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The senator had told her that although his son lived in Dallas, just a little over an hour’s drive away, they rarely saw each other.

  Cassidy knew who he was. Everyone in Texas knew Beaumont Reese, a former top-ranked pro-am race car driver. Her dad and her brothers, Brandon and Shawn, had watched him race on TV. Close to Beau’s age, her brothers both had man-crushes on him.

  Beau, who was no longer racing, was now co-owner of Texas American Enterprises. Along with his business partner, Lincoln Cain, he ran a billion-dollar corporation.

  Cassidy had Googled him, read everything she could find on him. Thirty-five years old, never married, dated women for a few weeks at a time but didn’t seem to get seriously involved.

  He was a highly respected businessman who ran the marketing side of the company with a talent that helped make it the success it was today. She’d been impressed to learn he donated heavily to charity, especially organizations for children like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

  Several articles mentioned he had been a troubled teen. His juvenile arrest records had been sealed, but Beau spoke openly about his past and gave his money and time to encourage teens with problems.

  According to what she’d read, something had happened at the end of Beau’s senior year that had turned his life around, and though he never talked about it, speculation was that the arrest for armed robbery with his best friend and later business partner had been the catalyst. While Cain served a two-year sentence, Beau attended the University of Texas at Austin and pulled in top grades—a big change from his unimpressive record in high school.

  He had graduated with honors, but a few months later, tragedy had struck when his beloved grandfather, the late Morgan Hamilton, his mother’s father, had died, leaving several million to his grandson.

  Beau had used the money wisely. Reese had hired Cain, who turned out to have a serious knack for getting things done, and along with Beau’s marketing skills, they had built one of the most successful corporations in Texas.

  Cassidy knew all about Beau Reese. Still, she hadn’t been prepared for the utter beauty of the man.

  Several inches over six feet, with wavy jet-black hair, brilliant blue eyes, and lean-muscled, V-shaped body, Beau was a definite heartthrob. If it hadn’t been for the hard set of his features and the scar running from the bottom of his ear along his jaw, he might have looked like a pretty boy.

  Instead he looked like every woman’s dark, midnight fantasy. Minus the contempt for her she read in those incredible blue eyes, she might have felt a twinge of attraction herself. Apparently just being associated with his father was enough to garner his disdain.

  Opening the door to the guest house, Cassidy crossed the living room she had set up as an office, arriving at the laptop on the walnut desk against the wall. Like the main residence, the guest house was done in an elegant, traditional motif, with a burgundy overstuffed sofa and chairs in front of a white-manteled fireplace, and a bedroom with a four-poster bed.

  The former senator still occasionally entertained VIPs, and when he did, he did it in style. The guest house gave her a place to stay while she was in Pleasant Hill.

  Cassidy had only met the senator last week, only officially started working for him last Friday. But the job as his personal assistant wasn’t real. It was merely a cover, a way to explain her presence at his home.

  As a private investigator with a Dallas agency called Maximum Security, Cassidy had been hired to look into concerns the senator had about his personal safety.

  “I don’t need a bodyguard,” he had said during their interview last week. “I don’t think my life is in danger and I don’t want that kind of negative publicity. But I think I’m being followed. Someone has been asking questions. I want to know who it is and why it’s happening. I want to know what the hell is going on.”

  Cassidy had assured the senator that she could find out.

  “I’ve got enemies,” he had said. “Every politician has. I’ll give you some names, people I’d like you to check into.”

  “I can do that,” she said. “Digging is my specialty. It’s what I do best.” She wasn’t the kind of PI who carried a pistol and ran around chasing criminals the way they did in the movies—not that she didn’t own a gun and know how to use it. But so far she had never needed a weapon on the job.

  The senator had been satisfied with her qualifications and Cassidy had accepted the task. They had come up with a plan that would put her in Pleasant Hill and give her time to figure out if his suspicions were correct and he was facing some sort of problem.

  She wondered what the senator and his son had been fighting about. She’d heard them arguing clear down the hall, Beau’s voice on the edge of outright fury, his father’s carefully controlled but clearly unhappy.

  She’d find out. She intended to do the job she was hired for, and to do that she would have to delve into every aspect of the senator’s life.

  She thought of the handsome older man and bit back a smile. She had a hunch he had chosen her because she was a woman, someone he believed he could control. Cassidy had taken the job because she thought he might actually be in danger.

  She was good at what she did and she intended to find out what was going on. If his safety was in jeopardy, she would advise him to hire a bodyguard while she found the person or persons who posed the threat.

  She would start by finding out what the trouble was between father and son. Cassidy sat down at the computer and went to work.

  * * *

  It was his second trip to Pleasant Hill in the last two days, the most time Beau had spent in his hometown since his mother died.

  The heart attack that had killed Miriam Reese six years ago had struck completely out of the blue. His father and mother were estranged. His mother had been an absentee parent just like his dad, so making the arrangements to bury her had mostly been a duty, an obligation rather than a deeply emotional event.

  It occurred to him he felt more for his unborn half sister than he felt for either of his parents.

  The front door was unlocked, which wasn’t uncommon in a town the size of Pleasant Hill. But as Beau turned the knob and stepped into the entry, the house seemed strangely silent, the ticking of the grandfather clock louder than usual, the air oddly dense.

  He had phoned his father a little over an hour ago and reminded him he’d be driving out from Dallas with the custody papers. Though Beau had done his best to keep the disapproval out of his voice, he wasn’t sure he had succeeded.

  “Dad!” he called out as he walked through the entry toward the hall, the paperwork tucked under his arm. “It’s Beau!” Getting no answer, he headed down the corridor toward the study, noticed the door standing slightly ajar.

  Steeling himself, hoping his father hadn’t figured a way to turn the situation to his advantage or changed his mind, he rapped lightly, then shoved the door open.

  His father wasn’t sitting at the big rosewood desk or in his favorite overstuffed chair next to the fireplace. Beau started to turn away when an odd gurgling sound sent the hairs up on the back of his neck.

  “Dad!” At the opposite end of the desk, a prone figure lay on the carpet in a spreading pool of blood. “Dad!” His father’s eyes were closed, his face as gray as ash. The handle of a letter opener protruded from the middle of his chest.

  “Dad!” Dropping the papers, Beau raced to his father’s side. Blood oozed from the wound and ran onto the hardwood floor. He had to stop the bleeding and he had to do it now! He hesitated, praying he wouldn’t make things worse, then with no other option, grabbed the handle of the letter opener, jerked it out, gripped the front of his dad’s white shirt and ripped it open.

  “Oh, my God! What are you—”

  Blood poured out of the wound as Beau clamped his hands over the gaping hole, pressing down hard, desperate to stop the flow of blood. “Call 9-1-1! Hurry, he’s been stabbed! Hurry!”

  The woman, Cassidy Jones, didn’t p
ause, just pulled her cell out of the pocket of her slacks and hurriedly punched in the number. He heard her rattle off the address, give the dispatcher the name of the victim and say he had been stabbed.

  Beau’s hand shook as he checked for a pulse, found none. The wound was catastrophic, a stab wound straight to the heart. No way could his father survive it.

  Cassidy ended the call, ran over and knelt on the floor beside him.

  “Here, use this to seal the hole.” She seemed amazingly in control as she handed him a credit card, then ran to the wet bar and grabbed a towel, folded it into a pad, rushed back and handed it over. Beau pressed the towel over the credit card on top of the wound, all the while knowing his father was already dead or within moments of dying.

  He checked again for a pulse. Shook his head, feeling an unexpected rush of grief. “His heart isn’t beating. Whoever stabbed him knew exactly where to bury the blade.” And compressions would only make it worse.

  Cassidy reached down to check for herself, pressing her fingers in exactly the right spot on the side of his father’s neck. She had to know it was hopeless, just as he did, must have known Stewart Reese was dead.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Beau studied his father’s face. Pain had turned his usually handsome features haggard and slack, so he looked nothing like the athletic older man who kept himself so fit and trim.

  Sorrow slid through him, making his chest clamp down. Or maybe it was sadness for the kind of man his father was, the kind who’d wound up the victim of a killer.

  “Just hold on,” Cassidy said to him. “The ambulance should be here any minute.”

  His mind went blank until the sound of a siren sliced into his consciousness. Cassidy hurried off to let the EMTs into the house, and a few moments later they appeared in the study.

  “You need to give us some room, Mr. Reese,” one of them said gently, a skinny kid who seemed to know what he was doing. Beau backed away and Cassidy followed. He felt her eyes on him, assessing him with speculation—or was it suspicion?

  It didn’t take long for the EMTs to have his father loaded onto a gurney and rolling down the hall, back outside to the ambulance. Beau strode along behind them, Cassidy trailing in his wake.

  It occurred to him that she could be the killer. The timing felt wrong and her shocked reaction seemed genuine, but it was possible. His gaze returned to his father and the thought slid away.

  As he climbed into the ambulance and sat down beside his dad, he flicked a last glance at the house. If Cassidy Jones hadn’t done it, who had? Had the killer still been inside when Beau arrived? How had he escaped? What was his motive?

  The ambulance roared down the road, sirens wailing, blowing through intersections, weaving in and out between cars, careening around corners. All the way to the hospital Beau held his father’s hand. It was the closest he had ever felt to his dad.

  His throat closed up. When he was young, there were times he had wished his father dead, but that had been long ago. For years they had simply coexisted, neither intruding into the other’s world. Now his dad lay dead or dying and Beau wanted answers.

  The ambulance turned again and Pleasant Hill Memorial loomed ahead. The vehicle slammed to a stop in front of the emergency entrance and the back doors banged open.

  After what seemed an eternity but was only a very short time, Stewart Beaumont Reese was pronounced dead on arrival.

  Chapter Three

  Beau sat at a Formica-topped table in a small, sterile room off a long, linoleum-floored hospital hallway, waiting to talk to the police. He glanced up as the door swung open and the curvy brunette, Cassidy Jones, walked in. She was dressed in business clothes as she had been the first time he had seen her, camel slacks today and a turquoise sweater, both garments smeared with his father’s blood.

  His slacks and V-necked sweater weren’t any better, the blood dried now into ugly dark patches. Looking at them made his stomach churn.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, taking a seat in the chair across from him.

  He nodded, hating the trite phrase that meant absolutely nothing.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Beau raked a hand through his hair, which as usual needed a trim. “You were there. Someone stabbed him.” He sighed into the quiet, wishing he could turn back time, if only for a few precious seconds. “He was dying when I got there. I knew it. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  The woman cast him a glance that lingered a little too long. “What were you doing at the house?”

  His head came up. “What do you mean? I’m his son. I don’t need a reason to see my own father.”

  “I realize that. But according to the senator, you rarely visit. You were there yesterday, back again today. Why did you come to see him?”

  Beau straightened in the uncomfortable metal chair. “What business is it of yours?”

  “I’m your father’s personal assistant, remember?”

  Beau scoffed. “How could I forget.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She was way beyond pretty with her plump lips and those thick dark curls, about five-five and really put together. Then again, his father’s women usually were attractive.

  “It means I can’t believe he had the balls to bring you into the house . . . at least not right now.”

  She bristled. “I don’t know what you think you know, but whatever it is, you’re wrong. I just met your father last week. I only started working for him day before yesterday.”

  So the old man was still wooing her. An attractive man, a former state senator with plenty of money, his seductions never took long. Beau wondered if she really had no clue what his father intended.

  “So you walked in and he had already been stabbed,” she said, pressing him again.

  He glanced up at her tone. “That’s right. You got there just a few seconds after I did.” Those perceptive green eyes continued to assess him and a light went on in his head. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I did it? You don’t think I’m the one who killed him?”

  She held his gaze a little too long. “I don’t know.” But she clearly had her doubts. “I saw the letter opener in your hand when I walked into the study. What was I supposed to think?”

  Beau came out of his chair so fast it teetered and almost toppled over. “I didn’t kill my father—but you can bet your last dollar I’m going to find out who did.”

  The door swung open just then and a plainclothes detective walked into the room. Beau recognized Tom Briscoe, one of the guys he’d gone to high school with. In a town the size of Pleasant Hill, everyone knew everyone.

  “I’m really sorry, Beau,” Tom said. He was thirty-five, same as Beau, a stocky man with thick, sandy-brown hair. “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”

  “Thanks, Tom.” Briscoe couldn’t imagine because Beau wasn’t sure himself. Angry, upset, confused, determined to find out what had happened. “Detective Tom Briscoe, this is Cassidy Jones. She was my father’s personal assistant.”

  Tom gave her the same look Beau had, making the same assumptions. There weren’t many secrets in Pleasant Hill and his dad’s philandering was legendary. “That so?”

  “As I told Mr. Reese, I only started working for the senator two days ago—and none of my duties involved anything of a personal nature.”

  Tom relaxed. If Cassidy wasn’t the senator’s mistress, likely she wasn’t a suspect. According to her, she barely knew him. What motive would she have?

  “Good to know,” Tom said. He turned to Beau. “The CSIs are out at the house. It’s a crime scene, so you won’t be able to go inside until they’re done.”

  He just nodded. On the rare occasion he came to Pleasant Hill, he usually stayed at Blackland Ranch, Linc’s property outside Iron Springs, the next town over. Beau had yet to phone his partner and his partner’s wife, Carly. It would be the next call he made.

  “Why don’t we start from the beginning?�
�� Tom said, pulling up a chair and settling his stocky, muscular frame in the seat. “Mind if I record this?”

  Beau shook his head and sat back down.

  Tom set the recorder on the table and pushed the start button. “Why did you come to Pleasant Hill to see your dad?”

  It was an ugly story, one he couldn’t tell without hurting someone else. “We had some business to discuss. We worked it out yesterday. I came back today with the paperwork for him to sign.”

  “What happened when you got there?”

  “When I walked into the study, my father was lying on the floor.” He swallowed as the memory arose. “He was covered in blood. There was a letter opener buried in his chest. Whoever stabbed him must have done it just a few minutes before I got there.”

  “You didn’t go after the assailant? Try to catch him?”

  “I was trying to save my father’s life so no, I didn’t go after him. I didn’t hear anything or see anyone—I wish I had. I don’t think the killer was still in the house.”

  “Your father was a retired senator. He must have surveillance cameras on the property.”

  Beau shook his head. “My dad didn’t like them. He felt they were an invasion of his privacy.” And some of the people he dealt with were the sort who didn’t want their visits recorded.

  “Too bad,” Tom said.

  “Yeah.”

  Tom turned to Cassidy Jones. “So you were working at the house when it happened?”

  “I hadn’t gone into his office yet that day. I have a workspace set up in the guest house. That’s where I’ve been staying.”

  Beau shot her a glance. The guest house. Damned convenient. He wondered if she was telling the truth about her relationship with his dad.

  “So the senator was expecting you?”

  “Yes,” Cassidy said. “There were some things he wanted to discuss. But when I walked in, I saw . . . I saw him lying on the floor, his chest covered in blood. I saw that he had been stabbed.”

  “Where was Beau at that time?”

  Cassidy’s gaze swung in his direction, and he didn’t like what he saw in her face. “Beau was leaning over his father. He had the letter opener in his hand.”