Wedding at Cardwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels

Author:B.J. Daniels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Belinda’s apartment house was an old, five-story brick one a few blocks off Main Street in Bozeman.

Laramie waited in the car as lookout while Jackson and Hayes went inside. There was no password entry required. They simply walked in through the front door and took the elevator up to the third floor to room 3B. It was just as Allie had described it, an apartment at the back, the door recessed so even if someone had been home on the floor of four apartments, they wouldn’t have seen Hayes pick the lock.

“You’re fast,” Jackson said, impressed.

Hayes merely smiled and handed him a pair of latex gloves. “I’m also smart. If you’re right and Nick Taylor is alive and this becomes a criminal case... You get the idea. It was different up on the ranch. This, my brother, is breaking and entering.”

Jackson pulled on the gloves and opened the door. As he started to draw his flashlight out of his pocket, Hayes snapped on an overhead light.

“What the—”

“Jackson,” his brother said and motioned toward the window. The curtains were open, the apartment looking out onto another apartment building. While most of the curtains were drawn in those facing this way, several were open.

Hayes stepped to the window and closed the curtains. “Nothing more suspicious than two dudes sneaking around in a woman’s apartment with flashlights.”

He had a point. “Let’s make this quick.”

“I’m with you,” Hayes said and suggested the best place to start.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d done this before,” Jackson joked.

Hayes didn’t answer.

In the bedroom in the bottom drawer of the bureau under a bunch of sweaters, Jackson found more photos of Belinda and Nick, but left them where he’d found them.

“So you think I’m right and Nick is alive,” Jackson said.

Hayes shrugged.

Jackson finished the search of the bedroom, following his brother’s instructions to try to leave everything as he had found it.

“Find anything?” he asked Hayes when he’d finished.

“She recently came into thirty-eight thousand dollars,” Hayes said, thumbing through a stack of bank statements he’d taken from a drawer.

“Maybe it’s a trust fund or an inheritance.”

“Maybe. Or blackmail money or money Nick had hidden from Allie,” Hayes said as he put everything back. “Laramie would probably be able to find out what it was if we had more time. Did you put the photos back?”

“All except one. I want to show it to Allie. It looks more recent to me.”

Hayes looked as if he thought that was a bad idea. “You’re messing with evidence,” he reminded him.

“I’ll take that chance,” Jackson said.

His brother shook his head as he turned out the light and moved to the window to open the curtains like he’d found them.

“Does anyone else know how involved you are with the wedding planner?” Silence. “I didn’t think so. Better not let cousin Dana find out or there will be hell to pay. She is very protective of people she cares about. She cares about that woman and her child. If you—”

“I’m not going to hurt her.

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