Secret Love - Brenda Jackson [82]
Jake was reminded of the man’s intelligence and skill and felt good in knowing he had chosen the right man for the job. “I’m glad you could meet with me on such short notice.”
“No problem,” Alex replied as the two met in the center of the room and shook hands.
Jake tried to remember how long he’d known Alex and decided he had known the young man all twenty-nine years of Alex’s life. Alex had grown up in the same neighborhood as his nephews Justin, Dex and Clayton. Over the years as youngsters growing up, a lot of kids from that neighborhood had managed to spend quite a number of their summers at Whispering Pines. At one time he’d thought Dex, Justin and Clayton had turned the ranch into a summer camp for their friends.
Alex’s older brother, Trask, former football legend, had married Jake’s niece Felicia last month. Instead of following in his brother’s footsteps and playing sports, it was discovered at an early age that Alex had a brilliant mind when it came to solving things. After graduating from high school early at the age of sixteen, he had gone to Howard University to major in criminal justice and graduated in three years instead of four. He went on to obtain a master’s degree in computer engineering from MIT. At the age of twenty-two, Alex became the youngest person to work for the FBI in their Most Wanted division, solving some of the Bureau’s most difficult cases. Instead of taking a high promotion with the Bureau, at the age of twenty-six he decided to go into the private sector and start his own security and investigative agency.
Everyone knew what a good detective Alex was. He’d been the one Dex had turned to when he wanted to know who was interested in buying Caitlin’s father’s land, and the one Clayton had turned to when he wanted to learn the identity of Syneda’s long-lost father.
Now, Jake thought, the job he wanted to give Alex was to uncover the identity of the person responsible for making those two threatening phone calls to him.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” Alex said, smiling. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that you’re the envy of every man in this country with Diamond Swain as your wife.”
Jake couldn’t help but smile as he indicated a chair to Alex then went to sit down behind his desk. “Well…yeah, I’m sure that’s true, but I have reason to believe that to at least one person in particular, I’m the most hated.”
Alex raised a brow at Jake’s serious tone. “Would you care to explain what you mean by that, Jake?”
Jake provided Alex with as much information as he could regarding the two phone calls. He then played the first call to him off the digital phone recorder. “Well, what do you think, Alex?”
Alex sat back in his chair. “I think you did the right thing by contacting me. If you don’t mind, I want to replay this tape again and concentrate on something.”
Jake frowned. “Something like that?”
“Background noises.”
Jake sat and listened to the tape with Alex again. He watched as Alex jotted a number of things down on a pad that he had taken out of his expensive leather briefcase. At the end Alex cut off the recorder.
“What did you hear, Jake?” Alex asked him.
Jake shrugged. “Just a lot of different sounds. Why? What did you hear?”
“I heard enough to let me know the caller was not calling from his home. I heard distant conversations, the clinking of silverware and faint music playing. It would be my guess that the call had been made from some restaurant. And since the tape indicated the call was made at seven in the morning, it was probably made from a place that serves breakfast.”
Alex flipped a page on his notepad and kept talking. “I also noted the caller tried to cover up his voice and that he was using a cell phone.”
“A cell phone? How you figure that?”
“From the static that was occasionally popping through with