chapter Fourteen
Noelle reached out with her hand. J.D. didn’t know if she sought balance or comfort, but he offered both by pulling her close against his side.
A tremor rolled through her body, and J.D. tightened his grip around her waist. He shouted into the phone, adrenaline amplifying his voice. “What happened?”
“It was a skiing accident. Bruce was heading down a triple-black-diamond run, took a wrong turn and skied off a cliff.”
Noelle licked her lips. “Triple black diamond? Bruce was a good skier, but he was cautious. There’s no way he would’ve attempted one of the most difficult runs on the mountain.”
“He must’ve been feeling confident because he attempted it—and failed.”
J.D. cut in. “When did this happen?”
“Just a few hours ago. I’d heard about an accident on the mountain, but I didn’t know it was Bruce until later. Sheriff Greavy wants to talk to you, Noelle. I told him Pierpont was here visiting you.”
J.D. took the phone that Noelle held between them with a trembling hand and clamped it to his ear. “Was Pierpont with anyone? Were there any witnesses to the accident?”
Noelle’s body jolted against his. She knew as well as he did that Pierpont’s accident was related in some way to Zendaris. But what did Zendaris’s men hope to gain from killing Noelle’s friend? Had they questioned him first?
“As far as I know, Pierpont was on his own. Maybe if he’d been with others, they could’ve talked him out of taking that run.”
“Have they recovered the body?”
Noelle sobbed against his chest and he stroked her hair. She needed him now even if she had played him for a fool.
“Yeah, search and rescue brought him down.”
“Do you know if foul play is suspected?”
“Foul play? You mean like murder? Why would...?” Ted stopped and sucked in a noisy breath. “What’s going on? First, you two give me the third degree about people following and kidnapping me and now this. Does Bruce’s accident have something to do with that crank call Noelle got about me?”
“It just might. If you happen to see Greavy, tell him I’m on my way.”
“Is this connected to Alex’s murder? Is someone after Noelle?”
“We’re not sure. But, Ted?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t go down any triple-black-diamond runs.”
J.D. ended the call and eased Noelle into a chair.
Rocking forward, she covered her face with her hands. “This is my fault. This is all my fault.”
She already blamed herself for her husband’s death. J.D. wasn’t going to allow her to take responsibility for this one, too.
“Stop.” He knelt in front of her and grasped her wrists, pulling her hands away from her wet face. “Put the blame where it belongs—on Zendaris and his thugs.”
She sniffled, her gaze locking onto his. “They thought Bruce was my brother, didn’t they? That must be it.”
Her fear hadn’t clouded her reasoning skills, as the same thought had been forming in his mind as well. “That’s a possibility. It explains the phone call. They thought they had Ted. They must’ve discovered soon after talking to you that they had the wrong guy.”
“That’s why they never called me back with their demands.” She wriggled a wrist free from his grip and rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “They were too busy getting rid of Bruce. Why didn’t they just let him go?”
Sitting back on his heels, he released her other wrist. “You know the answer to that. They don’t leave loose ends, especially a loose end like Pierpont with his connections. I’m sure he stupidly informed them who he was. Maybe he even thought he and his family’s millions were the intended target.”
“Which is why they’re going to kill me whether or not they get any answers from me about Abby.”
“Not if I stop them first.”
“How are we going to do that? They haven’t shown their faces yet. We have a vague description of the truck that ran us off the road last night, but you know they’ve ditched that by now.”
“They’ll make a mistake. Hell, they already made a mistake. They grabbed the wrong guy. They’re getting desperate.”
“The only reason they haven’t nabbed me yet is because of you, isn’t it? They would’ve plucked me off the street by now, or maybe even from my own house, if you hadn’t been on the scene.”
He placed his hands on the cushion of the chair on either side of her thighs and leaned in, almost touching her nose with his. “That’s why I’m here. Do you think Prospero was going to allow Zendaris to get his hands on Abby Warren’s roommate?”
She blinked and her long, dark lashes shimmered with unshed tears. “Propsero had to make sure I wasn’t in league with my roommate first.”
“Can’t be too careful.” He huffed out a breath, stirring the ends of her hair, and then pushed to his feet.
At least he’d made it clear that he was acting as her protector in the name of Prospero and not because he had some special feeling for her. Not that at all.
“I’m going to see Sheriff Greavy and find out if he can shed any more light on Pierpont’s accident than Ted did. Maybe someone saw Pierpont with someone on the slopes. Maybe there’s camera footage somewhere that will help us ID these guys.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Are you feeling up to it? I don’t want to leave you here by yourself, but I also don’t want you pushing yourself.”
“I’m fine. I don’t even have a headache anymore.”
He brushed at the dirt on his jeans. “I’m going to shower first and change clothes.”
“Do it here.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. And if she didn’t ask him to move in here, he’d have to propose it himself.
“I dropped my bag in the guesthouse when you were sleeping. I’m going to run over and grab some clothes.”
She stood, framed by the door, watching him while he jogged to the guesthouse. He grabbed a duffel bag full of clothes he hadn’t unpacked yet. Hell, he’d take the whole thing over. He slung the bag over his shoulder as he walked through her door, and she didn’t blink an eye.
After his shower, he dressed in the steam of the bathroom and slicked back his hair. Wiping the condensation from the mirror with his fist, he leaned in close and rubbed his knuckles across his stubble. He could use a shave, but he wanted to catch the sheriff before nightfall.
He might have to tell Greavy everything later, or at least as much as Prospero would allow.
Pushing open the bathroom door, he stepped into the hallway, dragging his bag after him.
“Ready?” Noelle peered down the hallway. A pair of snow boots had replaced the fuzzy slippers and she’d pulled the white gauze from her wound, going with a bandage in its place.
“Yep.” He held up the duffel bag by the strap.
“You can put that in my bedroom...for now.”
He crossed the hall and dropped the bag by the door just inside her room. It didn’t mean a thing.
She grabbed both of their jackets from the hooks by the front door and tossed his to him. “At least it stopped snowing.”
She swung open the front door, and J.D. welcomed the blast of cold air that assaulted his face. He had no idea how he was going to be able to spend the night in Noelle’s house with her soft, warm body under the same roof.
Maybe he’d have to sleep with the windows open.
He unlocked the rental SUV and helped Noelle inside. “Have you heard from Tara? Is she getting her truck towed?”
“I haven’t heard from her yet, but that’s not unusual. Once her mother and Mrs. Corcoran get to talking, there’s no stopping them. Poor Tara’s probably stuck listening to their gossip.”
“They’re going to have a lot of gossip to go over now.”
“I can’t believe Bruce is gone. It seems every time...” She clamped her bottom lip between her teeth.
He raised a brow in her direction, waiting for her to finish, but she pressed her nose to the window instead.
“Do you think Bruce’s killers made a connection between me and Bruce? I’m thinking they didn’t once they found out he wasn’t my brother. Otherwise, they would’ve just substituted him for Ted as a hostage.”
“Better for them to have a brother than a friend as a hostage, but you might be right.” J.D. adjusted the rearview mirror and gave it a glance. “That means they weren’t around the lodge during our dinner with Bruce or they would’ve seen us with him.”
“So how did they mistake him for Ted? They look nothing alike.”
Hunching his shoulders, J.D. braced his hands against the steering wheel. “Maybe they saw Ted and Bruce together that night we had dinner and got their wires crossed. Tara told us she’d seen Ted with Bruce that night. I do know Zendaris can’t be happy about the screwup. He does not tolerate incompetence from his henchmen.”
Noelle zipped up her jacket even though he’d cranked on the heat as soon as he started the car. “Then he’s probably not a very happy arms dealer right now because whoever’s after me has messed up a few times.”
“And they’ll continue to mess up because they’re not getting anywhere near you.” His words rang with confidence. He knew he’d lay down his life to protect this woman.
“I wish I could figure out where Abby hid those plans. If we could find the plans, Zendaris’s game would be over. He’d have no reason to keep hunting me down.”
“I haven’t wanted to pressure you, Noelle, but anything you could remember would help us out. It would’ve been about four months ago, right before she disappeared from your life.”
“That’s when she stole the plans from the Prospero agent?”
“Yeah. What was going on with her? Did she travel anywhere? Open any new accounts with safe-deposit boxes? Dig any holes under the carpet?”
Noelle drew her brows together and toyed with the gloves in her lap.
“That last one was a joke.” J.D. nudged her with his elbow, not that he expected her to be laughing.
“If only she had dug a hole under the carpet.” She drummed her fingers on the dashboard. “Abby did have some computer problems around that time.”
“Too bad she didn’t have computer problems before she hacked into Cade’s computer to lift the plans.”
“J.D.” Her fingers stopped their nervous tapping, and her nails slid from the dashboard.
“Did you remember something?” His pulse thudded in his temples while he waited for her response.
“Abby had to use my computer.”
His blood raced through his veins, and he had to practically gasp for breath. “Abby Warren was using your computer? For what?”
“To access her emails and client sites and—” She pressed three fingers to her lips. “You don’t think she put something on my computer, do you?”
“Did you notice anything different about your computer after she used it? Additional files?”
“No, but then, I don’t know what half the files on my computer do, anyway. I wouldn’t notice anything different.” She snapped her fingers. “Except...”
J.D. had to grind his teeth to keep his head from exploding. This had to be it. Abby put the plans on Noelle’s computer. But why hadn’t Zendaris’s men stolen the computer? The D.C. police had removed all of Abby’s computers on Prospero’s orders, but nobody had thought to check Noelle’s.
Where was Noelle’s computer right now? He’d rescued it from his truck after the crash, so she had to have it here somewhere.
“Except what, Noelle?”
She’d twisted her fingers into knots, her puzzled gaze boring into the road outside the window.
“Sh-she did some stuff on my computer for security purposes, she said at the time.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“She added some passwords and security measures to some of my folders. She warned me that any good hacker could get into my computer and compromise my data, even steal my identity.”
J.D. snorted. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”
“Here.” Noelle tapped on the window. “The sheriff’s substation is in this direction.”
J.D. took the turn, but this conversation interested him much more than what Sheriff Greavy could tell them about Pierpont’s death.
“So, she had you add some passwords to your folders. Is that all?”
“Yeah, but she could’ve been doing anything on my computer.”
“Which is where?”
“Huh?”
“Where is your computer? I haven’t seen it yet since I pulled it from the wreckage.”
“It’s either at the house or in the truck. I can’t remember if I took it out of the truck.”
“I’m wondering why Zendaris didn’t go for your laptop the first time he broke into your place in D.C.”
“It wasn’t there. I take it with me to work, and that’s when they broke in.”
“And when they broke into the ranch house?”
“I had it with me in the truck.”
“So as far as Zendaris’s men know, you don’t have a computer, or since it wasn’t staring them in the face when they broke into first your apartment and then your house, it didn’t occur to them to look for one.” Just like it hadn’t occurred to him.
He parked the car in front of the substation, and Noelle unsnapped her seat belt. “This is all supposition. Why would Abby put those plans on my computer? Anything could’ve happened to them from there. My computer could’ve crashed and she would’ve lost everything.”
“But she made sure that wasn’t going to happen. Those security measures she put into play on your laptop must’ve covered the file she put on your hard drive. That woman knew her way around a motherboard. We could’ve used her on Prospero. Too bad she was crazy.”
Noelle’s lips tightened as she got out of the car. She slammed the door behind her.
J.D. jumped in his seat as the car rocked with the force of the slam. Whoa! Did he just hit a nerve? Did Noelle believe he thought she was crazy for that OCD stuff?
He’d have to set her straight on that. If the only thing she manifested after all she’d been through the past few years was a little obsessive-compulsive behavior, he’d nominate her for the superhero hall of fame.
But first they needed to check that computer.
The cramped sheriff’s substation on the mountain buzzed with activity—it was not every day a billionaire entrepreneur skied off the side of a mountain. Even a few members of the press hung on the fringes, ready for a statement or a piece of information that could spice up their stories.
If they only knew.
Zendaris would find out soon enough that his guys had committed an even bigger screwup than snatching the wrong man. The man they’d snatched happened to have a public profile, and his death would generate some publicity. Zendaris hated publicity.
J.D. draped an arm around Noelle’s shoulders and guided her toward the sheriff’s closed office door. J.D. tapped on the glass.
An officer peeked through the crack in the door. His scowl dissolved when his gaze fell on Noelle. “Ms. Dupree, Sheriff Greavy is expecting you.”
J.D. squeezed into the room beside Noelle just in case there was some question as to whether or not the sheriff was expecting him, too.
Sheriff Greavy looked up from his computer screen and tipped his glasses to the end of his nose. “Jarvis, try to clear the room out there. Have a seat, you two.”
When Jarvis had shut the door behind him, Greavy hunched over his desk. “Bruce Chandler Pierpont the Third was in Buck Ridge to visit you, Noelle?”
“He was here to ski, knew I lived in the area and dropped by. I wouldn’t say his sole purpose for coming to Buck Ridge was to visit me.”
“You ruled him out as your stalker?”
She tucked an errant strand of dark hair beneath her knit cap. “Not necessarily, but I have no proof that he was the one stalking me.”
J.D. trained his gaze on Sheriff Greavy’s grizzled face so that he wouldn’t give away his surprise at Noelle’s answer. Guess she didn’t want to involve the local P.D.
“You didn’t confront him about it?”
“No. We all had a pleasant dinner last night—that’s it. We discussed some plans we’d had previously for turning my guesthouse into an art studio and just sort of left things hanging.”
“Why all the questions, Sheriff? Pierpont’s death was a skiing accident, wasn’t it?”
The sheriff tapped his chin with his pen. “As far as we can tell.”
“Do you have reason to suspect foul play, Sheriff? Was Pierpont alone when he went over? Were there any witnesses?”
Sheriff Greavy’s shaggy gray brows collided over his nose as his gaze sharpened on J.D. Then he slumped back in his chair. “He was alone. No witnesses to the actual accident. There were several people on the run with him, but they were all going too fast to see anything. Folks behind him just saw him take a turn and disappear between the trees.”
“Do the lift operators remember anything? Was there anyone with him on the lift?”
“We questioned them.” Greavy spread his hands. “Nothing unusual. I wanted to find out if Noelle could shed any light on Pierpont’s life, especially considering that camera in your house appeared just about the time Pierpont showed up.”
“Yeah, I had thought about that, too.” Noelle leaned forward and dug her elbows into Greavy’s desk. “But I didn’t ask, and Bruce didn’t tell.”
The sheriff steepled his fingers as if in prayer. “Could he have been suicidal? Going off that cliff is an act of a very bad skier who had no business on that run or someone who was suicidal.”
Or someone who was forced off by a man holding a gun to his back.
Zendaris’s men would’ve wanted Pierpont’s death to look like an accident.
“I can’t imagine Bruce being suicidal.” Noelle turned to J.D. “Did he seem despondent to you over dinner?”
“I didn’t know the guy, but if that’s his despondent I’d be blown away by his happy.”
“We already notified the family, and I have a feeling Bruce Chandler Pierpont the Second is going to send an army of his own private investigators out here to look into things.” Greavy heaved a heavy sigh. “That type is never satisfied with the job we do.”
Noelle convulsively kicked J.D.’s foot under the table. If Bruce’s father started nosing around, he could get into a lot of trouble. “Let me know if you need anything else from me, Sheriff Greavy. I’m not going anywhere.”
Sheriff Greavy stood up and said, “Will do, Noelle. How’s your head?”
She touched the bandage. “It’s fine—just a mild concussion.”
“You should’ve been driving instead of your friend here. You know these roads like the back of your hand.”
“I don’t know if I could’ve avoided that accident either. We hit a patch of ice. You know how that goes.”
“Yep.” He gave Noelle the same stare he’d turned on him a few minutes ago. “With everything that’s gone on since you’ve been back, including your friend’s death, you must be ready to hightail it back to D.C.”
“It’s been an...eventful few days, but I still have some business to attend to in Buck Ridge.”
“Hope that still includes sprucing up your ranch.” Greavy’s eyes flicked to J.D.
Before Noelle could respond, a clamor of voices arose from the room outside the sheriff’s door.
J.D.’s pulse ticked up. Had they discovered something about Pierpont’s accident? Witnesses? Suspects?
He jumped from his seat with Noelle hot on his heels, but neither of them could beat Sheriff Greavy to the door.
He flung it open while muttering, “What the hell is going on out there?”
A hysterical woman held court in the middle of the substation, waving her arms and screeching unintelligible words. She jerked her head up. Black hair whipped across a tear-mottled face.
Noelle stiffened beside him as his own gut rolled.
What was a visibly upset Tara doing at the sheriff’s substation?
“Noelle!” Tara clawed her way through the small clutch of officers and threw herself into Noelle’s arms.
Noelle soothed her friend, smoothing a hand over her tangled hair, while her gaze skewered J.D. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Tara sobbed against her shoulder and then pulled away. “I was carjacked or hijacked or something.”
Noelle gripped Tara’s shoulders. “Someone stole my truck?”
J.D. cursed under his breath—not that anyone could hear him since Tara decided to let loose with another wail.
“No. I have your truck here.”
J.D. wiped a hand across his mouth, where his upper lip sported beads of sweat. So she still had the truck and she seemed safe. Had something happened to her mother?
“What happened, Tara? Are you okay?” Noelle drew her in for another hug.
Tara continued in a muffled voice, “I dropped Mom off and decided to save you a trip and drop off the truck and your prescription and to see if J.D. could give me a ride back to my ranch, but you weren’t home. I called Ted to see if he knew where you’d gone, and he told me you were up here talking to Sheriff Greavy.”
An officer handed Tara a box of tissues.
She grabbed a handful and mopped her face, then took a shuddering breath. “When I got back into the truck, two men came at me.”
“Oh my God. Did they hurt you?”
J.D. moved behind Noelle to see Tara’s face. Had Zendaris’s men believed they had Noelle? Another case of mistaken identity?
“They roughed me up.” She looked down at her jacketed arm, where the men had probably grabbed her. “And they had a gun.”
Sheriff Greavy had been listening to Tara’s story, hanging back by the door to his office, but he stepped forward when she mentioned the gun.
“Hold on, Tara. A couple of men held you up with a gun? Do you have a description? What did they take?” His gaze skipped to the purse slung over her shoulder.
“They were wearing ski masks and dark jackets. They could’ve been anyone.” Her eyes darted around the room; the officers had gotten back to business.
“Vehicle?” Greavy crossed his arms.
“It must’ve been parked on the road because I sure as hell didn’t see any car drive onto Noelle’s property. They came at me on foot and then made me lie on the ground when they took off.” She brushed at her snow pants as if just remembering she’d been lying on the ground.
J.D. put a hand on Noelle’s back. Zendaris’s men had been on her ranch again. He should’ve put cameras up before fixing the porch.
Greavy cleared his throat. “Two men accosted you with a gun at your truck, um, Noelle’s truck, at gunpoint. They didn’t harm you, and they didn’t steal the truck. Then they made you lie on the ground while they took off. I guess I’m missing something here. What did they take?”
Tara blew her nose. “I’m so sorry, Noelle.”
Noelle took a step back from Tara, leaning against J.D.’s chest. “What? Why?”
The air felt heavy, and J.D. held his breath.
“Noelle, they stole your laptop.”