by Kat Martin
Which didn’t mean he couldn’t have an enjoyable relationship with a woman. He’d had several over the years and still considered the women friends.
For an instant, Cassidy’s beautiful face and sexy curves flashed in his mind. He intended to take her to bed and soon. That brief kiss and her admission of the attraction she felt for him said more than any denial. He wanted her and he was a man who got what he wanted.
His cell rang as he finished the last of his unpacking. Pulling the phone out of his pocket, he pressed it against his ear.
“It’s Rob,” the caller said. “Sorry, sir, but those files you wanted me to open are encrypted.”
“Encrypted? You sure? Forget it, stupid question, of course you’re sure.” But they were talking about his father, not some high-tech genius.
“It’ll take me a little time,” Rob said, “but I’ve got some . . . umm . . . software I can use to get into them if that’s what you want.”
Software. Rob could do just about anything. Beau had never asked for details. “Do it,” he said, and hung up the phone.
It was late by the time he went to bed. He should have been sleepy after such a stressful day, but instead his mind refused to quiet. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed of Cassidy, of a deep, hot, wet kiss that seemed to have no end.
He woke up with a throbbing hard-on, feeling nearly as tired as he’d been the night before. He rolled out of bed, showered and dressed in jeans and a blue button-down shirt. Rolling the sleeves up to his elbows, he sat down at his computer and began running through emails.
Footsteps sounded, coming down the hall. A light rap, and Beau looked up to see Cassidy in the open bedroom doorway. “I knocked on the kitchen door but no one answered. It was open so I came on in.”
He rose from his chair and walked toward her. “I told Flo to go on home, take a few days off. This can’t be easy on her.”
“Are you going to let her go?” She spotted the laptop, sitting open and turned on, and wandered farther into the room.
Beau forced himself not to glance at the bed. “Flo was with my father for fifteen years, so no. I’ll find something for her to do.”
Cassidy smiled and he felt it like an electric shock to his system.
“I’m glad,” she said, showing a soft side he found extremely attractive. Hell, there were a lot of things about the lady detective he found damned attractive.
“I found something in one of those manila files we took out of your father’s study.” She walked past him to the computer, and he managed to look beyond the sexy, dark blue skinny jeans and blue knit top to the manila folder tucked under her arm.
“What is it?”
She leaned over the desk to set it down. When she turned, he caught a glimpse of soft pale cleavage above a white lace bra and stifled a groan. Jesus, he never should have hired her. Distraction wasn’t a strong enough word.
She flipped open the folder. “This is the file on the sale of Green Gables Realty.”
“George Larson. He was one of the names my father gave you.”
“That’s right, the senator’s partner in the business. There’s something else in the file—a copy of a deed to a building in Iron Springs. It’s from the buyer of Green Gables, granting title to your father. The thing is, the deed wasn’t recorded until a month after the sale closed. I hate to say it, Beau, but I think your father took the building as payment on the side. It wasn’t in the escrow, so he wouldn’t have to divide the money with his partner when he sold it.”
Beau wasn’t surprised. He’d been suspicious of his father’s shady dealings half his life.
She pulled out another document. “This is a deed showing the sale of the Iron Springs building to a man named Robert Durant. I think your father sold it to him and took the money for himself.”
Beau leaned over to study the documents, trying to ignore the faint scent of gardenias that reminded him of their wrestling match in the hall.
He checked the dates and location of the property, glanced up. “He basically had no conscience, Cassidy. I warned you of that from the start.”
“Maybe he needed money.”
Beau opened his mouth to argue, then paused. “I guess it’s possible. We always had money when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I began to wonder where he was getting it. I started snooping through his papers, sneaking down the hall to eavesdrop on the late-night meetings going on in his study. It didn’t take long to figure out a lot of what he was doing wasn’t strictly on the up-and-up. It was just one more reason for me to get the hell out.”
She put the document back in the file. “Maybe Larson found out he’d been cheated. Maybe they fought about it, Larson lost his temper and killed him.”
Beau knew George Larson, who seemed a little too easygoing to stab a man in the heart. But money had a way of bringing out the worst in people. “We need to talk to him, find out if he has an alibi for the time of the murder.”
“Why don’t we give the information to Detective Briscoe? Let him talk to Larson.”
Beau sighed. “Because in a couple of weeks, my father is going to have a daughter. Pleasant Hill is a small town. Eventually everyone will know the senator was her dad. I don’t want her growing up with the whole town gossiping behind her back about the kind of man he was.”
“It might come out anyway, Beau.”
“If it happens, we’ll deal with it. First let’s find out where Larson was the day of the murder.”
“Do you know where we can find him?”
“I know where he lives.” He flicked her a glance. “You want to go for a ride?”
For an instant, something flashed in those sexy green eyes, as if she’d had the same lustful thought he’d had earlier. His blood surged, began to head south.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said, sending another hot rush through him.
“Okay . . . let’s go.” Beau clamped down on his inappropriate thoughts and urged Cassidy out of the room. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket as they walked through the house toward the door in the kitchen leading into the garage.
Cassidy grinned and snagged the keys from his hand. “How about letting me drive? I’ve never driven a Ferrari.”
Beau snatched the keys back. “I’m not driving the Ferrari. I’m in the Lambo. If you liked the Ferrari, you’re gonna love the Lamborghini.”
She hurried to keep up with him. “So you’re letting me drive?” she asked hopefully.
“Not today. It’s a little tricky. You’ll need a lesson first.”
She glanced up, that same hot spark back in her eyes. “A lesson sounds good. Always something new to learn.”
As he led her out of the house, Beau couldn’t help wondering if they were talking about cars or something a lot more personal and a helluva lot more interesting.
Sooner or later, he intended to find out.
Chapter Eight
Ignoring the senator’s Mercedes, also parked in the garage, Cassidy slid into the burnt orange leather seats of the Lamborghini. The doors slid down from above and locked solidly into place.
The gleaming, low-slung, slate-gray vehicle looked like something from Back to the Future, only far more advanced. The cockpit belonged in a high-test airplane and, amazingly, there were no carpets, just industrial steel floors.
As she clicked on her seat belt, she couldn’t help thinking how much her two brothers would love the gorgeous sports car that had to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Beau pressed the start button and the powerful engine roared to life. It growled like a predator as it idled in the garage. Beau backed out, then pulled onto the road and drove out of the subdivision.
“We could take the long way,” he said, tossing her a hopeful glance. “Get up a little speed.”
She couldn’t stop a grin. “Oh, yeah.” She watched his big, suntanned hands on the paddles next to the steering wheel, shifting gears with perfect precision as the car shot forward down t
he road.
What was it about a hot guy in a hot car that was such a turn-on? She glanced down at the big black high-topped sneaker on the gas pedal. “Where’s the clutch?”
Beau shifted and the engine whined into a higher gear. “Semiautomatic transmission. Clutch is electronically controlled. You can shift manually or drive it in automatic mode.”
She itched to try it, wondered what it would take to convince him, then clamped down on where that thought led. One-night stands weren’t her thing and she didn’t have time for a fling, especially not with a heartthrob like Beau, a guy half the women in Texas drooled over.
They hit an open stretch of road just outside town and Beau let the sleek gray panther out of its cage. The acceleration pressed her back in the seat and adrenaline shot through her blood. She liked speed and she liked beauty and the Lamborghini had both. She could definitely get used to a car like this.
“Wow,” was all she said.
Beau grinned, making him look even more appealing and sending her pulse up again. It was the first time he had let down his guard and shown a side of himself he mostly seemed to keep hidden.
“She’s just getting warmed up,” he said. “We’d need a track to really give her a run.”
“Her? You think of your car as a woman?”
“Sure. She’s got plenty of fire but she’s hard to control. You gotta keep her in hand or she won’t behave the way you want her to.”
A flash of heat rolled through her. She closed her eyes to banish an image of them naked together. Dear God, what was wrong with her? She had certainly never had these kinds of thoughts about Rick.
She kept her gaze determinedly on the road. If she looked at Beau, he might guess what she had been thinking, and nothing would be more embarrassing. Slowing the Lamborghini, he turned and started winding his way back toward town.
“Why did you quit racing?” she asked as her blood pressure returned to normal. “According to what I read, you loved the sport more than anything else in your life.”
He cast her a glance. “I did love it. Racing was my passion, still is and probably always will be. It’s just . . . sometimes life throws you a curve you aren’t expecting.”
“Like what?”
“I got hurt pretty bad in Le Mans a few years back, spent three weeks in the hospital.”
She’d seen that in an article she’d read. “That’s why you quit? You got hurt?”
“Not exactly. As much as I loved the sport, I had other things I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to build Texas American into a company I could be proud of. I never intended to make racing my life. But I quit after Le Mans because the guy driving one of the four cars involved in the crash—one of my best friends—was killed in the collision. The report said I wasn’t responsible, but there’s no way to know for sure. I couldn’t handle the thought of being the guy who got another man killed.”
Emotion moved through her. She couldn’t resist touching the big hand curled around the steering wheel. Her instincts were right about Beau. He was one of the good guys. No way was this man capable of killing his own father.
They parked in front of a redbrick house with white trim. Beau turned off the engine and the Lamborghini doors slid up. He rounded the vehicle as Cassidy climbed out, and they walked up the path to the front door together.
Beau rang the doorbell. A few minutes later, the door swung open and a balding man with glasses and a paunch stood in front of them.
“Hello, George,” Beau said.
“I heard about your dad,” George said. “I’m sorry for your loss, Beau.”
“Thanks. You know how it was between us, but still, finding him that way was hard.” He turned. “George, this is a friend, Cassidy Jones. May we come in?”
Clearly reluctant, Larson stepped back, silently allowing them into the house. He led them through the living room into a family room comfortably furnished with a dark green overstuffed sofa and chairs. A flat-screen TV hung above a redbrick fireplace.
“Myra’s out shopping,” George said. “You want something to drink?”
“No, thanks. This won’t take long.” He and Cassidy sat down on the sofa while Larson sat in one of the chairs. “Cassidy’s a private investigator, George. The cops haven’t found the guy who killed the senator, so we’re trying to help them tie up loose ends. Can you tell us where you were on Thursday morning about eleven o’clock?”
George’s eyebrows pulled into a frown. “I don’t like your asking, but since I wasn’t anywhere near your old man when he got pretty much what he’s deserved for years, I’ll tell you. I was in Iron Springs, in the middle of a meeting with my attorney, Phil Wheeler. You can call and verify if you want.”
Beau just nodded.
Cassidy looked at Larson. “You said he got what he deserved. You must have known about the side deal he made when you sold the business—the money he got that he should have split with you?”
“I found out later.” George focused on Beau. “I guess your father has cheated me for the last time. Strangely, I’ll miss the challenge of catching him at it, which I usually did.”
“How did you find out about the building?” Cassidy asked.
Larson shrugged. “It’s a small town. Stuff like that gets around. I figure I was lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“Why is that?” Beau asked.
“Your dad needed money, Beau. He always lived above his means and it finally got away from him. He told me he owed someone a chunk of money and he needed to pay it back. He pressured me to sell, and eventually I agreed. Now that it’s done, I’m glad I’m out of it. Maybe I can actually enjoy my retirement.”
“You know the guy’s name?” Beau asked.
“Stew didn’t say. He mentioned some guy in Dallas once, but it was years ago.”
“What was the name?”
“Dooley Tate. It was just odd enough I remembered.”
Cassidy’s stomach tightened. Dooley Tate was a notorious loan shark, a bottom feeder of the worst sort, not the kind of man she would have imagined the senator to be connected with. But if he’d borrowed money from Tate and hadn’t repaid him—
Cassidy mentally added Dooley Tate to her suspect list.
Beau stood up from the sofa. “We appreciate your talking to us, George. I never really thought you were involved. Now we can take you off our list.”
Without replying, George rose and started walking, leading them back to the front door. “Be careful, Beau. Your father knew some very powerful people. Whoever murdered him isn’t going to like your asking questions. You don’t want to wind up dead, too.”
Cassidy felt a chill. Anytime you tracked a killer, there was a chance it could turn deadly.
She walked in front of Beau down the path to the Lamborghini. He helped her inside, then rounded the car and slid in behind the wheel.
Once he’d clicked his belt into place, he closed the car doors. “George said my father borrowed money from a guy named Dooley Tate. You ever heard of him?”
Cassidy nodded. “He’s a loan shark. He’s a real scumball, Beau. I can’t imagine your father being involved with someone like that.”
“George said it was a long time ago.”
She sighed. “It might be worth a try. At least it would give us a place to start. If your father owed Tate money and didn’t pay him back—”
“You think he’d go as far as murder?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“How do we find out if my dad owed him money?”
“If you’re up for a trip to Dallas, we ask him.”
Beau checked the time on his expensive gold wristwatch, a Patek Philippe. The man definitely had expensive taste. So did his father, she recalled, thinking of the perfectly tailored suits Stewart Reese wore and the Mercedes in the garage.
“The afternoon’s shot,” Beau said. “I’ll call for the chopper in the morning, arrange for a pickup. We can be in and out of the city in a couple of hours.”
“Georg
e is right, Beau. We need to be careful.”
He turned to look at her, blue eyes searching her face. “You can go back to Dallas, Cassidy. I won’t think any less of you.”
Ignoring him, Cassidy leaned back in the burnt-orange leather seat. “We can cross off Larson’s name,” she said as she clicked her belt into place. “Dooley Tate is next.”
Beau’s features hardened. “Tate and the other two names on my father’s list.”
* * *
As Beau turned the Lamborghini off Country Club Lane onto Fairway Drive and drove toward the house, he spotted an unmarked dark brown police car parked in front. Tom Briscoe unfolded his sturdy frame from the vehicle and walked toward them as Beau drove the Lambo into the garage next to his father’s Mercedes, making a mental note to put the cover on the vehicle so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
Briscoe waited while the doors slid up and Beau and Cassidy got out.
“Beautiful car,” Tom said, eyeing the Lamborghini.
Beau’s gaze went to one of his most prized possessions and he couldn’t help a smile. “It has 740 horses, V-12 engine, zero-to-sixty in 2.7 seconds. Tops out at two hundred seventeen miles an hour. Not that I plan to drive it that fast around here.”
“Good thinking,” Tom said.
“Let’s go inside.” Beau led Cassidy and the detective in through the kitchen, closing the garage door behind them. He continued into the open family room, where he and his parents had spent most of what little time they had ever shared together.
“You want something to drink?” Beau asked. “A Coke or some water?” Not alcohol, not for Tom while he was on duty. Beau knew him well enough to be sure of that.
“I’m fine.” Briscoe seated himself on one of the taupe and brown plaid overstuffed chairs, Cassidy sat down on the matching sofa, and Beau took a seat beside her.
Like most of the house, the room was done in a traditional style, with high molded ceilings and plush beige carpets. The Pleasant Hill Sentinel rested on the walnut coffee table. Brass lamps sat on matching end tables next to the couch.