With cold fear running up her spine, Shana quickly stepped off the elevator at Granger Aeronautics with Marcel at her side. After Caden called her back to confirm that Jace was not with Eve, Shana immediately called Marcel. She had reached him just minutes before he left the FBI office for home.
“Heard anything?” she asked Caden when she headed straight for his office.
“Not a thing.” He then glanced over at Marcel. “What do you suggest we do?” Caden just couldn’t believe that the man who had been a longtime trusted family friend, someone who was like a godfather to the three of them, was the same person Shana was painting him to be. But she had forwarded him and Dalton the same report her man Kent had given her and the information was pretty damn damaging.
“I already have a couple of my agents scouring the parking lot and checking out Jace’s car,” Marcel said. “Hopefully, we’ll find something. And we have someone keeping an eye on Duncan’s home. We don’t want to tip him off that he’s under suspicion about anything, especially since we don’t know for certain that he had anything to do with Jace’s disappearance.”
Shana shook her head. “I can’t believe Vidal is doing this. My suspicions had been focused on Shelton Fields. He’s been acting strange lately and hanging around Brandy’s desk a lot.”
“They’re having an affair,” Dalton spoke up and said.
Everyone turned to Dalton. “And how do you know?” Caden asked incredulously.
“She told me. That’s why we aren’t sleeping together,” he said as if there was nothing wrong with his having an office affair. “She’s already involved with him.”
“He’s divorced and she’s single. Why are they keeping it secret?” Shana inquired and then thought that she of all people was a fine one to ask, considering what she and Jace had been doing.
“They weren’t sure how Jace would like it, so they decided to keep it hush-hush.”
At that moment, one of the agents who’d been searching the parking lot approached. Marcel looked up. “Yes, Greg?”
“This was found in the parking lot near where Mr. Granger’s car is parked,” he said, lifting a see-through baggie that contained a syringe.
Marcel frowned. “Get it to the lab immediately. I have a feeling it was used on Jace.”
* * *
Eve nervously paced back and forth in her hotel room. Jace was missing? What on earth was Vidal doing? Was he certain no one would suspect him? Or her?
Caden had called, questioning Jace’s whereabouts, and she had made sure he believed she hadn’t seen or talked to Jace in a couple of days. There was no way she would get pulled into anything.
She had tried calling Vidal, and he wouldn’t answer. So she would sit here and wait and hope like hell he wouldn’t do anything stupid.
* * *
“Your ex-wife keeps calling me,” Vidal mumbled, placing his cell phone next to where he’d set the gun on the table. “I guess people are looking for you, and someone called her to see if the two of you were together. That’s funny.”
He then took a sip of his drink and said, “Now to take up where I left off. You didn’t take the bait and return to Virginia like Eve wanted. Then you found out about the abortion and kicked poor Eve to the curb. In the meantime, your grandfather began suspecting that someone was selling trade secrets. He wanted to bring Ms. Bradford on board to find the guilty persons. Unfortunately, he died before doing so.”
“Why would you encourage me to hire Shana knowing her reputation for success?” Jace asked. “Weren’t you afraid she would find out what you were doing?”
Vidal chuckled. “No. I had covered my tracks too well. Besides, I wasn’t into trade secrets. I was growing money.”
“Embezzling,” Jace said with disgust.
“Yes,” Vidal said smiling. “So I decided to throw you a bone. Let your girl go after Freeman here and his group and not give any thought to what I was up to. Remember, I was the trusted company attorney. I was considered part of the family.”
Jace didn’t say anything as everything Vidal said sank in. He hated to admit it, but the man was right. Vidal had worked for the Grangers for years. He was like part of the family. They’d never given a thought to his being involved in anything shady.
“I’m going to let you absorb that bit into your mind while I take a few more sips of my drink here.”
* * *
The lab verified that the syringe had been used recently to inject a drug known for rendering a person unconscious. Everyone was in Caden’s office listening to the update Marcel was providing when suddenly Dalton said, “Holy shit! I’d almost forgotten.”
Everyone glanced over at him. “Forgotten what, Dalton?” Caden asked.
“The tracker. I had Security place a tracker on Jace’s phone.”
“But he said he wouldn’t let you track him after hours,” Caden said, running a tired hand across the back of his neck. “He probably turned it off.”
“But what if he forgot or didn’t have time to do so?” Dalton asked, moving to the door. “The guys in Security are still here. I’m going to see if there’s a chance they can pinpoint Jace’s location.”
* * *
“Imagine my joy when the FBI focused their investigation on Freeman and his group,” Vidal was saying. “That just made my day, and things were working in my favor...until you began getting chummy with Ms. Bradford. I happened to be there one night when the two of you walked out together. And then I deliberately drove by her condo another night, and your car was parked outside.”
He shifted in his chair and continued. “I figured she had done what I needed her to do, and I wanted her to move on. A relationship with you wasn’t in my plan, because she could start snooping again later. That’s when I called Eve. I paid her a lot of money to fly to Charlottesville and break things up. She was certain once you saw her again you’d forget all about Ms. Bradford. But you didn’t bite. And then all hell broke loose when Eve overheard that conversation Ms. Bradford had with her sister the other day at Long Meadows. Ms. Bradford told her sister that she thought she was pregnant with your child.”
The lashes that shadowed Jace’s eyes flew up at the same time he was hit full force in the gut. Shana thought she was pregnant? Was that what she had to tell him tonight? The thought that she was pregnant with his child sent shivers of happiness through him even when these could possibly be his last breaths.
“That’s when I knew I had to come up with plan B,” Vidal continued. “So, this is how it will work. Everyone is looking for Freeman. When they find you with a bullet in your gut and that same gun used by Freeman to put a hole in his own head, everyone will assume that Freeman, in despair over how things went down with you finding out what he’d done and the authorities tracking him down like some kind of animal, killed you and then himself. Caden and Dalton will be totally heartbroken and distraught. It’s bad enough to have a father in jail, but now to have a brother dead? That will be too much for them. They will be overwrought with grief, and being the close family friend that I am, I will advise them to live the lives they’ve always wanted to live. I’ll encourage Dalton to return to Europe and Caden to his music. I’ll recommend that they agree to a merger with Barnes Aerospace. Of course they will take my advice, since they will feel you were killed because of Granger Aeronautics and would want to wash their hands of the company.”
Jace couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You think you have everything figured out, don’t you?”
Vidal answered, “Yes.” He stood. “Now for what I have to do. And I wouldn’t advise you or Freeman to give me any problems. I will carry this out, and then I’m going to go and take care of Eve. She’s become a liability.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” Jace growled.
“Of course you’d think that. You keep that thought in your mind while I put this bullet through your head.”
Vidal reached for his gun, and the moment he did so, a shot rang out, hitting him in the arm. Federal agents burst through the door, and within seconds, he was overpowered and taken into custody.
An agent rushed over to Jace and another to Freeman to untie them from the chairs. Freeman was handcuffed and taken into custody, as well. Jace smiled when he saw Marcel. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys.”
Marcel chuckled. “I’m sure you are. While Freeman was sitting by the window in plain view, one of my agents, a sharpshooter, has had Vidal within his scope all the while. That made him an easy target and as soon as he picked up that gun, we took action.” Marcel then smiled and added, “You have your brother to thank for putting that tracker on your phone. Unlike other trackers that merely provide a fifty-mile radius, the one you have pinpoints your location precisely. It definitely made finding you easier.”
“I’ll be sure to thank Dalton. He can be a pain in the ass at times, but I think I’ll keep him.”
“You better,” Dalton said, grinning as he and Caden walked through the door. “I’m beginning to like this spy stuff.”
“Jace!”
Shana then burst through the door and ran straight into Jace’s arms. A flood of heat and love encompassed him when he lowered his head to kiss her, not caring that they had an audience. She curled her arms around his neck and slid into his body. She felt right in his arms.
Suddenly, he broke off the kiss, and Shana found herself being steered to a corner of the room for privacy.
“Don’t go too far, Jace,” Marcel called out. “We’ll need you to give a statement.”
Jace nodded before glancing down at Shana. “I am so glad to see you,” he whispered.
“And I’m glad to see you, too. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I never thought Vidal could be so...”
“Evil,” he finished for her. “Neither did I.”
Jace shook his head sadly. “And just to think he’s a man I’d considered trustworthy. He worked for Granddad for years. He was there for us when Dad went to prison and when Granddad died...or so we thought. He’s admitted to skimming off Granger for years.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute and then he reached out and placed his hand on her stomach. “Are you pregnant?”
Shana’s mouth dropped open. “Why would you think—”
“Eve.”
She was almost too stunned to speak. “Eve?”
“Yes. She overheard a conversation you and your sister had at Long Meadows.”
Shana’s head began spinning. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain Eve’s part in all of this later. But please answer me. Do you think you’re pregnant? Do you know for certain?”
Shana drew in a deep breath. This was not how she had planned to tell him, but since he was asking, she would. “Yes. I found out Tuesday when I took a home pregnancy test. That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight. And I was on the pill like I told you. But the antibiotics I was taking affected their potency. I’m sorry.”
Jace pulled her into his arms. “Don’t apologize, baby. I love children and always wanted some of my own. The reason I divorced Eve was because I came home from a business trip early to discover she’d had an abortion. For three years, I’ve been heartbroken over what she did.”
He paused for a moment and then added, “And tonight Vidal had the gall to tell me it was his baby. His baby. He and Eve had an affair, and she had the abortion with his blessing.”
The shock of what Jace had just said almost made Shana’s heart hurt. She couldn’t say anything, and stood there speechless. And then she couldn’t stop the tears that formed in her eyes. How could any woman deceive him that way? Jace was such a beautiful, kind and honorable man.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he said, reaching up and using the pad of his thumb to wipe away her tears. “Nothing Eve can do will ever hurt me again. Only you can do that, because I love you.”
Talk about another shocker. This one almost brought Shana to her knees. He tightened his arms around her. And just in case she didn’t get it, Jace said. “I love you, and I want you, and I want our child.”
His words filled her with joy, and she felt totally elated. “And I love you, too, Jace. I love you so much.”
Jace kissed her again. There was no doubt in his mind that she was the woman meant for him. The woman who had his heart and his love. The woman who was having his baby.
He took her hand as his lips curved into a smile. “Come on, sweetheart. I need to give Marcel that statement, and then we’re leaving. We have a future to plan.”
* * *
Later that night, Shana lay in Jace’s arms. His statement had been given at police headquarters, and they’d both been there when Eve was brought in for questioning. There was nothing the woman could say, since Jace knew the truth.
“When do I get to meet your dad and sister?” he asked her, smiling.
“You get to meet Dad this weekend, but Jules left for Seattle this morning, and no telling when she’ll return. She’s working on a new case.”
He lifted a brow. “A new case?”
“Yes, she’s a private investigator and owns her own company.”
“Is she any good?”
“The best. But then, I would say that because I’m biased.”
Jace didn’t say anything for a minute then said, “I want to marry you, Shana. Not just because I don’t want my child born out of wedlock, but because I love you, and I want you to have my name.”
Shana felt her heart expand with happiness. “You sure?”
“I haven’t been so sure about anything in my life. So, will you marry me?”
She threw her arms around his neck and held his gaze that was so full of love and a mirror of her own. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Emotions ripped through Jace. Since returning to Virginia, he felt as if he’d gained more than any person had a right to claim: a company that had always been his legacy; the kind of relationship with his brothers that he’d always wanted; a beautiful fiancée and a child on the way.
He couldn’t wait to tell his father, and Jace was determined that his son or daughter would get to know Sheppard Granger as a free man, and not a man behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. He, Caden and Dalton would move heaven and earth to make that happen.
He bent his head and captured Shana’s lips with his. This was only the beginning.
* * * * *
Coming in June 2014,
Caden Granger’s story titled,
A SON’S PROMISE