The Perfect Murder by Kat Martin

THIRTEEN

Friday was still muggy and damp in Houston. Reese parked the Land Rover in a space in front of the Harris County Jail. He had pulled some strings and managed to get in on a special visitor’s pass to see Rico Alvarez, who had consented to the visit. Apparently Rico preferred conversation to sitting in his cell.

As he got out of the vehicle, his mind strayed to the hours he’d spent last night with Kenzie and a smile softened his lips. The sex had been better than any of the fantasies he had worked so hard to keep out of his head.

Kenzie had been married before and she had been outspoken in her desire for him. Yet there was a sweetness, a naivety he hadn’t expected. He’d decided to take things slowly, let her get used to him. He didn’t want to frighten her away.

For months, he’d spent at least five days a week with her, had grown to admire her business savvy and work ethic, to say nothing of the physical beauty that appealed to him on every level.

In the beginning, he’d been able to ignore her feminine attributes and focus on her job skills, her value to the company and to him personally as CEO. But little by little, the way she always seemed to be there when he needed her, her insight into helping him solve the problems he occasionally ran past her, combined with the love and devotion she felt for her family, forced him to see her as a woman and not just an employee.

Never once had he considered the attraction might be mutual. Apparently, Kenzie was as good at hiding her emotions as he was.

As he crossed the sidewalk toward the double front doors of the nine-story redbrick building on San Jacinto, his smile slowly faded. All hell was going to break loose when his relationship with Kenzie came to light. It wasn’t PC to date your executive assistant, to say the least.

Hypothetically, it could lead to all sorts of accusations and legal hassles that could cost him, personally, or Garrett Resources a whole lot of money. Not to mention the bad publicity.

Reese was willing to take the chance. He hadn’t felt such a strong attraction to a woman in years, maybe ever. His bitter divorce had made him even more wary. If things didn’t work out, he would face the problem then.

In the meantime, he wasn’t going to deny he was seeing her. And he wasn’t giving her up.

As he pushed through the front door, Reese forced his mind back to the puzzle he was trying to solve. Following the instructions he had been given, he checked in with a prison guard in black uniform pants and a short-sleeved white shirt with an embroidered patch on the sleeve. The guard led him down a hall and passed him to another guard, a Black woman with cornrows and a smile that put him a little more at ease.

“Rico’s waiting for you,” she said. “If you’ll just follow me.” She led him down another long hall and opened a door into a room with a series of partitioned glass windows. Stools sat on both sides of the window. Rico Alvarez sat on one of them, the only person in the room.

“You’ve got twenty minutes,” the female guard said. Still smiling, she closed the door.

Reese sat down across from Alvarez, who was short, his muscular arms covered with prison tats where they showed below the half sleeve of his orange jumpsuit. The lower portion of his head was shaved, the top longer, a bowl cut that reminded Reese of Moe in the old Three Stooges reruns he’d watched as a kid on TV.

Alvarez’s black eyes followed his movements and he straightened on the stool. “I figured I must know you but I don’t. Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?”

“I’m Reese Garrett. I was a passenger on the helicopter that crashed and killed your brother.”

Alvarez glanced away, but not before Reese caught a flash of grief in his eyes.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Reese said.

Alvarez’s attention swung back to him. “So what do you want?”

“I came to tell you the crash wasn’t an accident. I figured you’d want to know. Someone sabotaged the helo.”

Alvarez’s black eyes narrowed. “You’re shittin’ me.”

“I’m telling you the truth. The thing is, you’re locked up in here. It goes without saying, you’ve got enemies. The question is, did you piss someone off bad enough to get your brother killed?”

Alvarez shot up from his stool. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“Word on the street is you pissed off some of the big boys. Some kind of drug deal that went sideways. Maybe they took the chopper down and killed your brother to get even.”

Alvarez sank down heavily on the stool. He dropped his head into his hands and shook his head. “No way. They didn’t want Manny dead. They wanted both of us to keep on producing. We worked things out. Paying back the money they got coming wasn’t a problem. We just needed a little more time.”

“And you got them to agree?”

“Yeah.”

“Before or after the crash?”

“Before.” He looked up at Reese, his jaw tight. “You lookin’ to find out who did it?”

“I am.”

“You let me know who it is, eh, homie? I take care of them for you. No one kills Rico Alvarez’s brother and gets away with it.”

Satisfied Rico was telling the truth, Reese rose from the stool, fairly certain now that Manny Alvarez hadn’t been the target. The question remained, who was?

“Thanks for the conversation,” Reese said.

“Don’t forget what I told you, eh?” A guard appeared next to Rico. Rising from his stool, he let the man lead him away.

As far as Reese was concerned, he had hit another dead end. He needed answers. He wasn’t quitting until he had them. He wished he knew which rock to turn over next.

Ignoring the tightness in her chest, Kenzie stepped out of the shower, once more back in the apartment next door to Reese’s. Hurriedly, she dressed and prepared for their return trip to Dallas. It was still early. She had no idea where Reese was or what she should say to him when he returned. A dozen different scenarios ran through her head, but she cast them away. She had no idea what to say the morning after a night of passionate sex with her boss, no idea what he would say to her.

In the end, she opted to let Reese set the tone.

One thing was certain, Monday morning she would start looking for another job. As she’d promised, she wouldn’t leave Reese high and dry. She would stay long enough to help him find a replacement, which was only fair since she was the one who had seduced him.

Sighing as she padded toward the kitchen desperate for a cup of coffee, she gasped at the sight of a tall, handsome man standing at the kitchen counter with a bouquet of roses in his hand.

“Good morning.” Reese held up a key. “I’ve got the master,” he said, smiling. Which explained how he’d gotten in.

He handed her the bouquet, leaned down, and softly kissed her. “I was hoping you’d still be in bed when I got back, but I should have remembered you like to get an early start on the day.”

She looked down at the roses and her eyes stung. She wondered if they were a parting gift, if he gave all the women he slept with roses the morning after.

“Thank you.” She clutched the beautiful roses to her breast. “They’re beautiful.”

He must have read something in her face. “What’s the matter? You aren’t regretting last night, are you?”

She managed to smile. “I’ll never regret last night, Reese. It was special. At least for me.”

Reese took the roses from her hand and set them on the kitchen counter, gently took her shoulders, urging her to look at him. “Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours. If you don’t regret last night, what’s wrong?”

She sighed. “Nothing’s wrong. I understood what would happen when I spent the night with you. Now I’m ready to face the consequences. I’ll start looking for someone to take my place as soon as we get back.”

Reese frowned. “I thought you understood. What happened between us last night has nothing to do with your job. You’re my executive assistant. The most competent one I’ve ever worked with. I don’t expect you to quit because we’re seeing each other.”

Seeing each other?“You aren’t serious. There’s no way we could possibly keep a relationship between us secret.”

“I don’t intend to. There’s no rule about employees dating. If I weren’t CEO, it wouldn’t be a problem. Other couples in the office have relationships.”

Couples?Relationships? Had Reese just used those words?

“We talked about this last night,” he continued. “We both know it might not work out, but I assumed you thought it was worth the risk.”

“You are serious.”

He smiled but for the first time looked uncertain. “I want to see where this goes. I thought you’d want that, too.”

She wanted it. She wanted it so much she ached with it. “I don’t know... I...I hadn’t thought that far ahead. It seemed so impossible, I never really considered it.”

Reese leaned down and kissed her. “How about this weekend? Dinner on Saturday night?”

Kenzie shook her head, still off balance and slightly dazed. “I can’t, Reese. I’d love to go, but I have plans with Griff and Gran for the whole weekend. I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared for this to happen. I hope you understand.”

“Of course I understand. You have a family to consider. I’ll give you some time, whatever you need. We’ll work things out when I see you next week.” He gave her one of his rare, beautiful smiles. “You’re my executive assistant. I’m sure you can find time in my busy schedule for us to be together.”

Her heart pinched. Surely this attraction they were feeling could never work out. Or could it? Was she willing to take the chance?

With all the doubts swirling around in her head, she gave him the best smile she could muster. “I’ll take care of it,” she said.