Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Danica woke feeling nowhere near rested. But energy coursed through her all the same. Noah was snoring quietly beside her. The wound in his side looked red, but it hadn’t opened up again.
She pounced on his shoulders and covered his face with kisses.
“Mmm?” His eyes squinted open, and his arms wrapped around her. “I was just dreaming about you.”
“The real thing is better.”
“So much better.”
They’d been up half the night, talking and kissing and making love. Danica was riding high on euphoria.
It had been easy to pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist, as if they could stay here forever and never go back. She bet she could even learn to tolerate the ice cold showers and the awful ready-to-eat meals.
For Noah, she could.
If only her mom could’ve met him. You and dad said you were soul mates, and I think I’ve found mine.
Of course, she wouldn’t say that to Noah because it was way too sappy and over the top. But she still felt it.
He’d told her he loved her. She was pretty sure she loved him back, even though this was happening fast and she wasn’t ready to tell him yet.
They didn’t have to say goodbye. They had time. That was all that mattered.
They got cleaned up, ate terrible food, and spent the morning cuddling. At some point, she must’ve drifted to sleep, because suddenly her thoughts weren’t making sense. Disturbing images were flying toward her out of the darkness.
Microphones being shoved into her face, so many she couldn’t breathe.
The man with the eagle tattoo grabbed for her while blood poured from his neck.
A door yawned open, with faceless men waiting for her inside.
“Dani.” Noah was gently shaking her. “Wake up.”
Danica inhaled, opening her eyes. She grabbed his shirt. “Noah?”
“Were you having a nightmare again?”
“I—”
The phone rang shrilly, making her jump.
“Shit. I bet that’s Max. I’d better get it.”
Suddenly, she wanted to tell him not to answer. She had a terrible feeling about whatever news waited on the other end of that call.
But Noah had already gone over to the table to grab the phone, leaving Danica on the bed. She sat up as he answered.
“Hello?” Noah listened. “Yeah, boss, five minutes.” He lowered the phone. “Max wants to have a video meeting. Detective Murphy is at Bennett Security headquarters. They have an update for us, both Max and the police.”
“About the investigation?”
Noah nodded. “And Lana Marchetti is there, too. She’s the West Oaks Assistant District Attorney. She’s also Max’s fiancé. We can trust her. Are you okay with this?”
“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” Danica got out of bed. She wished she had nicer clothes to wear, instead of these borrowed ones.
Whenever she had a board of directors meeting that she expected to be contentious, she liked to wear a suit. Putting on her armor.
Noah set up the laptop. They both took seats at the table, and he started the video feed.
Detective Murphy was sitting in front of the screen, along with a woman Danica assumed was Lana. Max Bennett stood off to one side, hands in his trouser pockets. Tanner, Noah’s fellow bodyguard, stood next to him.
Danica smoothed a hand through her hair.
“Ms. Foster Grant, I’m Lana Marchetti,” the assistant district attorney said. “I’m sorry for not giving you more notice of this meeting. It came together pretty suddenly. But we have news that we need to share with you.”
“Good news?” Noah asked.
Detective Murphy answered him. “We certainly think so.”
Lana shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. She was wearing jeans, and Danica remembered that today was Saturday. She and Noah had been here two nights, and the time had blurred together. Incredible how much could change in so few hours.
“A total of six men have been arrested for trying to kidnap you,” Lana said, “and the district attorney’s office is in the process of filing criminal complaints against them.
We also have two additional suspects who are deceased.
One from the silver SUV that chased you and Noah on the freeway after the gala.
And the other is the individual who attacked you inside the museum at the event.
The man with the eagle tattoo, whom Noah killed. ”
Anxiety filled Danica’s stomach, even though she was glad to hear confirmation that the man was dead. “It was self defense.”
Lana nodded. “Of course. No one is disputing that. Apart from your statement, Rosie Consuelo was also a witness, and she left no doubt that the death resulted from you and Noah acting in self defense.”
Noah put his elbow on the table. “What about the man with the blue bowtie who was shooting at us? The one Tanner and I spotted inside the atrium at the museum during the gala?”
“He’s in custody,” Lana said. “He and the others aren’t talking yet. But our office is amassing plenty of evidence. There’s no doubt everyone we’ve arrested was involved in the kidnapping attempts. But we’ve also found the identity of the man with eagle tattoo. His name was Jason Gerrig.”
Danica waited for this name to have some impact on her. It was strange to put a name to the almost superhuman image he’d taken on in her mind and in her nightmares.
But he’d just been a man. And now, he was dead.
“How did you find him?” Noah asked. “Fingerprints?”
“Fingerprints were part of it.” A tiny smile appeared on Lana’s face. “But we have Bennett Security to thank for filling out the profile.”
“It was a joint effort,” Detective Murphy corrected.
“Between West Oaks police, LAPD, and yes, Bennett Security.” Clearly, she wasn’t happy about sharing the credit for this.
“Gerrig was enlisted in the army, but received a dishonorable discharge for assaulting his commanding officer. That was almost ten years ago. Since then, he’s been off the government’s radar. ”
“Until Max’s team helped track him down.” Lana looked over to Max.
He cleared his throat. “Tanner, could you walk us through what you and Detective Sean Holt found?”
The bodyguard stepped forward, crossing his muscular, tattooed arms over his T-shirt. “It really started several days ago, with the drawing of the eagle design that Danica made. Noah sent it to Sean, and Sean asked around with some of his informants in the LA underworld.”
According to Sean’s informants, a hitman with an eagle neck tattoo had been active in California for the last several years. He was a mercenary, available for hire to only the highest bidders for operations like assassinations and kidnappings.
Danica listened to this information with growing horror. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten away from this man. But maybe he hadn’t expected a woman like her to know how to defend herself. She’d caught him off guard.
“But even after we knew the guy’s reputation,” Tanner continued, “and his name, we didn’t know where to find his base of operations.
We were assuming he’d been using a fake identity, which turned out to be correct.
But I spoke to several tattoo artists in the LA area, and one of them knew him.
She’d done new ink on one of his arms recently, some sort of tally marks.
” Tanner shrugged. “Maybe for kills or ops completed, something like that. But the artist remembered the guy had a place right near Venice Beach.”
“Our officers located that house this morning,” Detective Murphy said.
“We raided the residence and found a cache of weapons and equipment, including burner phones and a cell signal jammer. We also found evidence of the plot against you, Ms. Foster-Grant. Communications, plans, schematics for the museum, the works.”
“But did someone hire Gerrig to do this?” Noah asked. “You said he’s a mercenary.”
Lana looked like she was hesitating. But Detective Murphy shook her head.
“Usually, that might be how he operates—if the rumors can be believed. But this time, the potential ransom for Ms. Foster-Grant was incentive enough for him to act on his own. From what we’ve seized from his home, Jason Gerrig was the force behind this plot.
He planned it all out. He brought in the thugs who tried to grab Ms. Foster-Grant.
We have no evidence that anyone hired him to do it. ”
“But then how did he know I’d be at the natural history museum last week?” Danica asked. “The day of the first attempt?”
“That’s been one of our top concerns,” Max said, “and about an hour ago, we found the answer.”
He cast a glance at Detective Murphy, who now seemed to be studying some interesting feature of the opposite wall.
Max continued. “Our research team was looking for any possible source for that information, either inside or outside your circle, Danica. We found it. A curator for the museum, Anderson Nobis, posted on a social media account a few days before your visit.”
“Anderson?”
“He has an anonymous profile focused on Southern California museums. He complained online about how you’d be arriving that Friday afternoon to ruin the West Oaks Natural History Museum.”
Danica couldn’t believe it. Well—maybe she could believe Anderson’s attitude. The man had spoken openly about his disdain for her. But to reveal her appointment so publicly? “Did he actually say I’d be there at six o’clock?”
“The post mentioned you’d be there just before closing. We haven’t seen anything to suggest Anderson revealed this information intending you harm. But it would’ve been no challenge for Gerrig to find out the time and plan accordingly.”
“My office is exploring whether Anderson violated any laws,” Lana cut in, “but I doubt it. He was extremely careless, and the museum might want to consider terminating him. Especially considering that he tried to delete the post afterward, probably because he realized what he’d done.”
Max nodded. “But by then, it was too late. If Gerrig had already been tracking you, looking for an opportunity? He would’ve been monitoring social media for each and every mention of your name.”
Danica shivered. “Which I would never do, because it’s awful. I don’t need to see what people are saying about me. I hear it enough as it is.” But she should’ve been paying more attention. Gerrig certainly had.
And Gerrig could’ve easily figured out that she ran every morning, too. Would it have been so hard to construct a likely route around the West Oaks hills?
“Do you think Gerrig or his people could’ve been following me?” she asked.
Lana nodded. “We believe so, yes. We found photos in his apartment of you and Noah running together.”
Noah turned to her. “We saw that white work van the first day we were running. It drove right past us.”
Ugh. The thought made her skin crawl. Was that how Gerrig had gotten Noah’s photo?
Detective Murphy grew animated again. “But the good news is, we know who was behind this, and we know they’re either in custody or in the morgue.” Her smile tightened. “Thanks to this joint effort between West Oaks PD and Bennett Security.”
Noah’s hand squeezed around Danica’s. “Lana, do you agree with that?” he asked. “Everyone’s been caught? Danica’s out of danger?”
Again, Lana paused. She shared a look with Max.
“There are some loose ends we’re still trying to untangle,” Lana said. “It’ll take some time to examine all of Gerrig’s devices and documents. But we’re hopeful. At the very least, now that Gerrig is dead, the primary force behind the plot to kidnap you is gone.”
Detective Murphy stood up, straightening her blazer. “Ms. Foster-Grant, I’ll be meeting with your father and your chief of security in about an hour. I’d very much like to have you on the phone at that time, so we can both assure them you’re out of harm’s way. And, I hope, heading back home?”
“I’ll think about it.”
So much had just come at her at once. She could barely get it settled in her mind.
Was it really over?
No, Lana had mentioned loose ends.
The altered video. That had to be what she’d meant.
Could someone within the police have been helping Gerrig?
“I’ll have Mr. Bennett send over my cell number,” the detective said. “If you could let me know as soon as possible? I’d also like to know your ETA for returning to West Oaks for a more formal interview.”
Noah said goodbye and ended the video call.
Danica got up from her chair. “Could we go outside? I feel like I can’t breathe in here.”
Once they were out in the clearing, Noah pulled her into a hug and kissed her head. She sank into him. It was so much nicer letting him comfort her than going it alone.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Do you trust Detective Murphy’s claim that all the bad guys have been caught?”
“I don’t know. Lana wasn’t convinced. There’s still the museum video footage that I know was altered. Which means someone else could’ve been helping Gerrig.”
“Right. I was thinking the same thing.”
“But if they found out I’d be at the museum because of Anderson’s post, I have no reason to think it was anyone in my family.”
Noah twisted his lips. “It does seem that way.”
She couldn’t believe she’d suspected her family of trying to kidnap her. What kind of daughter was she, to think her father remotely capable of that? Or Blake, who was like an uncle?
Her father was keeping secrets from her. He’d basically admitted it. And those secrets had been her biggest reason for suspecting him.
“I have to go home.” Her father had said he was willing to tell her the truth. She needed to find out whatever Tori had wanted to tell her, too.
She, Soren, and William hadn’t really been a family in a long time. Now, Danica had a chance. She wanted to start healing the rift. Going home was the only way.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Noah asked.
She held his face in her hands. “I need you there with me. Whatever my dad has to tell me, he needs to understand what you mean to me.”
They hugged again. Part of her regretted leaving the safe house. It had become their refuge. But Danica wanted Noah to be a real part of her life. That would never happen if they stayed here, hiding away.
She had to go back into the world and figure out how to go forward—with Noah by her side.