hope that he had gotten a lead already? “Thanks, Melinda, please put him through.” He took a long swallow of coffee while he waited for his secretary to make the connection.
“Bruce?” he said, when the man’s booming voice came on the line. “You’re calling back already?”
“Yes, and next time give me something harder to do. What you wanted was a piece of cake. I knew it the moment I saw that locket.”
Relief coursed through Wesley making him grin. “I’ll remember that the next time. So what did you find out?”
“Basically just what I told you yesterday. That locket is an heirloom dated back to the early eighteen hundreds, pure gold. The style is…”
Wesley wasn’t interested in the style of the locket. He wanted to know anything Bruce could tell him about the owner. “What about the person who owns the locket?” he interrupted by asking. “Could you find out anything about her?”
Bruce chuckled. “As a matter of fact, yes. I noticed the clasp had been replaced. There are a limited number of jewelers who would work on a piece this valuable. It seems that same locket was taken to a jeweler for repair of the clasp about a year ago. Luckily the man who owns the repair shop still had the paperwork. The owner of the locket is a woman by the name of Jasmine Carmody.”
Wesley frowned, wondering where had he heard that name before. “Jasmine Carmody?”
“Yes, Jasmine Carmody, and I have her address if you need it.”
Wesley lifted a brow. “She has an address?”
Bruce chuckled again. “Of course she has an address. She has to live someplace, doesn’t she?”
Not necessarily, Wesley started to say since most homeless people didn’t reside in any one place. But instead he said. “Yes, I suppose. So what address do you have for her?”
Again Wesley was taken aback when Bruce rattled off Jasmine Carmody’s address. It belonged to a very upscale apartment complex off Abercorn Street in downtown Savannah. “Are you sure this is the correct address?”
“That’s the address indicated on the work-order invoice. I was able to get a copy of it and I’m looking at it as we speak. There’s even a home telephone number, as well as a business number and mobile number.”
Wesley began rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly feeling tension building there. None of what Bruce was telling him made any sense. Why would a homeless person be living in an upscale apartment and have home, business and mobile phones? “Would you give me those numbers, please?”
Without asking any questions, Bruce provided him with the information. “Anything else you want to know, Wes?”
This is one that I’ll have to figure out on my own, Wesley thought. “No, that’s about it. I appreciate all the information you were able to find out. I owe you one, Bruce.” A few minutes later, he and the other man ended their conversation.
Wesley leaned back in his chair and studied the address and the phone numbers he had written down. It seemed that his mystery lady was becoming more mysterious by the minute. It also seemed his mystery lady was not homeless.
Carmody? Now where had he heard that last name before? He remembered attending a charity benefit once and meeting a Dr. James Carmody, a well-known orthopedic surgeon in the city. He also remembered meeting the man’s wife and two daughters. Mrs. Carmody had all but shoved her daughters in Wesley’s face, letting him know the two young women were ripe for marriage if he was interested.
He hadn’t been interested then and he wasn’t interested now. Marriage was definitely the last thing on his mind, although he had to admit that Jake seemed pretty damn happy with it. It still amazed him that his best friend could so easily slip into the role of father and husband like he was made for it.
Thinking of his friend made Wesley recall that Jake had also been in attendance at the charity benefit that night. Jake was better at remembering the names of people than he was, so maybe he ought to run the name by Jake and…
Something suddenly clicked in Wesley’s mind: a conversation he’d had with Jake and Larissa just a few weeks ago when they’d told him about a newspaper reporter who had been the one to find out about Jake being the father of Larissa’s three-year-old son, Peter. The reporter had threatened to blow the story wide open. Since Jake hadn’t known he had a son, Larissa had done the smart thing in going straight to Jake before he had a chance to read it in the newspapers.
Jake had immediately done the honorable thing and asked Larissa to marry him. She’d been reluctant at first, but then she had eventually agreed that it was in the best interest of their son for her and Jake to marry. What might have begun as a marriage of convenience between Jake and Larissa was now a marriage of love. There was no doubt in Wesley’s mind that his best friend was deeply in love with his wife.
Again, Wesley racked his brain as to where he had heard the name Jasmine Carmody before. He seemed to remember that the reporter who had dug into Jake and Larissa’s past had been named Jasmine something.
Deciding to solve the puzzle once and for all, he picked up the phone and placed a call to Jake. Less than ten minutes after talking to Jake, Wesley was slamming the phone down in anger. The woman who’d had the nerve to trespass on his property and rummage through his garbage was not a homeless person. In fact she was a long way from being penniless and probably didn’t know the meaning of being destitute. But worst of all was the knowledge that Jasmine Carmody was a reporter and he outright despised reporters. She had played on his kindness and had made a complete fool out of him.
He stood and crossed the room to the window and gazed out, trying to calm his anger. No matter how many times he saw it, he thought Savannah’s riverfront was breathtaking. What had once been a row of cotton warehouses was now a plaza that consisted of shops, restaurants and offices. He had been smart enough to know the value of investing in waterfront property for both his business and personal use.
His thoughts shifted back to Jasmine Carmody. The woman had actually been going through his garbage looking for something she could use in her campaign to discredit Abraham Danforth. In his opinion that made her nothing more than a self-serving piranha of a reporter.
She didn’t care who she hurt as long as she got her story, and from what he’d seen the other night, it appeared she would go to any lengths to get it. Just what had she hoped to find? Even if he had something he wanted kept confidential, did she think he would have been stupid enough to toss it in the garbage?
He couldn’t stop his thoughts from drifting back to his college days and thinking of Caroline Perry. Caroline was a journalism student he had dated while a member of the Georgia Tech football team. He had really cared for her and would even go so far as to say he had actually loved her. But he had found out too late that love had been the farthest thing from Caroline’s mind and all she had wanted from him was a story. She’d been interested only in breaking a story on steroid use by the football team. He had been devastated when he learned she’d only been using him. She had taken the information that he had shared with her in strict confidence and had written an article for the school newspaper. In the end, he had gotten kicked off the football team and was shunned by his teammates. Since then, he’d never trusted another reporter, and as far as women were concerned, he would love them and leave them. He would never give his heart to another woman again.
He walked back to his desk. Jasmine Carmody had made a grave mistake. She would find out
