is so unpredictable.”
At once an image hit Blaze of the look of pain and fear on Peyton West’s face when she’d talked about her sister.
Damn!
“We’ll all cross our fingers, but we’ll also work our asses off to at least give her answers. And maybe,” he growled, “a little bit of revenge.”
“I knew I was right to do this.”
I should ask Nolan to keep an eye on her.
But as soon as the thought hit, he discarded it. His brother was a very busy, very in-demand doctor at the hospital. He didn’t have time to babysit someone. Blaze would just have to hope Peyton West was very careful until he could take her to the range tomorrow and check her out with a firearm. And figure out how else to protect her and her sister.
The next minute, he gave a figurative shake of his head. No, he couldn’t leave anything to chance. Not if the people behind the cover-up were as powerful as he believed.
“Listen, can you do me a favor? Have the hospital check on them regularly?”
“You think whoever is behind this would try to get to them here?
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to take chances until I can make arrangements.”
“Sure. I’ll take care of it. Okay, gotta run. Thanks for doing this.”
Blaze disconnected the call. Peyton’s pain had been so visible on her face that it would have been impossible to say no. He’d get answers for her one way or another.
The next thing he did was call his partners to let them know they had a client and give them a brief rundown. They all agreed to meet at his place the next morning around ten. Viper volunteered to start digging into the brother-in-law right away, since he had no big plans for the night.
Once he was home, settled at the desk in his den with a cold beer and a bowl of chips, Blaze opened his laptop and went to work. The first thing he did was search for information on his client. She’d given him a business card and told him that whatever he wanted to know, he could find on her web site. He typed in Peyton West, his eyes widening when her web site came up. Damn! She was an author all right, and a highly successful one. Half her books had Best Seller banners attached to them and snippets of reviews praised her stories.
The woman in the photo looked a lot different from the one who’d shown up at the plane. In the photo she was all smiles, her glossy chestnut hair tumbling around her shoulders, a teasing look in her eyes. No lines of strain on her face or obvious tension in her body.
He spent more than an hour reading everything he could find. It wasn’t too late to cancel the contract if he found any warning signs, but there were none. Instead he felt a sadness for this woman who seemed so happy with a life now torn by incredible tragedy.
Then he dug into Kendrick & Associates, the law firm where Dane was an associate. And a high-value one, if the media coverage of him was to be believed.
Four hours and a large pizza later, he sat staring at his computer screen. Although nothing that he’d read jumped out at him, he still got that funny little tingle wriggling down his spine that there was something dead wrong here.
On the surface, Dane Hollister looked just like what the web sites said—bright attorney, ten years out of law school and a shining star at the firm where he worked. Peter Kendrick, the managing partner, said glowing things about him. The firm apparently had a national reputation as litigators. Clients came not just from all over the country but from outside the United States to have the firm represent them. That meant that they also had to be specialists in international law.
From what he could find, it appeared that Dane worked most closely with Peter Kendrick, representing some of the firm’s wealthiest corporate clients. Businesses were always being sued, so he imagined there were big bucks in it. Even he was impressed with some of the client names which were listed in a profile, including the head of an international corporation, a political power broker and the chair of a media conglomerate. Dane Hollister traveled in some elite company. Had he uncovered secrets that a client would do anything not to have exposed? Murder had been committed for a lot less.
Blaze’s instincts