Secret Love - Brenda Jackson [93]
Diamond stood speechless. Her father had never lavished her with such compliments before. She shook her head. It was sad that his praise had come a little too late. She no longer cared what he thought of her acting abilities.
“I happen to agree with you, Jack. I am an excellent actress, and I believe my role in Black Butterfly won’t just get me an Oscar nomination—I believe I’ll have a good chance to bring home the Oscar. And that’s why I can walk away now. That’s why I will walk away. I have nothing left to prove to anyone.”
A frown covered Jack Swain’s face as he stood. “Don’t do it, Diamond. You’ll only be ruining your life.”
Diamond met her father’s gaze. “No, actually I’ll just be beginning to really live my life. One day you’ll realize just what a good man Jacob Madaris is and how blessed I am to be married to him. If you don’t want to get to know him it will be your loss. Goodbye, Jack.”
Without glancing in Samuel’s direction, she turned and walked out of the room.
Chapter 24
F or one brief moment, Alex thought he saw a flicker of some deep emotion cross Jake’s face. Surely what he had just told him had had some effect. Being given the name of a person who was out to kill you would garner some type of reaction from most people.
But not from Jake Madaris.
After hearing the report he had given him, Jake hadn’t yet made a comment or shown any type of physical emotion. Alex shrugged. If he was in Jake’s boots, he’d be ready to hit something or hurt somebody.
Alex cleared his throat. “Now that we have a suspect, especially one who can’t be found at the moment, I think we need to alert Sheriff McCoy in case Ammons is in this area. I have a few contacts at the Bureau who’ll help me on this one, and who’ll agree to keep things quiet for now.”
Jake nodded. Conrad Ammons.
Somehow, he thought, it all fit. The pointed questions, the cold looks, the hard stares. Alex’s report, his very thorough report, had provided everything. The camera manufacturer’s information had led to the magazine publisher Ammons worked for, not to mention his face had shown up both times on the video obtained from the post office where he mailed both the box and the letter. And if that wasn’t enough, Alex had obtained a handwriting analysis of handwritten articles Ammons had turned into his publisher against the handwritten letters that Jake had received. The result of the analysis had indicated the handwriting was that of the same person. Also, further checking into Ammons’s background revealed he’d had a younger sister, who would have been a few years older than Diamond had she lived—a sister who had died a brutal death from a beating at the hands of her husband; a sister who from the photo Alex had obtained, bore a startling resemblance to Diamond. It seemed that Conrad Ammons had a crazy notion that he was protecting Diamond from what had been his sister’s fate.
“I don’t think you should leave the ranch until Ammons is apprehended, Jake.”
Jake raised his gaze quickly to Alex, although he really wasn’t surprised by his request. “That’s impossible for me to do, and you damn well know it, Alex. I have a business to run and nobody, sane or insane, is going to stop me. Diamond is safe at Sterling’s place, and that’s all that matters.”
Alex knew to argue with Jake would be pointless. “All right, but at least let some of your family members know what’s going on. Let me arrange a meeting here to brief them.”
After a few minutes, Jake nodded. “Okay, arrange the meeting with my brothers and include Clayton and Dex. Justin’s in town so make sure he’s included, too.”
Alex nodded. “I’ll set up the meeting.”
Diamond turned off the light in the baby’s nursery and closed the door. Taking the stairs she found Colby in the kitchen sitting at the round oak table, drinking a glass of warm milk. “The baby is asleep,” she said, smiling. “I may have rocked her too much.”
Colby smiled. “No baby can get rocked too much. Come sit down. Sterling asked you to keep me company while he’s away. He didn’t ask you to be a nursemaid