Beau’s insides tightened. The guy was a professional. Which meant there was no way in hell he could back away from Cassidy now, no matter the personal cost. It was a pipe dream, anyway. He never could have gone through with it. He wouldn’t have been willing to risk putting her safety into the hands of someone else, not as long as she was in such grave danger.
Beau ignored a vague feeling of relief that she would be staying with him, and turned the car toward home.
* * *
As soon as he got to the house, Beau spoke to Will Egan, bringing him up to speed on the shooting and authorizing him to hire more men. Next he phoned Tom Briscoe. Using the landline in the kitchen, he put the phone on speaker so Cassidy could join the conversation.
“It’s Beau Reese, Tom. I was hoping you’d be in. Looks like we’ve got more trouble.”
“What’s going on, Beau?”
After a brief summary of the shooting, which included how close the assassin had come to killing both of them, Briscoe started asking questions.
“So we’re looking for a late-model, white, four-door Toyota,” he said, recapping what they knew. “You get a plate number?”
“BC4 X589,” Cassidy replied.
“You sure the guy was using a silencer?”
“Dead sure,” Beau said and he and Cassidy shared a glance at the pun.
“Description of the assailant?”
“Average height. Never got a look at his face. Wore a dark blue ball cap tugged down over his forehead. Dark brown hair, I think.”
“Cassidy, you got anything to add?”
“Two shots fired close together. One for each of us, I’d say. Near misses. Miracle Beau caught on in time for us to duck, throw off his aim.”
Which, Beau thought, he probably wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t been for their false alarm run-in with the black SUV.
“You think the hit was on both of you, not just Cassidy?”Briscoe asked. “Keep in mind, whoever it was has already made two failed attempts.”
“I’m guessing this was a different guy,” Cassidy said. “The shooter was a pro. I think if he’d been the one to run me off the road, he would have come back and finished me.”
Beau’s stomach knotted. He didn’t want to think there might actually be two people trying to kill them instead of just one.
“If you’re right,” Briscoe said, “odds are he’ll make another attempt.”
“I know,” Cassidy said.
Beau clenched his jaw. “He can try. He won’t succeed.”
“We’ll need statements from both of you. And DPD will want a look at the car. I’ll call them, have them send someone out. And I’ll ask them to keep your neighborhood on their radar.”
“Thanks, Tom. I’d appreciate it if you kept this out of the media. They’ll be climbing all over me again.”
“I’ll do my best. Listen, Beau, there’s something else. I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, and it’s not official. I’m probably not supposed to say, but rumor has it they’re thinking about convening a grand jury. The DA is up for reelection. Your dad was a senator; you’re his wealthy, celebrity son. The DA doesn’t want any hint of impropriety or favoritism.”
“Surely with Milford’s murder and all the stuff that’s been going on, they can see this is bigger than just an argument between me and my father that escalated into me killing him.”
“So far we haven’t got any kind of connection between your father’s murder and anything else. If you have evidence, we need to see it. Do you?”
Did they?Hell no. They had nothing but a bunch oftheories that so far led nowhere. The hit-and-run and the crash could have been nothing more than coincidence.
“What about the guy who just tried to take us out?” he asked. “That ought to prove something.”
“No proof it’s related. At least not yet. We’ll keep working the case here in Pleasant Hill, and the Dallas PD will be working the shooting. Until we come up with something that ties all this together, that’s all we can do.”
