Chapter 6
“Time to get to business.” Dustin hated the direction the dinner conversation had taken. He needed to regain some control over it.
He reached for his tablet and clicked on the screen. The usual intake form was already open. He’d wanted to fill it out earlier and avoid dinner, but he could admit the meal had been great. Almost as good as the dinners prepared by Healing Springs Ranch’s chefs.
“What kind of business would you like to get to, Dustin?” Silver had the spot directly across from him.
The glow of the chandelier overhead added warmth to her tanned skin, miles of which were visible in the yellow sundress she’d changed into.
Her blue eyes were warm and filled with sunshine.
Why was everything about her always so sunny and bright?
She hadn’t been thrilled to have him here on her ranch, but she was trying to be nice, which was more than he was doing. So far, he hadn’t made any effort to get along.
He released a slow exhale. He could maintain the professional boundaries without being a jerk to her, couldn’t he?
“We need to ask you some questions,” he said, “so we can narrow down the potential threats. Even though this person is connected to your father, everything points to the stalker knowing about you and this ranch.”
“Okay.” She laid down her silverware, her meal mostly untouched. “What do you want to know?”
“Finish eating first.” As soon as his command was out, he cringed. His words had been almost harsh, certainly not kind. “Please.” He softened the word and allowed his eyes to connect with hers.
“Thank you, Dustin.” She held his gaze with a power he felt all the way inside, like she’d reached into his chest and grabbed ahold of his heart. “But I don’t have much of an appetite tonight.”
Why? Because he was there?
Guilt pricked the back of his neck. In an effort to keep his emotions in check, he hadn’t been looking out for her needs. No, he’d been more interested in protecting himself than protecting her.
“Listen, go ahead and eat. We can do this afterward.”
She pushed aside her plate. “I’m okay. Let’s just start.”
He hesitated.
Isaac paused in his gum chomping to stare at Dustin.
Why? Because he was acting like a crazy person? Upset one second and simpering the next?
Giving himself a mental shake, he dropped his attention to his tablet. “Great. List off the people closest to you and number their threat potential.”
“None of them are threats.” Her response was immediate and positive, just the way he’d expected.
“Regardless, this is what we do. We analyze everyone and consider them possible suspects until proven otherwise. Including Beryl.”
“Beryl?” Silver glanced at her assistant, who was in the process of scraping her plate clean.
“Every single person,” he reiterated.
“Why?”
“Because statistically, most crimes are committed by people closest to you.”
Silver reached over and squeezed Beryl’s arm. “We can’t even begin to question Beryl. She’s the most faithful person I’ve ever known.”
“Fine.” This exercise would apparently be difficult for Silver, since she liked to see the best in people and not the negative. “Let’s start with . . .” He glanced down at the list of people he had background checks on.
His gaze landed on the name Parker England.
Parker was thirty years old, a senior accountant at one of Upton St. James’s real estate firms, and a powerful man.
He was from a prominent Denver family. He hadn’t proposed to Silver yet, but the notes on file indicated he had plans to do so soon and had talked to Upton about it before the man’s passing.
“Your boyfriend.” He studied her face expectantly. “Tell us about Parker.”
Isaac snorted. “Nice one, dude.”
Did Isaac think he was trying to pry for information about Silver’s boyfriend because he cared about who she was dating? The only reason he cared about who she was dating was because it was his job to look at each person in her inner circle and determine if any of them had a motive for hurting her.
“Parker.” Silver waved a hand as if she were waving away a measly mutt. “Don’t worry about him.”
“Did he have any reason to be angry with your father?”
“Oh, I’m sure he detested many things about my father. But he’d never do anything to hurt me.”
“What did he detest about your father?”
She began to fold her napkin into neat squares. “I don’t know. He complained about how my father wouldn’t give him a promotion or a raise or perks he thought he deserved.”
“Then he has motivation to extort you.”
“No, he would never threaten me like that. Besides, his family has lots of money, and he wouldn’t need to get more.”
“You aren’t concerned about his history of serial-dating women and dumping them?”
Her attention shifted back to him, her eyes filling with surprise. “How do you know that?”
Isaac leaned back in his chair and smirked at him. “I’m not sure what that has to do with this case.”
Dustin ignored Isaac and focused on Silver. “He’s stayed with you the longest—”
“I broke off our relationship after Daddy died.” A hint of sorrow flashed across her features. Sorrow over her dad dying or over breaking up with Parker? Or both?
“I was sorry to hear about your dad’s passing.” The least he could do was express his condolences.
“Thank you.” The shadow lingered on her face.
Beryl rubbed a hand on Silver’s back, comforting her.
Dustin was quiet for a moment, suddenly feeling the weight of Silver’s grief and wishing he could take it upon himself.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly.
He nodded.
“Daddy didn’t like Parker either, so the feeling was mutual.”
“Then you’re dating someone new?”
“No.”
“So you’re single? No boyfriend at all?”
Her brows shot up. Did she think he was asking because he was interested?
Isaac chortled and opened his mouth—probably to say that exact thing. Dustin quickly cut in. “Our boss told us you had a boyfriend. That’s what we were expecting.”
“He was wrong. I’m not dating anyone.”
Dustin inwardly sighed. That was a major reason he’d allowed himself to break his no-woman rule. But now that she was single? He would need to call Killian and have another agent sent out to replace him, wouldn’t he?
Either way, he had to finish this assessment. He started typing notes next to Parker’s name. “Maybe Parker is angry about the breakup.”
Silver fiddled with the square shape of her napkin. “I doubt it, considering he moved on a few days after our breakup.”
Was that a note of hurt in her voice?
He paused in typing and glanced at her. What was really going on? Why had she broken up with Parker? And did she still care about him?
From everything he’d studied in her file, her father had passed away about four weeks ago, which meant she’d ended things with Parker recently.
“Do you still love him?” His question slipped out before he could stop it.
She shook her head. “Oh no. I never loved him. And that was the problem. Our relationship wasn’t going anywhere.”
“But . . .?”
“But nothing. I ended things, and now we’re finished. He has no reason to stalk me. So you can cross him off your list of suspects.”
Dustin wasn’t so sure about that. The guy sounded like a jerk to jump from a relationship with Silver to someone else so rapidly.
Even though Parker’s background check had been clean, Isaac would need to dig more into the guy’s history and current dealings to see if they could find anything suspicious.
With a frown, Beryl set down her fork. “I never liked Parker. I think it’s a good idea to keep him on the list.” Even after eating, the woman’s bright-pink lipstick remained in place. How was that possible?
“Now, Beryl,” Silver gently chided. “He was harmless, and you know it.”
Was Beryl purposefully trying to put the blame on someone else to divert attention away from herself? Although Dustin had only felt protective vibes from Beryl toward Silver, he couldn’t be too careful in his investigation and had to pursue every nuance, no matter how obscure.
He made a mental note to investigate Beryl’s past more thoroughly, especially her financial history.
“What other men have shown an interest in you over the past year?” Dustin lobbed out the next question. He was only asking because it was standard protocol to find out about every client’s love life. Disgruntled lovers were among the top threats in stalker situations.
Silver’s eyes widened, revealing that she was not prepared for more prying into her dating life.
“We need to know if there are any other men,” he offered, “who might be jealous or upset or have any grudges against you.” It was the truth. He had no ulterior motives, regardless of what Isaac might be insinuating.
Even now, Isaac sat in silence, watching the exchange with Silver with merriment dancing in his eyes.
Silver hesitated.
Dustin could see her resistance to answering in the hard press of her lips.
“Would you like me to answer, Miss St. James?” Beryl asked as she placed her hands in her lap primly.
Silver nodded before focusing all her attention on unfolding the napkin that she’d just folded.
Beryl peered across the table at Dustin, her gaze direct and no-nonsense. “Before Parker, Silver dated occasionally, but she was very particular about who she went out with. We did our best to screen everyone before she went out.”
“Gideon appeared to have all the requirements.”
Gideon? Dustin had the feeling he wouldn’t like this incident and could feel his chest begin to tighten. He swiped his tablet, returning to the long alphabetical list of people who had intersected with Silver as well as Upton over the past year. That name wasn’t among the suspects.
Dustin clicked on the spreadsheet, inserted a line, and typed in Gideon’s name. “What was his last name?”
“Finch. F-I-N-C-H.” Beryl spelled the name slowly. “Silver went out with Gideon only one time and didn’t want to see him again. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept texting and calling her.”
This Gideon definitely needed to be on the list of suspects.
Silver gave an imperceptible shudder—one most people wouldn’t notice. But Dustin hardly ever missed any details, and her reaction to Gideon Finch was no exception.
“Anyone else?” He tried to gentle his voice.
Beryl nodded. “Men are always messaging her on social media.”
“Then we’ll need to log in to her accounts and take a look at the messages.”
Most clients protested the invasion of privacy, even though it was necessary. But Silver gave a dainty shrug of her nearly bare shoulders. “Sure. Just let me know when you’d like to look, and I’ll give you access to all of them.”
“Good.”
That was just like the Silver he’d always known—being so accommodating.
The truth was, he couldn’t fault her for anything.
She hadn’t asked for him to come, wasn’t attempting to renew a relationship with him, would have chosen another protection agent if she’d had her way.
Regardless, she seemed to be doing her best to be pleasant toward him, even though she had every reason to hold a grudge against him for how he’d ended things between them.
She was a better person than he was. She’d not only become a beautiful woman on the outside, but from what he could tell in the short time he’d been with her, she was just as beautiful on the inside.
Although a part of him still wanted to text Killian and demand a replacement, another part warned him that doing so would be petty and immature. She was an old friend and that’s all this needed to be.
Besides, Franklin could have asked for anyone to be Silver’s EPA. Yet he’d specifically asked for Dustin because he trusted him. How could Dustin give that charge over to someone else?
He couldn’t. At least, not yet. Not until he had the chance to mine deeply into her situation and try to solve the problem. Surely, while he was investigating, he would be able to keep the professional boundaries in place without acting like a complete jerk every time he interacted with her.
That would be his new goal—not to be a jerk to her. It was a lame goal, but hopefully he wouldn’t fail at it.