spectacular in the warmer months ahead. A ten-foot stone fence looked to surround the estate and a heavy iron gate prevented entry until the guard on duty recognized Sadie and let them onto the property. So far so good. He liked what he saw. No one had followed them, either.

  He drove Sadie’s Ferrari up the gravel driveway to a turning circle and gawked at the oolitic limestone mansion. He sat in the car and stared. With sash windows running the length of two stories and two turrets, he could have traveled through time to the old English countryside of Cotswold. Still transfixed with the Ferrari engine purring, he heard Sadie stir on the seat beside him. Weak as a kitten, the trip home had taxed her.

  He climbed out from the low seat and went around to Sadie’s side. She’d managed to get the door open but now cringed in pain.

  �
�Let me help you.” Jasper slipped his arms beneath her and alighted her from the car. She winced and put her forehead against his shoulder. He could imagine the kind of pain she was in.

  As he approached the wood double doors, one of them opened and a man stepped out onto a stone porch that extended to the driveway with gardens surrounding it. Not a tall man, or large, he had a butler look to him with expressionless eyes, neatly combed-back thick brown hair and an unsmiling mouth. He wore tan slacks and a white dress shirt and had a radio clipped to his belt. He allowed Jasper to enter.

  Inside, Jasper stepped onto a marble-floored entry with a waiting room off to one side.

  “Right this way, Mr. Roesch,” the man said. “I’m the estate manager, Finley.”

  No introductions necessary, Jasper mused. “Hello, Finley.”

  They entered the main living area, a large walnut-paneled room partially open to the second floor. The coffered ceiling contained ornate insets and the trim held equal detail. A curvy ivory sofa and chairs around a large square cocktail ottoman brightened up the room.

  “What kind of electronic security does she have here?” he asked as he followed the man up a turreted stone stairway worthy of a princess.

  “The property is surrounded by a ten-foot stone fence topped with barbed wire, cameras and movement detection devices. A single guard is stationed in the gatehouse and several others stay in one of the guesthouses. There’s a small ops center there.”

  Impressive, but...why?

  “Don’t even think about making changes,” Sadie said against his shoulder and neck.

  He chuckled. “I wasn’t...” Just the opposite.

  “I don’t want intrusive security. This is my home. My sanctuary. It’s bad enough that the perimeter wall makes me feel like I’m in prison.”