Hampton Manor by K. J. Janssen Read Free Book Online Page A

started to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him.
    “Let me finish, please, or I’ll lose what little nerve I’ve mustered in coming here. The bottom line is that I’m in big trouble in my marriage, or what would better be described as the sham of my marriage. Adam is not cheating on me, at least as far as I know, but I believe that he has stolen some valuable antique jewelry that my family has passed down for generations. I always kept them in a vault at the Centurion Bank. Three days ago I went to the vault to get some papers and the jewels weren’t there. The signature card showed that Adam visited the box two months ago.”
    “Maybe he’s having them cleaned or perhaps he’s having them reset as a surprise for you.”
    Lauren looked annoyed at his rejoinder. “I keep them polished and they’re sealed in air-tight containers.” As if to refute his simplistic explanation, she added, “These are valuable antique pieces. You don’t have them reset,” she added, a bit sarcastically.
    He ignored the rebuke. “You’re saying that Adam stole your jewelry? Why would he do such a thing? After all they belong to you.”
    Anger replaced the crying as she spouted, “He did it for money and power; he does everything for those two reasons. He’s drained all our bank accounts to buy Preston Industries stock. His father is obsessed with taking over Preston and Adam is a willing co-conspirator. It’s all they think about. After all their shenanigans they fell short of the required votes anyway. It was all for naught.”
    “I knew about the takeover attempt. I know that obsessions do strange things to people.” Daniel reached over to take her hand. “How can I help you, Lauren?”
    Lauren looked into his eyes and realized that he wasn’t holding any grudges against her for her disgraceful behavior of the past several years. “You’re a very decent man, Daniel McKnight. I’m really sorry for the way I treated you. Adam wanted to invite you to our wedding. I was the one who said no. Can you ever forgive me?
    “There’s nothing to forgive, Lauren. Please let me help you, if I can.”
    “I’m not sure that you can do anything. I think I just needed to ventilate. I won’t bother you any more with this.”
    She rose to leave, but he gestured for her to sit back down.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. I can do more for you than just listen. You can get a minister or an analyst to do that. I‘m offering you my friendship. You look like you can use a friend about now. I know people who can find out what happened to your jewelry. They are top-notch investigators. They are very thorough and very discrete. Do you have pictures and descriptions of each piece?”
    She reached into her handbag and removed an envelope. “This is the information we put together for our insurance company, a few years back. The pictures are very good, as are the descriptions of the pieces.”
    “Give me a few days. I’ll ask the investigators to look around. I’ll get back to you if they need to have any additional information.”
    “How can I thank you?”
    Daniel slid next to her on the bench and gently placed his arm around her. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Lauren. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll call you by the end of the week. I should have something by then.”
    They walked together to the parking lot. As she got into her Mercedes, she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek.
    Daniel contacted a friend, Walter Madding, at Palentine Investigations, a P.I. firm he often used to do background checks. He sent the jewelry information to them by courier and requested a thorough check of Adam Hampton III’s personal and professional life. After all, what did he really know about the man that Adam had become? It was many years since they had beers together.
     
    It only took three days for Walter to trace the jewelry to a private collector who paid three hundred thousand dollars for