Chapter 22
After their bachelor and bachelorette parties, Gregory and Sascha had such a wonderful time co-mingling, but now it was time for everyone to head back home.
They ended up taking two private planes back home, but they switched around on who was flying with whom. Kat and Prescott, Gregory and Sascha, and Rose and Lucy rode back in one plane with Henry and Nick. The others took the other plane back.
Gregory didn’t think Lucy and Damon would ever make it if they were married for five years.
On the trip home, he got a call about the merger.
When they arrived back home, Gregory kissed Sascha and gave her one last hug. Even though he wanted to get this business over with, he really wanted to spend the rest of the day with Sascha. “I need to go in about that merger with Cochran.”
“You do.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m just going to unpack.”
“Don’t go anywhere without a bodyguard.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then he hugged her again and left with Nick and Henry.
Omar and Red stayed to watch the house and keep Sascha safe.
Gregory had dressed in a black business suit and walked into the conference room when Cochran showed up. He was sweating, glancing at the door, acting strange.
It made Gregory recall Sascha's vision that the merger wouldn't go through. He’d almost forgotten that it would happen. Instead of being angry, if Sascha’s vision had been right, someone else would enter the picture, and Gregory would have an even better merger.
Gregory motioned to a seat at the table, his secretary bringing in the paperwork for both parties to sign. Gregory’s contract lawyer was there, but Cochran didn’t have his.
“Uh,” Cochran said, and glanced at his watch, then his phone rang. “Excuse me.” He took the call and glanced at Gregory. “Yeah, got it.” Cochran abruptly stood and headed out of the room. “Can’t do this right now. I’ll talk to you later.”
Gregory left the conference room, went into his office, and peered out the window that faced the front door of the office building. Cochran rushed out of the front door, but then sirens rent the air as they headed toward the building.
Several police cars pulled up front, and officers hurried out of their vehicles, pointing guns at Cochran. Gregory’s lips parted. Man, he wished he had Sascha’s gifts.
Then Cochran was apprehended and cuffed. They placed him in a patrol car and hauled him off to jail, Gregory presumed. Sascha was right. It was good that he and Gregory hadn’t gone through with the merger.
His business lawyer knocked at his office door.
“The merger isn’t going through. It appears Cochran was doing something illegal and was just arrested. I’ll call you once I have another merger arranged with a different businessman.”
“All right. Just give me a call.” Then his lawyer left.
Gregory sat down at his desk and began to call other businessmen that he’d had dealings with, who might very well be interested in a merger with him instead.
Several had expressed a desire to go in with him on a business proposition, but Cochran had offered him a better deal. Now he knew why. After he had talked to everyone, he called Sascha to check on her. She was always on his mind.
“Hey, honey, everything’s good here,” Sascha said. “I was talking to Lucy about the flowers for the wedding. And then I’m going over to Lemoynes to speak to Damon about the food menu.”
“That sounds great.” Gregory would rather be dealing with mergers than wedding arrangements. He was sure he wouldn’t do it right even though he had offered to help her with any of it.
“Ha! That’s what I worried about as far as me handling all this on my own. But Damon will help me with everything, so I’m sure it will go just fine.”
“Good. I wanted to thank you for telling me about the merger business.”
“Ohmigod, Cochran, that’s the guy’s name, right? He turned you down on the merger, left the building, and the cops arrested him.”
Gregory smiled. “You read my mind.”
“Yeah, it hasn’t been on the news yet. I didn’t know his name before you were thinking about him and what had happened. But you’ve been working to get another merger. It will happen.”
“I thought you said in about three months.”
“I was guessing on the time. It could be sooner. Imminent. Three months, less, longer. I don’t really know. But I’m glad you hadn’t gone through with the merger and then been tangled up with that crook.”
“Me too. I’m glad you told me about it in your vision. Otherwise, I would have been clueless about what was going on. I’ve got a call from one of the merger possibilities.”
“I’ll talk to you later. Good luck.”
“Good luck on the wedding arrangements.”
Then they ended the call, and Gregory was hopeful that this was the merger he was looking for.
While Sascha was at Leymones, Damon showed her an AI setup on how they could have the wedding and banquet.
She loved the way he had everything set up.
She knew he would do whatever he could to make it the best he could because they had been so close.
Then he showed her the flowers he and Lucy had discussed and where they would be arranged.
“I like those too.”
Then Sascha’s phone rang. An unknown woman was calling her. “You don’t know me, but your fiancé might be in danger.”
The Landrys had kept the news of the attempts on Gregory’s life secret. So, no one should know about it except for the people close to them.
“Who are you?”
“It’s not important. I just wanted to—oh, I got to go.”
“No. Wait!”
But then the call ended.
Damon frowned at Sascha. “Trouble?”
“Some unknown woman called to say my fiancé might be in danger. The Landrys have really kept it secret.”
“Could it be someone else with psychic connections?”
“Or someone who knows who the person is who is after Gregory. She abruptly ended the call, so I wondered if whoever the guy was, he walked in on her, and she had to hang up.”
“Or she just doesn’t want anyone to know she knows something about the threats on Gregory’s life, and whoever might have interrupted her could be just a mother, child, or boyfriend—just anyone.”
“True.”
“You should tell Gregory. Maybe he can have the police track down the number.”
“Yes, good idea.” Except he was in the middle of an important business conversation. But she could text him.
She texted: Had a strange call from an unknown woman. She said you could be in danger. How would she know that unless she knew something about it?
Gregory immediately called her. “What’s the phone number she used?”
Sascha gave it to him.
“I’ll have the police check on the phone number and call you back. Do you feel safe?”
“Yes, I’m good. I’m with Damon in his office at Lemoynes, and Omar is outside his office. Red is at home.”
“Okay, I’ll call you back as soon as I learn anything.”
Twenty minutes later, Gregory called Sascha. “They ran a check on the number. It’s a burner phone.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, so they don’t know who called you, but the detective believes the woman who called you possibly could know who the person is.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“The detective wants to use localized surveillance devices, sometimes called 'Stingrays' or IMSI catchers, to simulate a cell tower.
When the targeted phone connects to this fake tower, the police can intercept the phone's unique signals, identify exactly who they are communicating with, and pinpoint the phone's physical location tracer on your phone. If she calls again and if she stays on long enough, they can determine where the call is coming from.”
“That sounds great. Okay, I’m heading home. When are you coming home?” Sascha asked.
“At five.”
“Is there anything special you want for dinner?”
“Ribeye roast.”
“You got it. Maybe tomorrow we can have a pizza. I haven’t had a homemade pizza, but your chef says he makes one of the best.”
“He does. We’ll definitely have that tomorrow unless you would rather have it tonight.”
“Ribeye roast sounds delicious.”
Then Gregory said, “Oh, I got another call coming in. I’ll be home in a while.”
“Okay. I’ll see you soon. Love you.”
“Love you too, honey.”
Then they ended the call so he could answer the other call, and he realized it was from one of his private investigators. “Yeah, Hank, what did you learn?”
His PIs never contacted him unless they had news.
“I checked into the family history of Sam’s descendants, and I was looking into the case with the supposed mixed-up babies at the hospital.
It turns out that the kid’s mother, Francine Drury, is a descendant of Sam’s.
She was very vocal about changing the family history to prove that her great-uncle wasn’t a traitor.
But she also knew your dad’s ancestor was the one who had Sam killed. ”
“Hell. So she was even madder when she thought my parents were keeping her son at the hospital. Is she the one who has been trying to kill me? I thought she wanted me to be her son.”
“I suspect it’s her son who is trying to kill you. His name is Brendan Whitehouse.”
“Not Drury?”
“No, that’s her maiden name. She never took her husband’s name.
When I looked into Brendan’s background, I learned that he had been in the Army and has worked various jobs.
He has no criminal history. Maybe he feels the world owes him.
Perhaps he believed you stole his childhood because his mother treated him like he was never her son.
And compound that with the business with Sam, it would mean she believed her son was the descendant of the man who killed Sam. ”
“When in truth, I’m the descendant of the Landry’s.”
“Correct. But there’s no convincing that family of the truth.”
“A woman just called Sascha and said she knew someone was trying to kill me, but she abruptly hung up. Does Brendan have a sister or girlfriend? Or even a wife?”
“He has a younger sister and an ex-girlfriend.”
“Oh-kay. So where does Brendan live?”
“He lived in San Antonio, but he has vanished. No one knows where he is. Not his mother or dad, sister, or ex-girlfriend. None of his friends know. He worked at a car dealership after he left the Army, and he’s missing from work.”
“When did this happen?” Gregory asked.
“About the time you started having trouble with the attempted murderer. Brendan’s ex-girlfriend is worried about him. She says she still loves him, but that he has been anxious about something and wouldn’t tell her what. And they broke up over his dysfunctional relationship with his family.”
“If he’s trying to kill me—”
“He needed a new identity. But we still don’t know for sure that Brendan is the one who is responsible for the attempts on your life, only that he has vanished. If it is him, what caused him to come after you now?”
“Yeah, if it is him, something must have triggered him.”
This was the first possible lead they’d had. And if Brendan was the cause of all this, they had to find him and stop him.
“Okay, well, I’m sending you a picture of the girlfriend, Janie, and his sister, Belinda. She’s two years younger. Beyond that, I’ll keep digging,” Hank said.
“All right.” Before Gregory had a chance to look at the pictures, he got a call from Timothy Overbright about a merger, and Gregory thought this might be the one he was looking for.