graduated high school. First her mother to cancer, then her father to grief. He hadn’t lived a year after her mother had died. He’d loved her too much to live without her.
Kelly made a disgusted sound. If only men like that existed anymore. Her father had been the bravest, truest man she’d ever known. A cowboy through and through. But Kelly hadn’t been able to bear living on the ranch without them. She’d leased the place and moved to the big city to finish her education and start a new life.
She might never find herself a cowboy to love her the way her father had loved her mother, but she would have the career she’d always dreamed of. Even that possibility looked dim now.
Her whole life was down the toilet.
She opened a can of soup and poured it into a microwave safe bowl. Surely she could keep soup down. Felix, Ann’s big old calico cat, curled around her legs. Kelly supposed Felix wanted to eat, too.
When she’d heated her soup, she put it on a tray with a glass of milk and crackers. Then she opened a can of cat food for Felix who purred appreciatively.
Gathering her courage around her, Kelly sat down on the sofa and turned on the television for the first time since all this insanity started.
She surfed until she found a channel showing the news. While the weatherman spouted his forecast for a warmer than average New Year’s Eve, she forced down the soup and crackers, only then realizing how hungry she was. By the time the image of Ray’s office flashed on the screen, she’d managed to eat enough to sustain her. Any appetite she’d had left vanished as the reporter gravely related the events of the previous night. The numbness set in again. The man who’d been in Ray’s office wasn’t named, which she found odd. She wished now she’d had the nerve to look in his wallet for identification. But no way could she have done that. She’d been lucky to get out without vomiting, which would have left evidence of her survival.
She turned off the television and took her tray back to the kitchen. Working on autopilot, she cleaned up after herself and went to Ann’s office.
Kelly studied the disk for a few moments before inserting it into Ann’s computer. She wasn’t sure what she would find, but there was no putting it off any longer.
She had to know the truth.
Starting with the disk seemed as good a first step as any.
Chapter Three
Flight 1101 from Chicago to Houston
Monday 9:30 a.m.
At six foot three, a first-class seat was about the only place Trent Tucker was comfortable on a commercial airliner. Not to mention it gave him a little more privacy to peruse the kind of reports he was reviewing this morning.
Heavy icing had delayed all flights departing from Chicago on Sunday so he’d had no choice but to postpone his departure until Monday morning. To bring him up to speed and to prevent further delay, Senator William Lester had kindly faxed him the reports and photos pertinent to the Jarvis case last evening.
The images in the photos were gruesome. Three murders. Each victim cut down in the midst of going about his or her business. What Trent needed to know was had that business been the motivation for murder? Were three people dead because Raymond Jarvis had gotten in bed with the wrong folks? And was twenty-five thousand dollars enough to buy an FBI agent with an otherwise spotless record? Or was it merely a fraction of the full payment? What about the assistant? Was she involved or had she simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time?
Trent shuffled the pages until he came to the data sheet on Jarvis’s assistant. Kelly Pruitt would turn twenty-three her next birthday. She had no close family and had graduated from a Texas university at the top of her class. She had no criminal record and a perfect credit score. The money she’d inherited when her parents had died had seen her through college and then some. She had a handsome savings and a healthy balance in checking. Midsize and modest summed up her taste in automobiles. Her living space appeared a bit more luxurious, judging by the address. She just didn’t fit the profile of someone looking to get involved in criminal activity.
The next data sheet detailed the life of her forty-eight-year-old boss. Unlike Kelly, Ray Jarvis had scraped by in college, making the necessary grades by the skin of his teeth. He’d first gone into business with a partner who later became his wife. Unfortunately, fourteen years and two children down the road, the two divorced and dissolved the partnership, which was on the brink of bankruptcy. Jarvis, however, had learned a few things. Picking up the pieces of his life he’d started his own business and thrived. Ten years after that he was on the verge of becoming a major player in the financial world of the Lone Star state.
Jarvis had worked hard to get to where he was, it didn’t make sense to Trent that he’d get greedy at this point and risk everything. But then, he wouldn’t be the first guy who had turned stupid as he neared fifty. A midlife crisis took its toll on many.
The FBI agent, Norton Davis, seemed an even less likely candidate for duplicity. Thirty-one, a wife and new baby, the man had a stellar record. He had been third generation law enforcement and a pillar of the small community where he and his family resided just minutes outside Dallas.
None of it made sense. And yet, three people were dead and dirty money had changed hands.
A gasp startled Trent back to the present.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” the flight attendant said. Her eyes were wide as her gaze went from the photos spread on the tray in front of him to his. “I…thought you might like some more coffee.”
Trent shuffled the photos and reports into a file folder and smiled up at the nervous woman. “No thank you, ma’am.”
She managed a shaky smile. “You must be the detective.”
“That’s right.” He didn’t bother with the distinction of private detective. She was already nervous enough. Of course, seeing photos of a homicide scene would do that. But she would know a detective was onboard since he’d checked his weapon, which was packed and secured for the flight along with his one piece of luggage.
The stewardess nodded and continued down the aisle, her posture a little stilted.
Trent glanced at his watch. He had another thirty minutes before arriving in Houston. Plenty of time to further analyze the data he’d reviewed. Immediately his thoughts went to Kelly Pruitt. His gut told him that she was the true victim here. He doubted she had known what she was getting into. Jarvis, if he had gotten involved with the drug cartel, had brought this on himself. Agent Davis knew the risks and hazards of his job. But Kelly Pruitt was just a kid…she’d had no idea that death lurked so close.
At thirty-three, Trent was old enough to know that youth didn’t necessarily equate to innocence, but he had a feeling about this young woman. He leaned back in his seat and stretched out his long legs as best he could. If she proved as innocent as he suspected, he would make this right for that little lady. Whoever had murdered her wouldn’t get away with it. He’d spent six years as a bounty hunter in the great state of Texas. Sniffing out and bringing in his quarry was what he did best. Patience and persistence always paid off in that line of work and there wasn’t a more patient or a more determined man on the planet.
“YOU MUST BE Mr. Tucker,” a man suggested as Trent exited the gate at Houston’s Hobby Airport. “Detective Hargrove.” He extended his hand. Houston’s police department
