Undercover Obsession (34 page)

“Obviously, an employee made sure it was
unlocked, probably the same one who’s been feeding Sandoval
information about both the casino and Pasquino these past years.”
Ian was just as angry as Brody that they hadn’t stopped this
assassination and lost the chance to question Pasquino about his
buyers.

Carlos closed his phone and shook his head as
they looked at him expectantly. “Gone before our people got to the
garage exit. The bartender just left, probably with the woman
stowing away in the trunk and, since he was an employee, wasn’t
stopped.”

“Sandoval’s behind this, I know he is. I’ll
be right back.”

Piper could tell by Brody’s face that
something was wrong. Rising, she looked up into his angry face,
asking simply, “What?”

“Pasquino’s dead, assassinated,” he said
brusquely, needing her to get down to their room before the troops
got here and detained everyone for questioning. “Run upstairs and
slip on your jeans fast and go back to our room. I’ll be there as
soon as I can, but it’ll be a few hours. Wait for me, Piper,” he
instructed her sternly, remembering the last time this had happened
and how she had disappeared on him.

Piper simply nodded her head and got out of
there as quickly as possible, not wanting to be interrogated along
with the rest of Pasquino’s guests. She wasn’t upset about the drug
lord’s death, in fact she was relieved, but as she entered their
room a few minutes later with tears pouring down her face, she
realized that Charles was indeed dead, had been dead all this time,
and the small iota of hope she had unknowingly embraced, was gone.
Which meant the only connection she had with Brody was also gone.
Coward that she was, she wasn’t willing to stick around and face
another inevitable rejection from him. He had a job to finish and
probably another one waiting for him and she had a home, business
and friends she wanted to return to.

Somehow, Brody wasn’t surprised to return to
his room five hours later and find Piper gone. Despite the anger
and disappointment he felt, he was too tired to try to track her
down now. At least this time he knew where she was headed and it
wouldn’t take him six months to find her. He and Ian had time to
get a few hours shut eye before they were heading out to join the
team Carlos was putting together to raid Pasquino’s holdings. Now
that he was gone, word would spread quickly and those loyal to him
will take what they can and split without giving the man who was
their boss a second thought. If they wanted to gather any evidence
at all, they had to move fast. Falling face first on the bed, his
mind, however, wasn’t on the upcoming op, but on a small, black
haired, green eyed woman who had him tied up in knots since the
moment he met her and trying to figure out what he was going to do
about it. One thing was for certain, he wasn’t going to wait
another five years before figuring it out.

“Wonder what’s going on,” Ian said as they
stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor and saw a crowd of
people gathered around the front of the casino the next day. “The
last thing we need is a delay in getting out of here. I, for one,
am ready to put this place at my back.”

“I thought you liked the crowds, noise and
activity.” Ian hadn’t said much when they discovered Piper gone,
then again, he hadn’t been obsessed with the woman like Brody
had.

“I do, or did. Hell, this case has me so
fucked up I don’t know what I like anymore.”

Brody smiled at his frustration, suspecting
it was Haley who had his friend so confused. He could sympathize
with him on that score. Prepared to shove their way through the
crowd, both of them were shocked to see Charles Sandoval break
through upon spotting them. Flanked by two suits who looked like
the lawyer type, he walked right up to them and stuck out his
hand.

“Agents Pearce, MacGregor. It’s good to see
you again.”

Pushing seventy, Piper’s surrogate father had
aged well in the past five years. His full head of hair was now
completely grey and new lines creased his face, but otherwise he
looked hale and robust. “How long have you known?” Brody asked him
after he shook his hand. No point in being uncivil, at least not
yet.

“I figured it out the night someone tried to
kill me. Where’s my daughter?” Charles asked abruptly, his need to
see Piper and assure himself she was all right his top
priority.

“Piper left sometime last night, I assume to
go back to Missouri. We need to talk. Now.” Brody didn’t have time
to play nice. He had to get Charles where he knew he couldn’t take
off again, at least until they had time to question him.

“Am I under arrest?” Charles asked him calmly
knowing full well they didn’t have enough on him to do so.

“You’re wanted for questioning on a number of
matters at this time.”

“Then questions can wait. I’ll speak with
you, however, privately.”

“Charles, I have to advise you against that,”
the suit to his left said, scowling at him in disapproval.

“Fine,” Charles answered coolly, “you’ve
advised me. Agent MacGregor, if you’d like to speak with my
attorney’s, feel free to do so. Pearce, we can talk in my
office.”

“How do you know you still have an office?”
Brody asked him as they left the others and Charles led him to a
private elevator.

“I know.” They took the elevator to the
second floor where the business offices were and Charles stepped
into his office as if he owned the place, which he still did, thank
God. Per his instructions from the private plane he had chartered
first thing this morning upon getting word that Pasquino was dead,
his office was cleaned and aired out, his desk neat and ready for
him to resume his seat behind it. Instead, he walked to the bank of
windows that overlooked the strip and gazed out at the sights he
had missed so much, but not as much as he had missed Piper.

Getting a new identity and living off the
money he had stashed in a Swiss bank account under a dummy
corporation had been no hardship and neither had spending the last
five years living peacefully on a tropical island and traveling
throughout Europe whenever he wanted a change of scenery. What had
been hard was leaving Piper, having no contact with her, especially
right after he realized just how much he loved her. And harder
still had been the terror that filled him when he learned by sheer
luck that Pasquino had been shown a picture of Christine and
knowing it was only a matter of time before he discovered she had
left a daughter behind.

“Talk Sandoval,” Brody snapped when the man
just stood with his back to him without saying a word. “I don’t
have much time.”

“I know.” Heaving a sigh, he turned to face
the man he had taken a huge chance on to keep Piper safe. “I wanted
to thank you, personally, for looking out for Piper, not just in
these past few days, but the past five years.”

“How did you know?” Brody wasn’t surprised by
his knowledge of the tabs he had kept on Piper, just curious about
how he knew.

“Your face when you heard her and saw her
that night. It was more than surprise at seeing her there, it was
pure terror for her, the same as I felt. I suspected from your
behavior when you returned from your trip to her graduation that
something happened between you two, something that made you think
of her as more than just a nice kid whose father you thought was a
crook. I banked on it.”

Brody wasn’t about to explain what happened
between him and Piper back then or now. Let him wonder, he thought
irritably, just as she wondered what had happened to him. “What do
you mean, you banked on it?” And just that quickly the light bulb
went off in his head making him swear a blue streak as he visibly
struggled to keep from jumping across that desk and plowing his
fist into the man’s face. “It was you,” he accused him with cold
fury. “You’re responsible for her going missing and returning in
the state she was in. What the fuck were you thinking?!”

Charles closed his eyes to briefly block out
the fury on Brody’s face before sucking it up and facing him head
on again. “I was desperate. I don’t expect you to understand how a
parent feels when they know their child is in danger, the fear and
desperation that make you do the unthinkable if it means keeping
her safe.”

“Piper’s not your daughter,” he threw at him
coldly as he remembered all the times she had looked at him with
uncertainty and fear over her memory loss.

“The hell she’s not,” he snapped back, just
as furious now as Brody was. “I may have been too wrapped up in
this place,” he said, waving his arm in a wide arc, “to realize it
until it was almost too late, but that girl is my daughter in every
way except biologically, and I don’t give a rat’s ass who planted
the seed. She took her first steps into
my
arms, called
me
daddy and it was
me
her mother trusted to take
care of her. I was there when he wasn’t and that’s all that
matters.”

“You weren’t there these past five years,”
Brody reminded him.

“I know,” he admitted more calmly. “And that
was my fault. I’m not about to confess to you about anything, I
just wanted you to know that everything I did, from hiding out all
this time to orchestrating her disappearance in a gamble that you’d
run to her rescue and stay until she was safe was because she means
more to me than anyone else in this world. There is nothing I
wouldn’t do for her. I was hoping she’d still be here so I could
tell her myself.”

“You know where she is and obviously you had
help with your little scheme. I’m thinking your friend Doc. He
would have the means to get drugs, drugs that cause amnesia, sexual
enhancement drugs. Why that one, why leave her to suffer like
that?”

Charles sank down onto his chair, leaned his
elbows on his desk and rubbed his hands tiredly over his face. He
had had some bad moments over his decision to have Doc give her the
aphrodisiac, as a parent he didn’t want to think about its effects
or what Brody had done about it. “It had been so long since you’d
seen her, I needed to make sure you didn’t just assure yourself she
was okay and then leave again. I was hoping if you picked up where
you left off in Geneva you’d be more inclined to stay awhile.”

And damned if his little plot hadn’t worked
like a charm, Brody thought derisively. “Pasquino didn’t know who
she was last night, so why did you think she’d be in any more
danger now than any time before that.?”

Charles stood again, needing to end this
before he dug himself into a hole his lawyers couldn’t dig him out
of. “You had your people feeding you information and I had mine,
and that’s all I’m saying on that.” He thought of Doc, Crack and
Ashcroft, the only employee he trusted enough and whom he knew
would be more than willing to help him out, contacting him with
disposable cell phones to pass on information and the sacrifices
they had made for him. Crack had moved to Hope just to watch over
Piper for him and Ashcroft, one of his best dealers, had kept him
apprised of everything happening with the Empire, especially after
Pasquino had become a regular patron. It had been sheer luck to
have Pasquino’s man show him Christina’s picture while he was
gambling at Ashcroft’s table and it was Ashcroft who had made sure
both doors to the secret passage were unlocked last night. “I’ll
answer any other questions you have with my attorneys present and
not until then. I was hoping to clear the air with both you and
Piper. After I meet with the board and get caught up here, I plan
to go see her in person. Until then, I’ll be here. You know where
to find me.”

Brody didn’t have time to argue or question
him further. Some facts were obvious. There had to be a reason for
the hit Pasquino put on Sandoval and there had to be a reason
Charles thought Pasquino was a threat, or about to be one, to
Piper. But obvious didn’t mean provable and they both knew it.
“Just so you know,” he said as he turned to the door, “I plan on
returning to Missouri, and Piper also. Your plot worked better than
you thought.” With that admission, Brody hurried back downstairs,
anxious now more than ever to end this case once and for all.

Chapter Sixteen

Hope, Missouri

One Month Later

Charles Sandoval sat in a corner booth in
Rowdy’s, his eyes glued to the door, his body taut with
anticipation and worry. Piper, the young woman it had taken him too
long to realize he loved like a daughter, was on her way and he
would have his first glimpse of her in five long years. He had no
one to blame but himself for that, no one to blame for making the
worst decision of his life by taking Pasquino up on his lucrative
offer and definitely no one else to blame for the things he had
done to try to set things right not only for himself, but for Piper
also. He was back among the living now, back doing what he loved,
running the Empire twenty-four seven. The Feds were off his back,
finally conceding they didn’t have anything on him concerning
either his alleged money laundering for Pasquino or his involvement
in the drug lord’s murder except suspicions. Now, all that remained
to be seen was if Piper would forgive him, not only for the
jeopardy he had put her in, but for what he had to do to see that
she was kept safe from his mistakes.

He didn’t feel guilty for sending her
overseas when they both lost Christine. He had done the best for
her at that time that he could. Living in a casino, with him
working around the clock, would have been no life for a young
child, and, frankly, he had no desire to change his life to become
a surrogate father for the next ten years. But he hadn’t deserted
her, hadn’t wanted to and over the years, during those monthly
visits that he had enjoyed more than he had ever imagined he would,
he had grown to love Piper as the daughter he never had. But it
wasn’t until he saw her face, the look of utter shock and
devastation when she had seen him get shot, that he realized she
had become more important to him than the Empire that he had always
put before her.