Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 1 of 2 by Delores Fossen Read Free Book Online Page A

conversations she’d had with Rossman and Cawley. “I didn’t have any face-to-face meetings with either of them.”
    Jericho checked through the time line and saw that something was missing. “I’ll need the exact dates of your mother’s death and when you broke off your engagement.” Because one or both of those could have triggered what was happening now.
    While Laurel jotted down those dates, Jericho fired off a text to his brother Levi, who was a cop at the San Antonio Police Department, and asked him to run background checks on both men. Maybe Levi could dig up more than Laurel had. He also told his brother that he’d be faxing him a copy of the time line Laurel had just provided.
    â€œSo, what happens now?” she asked, handing him back the notepad.
    Good question. But Jericho didn’t have anything remotely resembling a good answer. “We keep looking for the idiots who attacked us. Keep looking for anything we can use to stop Herschel.” He paused. “Please tell me you’ve got some dirt on him. Any kind of dirt that I can use to start legal proceedings for an arrest.”
    â€œNo.” Another heavy sigh. “Within minutes of Theo telling him that he wasn’t Maddox’s father and that I’d broken off the engagement, all my computer files and backups disappeared. They were corrupted by a virus that someone triggered.”
    That someone was no doubt one of Herschel’s lackeys. “What about paper files?”
    She shook her head. “All missing. By the time I got to my office, everything was gone.”
    Herschel had worked fast. But then, he’d probably had this backup plan ready to go for years just in case Laurel turned against him. Still, there was something about this that didn’t make sense.
    â€œYou must have known your father would retaliate when you stopped being the perfect daughter.”
    â€œI did. But I didn’t think he’d go this far.” Her voice broke, and again Jericho had to stop himself from lending her a shoulder to cry on.
    Hell.
    He only managed to hold himself for a couple of seconds, and then, as if it had a mind of its own, his arm eased around her and pulled her closer. Until they were touching far more than they should. Of course, any kind of touching was out between Laurel and him. That didn’t stop him.
    Nope.
    Jericho just waited until she wrestled with more of those tears. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. But it was long enough for his body to get really stupid ideas about the touching.
    â€œSorry,” Laurel said, and moved away from him.
    Jericho got the feeling that the apology extended to a lot of things. Things he didn’t want to get into right now since he was still seething over the fact that Laurel had kept his son from him. And all because she was afraid Herschel would have tried to kill him.
    Which Herschel would have tried to do.
    All the more reason to figure out how to put that idiot behind bars.
    â€œI guess you didn’t know Theo was going to tell your father the truth about Maddox when you broke off the engagement?” Jericho asked.
    â€œI figured he would. Just not so soon.” She pushed her hair from her face. “I wasn’t thinking straight. My mother,” Laurel added.
    Yeah, he figured her grief for her mother had played into this. From all accounts, they’d been close.
    â€œSo, after your mother’s death, you decided...what?” Because Jericho was having a little trouble filling in the blanks. “That you didn’t want to live by your father’s dirty rules?”
    Her gaze slowly came to his. “I think my father murdered my mother.” No tears this time. There was a totally different emotion in her eyes and voice.
    Anger.
    And lots of it.
    â€œYou said she died from cancer,” Jericho pointed out.
    â€œI think he helped her death along with an overdose of pain meds.” Laurel folded