Suspect. Jasmine Cresswell

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СКАЧАТЬ good ole boy Ron, dragged up by a ranching family in the wilds of Wyoming, had been smarter than him—the eldest son and heir to a fine Southern family with roots growing three hundred years deep in the rich Georgia soil.

      Changing the bike settings back to his liking, Paul flicked the switch and started pedaling. The challenging routine he’d designed for himself was so ingrained by now that he would have to put in at least fifteen minutes of intensive effort before he felt the rewarding tug of muscles that meant his workout was paying off. It was a never-ending struggle to keep his fifty-three-year-old body looking and behaving ten years younger than his calendar age, but it was a struggle Paul was determined to win.

      God forbid that he should ever get a paunch of the sort Ron Raven had developed over the past couple of years. Paul despised people who didn’t have sufficient discipline and willpower to keep their bodies in shape. Ron had no real willpower where his physique was concerned. He’d constantly bemoaned his weight problems, but he’d loved gourmet food and vintage wines far too much to stick to a diet.

      Paul had always been mystified by the way Avery had fallen instantly in love with a man as crude as Ron Raven. He was even more mystified by the fact that his sister had apparently remained in love, right up until the day a Chicago cop came and informed her that Ron Raven was not only missing from his Miami hotel room, but that he had another wife and family living in the godforsaken hick town of Thatch, Wyoming. As a crowning insult, the woman in Thatch was actually Ron’s legal wife. Avery, a flower of Southern womanhood, had been nothing more than Ron Raven’s long-term mistress.

      Ron had been downright rough around the edges when he first came into Avery’s life but for some mysterious reason, she’d been captivated by Ron’s self-confidence and aura of bravado. When Avery announced her engagement, Paul pointed out to her that Ron was as brash as he was bullheaded. Avery had laughed and replied that her fiancé’s brashness was one of the things she liked best about him. She’d claimed it was refreshing after too many years of being surrounded by men whose energy had been sapped by generations of keeping up appearances under the merciless Georgia sun.

      Paul had to admit that Ron had been handsome enough back in those days. It was infuriating, though, that Ron’s magnetism hadn’t faded with the passing years as his waistline expanded and his hair grayed. What the hell had been the root of his appeal? True, the guy had been blessed with bedroom eyes. True, his bluff manner somehow conveyed a hint of the intellectual power and business smarts hidden behind the jovial facade. But Ron had looked every one of his fifty-seven years. What’s more, he’d developed the beginning of arthritis in his knees and he’d lost his springy stride. His hands had been stubby and gnarled with calluses. He’d looked, in fact, as if he actually worked on his damned cattle ranch.

      The memory of Ron’s frequent trips to the Wyoming ranch and the rival wife he’d kept there was enough to make Paul’s heart pump fast with rage. He still couldn’t believe how Raven had fooled them all. To think that Ron had spent twenty-seven years with his legal wife tucked away at the Flying W Ranch, while Avery stayed in Chicago, living in a fool’s paradise with no legal claim to the wealth and prestige that her skills as a hostess had helped Ron secure. And all the time he, Paul Fairfax, had been adding class to Raven Enterprises—not to mention lending legitimacy to the scam of Ron’s second bigamous marriage—by acting as business partner to the cheating son of a bitch.

      Even if Paul could have forgiven Ron for deceiving Avery, he could never forgive his former business partner for the fact that he’d exposed the entire Fairfax family to public humiliation. Ron’s bigamy shamed everyone it touched, leaving Paul to go through life knowing that people he met were sniggering behind their hands because his sister had never actually been married to the man she lived with for over a quarter of a century. Paul’s blood pressure had skyrocketed in the wake of that humiliating discovery and he’d never been able to bring it down since. Another injury to lay directly at Ron’s door, Paul thought angrily. Taking blood pressure pills was something only a loser should have to do and he was absolutely not a loser.

      He mopped away the first welcome beads of sweat, admiring his own elegant fingers and buffed, neatly-trimmed nails as he did so. Unlike Ron, he would never be confused for a man who worked with his hands. The thought comforted him slightly. What the hell. Ron was officially dead and Paul was very much alive, which gave him the last laugh after all. Best of all, he was finally in charge of Raven Enterprises, after years suffering as Ron’s junior partner. He’d run into a couple of financial rough spots over the past couple of months, but he’d soon be raking in the big bucks. To hell with all those tight-ass bankers who wouldn’t lend him fresh investment funds. When the Arran project came on line, they’d be singing a different song.

      His mood lightening as the endorphins kicked in, Paul clicked the remote fastened to the exercise bike. He muted the sound until the ads finished and the news came back on. The weather forecaster promised a day of high temperatures, low cloud and lots of humidity. Paul pulled a face. Jeez, what a miserable climate the city of Chicago had to endure. The summer was barely more tolerable than the winter. Thank God for air-conditioning.

      “Let’s go now to our affiliate in Denver,” the anchor said, “where we’re following a breaking story.”

      Paul frowned, irritated by the interruption. He tuned in to the local Chicago news precisely so that he wouldn’t have to be taken to Denver, or anywhere else. Who the hell cared about breaking news a thousand miles to the west? He resigned himself to watching pictures of forests burning because some idiot had thrown away a lighted cigarette.

      “It was reported just before dawn that the mayor of Denver has been murdered,” a reporter for the affiliate intoned, standing in front of a large Tudor-style home on a sunny street lined with huge old trees.

      “The police department is now confirming that the violent death of Jason Hamilton, one of the nation’s most popular mayors, was caused by multiple stab wounds inflicted by an unknown assailant. The mayor was struck quote several times, the blows landing in the general area of the heart and lungs. The police department isn’t saying anything more about the precise cause of death until the preliminary autopsy results are complete, which should be some time tomorrow morning. In the meantime, there are no official suspects, but the chief of police has confirmed that the mayor’s wife, Chloe Hamilton, was found by the couple’s nanny with a bloody knife in her hands, kneeling beside her husband’s body.

      “Chloe Hamilton won the gold medal for downhill skiing in the 1998 Winter Olympics, as well as a silver and a bronze in the same Olympics. In addition, she won a bronze medal during the 1992 winter Olympics in Albertville, France, when she was only sixteen. Before being elected mayor of Denver, Jason Hamilton successfully developed property in Telluride and Steamboat Springs….”

      Jason Hamilton was dead! Paul stared at the screen and the bike jerked to a halt as he forgot to pedal.

      His stomach roiled and for a dreadful moment he was afraid he would throw up. What a fucking disaster. He had every cent he could scrape up invested in Sam DiVoli’s new building project, and with Jason Hamilton dead, they could probably whistle their chances of rezoning approval into the wind.

      Paul switched off the power to the bike and listened intently to the rest of the report from Denver, where it was still only six-thirty in the morning. You didn’t have to search too hard for a subtext to realize that Chloe Hamilton was the prime suspect in the death of her husband. Paul didn’t put as much faith in the news reports as he would have three months earlier. Having lived through the media frenzy that followed Ron Raven’s disappearance, he knew better than to believe everything he heard on any news program. It was possible that Chloe Hamilton had killed her husband, but he wouldn’t put money on it. Personally, he would be more inclined to believe Edgar Showalter had ordered the hit. God knew, Edgar was ruthless enough. Not to mention furious that Sam DiVoli had bought the Arran property out СКАЧАТЬ