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 thinkIdid 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?”
