Secret Bodyguard. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ sense of the newspaper clipping that had been slipped under his door last night. It had to have been someone inside the estate who’d given it to him. He ticked off the few hired help who lived on the premises.

      Not the tiny, gray-haired Eunice Fox who’d been with the Crowe family for years. Nor Consuela Ruiz, the family cook. Nor the gardener, a withered, little old man named Malcolm Hines, who had been one of J.B.’s first bodyguards.

      Jesse couldn’t imagine any of them being disloyal to J.B. or any member of his family. And not just for fear of their lives. That left only Death and Destruction, but Jesse doubted either of them even knew how to read.

      So who did that leave? J.B. Not likely. And Amanda.

      Jesse called the house again after lunch.

      “Ms. Crowe isn’t up,” Eunice informed him in a tone that dared him to insinuate that it wasn’t Amanda’s right to sleep all day if she so desired. He knew the housekeeper had been up for hours working and wondered how she could be so protective of such a spoiled, young woman who had never worked a day in her life and no doubt ever would.

      “Should she get up—”

      “I’ll let her know you’re available,” the elderly woman cut him off icily. “I’m sure she will appreciate knowing that.” She hung up, convincing Jesse that Eunice definitely hadn’t been the one who’d put the copy of the newspaper clipping under his door.

      While he polished J.B.’s fancy fleet and waited for Dylan to call with news on the baby, Jesse found himself thinking about Gage Ferraro and wondering what Amanda saw in the man. Obviously, there was no accounting for taste, but it did make Jesse wonder. Why had J.B. taken his daughter’s dishonor so lightly? The J. B. Crowe Jesse had come to know would have had Gage swimming with the fish in cement shoes at the bottom of White Rock Lake.

      Jesse wondered what J.B. would do if he found out that Amanda was consorting with the enemy again? If Gage and Amanda had kidnapped Susannah as some sort of scam, Jesse didn’t want to be around when J.B. found out.

      Meanwhile, he wondered how Gage’s father, Mickie Ferraro, had taken losing his first grandchild. Especially considering that he and J.B. were rumored to be fighting for control inside the Organization. Mickie and J.B. had reportedly started with the mob as little more than kids.

      Gage was a two-bit hoodlum who was trying to work his way up in the mob. If he really could find Susannah and bring down Kincaid, J.B. would owe him. But somehow Jesse didn’t believe that was Gage’s game.

      Gage Ferraro was a wild card and one Jesse didn’t like seeing in the deck. And Amanda… It was just a matter of getting her in a compromising position. The thought had too much appeal—and was damn dangerous.

      He just wished he could figure out how all the pieces fit together, especially how the newspaper clipping fit into the mix.

      Dylan, true to his word, contacted him a little after two. “We should meet,” the cowboy said.

      Jesse picked a meeting place nearby and called the main house a third time, only to be told that Ms. Crowe had finally gotten out of bed and planned to spend the day beside the pool. Mr. Crowe would be home soon. The two would be spending the rest of the afternoon and evening together. Jesse wouldn’t be needed.

      Anxious to hear what Dylan had discovered, he left, confident Amanda couldn’t leave with her father expected home any minute.

      THE SMALL Texas barbecue joint served cold beer and chipped pork sandwiches with hot sauce. Because of the time of day, the place wasn’t busy. He took a table at the back so he could watch the door.

      Dylan joined him ten minutes later.

      “So is the baby Susannah?” Jesse asked without preamble.

      To Jesse’s disappointment, Dylan shook his head.

      “The baby found beside the road was a boy, a newborn,” Dylan said.

      Jesse frowned. “Then how could the clipping be connected to Susannah Crowe’s disappearance?”

      “I don’t think it is,” Dylan said. “The baby boy left beside Woodland Lake Road just outside of Red River, Texas, had dark hair and dark eyes. He was only a few hours old, leading police to believe he was born on June 5.” He paused.

      Jesse felt a jolt. The baby had been born on his birthday?

      “June 5,” Dylan continued, “thirty years ago, 1971.”

      Jesse’s heart took off at a sprint. He stared at the cowboy for a long moment. “June 5 is my birthday.”

      Dylan nodded. “I had a feeling it was. That’s why I did some more checking. I couldn’t find out who adopted the baby. Texas adoption laws won’t allow that. So I went from the other direction.” Dylan seemed to hesitate. “I checked your birth certificate.”

      Jesse was already shaking his head.

      “I don’t know how to say this, Jesse. I checked with the hospital listed as your place of birth. You weren’t born in Dallas, at least not to Pete and Marie McCall.”

      Jesse could barely find breath to ask, “What are you saying? That you think I’m that abandoned baby?” He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was the middle son, with two brothers and three younger sisters, the perfect family. I had this great childhood. If anything, I was my parents’ favorite—” He stopped and shook his head again, all the little things now making him doubt who he was and everything he’d once believed. “There is no way I was adopted. There has to be some sort of mistake. Of course I was born in Dallas, just like my brothers and sisters. Why would my parents lie about where I was born?”

      The answer was obvious. If he was that abandoned baby, his parents would have lied to protect him from the truth. They wouldn’t want him to know that his birth mother had cared so little that she’d left him beside a dirt road in a cardboard box.

      “I’m sorry, Jesse,” Dylan said.

      He looked past Dylan to the bartender punching up numbers on the jukebox. A Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys song filled the air, Texas swing. He felt sick. And scared. “Who the hell am I, then?”

      “You’re still Jesse McCall, the man you’ve always been,” Dylan said.

      Jesse shook his head. He’d been Jesse Brock since he’d become Crowe’s chauffeur two weeks ago. And now he had a bad feeling he wasn’t even Jesse McCall, the person he thought he’d been for thirty years. “I have to know.”

      Dylan nodded almost sadly but didn’t seem surprised. “You realize you’re probably not going to like what you uncover, if you’re even able to dig up anything after all these years.”

      He nodded, trying to think of a good reason a mother would abandon her baby.

      “Do you want me to keep digging?” Dylan asked. “I have another case that’s going to tie me up for a while but after that—”

      Jesse nodded. He couldn’t leave the Crowe case, not now. And after thirty years, what was a few more days?

      “Then you’re going to stay on the Crowe estate?” Dylan asked.

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