Chapter Ten
Beau spent a restless night in the empty house he had been raised in, which at this point in his life seemed completely unfamiliar.
During the long hours before dawn, his mind had run through possible murder scenarios, names of people his father had known, people he’d had business dealings with. One thought followed another, among them the haunting question: If his father needed money as badly as George Larson said, why hadn’t he come to his son?
The fact they had clashed so many times over the years wouldn’t have prevented Beau from giving his dad whatever money he needed. He’d been a lousy father, but they were family and Beau owed him a great deal. Without the first-class education Stewart Reese had paid for, Beau might not have gone on to become the success he was today.
He was grateful for the drive and intelligence he had inherited from his father. And there were the opportunities the senator’s standing in the community had provided when Texas American had been newly founded and struggling. Not that Beau dismissed Linc’s amazing contributions to the company’s success.
But deep down, Beau knew the senator would have gone to any length to keep his troubles secret from his son and the rest of the world.
Or maybe his death had nothing to do with money. The crime seemed unplanned. A crime of passion, the police believed. Maybe the murder had been committed by one of his father’s many women. If it wasn’t Charlotte, who else could have done it?
The thought drove Beau’s thoughts in a direction he didn’t want to go. What if Josie or Missy had killed him? Missy’s condition seemed to rule her out, but Josie? Missy’s mother couldn’t have been happy about the way the senator had treated her daughter. Could she have gone to the house to confront him? Could Josie have lost her temper and killed him?
Anything was possible, and those possibilities had kept him awake late into the night.
That and the constant lust he felt for Cassidy Jones. He had dreamed of her lush body beneath him, of filling her and taking her deep. He’d awoken in a cold sweat, hard and aching, cursing the reputation he had with women that he didn’t really deserve.
He didn’t put time limits on relationships as the tabloids implied. They just seemed to fizzle, then slowly fade away. Maybe it would be different with Cassidy. He was determined to find out.
Unfortunately, at the moment he was the prime suspect in a murder. Finding the killer and proving his innocence had to be his first priority.
He was thinking about it when he got the call from Briscoe the next morning.
“Beau, it’s Tom. The autopsy results came in last night. Nothing we didn’t expect. Death a result of a fatal stab wound to the heart. The body’s been released to the funeral home.”
Beau’s chest felt tight. “The service is Saturday. Charlotte handled the arrangements. I spoke to her about an hour ago. She’s decided to keep the funeral relatively small, just friends and family. There’ll be a few state senators and congressmen. The governor sent his condolences but he won’t be there. I’m sure he’s keeping his distance until the case has been solved.”
“I’m sorry, Beau.”
“Thanks, Tom.” Beau hung up the phone. It went unsaid that Briscoe would continue to do his job, even if the murder trail ended with Beau. Beau respected him for it.
His next call went to Marty, who arranged for the Tex/Am chopper to pick him and Cassidy up in an open area off the golf course late that afternoon. Her bounty hunter friend, Jason Maddox, had said their best chance of speaking to Dooley Tate would be in the evening. If they went in a little early, he could get some work done at the office.
Now they were both strapped in, the chopper rising into the air. The whir of the helicopter blades took his mind off the murder and returned his attention to the moment.
Cassidy sat in the seat beside him. When he looked in her direction, he saw that she was grinning, completely caught up in the flight. He found himself smiling, too. That she could make that happen under the dire circumstances he was facing was enough to renew his determination to have her.
“I guess you like flying,” he said over the com system, adjusting his headphones to hear her reply.
“I hate flying,” she said. She looked down at the colorful patchwork of land and subdivisions disappearing beneath them. “Somehow this is different.”
“Kind of like the Lambo, right? It isn’t just driving.”
Her grin returned. “Exactly.”
The helicopter neared the city, circling then landing on the roof of the Texas American building. He would take care of business; then they could head out to Barbie’s. Beau led Cassidy into the rooftop elevator and pushed the down button, heading for his private office on the executive floor one story below.
As the elevator door opened and Cassidy walked ahead of him into his spacious office, his gaze dropped to the sequined pockets on the skinny jeans stretching over her perfect ass, disappearing into mid-heel black knee-high boots. A pink silk blouse tucked into the top of the jeans softened the look enough to be presentable at the office. The short, black leather jacket she carried would give her the sass she needed to fit in at Barbie’s.
Beau took a last look, felt his groin tighten, and forced himself to look away.
“Nice,” she said, admiring the view through the wall of glass windows looking down on the streets of north Dallas. She turned to survey the black lacquer desk and bookshelves, the cream silk fabric on the sofa and chairs.
“Your domain suits you. It’s kind of... I don’t know . . . calming.”
“I think so.”
“I imagine that would be helpful in a business that requires so much from you.”
Not many people got that, how much it took out of you to stay focused, stay productive, keep all the balls in the air. It was satisfying, challenging, but also a constant headache.
He’d wanted her to meet Linc, but his friend was in New Mexico, checking on a highway project they had under construction. He introduced her to Marty Chen, who brought her a cup of tea while she waited for Beau and his assistant to catch up on some unavoidable business.
As soon as Marty left, Beau called Rob Michaels. “I need those encrypted files, Rob. Any progress?”
“Yes, sir. It would be good if we could talk in person.”
“Come on up.”
Dressed in his usual chinos and sneakers, his red hair moussed up in the middle, Michaels walked in a few minutes later.
“Rob’s the company whiz kid,” Beau said to Cassidy. “Rob, meet Cassidy Jones. She’s a private investigator helping me look into my father’s death.”
Rob nodded. “Ms. Jones.”
“So you were able to get into the files?” Beau asked.
“Yes, sir.” He handed the flash drives to Beau. “I made them more easily accessible. You can open them now.”
Beau sat down at his desk, shoved one of the drives into his computer and opened the index. He caught the soft scent of gardenias as Cassidy walked behind him to study the screen over his shoulder.
“What am I looking at?” Beau asked.
Rob glanced at Cassidy. “May I speak freely, sir?”
Did he trust Cassidy with this kind of information? He didn’t know for certain, but he needed her help—which meant he didn’t have a choice. And if he didn’t tell her, he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t find a way to get the information on her own. “Go ahead.”
“They’re offshore accounts, sir. Cayman Islands. You can follow the transactions, money going into the accounts, then coming out.”
Beau looked at the column of numbers, dates of deposits, dates of withdrawals. Numbers that added up to millions of dollars. He’d look them over later when he had more time. “What’s on the other drive?”
Color washed into Rob’s cheeks, making his freckles stand out. “It’s a list of names, sir, alphabetical. I only read enough to realize it contained very personal information, things the people on the list wouldn’t want known.”
Beau looked at Cassidy. Blackmail was the word that hung between them. His father’s means of getting what he wanted, both politically and personally. The second flash drive seemed to burn into his hand.
“I’ll need to study the drives more closely,” he said. “I don’t need to remind you how confidential this information is.”
“No, sir, not at all.”
“Thanks, Rob, you did a great job.”
“Thank you, sir. Let me know if you need anything else.” Rob walked out of the office and quietly closed the door.
Beau pulled the first drive out of the computer and shoved in the second. Cassidy moved a little closer, the curve of her hip just inches from his shoulder. He forced himself to concentrate.
“I have a feeling if we look under the name George Larson,” she said, “we’ll find the reason he agreed to sell his half of Green Gables Realty.”
Beau scrolled down the list and sure as hell, there was Larson’s name. He opened the file and saw a photo of George with his arm around a curvy blonde in her twenties. Myra Larson would not be pleased.
Beau looked at Cassidy. “You realize the names on this list are all people who might have a reason to kill him.”
“We’ll need to look at them before we can make that determination.”
Frustration rolled through him and he shoved up from the chair. “For chrissake, Cassidy, how many people wanted my father dead?”
“Your father was a successful politician. I’m sure some of the information he collected was only a means of understanding his political opponents, people he needed to win over to his way of thinking. I imagine amassing that kind of information isn’t uncommon.”
A sigh whispered out. “God, I hope you’re right. Otherwise we may never figure out what happened.”
Cassidy’s shoulders straightened. “Oh, we’ll figure it out.” Her determined expression had a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Leaning down, he pressed a soft kiss on her lips.
He meant for it to be quick and fun, but instead of ending the kiss as he’d planned, he sank in, tasting the softness, feeling the heat rush over him like a fiery wave.
Cassidy made a little sound in her throat. Her soft lips parted and his tongue swept in. Her arms went around his neck, her fingers slid into the black hair curling at the nape of his neck, and the next thing he knew he had her up against the wall and he was kissing her the way he had kissed her in his dreams, deep and hot and erotic.
He wanted to rip off her pretty pink silk blouse, wanted to free those lush breasts and bury his face between them. He wanted to taste the fullness, suckle her nipples, find out if they were dusky rose or pale mauve, see if they were as bold as a quarter or as petite as a dime.
He was hard. Aching and pulsing until he couldn’t think. He had to have her, now, this instant or he was going to explode.
The intercom buzzed. His foggy brain heard Marty’s voice but he couldn’t tear himself away. His personal quarters lay behind a paneled wall, a place he went to change when there wasn’t time to go home, or to nap between meetings. There was a bed in there, a small living room with a sofa and chair.
It seemed a million miles away. Cassidy’s head fell back as he kissed the side of her neck. Then he took her mouth again. Something buzzed at the edge of his mind but he ignored it. If he hadn’t felt slender, determined hands pressing against his chest, he might have pulled her down on the floor and taken her right there.
She shoved again and Beau broke free, breathing too hard, his arousal throbbing, his mind a foggy blur.
“It’s . . . it’s your assistant,” Cassidy said, trembling as she began refastening the buttons on her blouse he didn’t know he’d undone.
He just looked at her.
“You need to answer, Beau. Marty’s going to think something’s going on.”
His head began to clear. A slow smile stretched over his lips. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want Marty to think something’s going on.”
She almost smiled, instead gave him a little nudge toward his desk. He sat down, grateful for the chance to compose himself, spoke to Marty while Cassidy wandered over to the windows.
He answered a question about an important meeting with the CEO of the Wayne Corporation, which he had been working on for weeks and now had to reschedule, then leaned back in his chair.
Blotting the memory of the wildest, hottest kiss he could ever recall, clenching his jaw so he wouldn’t get hard again, Beau walked over to where Cassidy stood in front of the windows.
“I didn’t plan for that to happen,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
She turned. “It was my fault as much as yours. I should have stopped you.”
He wasn’t completely sure she could have. He almost couldn’t stop himself. “Maybe we’d both be better off if we just let things take their natural course.”
Cassidy looked up at him. “We can’t, Beau. We don’t have time. If we don’t find out who killed your father, you could be arrested. Think what that will do to your reputation, how it will affect your business.”
His stomach pulled into a hard, tight knot. Dammit, she was right. He had to get his head on straight and he had to do it now. Besides hurting himself and the business that meant so much to him, he had Linc to consider. Cain had just gotten married. He and Carly wanted to start a family. Linc didn’t need the kind of trouble Beau’s arrest would bring down on all of them.
“You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.” He managed to smile. “It seems to happen a lot when I’m around you.”
She glanced out the windows. “Maybe I should come back to Dallas, work out of my office in the city.”
Beau shook his head. “I want you to stay in Pleasant Hill. I need your help. We’ll do better working as a team.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “I won’t rush this. Whatever’s happening between us, we’ll wait to figure it out. First we’ll find the man who killed my father.”
Cassidy held his gaze for several long moments; then she nodded. “All right.”
Beau caught her hand and tugged her toward the elevator. “We’ll go over the files when we get back to the house. In the meantime, we came to talk to Dooley Tate. You ready for that?”
She looked up at him. “I’m ready.”
Beau pressed the elevator button and waited for her to walk inside. He pushed the button for the parking garage. It was time to find a killer.