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I chuckle softly, and Jasmine graces me with her girly giggle.
SEVENTEEN
Connor Royce
ZEKE
With every moment that passes, I fall more and more in love with Jasmine. Her shy sex-kitten show blew me away last night. Jasmine has cast a spell over me, and I’ve never been happier. I reluctantly took another pain pill before bed. In retrospect, it was the best idea. A good night’s sleep can help put things in perspective and give me clarity. But I can never forget that someone is still out there waiting for their kill shot, aiming for my girl.
I was able to put this mess away for the night only because of the beautiful distraction in my arms, and the fact that there isn’t a damn thing I can do about the case until Caleb shares his next steps.
I watched the clock and showed great restraint in waiting until eight o’clock before calling.
“Jesus, Zeke, I barely got into the station.” Caleb sounds annoyed, which only ticks me off because I’m the one twiddling my thumbs waiting to get started.
Sarcastically, I retort, “Poor baby. Did you have a hard night?”
“Yeah, I did. My neighbor thinks that changing her own spark plugs in the dead of night is a good idea. I’m surprised she didn’t blow herself and the car up before I got there,” he says. “She’s driving me crazy. What’s more, she’s trying to do this with aMechanics for Dummiesbook. Can you imagine, fixing your car from a do-it-yourself book? She’s nutty,” Caleb finishes with a huff.
“I’m going to say this one more time. Why do you care? It’s her car, her home, her property. If she was to swim naked in mud on her property, it’s her business.”
“Forget it.” He shuts me down. “Obviously, you want something to do, so here’s what I need. “Connor Royce, the fiancé of Paris Madden, has all but taken over Madden Holdings for the moment. Christie is still the major shareholder but she’s not in any emotional state to run the company at this time. Connor seems like the logical choice, seeing that he’s been working at the company for a while under Madden’s direction, but I got a vibe from Christie that she doesn’t like him much.”
“Any preliminary information on Royce I should know about?” I ask as I grab a pen and jot down the name, ready to take down anything else too.
“Parents are dead, leaving him a substantial amount of money to attend an Ivy League school. Met Paris at the same school and has been glued to her ever since. Damian’s been talking to some of the staff at the company, and he’s not well liked by the executives. They say he’s lazy, and some implied he’s siphoning money out of the company. The women, on the other hand, think he’s some kind of Don Juan. They love him at first, but not so much when he walks away.”
“In other words, nothing outright illegal, but morally questionable,” I reply.
“Right. But we know it was a man behind the wheel the other day. We did find out that the car was a rental, and it was abandoned in a parking lot. We traced it back to the rental company. The person who rented it paid cash, but the customer service rep confirmed the renter was male. A charming man, apparently,” Caleb shares. “Normally, rental companies require the deposit on a credit card, but this was a low-end place, and the guy convinced the rep to rent to him. Probably slipped him a bribe.”
“Connor?”
“Could be. I’m having Alex run back down to the bar where Brian Candor hung out to see if anyone recognizes the photo of Connor Royce.”
“He’s got motive. If someone wanted full control of the company, they’d get rid of the CEO and take their place. If we can get permission to get into the company security logs, I can see if he was in the building when Madden was killed.”
“Connor is clever. He could have erased the tape. With the new systems, though, there are backups, mostly stored in the cloud. It’s worth a shot.”
“I’ll call Madden’s wife. If she’s serious about finding out the truth about her husband’s death, she’ll agree. I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear.” Caleb disconnects just as Jasmine comes through the door with a bagel and coffee.
“You need to eat.” She sets the plate and mug down on my desk. Still in her loose-fitting, flowy pajama bottoms and tank, she looks adorable.
“Where’s my morning kiss?” I tease. Jasmine takes my cheeks between her palms and presses her lips to mine.
“Mornin’, babe,” she says. “I’m going to take a shower. If you don’t emerge from this room by noon, I’ll make sure to bring lunch.” Jasmine saunters out. She makes an effort to stay positive through the difficulties surrounding her. She’s mentioned being worried about her parents, and a phone call helps, but after this is over, we need to plan a vacation to go see them.
The other thing weighing on her mind is the kids. Jasmine loves teaching, and she takes her commitment to educating young minds seriously. She’s called in to the school and spoken to the substitute teacher to see how the kids are doing. They’re missing her and are asking when she’s coming back.
In our quiet moments, we talk about all the things we want to do together, like hiking through the national parks, snowmobiling in winter, and baking Christmas cookies. Jasmine is a Christmas junkie. From the carols to the carefully wrapped presents under the tree, she loves everything about the holiday. Baking Christmas cookies is her favorite part. “The whole apartment is filled with Christmas. Maybe we can have a decorating night. Chloe and Sabrina said they’d love to do it. Do you think the guys would come?” she asked hopefully.
“Baby, they’ll come. Not to decorate, but they’ll eat the cookies. It’ll be a good time, and we’ll plan for it,” I told her, and we will, but the first thing on my mind is eliminating the threat on her life.
I get to work finding out as much as I can about Connor Royce.
* * *
Connor Royce is a very sly and devious man. He’s got three offshore accounts, all with over a million in each. After hours of tracing electronic records, I’m able to link them back to Madden company funds. They were supposed to be investments into specific product development. The deeper I look, the more I see that those products never got off the ground. At the very least, Connor is a thief.
