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“I was worried about her, too.” Ace smiled. “Luckily, she won’t have to have surgery on that ankle. They put her in a soft cast inside a boot. She’s been up here twice.”
Jake groaned. “She has? I wish someone would have woken me so I could have talked to her. How much time has passed?”
“Two days,” Ace informed him. “Sorry, man.”
“Do you have any idea when Fiona is coming back?”
“Oh, she’s here now. I drove her. You should see her getting around on that knee scooter.” Ace smiled. “She hates it.”
“You would, too,” Fiona said, wheeling herself into the room. “Good news, Jake. You’re being released to go home today.”
Home. For him, that would be his ranch, 120 miles to the north. Way too far away from Fiona.
Something of his mixed emotions must have shown on his face.
“You can stay with us,” Ace invited. “One of our guest bedrooms is yours for as long as you need.”
Relieved, he thanked the other man, then eyed Fiona. “What about you? Where are you going?”
“I’ll be hanging out at the AAG center for a few more days, gathering evidence,” she said, smiling. “I’d love to see you when I’m not working, if you’d like.”
Ace laughed, startling them both. Jake realized he’d managed to briefly forget the other man was there.
“I have an idea,” Ace said. “How about we have you over for dinner again, Fiona? Everyone enjoyed meeting you last time.”
“Sounds great.” She rolled over to Jake’s other side and leaned in to kiss his cheek. If Ace hadn’t been there, Jake would have turned his face toward her for a real kiss instead.
He could have sworn disappointment flashed across her expressive face.
“I’d better get back to
it. I’ve got work to do,” Fiona told them. “I wrote my number on a slip of paper, Jake. Use the room phone and give me a call once they have you sign discharge papers. They said it would be later this afternoon. I’ll see who I can finagle a ride with.”
“Will do.”
“I can give him a ride,” Ace volunteered. “Since he’ll be coming to the Triple R anyway.”
“Perfect.” With a jaunty wave, Fiona wheeled herself out of the room.
After she’d left, Ace turned back to Jake. “My dad’s assistant is beside herself,” he said. “When Dee finally realized the truth about Micheline, she took it hard.”
“At least she did the right thing and notified the authorities. Fiona said it was awful when she told the AAG members, too. Apparently, most of them didn’t want to learn the woman they’d idolized had feet of clay.”
Ace regarded him steadily. “We would have paid the money, you know. If it came down to that.”
“What?” Jake stared. “Ten million? That’s a lot of cash. Surely, you didn’t believe I’d be foolish enough to even consider ingesting poison in some bizarre attempt to die and be reborn.”
“Of course not. Dee let us all in on Micheline’s scheme. Did you know when they caught her, she had a one-way ticket to Grand Cayman? That must have been where she set up her untraceable bank account. She would have disappeared by the time her followers started to die.”
Shaking his head, Jake winced as a quick flash of pain hit him. “I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that she’d actually talked a bunch of gullible people into dying for false hopes and promises, or that she intended to leave them alone while they did it.”
Ace grimaced. “I can’t believe I’m actually related to her.”
“My condolences,” Jake replied. “Believe me when I say I know how it feels. At least neither of us will have to deal with her again. She’ll be locked up for the rest of her life, most likely.”
“I think so,” Ace agreed. “I hear there are so many charges.”
They talked about a few other things, including Ace’s desire to show him around Colton Oil. “I used to be CEO there,” Ace said, his tone rueful.
