Beyond Danger

Book 2: Texas Trilogy

by Kat Martin

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin brings page-turning suspense to a tale of secrets and passions turned deadly.

Texas mogul Beau Reese is furious. All six feet three obscenely wealthy, good-looking inches of him. His sixty-year-old father, Stewart, a former state senator no less, has impregnated a teenager. Barely able to contain his anger, Beau is in for another surprise. It appears that Stewart has moved an entirely different woman into the house.

Beau assumes that stunning Cassidy Jones is his father's mistress. At least she's of age. But those concerns take a sudden backseat when he finds Stewart in a pool of blood on the floor of his study—and Cassidy walks in to find Beau with his hand on the murder weapon.

The shocks just keep coming. Someone was following Stewart, and Cassidy is the detective hired to find out who and why. Now she'll have to find his killer instead. Her gut tells her it wasn't Beau. And Beau's instincts tell him it wasn't Cassidy. Determined to track down the truth, they form an uneasy alliance—one that will bring them closer to each other—closer to danger and beyond.

Release date: January 30, 2018

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Pleasant Hill, Texas

Beau could hardly believe it. His father was sixty years old! The girl sitting across from him in a booth at the Pleasant Hill Café looked like a teenager. A very pregnant teenager.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Missy,” Beau Reese said. “You don’t have to worry about anything from now on. I’ll make sure it’s all taken care of from here on out.”

“He bought me presents,” the girl said tearfully, dabbing a Kleenex against her watery blue eyes. “He told me how pretty I was, how much he liked being with me. I thought he loved me.”

Fat chance of that, Beau thought. His dad had never loved anyone but himself. True, his father, still a handsome man, stayed in shape and looked twenty years younger. Didn’t make the situation any better.

“How old are you, Missy?”

“Nineteen.”

At least she was over the age of consent. That was something, not much.

Her hand shook as she toyed with a long strand of pale blond hair. Though her belly was enormous, the rest of her was a little too thin for someone eight-and-a-half months along, probably from so much worry.

Beau turned his attention to the woman sitting next to her daughter on the opposite side of the booth, Josie Kessler, the owner of the café.

“You should have called me, Josie. I can’t believe you waited this long.”

“I wanted to, Beau, but Missy was adamant. She didn’t want to do anything to upset the senator. She really believed he was going to marry her.”

Beau shook his head. “You know him, Josie. You’ve known him for years. Did you really believe that was going to happen?”

An older blond version of her daughter, Josie sighed. “I never believed it. I tried to tell her, but every time I started to talk to her, she got so upset I worried for the baby.”

Full-figured now in her forties, Josie’s hair had begun to turn gray. Wrinkles formed tiny lines around her mouth from the years when she was a smoker. Neither woman was beautiful, their features slightly blunt and unrefined, but there was a sweet, appealing quality about the girl.

Beau shoved a hand through his wavy black hair and took a steadying breath. “This isn’t your fault, and both of us know it. It’s no one’s fault but my father’s.”

Though Josie was outspoken and a well-loved fixture in the community, Missy was quiet and shy, exactly the kind of woman his father preyed on, using flattery and attention to woo the unwary into his bed.

Unless he flat-out paid them.

Beau had known Josie and Missy’s grandmother, Evelyn, the former owner of the café, since he was a kid. Missy was just a child when he’d left Pleasant Hill to attend the university in Austin. He glanced over at the girl, whose face was pale, her eyes swollen from crying. None of the women in the family had much luck with men. Or at least that’s how it seemed.

He thought of the DNA test folded up and tucked into the pocket of his shirt. Josie had handed it to him when he’d first arrived. Not that he’d had much doubt her daughter was telling the truth.

“What did my father say when Missy told him about the baby?” Beau asked.

“He wanted her to have an abortion. Missy refused.”

“I told him I wouldn’t do that, no matter what,” the girl said, sniffing into the Kleenex. “I told him I wanted to have his child.”

“It’s a little girl, Beau,” Josie said with a wobbly smile. “We both love her already.”

A peculiar tightening settled in his chest. As a kid, he had desperately wanted a brother or sister. By the time he was five, his parents barely tolerated each other. His mother had died six years ago, but now, at thirty-five, he was going to have a little sister.

Beau felt a surge of protectiveness toward the young woman carrying his father’s child.

He looked over to where she sat hunched forward on the bench on the opposite side of the pink vinyl booth. At the misery in her face, he reached across the Formica-topped table and covered her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Everybody makes mistakes, Missy. You picked the wrong guy, that’s all. Doesn’t mean you won’t have a great kid.”

For the first time since he’d arrived, Missy managed a tentative smile. “Thank you for saying that.”

Beau returned the smile. “I’m going to have a baby sister. I promise she won’t have to worry about a thing from the day she’s born into this world.” Hell, he was worth more than half a billion dollars. He would see the child had everything she ever wanted.

Missy’s lips trembled. She turned her head and started softly crying.

Josie scooted out of the booth. “I think she’s had enough for today. This is all very hard on her and I don’t want her getting overly tired.” She reached for her daughter’s hand. “Let’s go home, honey. You’ll feel better after a nap.”

Missy grasped her mother’s hand and awkwardly managed to climb out of the booth. Missy lived with Josie, who had taken over the apartment upstairs as well as the café when Evelyn had moved into a retirement home.

Beau got up, too. Taking the girl’s slender hands, he leaned over and brushed a kiss on her cheek.

“You both have my number. If you need anything, call me. Okay?”

Missy swallowed. “Okay.”

“Thank you, Beau,” Josie said. “I should have called you sooner. I should have known you’d help us.”

“Like I said, you don’t have to worry. I’ll have my assistant send you a check right away. You’ll have money to take care of expenses and buy the things you need. After that, I’ll have a draft sent to Missy every month.”

Josie’s eyes teared up. “I didn’t know how I was going to manage the bills all by myself. Thank you again, Beau. So much.”

He just nodded. “Keep me up-to-date on her condition.”

“I will,” Josie said.

Beau watched the women head for the door, the bell ringing as Josie shoved it open and they walked out of the café to the outside staircase.

Leaving money on the table for his coffee, he followed the women out the door, his temper slowly climbing toward the point it had been when he’d first received the call.

His father should be the one handling Missy’s pregnancy. He’d had months to step up and do the right thing. Beau didn’t trust that he ever would.

As he crossed the sidewalk and opened the door of his dark blue Ferrari, his temper cranked up another notch. By the time the car was roaring along the road on the way to his father’s house, his fury was simmering toward the boiling point.

Unconsciously his foot pressed harder on the gas, urging the car down the two-lane road at well over eighty miles an hour. With too many speeding tickets in Howler County already, he forced himself to slow down.

Making the turn into Country Club Estates, he turned again two streets later and slid to a stop in front of the house, sending a shower of dust and leaves into the air. The white, two-story home he’d been raised in oozed Southern charm, the row of columns out front mimicking an old-style plantation.

Climbing out of the Ferrari, one of his favorite cars, he pounded up the front steps and crossed the porch. The housekeeper had always had Mondays and Tuesdays off, so he used his key to let himself into the high-ceilinged entry.

On this chilly, end-of-January day, the ceiling fans, usually rotating throughout the five-thousand-square-foot residence, hadn’t been turned on, leaving the interior quiet except for the ticking of the ornate grandfather clock in the living room.

“Dad! It’s Beau! Where are you?” When he didn’t get an answer, he strode down the hall to the study, turned the knob without bothering to knock, and walked into the elegant wood-paneled interior.

“Well, look who’s here.” Recently retired state senator Stewart Beaumont Reese, dressed in his usual dark suit, white shirt, and tie, didn’t get up from behind his big rosewood desk. “You should have phoned. I might not have been home.”

Beau’s pulse was beating too fast. He worked to keep the anger out of his voice. “I was already in town on business—your business, as it turns out.”

The two of them looked amazingly alike, with the same blue eyes and black hair, the senator’s now silvered at the temples. Both of them were tall and broad-shouldered, Stewart only an inch shorter than Beau’s six-foot-three-inch frame.

They looked alike, but they had nothing else in common—and they had never been close. Far from it. Their relationship had been hostile from the day Beau was old enough to talk back to his dad.

Stewart rose from behind his desk. “You were in town on my business? Since when have you had anything to do with my business?”

Beau took a steadying breath and forced his back teeth to unclench. “Since you knocked up a nineteen-year-old girl. Jesus, Dad. It’s not like you don’t have women falling all over you. You had to pick a kid?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Beau’s temper, already nearing the edge, erupted. “Goddamn it!” Walking up to the desk, he leaned over the top and got right in his father’s face. “You’ve got a baby on the way! I’ve got the DNA test in my pocket to prove it! How could you ignore something like that!”

“What’s going on here?”

Forcing himself to take a deep breath, Beau turned to find a woman he had never seen before standing in the open doorway. Late twenties or early thirties, a notepad in one hand, a pair of half glasses perched on the end of a very nice nose, she was a striking brunette with a stunning figure. Dressed business professional: a russet skirt suit, printed cream silk blouse, and high heels, she had a heart-shaped face framed by the cloud of dark curls that fanned out around her shoulders, big green eyes, and a porcelain complexion. She was lovely.

Beau flicked a glance at his father, who cast him a look that said See? You’ve made a fool of yourself again.

The senator sat back down in his chair. “Cassidy, this is my son, Beau. Beau, meet Cassidy Jones, my personal assistant.”

Beau’s eyes went back to the woman but his anger didn’t cool. Surely his father wouldn’t bring one of his mistresses into the house.

But there was more than a very good chance he had.

The senator smiled. “My son and I were merely having a discussion. Nothing to worry about. Was there something you needed?”

“I heard loud voices. I just . . . I wanted to be sure there wasn’t a problem.”

“No problem. Everything is fine.”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” the woman said. “Nice meeting you, Beau.”

He managed a barely polite reply. The brunette walked out of the study and closed the door.

“Tell me she isn’t one of your women,” Beau said.

“What she is or isn’t is none of your business. Now if we’re through here, I have a meeting in—”

“Screw your meeting. I want to know if you’re going to sit back and ignore your own child.”

“It wasn’t my fault, dammit! The girl practically threw herself at me. If you want me to write a check—”

“I didn’t come here for a goddamn check! I just thought you might want to be involved. Apparently you’re going to ignore your own flesh and blood. Wait a minute—why does that sound so familiar?”

“I hardly ignored you. I gave you the best of everything: clothes, cars, sent you to the finest schools.”

“You gave me everything except the father I needed. Now you have a second chance, an opportunity to do it right.”

Stewart sighed as if he were talking to someone with a learning disability. “Be reasonable, son. I’m not interested in starting another family. The girl should have gotten an abortion as I suggested. I would have been more than happy to pay the expenses.”

Beau clamped hard on his temper. “I’m taking care of the girl and your kid. You don’t have to worry about it. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t involve yourself. It would be better for everyone concerned.”

“Then you have your wish. Now if you don’t mind . . .”

Beau’s hand fisted. The more he thought about it, the better the idea sounded. He didn’t trust his father—a master manipulator—not to wait a few years and decide it would be good for his image to involve himself in raising the child.

“The more I think about it, since we’re all in agreement, why don’t I go ahead and have papers drawn up granting Missy Kessler sole custody of the child? That way you’ll be kept out of it. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Fine. Do whatever pleases you. You always have.”

True, and in this case it pleased him to do what was best for his little sister.

“Expect to see me tomorrow,” Beau said. “I’ll have the paperwork done and be back for your signature sometime in the afternoon.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked out of the study.

As he strode down the hall, he caught a glimpse of Cassidy Jones walking in the opposite direction. At least his father’s latest kept woman was old enough to know better than to get herself pregnant like poor Missy.

As he made his way outside, Beau slammed the front door harder than he intended. One thing he knew for sure. In the months since he had last seen his father, nothing had changed.

Cassidy Jones walked out of the main house, down the path to the guest house where she was staying. The winter day was chilly, but being a Texan, she enjoyed the break from the relentless summer heat.

As she neared the front door, her mind returned to the scene in the study and her brief encounter with Beau Reese. She had wondered when she would meet him.

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 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 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.

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. . .