“You’re right,” Gabe admitted. “We’ve talked about it before, and I confess, it is hard for me to remember sometimes that I’ve got a family at church now. ”
She gave him another playful grin and bumped his chair with her hip. “That’s right, so move over and let me help.”
“Ok. I admit it. I need your help. It’s all yours,” Gabe gestured to his computer and rolled the chair slightly away from the desk to give Jamie room as she bent over his keyboard. “Do your tech magic.”
She threw him a wide grin over her shoulder, “You know I will. Already have, actually. I just want to share screens with your computer so that I can show you what I’ve come up with for starters.”
Jamie tapped a few more keys on the keyboard, then stood. “There. You’re hooked in to my computer now. I just wanted to show you the latest. Stan didn’t happen to mention that Miss Kami had a past when he talked to you after the service on Sunday, did he?”
Gabe shook his head and leaned forward to take a look at the screen. Jamie had pulled up some headlines on CNN online.
Kami had a past?
He leaned closer and started reading at the same time that Jamie decided to fill him in, as if he wasn’t getting to the pertinent stuff fast enough. Jamie was all about taking the shortest, most direct path.
“Seems her grandfather was a bit of a tycoon. He made his money in stocks. Smart, tough old guy if the papers have the right story. Anyway, he chose to make Kami his heiress instead of his own kids.”
Gabe listened while perusing the pictures on the screen. The pictures must have been taken right after Kami’s grandfather had died. She looked sad, and frightened by the crush of reporters standing around her in the photos. And she looked more than a little lost.
Jamie continued with her monologue, “Kami’s parents and her aunt and uncle were estranged from their father, her grandfather. I haven’t discovered why yet. It just says in the media coverage that none of his children had spoken to him in years. And there’s more. Miss Kami has had a hard time of it.”
Jamie leaned in to switch to a different online news source.
“Her parents were killed in a car accident before they could mend the rift. Kami grew up not knowing her grandfather, but after their death she decided to make peace with him. She made his last years better, or so the news reports. And for that, he threw her to the wolves. I’m sure the guy thought he was helping her when he left her his entire fortune, but her aunt and uncle thought differently. So does the world, apparently. She’s been dragged through the mud, Gabe.”
Jamie switched webpages again and Gabe felt his jaw tighten.
On the screen, the headlines screamed that Kami was nothing but a money-grubber - out to take money from a senile old man.
Gabe didn’t really know her, but from what he’d seen of her so far, he couldn’t believe it was true. Could the slightly distant woman who kept to herself, but still attended church, be the money hungry leech that the media accused her of being? He didn’t think so.
“There’s more, but you look like you have enough to chew on for now. More later.”
Gabe nodded, still staring at the screen. A large photo of Kami’s face stared back at him. Her eyes were huge. They looked haunted and bereft, not greedy and self-serving.
“Got a few errands to run, I’ll be back sometime. Call if you need me before then,” Jamie announced as she sailed out of his office.
He nodded, still staring at Kami’s frightened eyes on his computer monitor.
GUARDING KAMI is available now in ebook format on Amazon and in paperback wherever fine books are sold.
Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) Page 17