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 letteropener, 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 pause, 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 usuallyhandsome 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 weretimes 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.
