A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,8
to be guilty so bad they could taste it, but the poor bastards couldn’t figure out for the life of them how to pin the recent murders on him. Particularly since he’d been in Malaysia when his assistant and then the cops called to tell him his ex-wife had been kidnapped. Pretty hard to commit murders when a guy was literally halfway around the world from the victims. As alibis went, it was pretty damned ironclad.
Green finally growled, “Don’t leave town, Mr. Dawson.”
“Until my ex-wife is found and released, I’m not going anywhere,” he declared. He’d been divorced from Melinda for nearly a decade, but she’d been his wife. He still felt responsible for her safety. Of course, she would scoff and call him a Neanderthal for thinking he had to take care of the little woman.
But he couldn’t help it. He’d been raised to open doors and hold chairs for ladies, and yes, to look out for their safety. Melinda could just get over it. Although, she pretty much had when she’d divorced him. The old pain of her betrayal of their marriage vows spiked through him again. Damn. He kept thinking it would get better. Hurt less. But it never did.
“If you’ve got nothing more for me, gentlemen, I’ve got a company to run.” No harm in reminding them he wasn’t some local punk from the wrong side of the tracks anymore. Gabe stood up and Radebaugh stood hastily as well, knocking over his chair. Deputy Green looked chagrined as the young cop clumsily righted the chair. Amused, Gabe watched Green beat a retreat.
Officer Radebaugh escorted Gabe into the main station, where a dozen messy, paper-laden desks were huddled. Gabe was startled to spot a familiar pair of slender shoulders and strawberry-blond French twist at the far end of the room. What was Willa Merris doing here? Probably getting an update on the investigation into her father’s murder, or maybe answering more questions. Of course, she didn’t get hauled into an interrogation room, and treated like a criminal. That pleasure had been reserved for him, apparently.
The cop opened the front door for him, and Gabe recoiled at the crowd of reporters clustered at the bottom of the steps. “What’s up with the mob?” he asked his escort.
Radebaugh glanced over his shoulder and then muttered under his breath, “They probably got wind of what Willa Merris is up to.”
“What’s she up to?” Gabe muttered back, not moving his lips.
“We asked her to come in to answer a few questions, but when she got here, she announced she wanted to file charges against James Ward.”
James Ward, as in the golden boy of Vengeance, Texas? Now that John Merris was dead, the Wards were the preeminent family in town, and James was the heir apparent to the family’s fortune, power and social position. Not to mention everyone loved the guy. Betting types were picking him to be the successor to John Merris’s political career. Gabe had always found Ward a little slimy in that friendly, politician way, but a decent guy, overall.
Surprised, Gabe asked, “What’s she charging him with?”
“Assault.”
Gabe’s jaw dropped. “As in he attacked her?”
“Yup.”
Well, that certainly explained the way she’d reacted when he’d tried to hug her yesterday. She’d yanked away like he’d tried to kill her instead of offer a little comfort.
“James Ward?” Gabe couldn’t help asking. He’d known the heir to the Ward fortune for most of his life, and he had a hard time believing that the fun-loving, charming young man had an angry side, let alone a violent side. James was always the center of attention and popular with all the girls. “When did this happen?”
“She says it happened a month ago. Not a shred of proof. Sheriff’s trying to talk her out of pressing charges because it’s gonna boil down to a he said-she said, and she’s gonna lose.”
“Why’s she going to lose?” Gabe asked.
Radebaugh stared at him as if the answer was so obvious, he couldn’t believe Gabe had bothered to ask the question. “Because he’s a Ward, and her father’s dead.”
“Since when does justice depend on power or social status?” Gabe snapped.
Irritated, he stomped down the steps and plowed through the phalanx of reporters who knew him well enough after the past two weeks to leave him the hell alone. He climbed into his Cadillac Escalade, grateful for its blacked-out windows. Gripping the steering wheel until his hands ached, he stared ahead at nothing. Willa Merris assaulted? The idea made him so