The Defender. Cara Summers

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СКАЧАТЬ hurried on. “I’ve never known Roman to use his gun.”

      “Perhaps the need never arose before.”

      Temper flared into her eyes, turning them almost black. But she reined it in. Here was the passion he’d glimpsed in the courtroom. And Theo knew that he wasn’t going to be able to walk away from it easily.

      “You’re right. That’s exactly how the police will see it. He’s—” She broke off and her knuckles turned even whiter.

      “Roman’s in trouble on two fronts,” he continued for her. “He may have serious injuries from the fall he took, but he also may be the prime suspect for what went on at that church. That’s what you want to see Kit for. You want him to investigate and find out.”

      “I also want Kit to help me find Juliana. Roman thought she was in danger.”

      Theo studied her for a moment. “From what you’ve said, she’s with the man she loves, Paulo Carlucci. Don’t you trust him?”

      “I don’t know. I’m not even sure that Paulo and Juliana got away. That van may have been following them. Maybe they got her. If the Carluccis learned of the wedding plans, they’d want to stop it as badly as—”

      “Your father and Roman would.”

      Her chin lifted and she drew back a little in her chair. “If I had gotten to the church on time, I would have tried to talk Juliana out of getting married, too.”

      “The difference being that you didn’t bring a gun.”

      “Yes.” She met his eyes. “But as I said before, Roman wasn’t the only one who came to the church armed. And I had some time to think on the drive up here. I received my invitation to come to the church at around four o’clock. It was signed: ‘Please, Juliana.’ What if Roman received a similar note? I had no idea that the invitation was to a wedding, let alone that Juliana intended to marry Paulo Carlucci. What if Roman was in the same situation? I’m not saying that he wouldn’t try to stop the wedding. But he would only have used his gun in self-defense.”

      Theo didn’t know Roman Oliver as well as Kit did. But ever since Roman and Kit had roomed together in college, he had been a frequent visitor at both their home and the restaurant his father ran, and Theo was inclined to agree with Sadie. Roman, like his sister, had a temper, but he knew how to control it. Keeping his eyes on Sadie’s, Theo sipped his wine. “Let’s bottomline it. You suspect your father sent some men to stop the wedding, don’t you?”

      Her chin lifted. “Did I say that?”

      “You didn’t have to. Actions speak louder than words. You avoided your father when you were at the hospital.”

      Temper flashed in her eyes as she slammed a hand down on the table. “What was I supposed to do? Go up to him and ask him if he’d sent men to shoot up the church and stop the wedding? Not that he would have answered any of my questions—my father plays his cards very close to his chest. Sometimes he doesn’t even let Roman know what he’s doing. Roman never knew about it when he—” Stopping, Sadie reached for her wine and took a sip.

      “When he what?” Theo prompted.

      “It happened a long time ago. I haven’t thought about it in years. Perhaps it’s because the circumstances are so similar.”

      Theo raised a brow. “Did your father stop you from marrying someone?”

      “No.” She ran her finger around the rim of the wineglass. “I was a year younger than Juliana is now. I’d begged to come home from boarding school and finish my senior year here in San Francisco. I took a theater class and ended up playing Rosalind in As You Like It. The male lead was Jackson Rayburn, and we started seeing each other. The short version of the story is that I fell in love the way that you do when you’re that young and you think that everything is possible.”

      “Were you lovers?”

      “No.” Her chin lifted. “But we would have become lovers. We’d already made plans for the future. I was going to apply to the same college that he was going to so that we could be together. Then I made the mistake of bringing him home to meet my family and my father took immediate action.”

      Theo poured more wine into both their glasses. “What did he do?”

      “Nothing violent. Nothing even illegal. He simply approached Jackson’s father and gave him a business offer that Mr. Rayburn couldn’t refuse. It all happened in a matter of days. Jackson and I were supposed to meet the following weekend. When he didn’t show up, I went to his house and discovered from neighbors that the family had moved away. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Poof! I was so angry. When I confronted my father and he refused to tell me where, I got even angrier. I cried. I screamed.”

      A part of Theo wished he could have been there just to see the real Sadie, without her carefully controlled facade. Another part was much too aware of the hurt in her eyes and wanted to just pull her onto his lap and hold her.

      “Temper is never the way to handle my father. It’s cool logic that impresses him. I never saw Jackson again. He never called. He never even sent me an e-mail, a letter. Nothing. My father is nothing if not thorough.” She picked up her wineglass and took a careful sip.

      “Your father bought him off.”

      “Yes. He acted the same way he does in a business deal. When he wants to eliminate a potential problem, he does it with the efficiency and skill of a surgeon. And Jackson let himself be bought. That’s when I decided to go east for college. I wanted to be somewhere far away where my father couldn’t interfere with my life.”

      “Did it work?”

      “I thought so until—” She cut herself off with a wave of her hand. “That doesn’t really matter now.” She leaned forward a little. “I know that my past relationship with my father could be affecting my objectivity here, but there’s something else that’s been bothering me. The man driving the van—the one that was blocking the driveway and later might have been following Paulo and Juliana—there was something familiar about him. I just haven’t been able to place where I saw him before. I can’t help but wonder if it was at my family’s estate or at Oliver Enterprises.”

      For a moment, neither of them spoke. Theo angled his chair so that he could stretch his legs out and cross them at the ankles. “If your suspicion is right and your father did get wind of the planned wedding, does what happened at the church tonight seem like his work?”

      When Sadie met his eyes this time, hers were clear and focused. “You’re thinking it’s messy.”

      “Not only that, but from the way you’ve described him and the way Roman has talked about him, sending armed gunmen to stop his daughter’s wedding—that just doesn’t seem to be Mario Oliver’s style. Of course, I don’t know him as well as you do.”

      Theo continued to study her as she thought about what he’d just said. He could almost hear her mind working. Her face and her eyes were so expressive that he could tell the moment that some of her tension began to ease.

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