Sovereign Sheriff

by Cassie Miles

  “Makeup makes me feel put-together. I wouldn’t want to face the princes without my best face.”

  “Like war paint,” he said. “Before my tribe went into battle, they painted their faces and bodies. It was supposed to intimidate their enemies.”

  She liked his analogy. “Makeup is exactly like that.”

  Before she put on her lipstick, Jake caught her arm. “A kiss first.”

  It really wasn’t smart to start down this path. “We don’t have much time before we land.”

  “Just a kiss.”

  When his lips met hers, she wanted more. It was impossible to keep her hands off him. She pushed him through the doorway into the narrow hall and pinned him against the wall.

  His hand crept inside her shirt. His fingers were cold, and she shivered against him. In an instant, his body warmed. They melted into each other.

  When they separated, her senses were swirling like a cyclone. She needed more of him, but there wasn’t time. Somehow, she had to make their relationship last for more than a few days.

  When they disembarked at the private airfield, Jake unloaded her luggage and his gym bag and carried them to the police SUV he’d left here overnight. She took her cell phone from her purse. From memory, she dialed the mystery number and listened to it ring.

  And then, an answer.

  A gruff voice demanded, “Who’s this?”

  “Saida.” Finally reaching someone shocked her. She waved frantically to Jake, signaling him. “Who is this?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  The childish response made her angry. Of course, it was Granger. Everything pointed to him. Curbing her temper, she asked, “Why did you want me to call you?”

  “I know stuff. If you pay me a hundred thousand dollars, I’ll tell you everything.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Not so fast, lady. If I tell you, you won’t pay me.”

  This pathetic attempt at extortion was one step up from a crank phone call. He knew “stuff” but wouldn’t say what. She felt like throwing the cell phone.

  As Jake came toward her, she remembered his advice about how criminals are liars. “How will I know you’re telling me the truth? Can you give me a hint?”

  “It’s about Dormund,” he said. “Can you get me the money?”

  Jake stood beside her. She repeated Granger’s statement so he could hear. “You want one hundred thousand, correct?”

  “In small denominations.”

  Jake signaled her to stall and she said, “It’ll take some time to raise that much cash.”

  “I don’t have time. Get as much as you can.”

  “What if I can’t get as much as you want?”

  “I’ll take anything. Just do it.”

  He sounded desperate and disorganized. She couldn’t rationally negotiate with someone who acted like a five-year-old. “I’ll do exactly as you say. I’m very interested in your information.”

  “Damn right, you are. Damn right.”

  “Please tell me one thing. Is my brother okay?”

  “Who?”

  “Sheik Amir Khalid, my brother.”

  “Lady, I don’t know nothing about a sheik.”

  Her spirits sank. Granger’s information wouldn’t point her toward Amir. He had some small secret that he thought was worth something. A hundred thousand dollars? Not likely.

  She tried to get him talking. “How did you obtain this information about Dormund? Did you kill him?”

  “I never did.” His voice rose to a level near panic. “I never did nothing wrong. Okay, maybe I banged your car around with my truck, but you didn’t get hurt.”

  “Do you know the killer?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Damn it, pay attention. I know who killed him, shot him dead. And if you pay me, I’ll tell you.”

  “Fine. I’ll go to the bank,” she said. “And how should we make the exchange? My money for your information.”

  “Don’t you worry,” he said. “You get the money, and I’ll find you.”

  He disconnected the call.

  She looked up at Jake and shook her head. “Worthless.”

  “You said something about a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “That was his demand. He’s a very frightened, very stupid man who wants to sell me the name of Dormund’s killer.”

  In Granger’s mind, it made some kind of sense to approach her. “Why would he contact me?”

  “It’s obvious,” Jake said. “You’ve got money.”

  Of course, she cared about finding the murderer. But her focus was Amir. It had always been Amir. She needed to find her brother. “Granger wants me to go to the bank. He’s foolish enough to think that I can stroll through the door and come away with a hundred thousand.”

  “How does he want to make the exchange?”

  “He said that he’d find me.”

  “I don’t like it.” Jake took her arm and directed her toward the SUV. “That means he’s going to be watching you. It might be smart to put you somewhere you can’t be reached.”

  She wasn’t afraid of Granger. “He won’t try anything. He sounded desperate, scared as a little kid.”

  “Which makes him dangerous,” he said. “I’m not leaving you alone today. Not for a minute.”

  That sounded good to her. Maybe she ought to send Granger a thank-you note.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  At the bank in downtown Dumont, Saida went into the office of the manager to talk about a wire transfer while Jake called his office. He wasn’t anxious to get back to work where a rising tide of details threatened to drown him. The night he’d spent with the princess had been a respite. Those hours of greedy pleasure left him craving more time off, more time with her.

  Without trying, she was teaching him how to enjoy life. He hadn’t always been super-responsible, putting everybody else’s needs ahead of his own. But it had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to relax. Saida showed him how; she made him think it was possible to share his life. With her? Could he spend days, weeks and months with her? It was too much to hope for.

  Wheeler came on the phone, and they talked about the case. The forensic report on the crashed rental car came up with fingerprints for Granger and Dormund and other people unrelated to the crimes. It also confirmed his initial analysis that the car had been pushed over the edge of the cliff. Ballistics tests showed that Saida’s gun was, in fact, the murder weapon.

  Details, details. He wanted to ignore them all, to gather up the princess and ride off with her into a glorious sunset.

  Instead, he contacted the FBI agent in charge of the case. This call was about finances; the feds were better equipped to track down a money trail. If Dormund had been able to find how Maddox was hiding his ill-gotten gains, the FBI ought to be able to do the same.

  Jake asked the agent to check out possible money laundering through a race horse scam.

  “For Burt Maddox,” the agent said. “Sheriff, does this have anything to do with a personal vendetta?”

  “Maddox and I don’t get along.” No secret there. “But this is related to the murder of William Dormund, which is related to the crimes connected to COIN.”

  “I had to ask.”

  Jake understood. Maddox had used their personal animosity to dismiss anything negative that Jake said about him, even if it was the truth.

  Saida came out of the bank manager’s office carrying a small green backpack. Though concern about her brother was never far from her mind, her step had a bounce, and excitement crackled around her.

  As they left the bank and stepped onto the sidewalk, she told him that she had a wire transfer for eight thousand dollars. “The bank manager gave me cash and found this pack for me to carry it. This ought to be enough to convince Granger to tell us everything he knows.”

  “How did you come up with that number?”

  “It happened to be the amount in one of my accounts.”
She glanced along the street at the storefronts. “That’s a café on the corner. Maybe we should have brunch.”

  He seriously doubted that the diner had a brunch menu, but they did serve breakfast twenty-four hours a day. “I could eat.”

  She held the backpack toward him. “Do you mind carrying it? The green doesn’t go with my outfit.”

  Today, she was dressed in the California version of Western with boots, tight jeans and an orange drape kind of shirt with a snakeskin belt. They’d only gone about halfway down the block when she came to a halt in front of a small shop with a quilt display in the window. “Is this where the lady we saw in Danny’s photos works?”

  “I believe it is. Harriet’s Quilts.”

  The inside of the shop was cool, softly lit and cozy. An array of handmade quilts hung from racks and there was a wall of yarn, thread and fancy little detailing. Harriet sat on a stool behind a counter. Her white hair was piled on top of her head in a bun and she was hand-sewing.

  Looking up, she pushed her wire-frame glasses up on her nose. When she spied the princess, she let out a little cry of excitement. “Oh, I was hoping you’d come.”

  Saida moved toward her. “These quilts are lovely. Are they all handmade?”

  “You betcha.” Harried hopped down from the stool and bustled toward them. “You’re even prettier up close, Princess Saida. I’ve seen all those pictures in the tabloids, but I don’t believe any of those terrible things they say about you. I can tell by looking that you’re a good girl. Hi, Sheriff.”

  “Ma’am.” He nodded. “You seem to have a real interest in the COIN princes.”

  “That’s right. Especially Jamala.” She returned to her counter, bent down and reached underneath. “As soon as I knew about people from Jamala coming here, I went digging through my stock in the back of the shop. Come over here, Princess. There’s something I want you to see.”

  Harriet spread a three-foot by four-foot wall hanging on the counter. The border was red, black and yellow. In the center was a stylized representation of three horses at full gallop. The lead horse was predominantly made from a red-and-gold fabric.

  Saida ran her hands across the wall hanging. “Where did you get this material?”

  “You recognize it.” Harriet’s mouth pinched in a smug little bow. “I thought you might.”

  “This red is from Jamala. It’s shot through with copper. I’ve never seen it anywhere else in the world. And the three horses are our national symbol.”

  Harriet perched on her stool again. “It was a long time ago, thirty-three years or so, when a handsome young stranger came to town. He had dark hair and dark eyes. Oh, my, he loved to go horseback riding, and he cut a fine figure in the saddle.”

  “What was his name?” Jake asked.

  “He said we should just call him Sundance, like the Sundance Kid.” She chuckled. “Of course, that wasn’t his real name. He said he was from a place far away. I’m not sure when I heard of Jamala. He didn’t talk about it, said he wanted Wyoming to be his home.”

  “Like Amir,” Saida said softly.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I was just getting started with making quilts back then, and he saw me sewing and gave me a beautiful, long scarf with this red fabric. It was the sweetest gesture. I was having a kind of rough time. My husband was off in the Marines, and I was working at the Freeman Ranch.”

  “Freeman,” Jake said. “The cattle ranch that’s owned by Wade Freeman?”

  “Sure enough. Wade wasn’t even born until a year later. His mom was kind of sweet on Mr. Sundance. If he’d stayed around a bit longer, she might have gotten hitched to him. The woman was dying to get married. After Sundance left, she moved to Denver for a couple of years, got married and divorced and came back to the ranch with little Wade.”

  Saida circled the counter and wrapped Harriet in a warm embrace. “Thank you.”

  “Well, that’s all right, dear. I thought you might be acquainted with that gentleman who came here so many years ago.”

  “I might know him.” Saida picked up the wall hanging. “Would you consider selling this piece?”

  “Certainly. It ought to go home with you.”

  Saida unzipped the backpack, reached inside and pulled out several banded stacks of twenties. The amount had to be over a thousand dollars. “Thank you again, Harriet. I’ll be back to visit with you.”

  OUTSIDE THE QUILT SHOP, Saida announced what they must do. “We have to go to the Freeman Ranch. I’ve got to talk to Wade Freeman.”

  Jake didn’t object, even though he had a million other things he should be doing. He understood how important this revelation was.

  Why hadn’t Amir told her? When he came to Wyoming last year to see Freeman, it wasn’t to discuss the price of oil. Amir had been following a path that was blazed by their father some thirty-three years ago. Calling himself Sundance, their father had sown his wild oats at the Freeman Ranch, after which Wade’s mother had disappeared for a time, and then returned with a child.

  To Saida, it was obvious what had happened. Her father had sired a son while he was in Wyoming. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Her father was a notorious womanizer. The real shocker should have been that he hadn’t left illegitimate children all over the globe.

  She climbed into the passenger seat of Jake’s SUV and fastened her seat belt. “I wouldn’t have believed a word that Harriet said if I hadn’t seen that cloth from Jamala.”

  “The red fabric?”

  “I have a scarf with me that’s made from the same fabric.”

  “I remember,” he said. “Maggie liked it.”

  As he pulled away from the curb, she turned toward him, grateful that he was steady and strong. She needed his stability to keep herself grounded. “Am I overreacting?”

  “To the possibility that Wade Freeman is your long lost half brother?” He reached across the console, took her hand and squeezed. “It’s all right for you to go a little bit crazy. That’s a big pill to swallow.”

  “Why didn’t my father tell us? We should have known that we had an American half brother. If Harriet has the timing right, it means that my father came here and had his fling with Wade’s mother right before he settled into marriage with my mother.”

  The full weight of what she’d said hit her like an anvil. “Amir is thirty-one. Wade is older. That means Wade Freeman is the rightful sheik of Jamala.”

  “Technically, he’s a bastard son,” Jake said. “Does that make a difference?”

  “In the old days, it would have. If Wade showed up to claim his rightful place, he would have been seen as a pretender. Now, we have DNA testing to prove his heritage.”

  She rested her hand on her breast and felt her heart thumping. She wished that Nasim was here to counsel her. How should she handle the situation? Should she denounce Wade Freeman? But he was her blood relation. Other than Amir, she had no one else.

  “Here’s what worries me,” Jake said. “Wade Freeman has a claim to becoming ruler of your country. That gives him a real good reason to want Amir out of the way.”

  She sank back in the seat and stared blankly through the windshield. Jake was absolutely right. No one had a better motive than Wade Freeman for wanting Amir to disappear. He could have been thinking about this for years, could have been plotting his revenge. She recalled, “He said that his mother died about a year ago. He must have been waiting for her death to make his move.”

  “I don’t see him as a villain,” Jake said. “Freeman is a rancher, and he seems pretty happy with his lifestyle.”

  She turned on him. “You can’t possibly understand the greed and the intrigues of royal conspiracies. You never know who you can trust and who is going to betray you. You have to watch every word.”

  “You’re right. Your life as a princess is something I don’t understand.”

  A gulf opened between them. For the first time since she met Jake, she felt distant from him. “I tried to reject that life by moving to Americ
a.”

  “You can’t change who you are.”

  He stared straight ahead with his hands on the steering wheel. She wished he would turn to her and smile, wished that he would assure her that everything was all right between them. She wanted to tell him that she’d cast off her title in a minute to be with him. But she couldn’t.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t escape her heritage.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At the Freeman Ranch, Jake was told by the ranch foreman that Wade Freeman was repairing fences in the south field where a good portion of the herd was grazing. Jake wouldn’t have minded hanging around and drinking coffee until Wade returned to the ranch house, but Saida’s anxiety was sky-high. She was so agitated that she could barely stand still. Waiting was out of the question.

  The only way to reach the south field was by using an all-terrain vehicle or by horseback. Since all the ATVs were in use, the foreman got them saddled up and pointed in the right direction. From his knowledge of local landmarks, Jake had a good idea of where they needed to go. Locating four hundred head of cattle shouldn’t be difficult.

  He glanced over at Saida as she rode beside him. They’d hit an impasse in their relationship. The differences between them had never seemed so insurmountable.

  She adjusted the strap on the shoulder bag where she carried her Beretta. She’d said that they needed to keep the backpack with them. It seemed unnecessary, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he’d slipped the backpack on. One more frustration might send her over the edge into a royal nervous breakdown.

  At the top of a hill at the edge of a forest, she reined her horse. “What am I going to say to Freeman?”

  “You’re good at negotiations. You’ll figure it out.”

  She shook her head, and her hair fell forward to hide her face. “I’m scared. All I can think of are the negatives. What if Freeman has already killed Amir and buried his body? We’ll never find him.”

  Her words sent a chill through him. It was the first time she’d acknowledged that Amir might be dead. He couldn’t let her give up hope. “I made you a promise, Saida. I said that I’d find your brother, and I will.”