Since then she hadn’t dated. Which was probably the reason Beau Reese pushed all her hot buttons. Or maybe it was just because hewashot, an extremely good-looking, incredibly sexy male.
Whatever the reason, now wasn’t the time or place, and a wealthy celebrity with dozens of women chasing after him wasn’t worth the trouble.
Cassidy opened the door of her silver Honda hatchback and slid in behind the wheel. Beau climbed into the passenger seat, pushing it back to accommodate his long legs. They buckled their belts and she started the engine.
The late January weather was chilly, but a blue sky curved overhead. Still, it was Texas. It wouldn’t be long before the weather changed.
“So you’re a private detective,” Beau said as she pulled out of the parking lot.
“I’m mostly an investigator. I rarely carry a weapon. I specialize in digging up information, asking questions,figuring things out. Sometimes I work with a bounty hunter friend of mine. I do the tracing, he brings in the skip, and we split the fee. One of my least favorite jobs is finding out if a spouse is cheating, but it pays the bills.”
Beau didn’t smile. She knew his mind was still back at the house, going over and over what had happened to his father. Her instincts said he hadn’t done it. And when she replayed the scene, the timing seemed slightly off. She trusted her instincts and her judgment, but she needed to be sure.
“I wish I’d had a few more days,” she said, regaining his attention as the car rolled down the road. “Maybe I could have found something that would have given us a warning, something that would have prevented his death.”
Intense blue eyes went to her face. “He must have told you something, said something that could lead the police to the killer. He hired you because he was worried. What did he say?”
“He gave me a couple of names, business associates. There was also a woman. He said their relationship hadn’t ended well.”
Beau scoffed. “His relationships rarely ended well. My father wasn’t the sort of man who stayed friends with the women he dated. He used them, then discarded them like old shoes.”
Cassidy filed the information away. “I know the two of you didn’t get along. I read that in more than one account. I got a firsthand look yesterday when I heard you arguing.”
He scoffed. “He was a terrible father and a rotten husband. My mother wasn’t any better. I think she got pregnant because she thought it was a necessary part of being married, but she didn’t really like kids. She and my dad believed as long as they gave me money, they could go on with their lives as if I didn’t exist.”
“Was that the reason you got in trouble in high school? Nobody around to take care of you?”
He cast her a dark look. “Hey, I didn’t kill him, so you don’t need to be investigating me.”
“Sorry.” But she wasn’t really sorry at all. Yesterday Beau and his father had had a vicious quarrel. Today Stewart Reese was dead. Was it possible Beau had lost his temper and stabbed the older man in a fit of rage?
“How’d you get interested in becoming a PI anyway?” he asked.
“Lot of cops and military in my family. My granddad, my brothers. My grandfather died in the line of duty when I was a kid. I was never interested in joining the force, but I liked the idea of catching bad guys, so I studied criminology in college. I apprenticed for a while with a friend of my brother’s in the security business in Houston. I liked it. Investigative work seemed to be a good fit.”
The entrance to Country Club Estates loomed ahead. She pulled into the area of luxury homes and drove along the golf course to the big white house with the columns out front. Several white-and-blue police vehicles were parked on the street, and yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the porch, reminding her that a man had just died here and that man was Beau’s father.
Silence fell inside the car.
“Thanks for the ride,” Beau said a little gruffly, his features drawn and grim as he opened the door and ducked out of the car. He and his father weren’t close, but the senator was still his dad.
Cassidy watched him walk toward the Ferrari she had spotted parked out front when she’d left to follow the ambulance. With his long, lean-muscled build, wide shoulders and narrow waist, the man was definite eye candy.
She knew he was in great physical condition. She hadread he trained in mixed martial arts, and apparently he was good at it—like pretty much everything else he did.
She went around to the guest house, walked up to the uniformed patrolman standing out front and told him Tom Briscoe had said she could get something to wear. The officer escorted her inside and waited while she grabbed a pair of jeans, a yellow scooped-neck sweater, and a pair of sneakers.
“We should be done with the guest house in a couple of hours,” said the patrolman, a skinny young guy with light brown hair. “You’ll be able to come back then.”
“Great.” Because she planned to stay for at least a few more days—unless Beau Reese threw her out. She had only begun her investigation into the three names the senator had given her. She needed more information, needed to look into the senator’s personal records, into his life.
By now the police would have taken his computer and the folders in his file drawers, but she had a hunch there was more. From the little she had gleaned since she’d met him, the senator was a secretive man, not the sort to leave his personal information lying around.
If her hunch was right, there would be a place he kept his important documents, his personal records, and she intended to find it.
Carrying the change of clothes, she returned to where her car was parked, surprised to see Beau Reese sitting in his Ferrari waiting for her. Apparently Beau was a gentleman, the last of a dying breed.
As she started the Honda and turned it around in the street, Beau fired up the powerful Ferrari engine, waited for her to drive in front of him down the road, then fell in behind her.
