The Perfect Murder (Maximum Security #4) - Kat Martin Page 0,38

murdered, Louise. The police are trying to find out who did it.”

Louise’s eyes widened. She looked at Kenzie with concern. “Oh, dear. Poor Griff.”

“I don’t know how to tell him. He and his dad were never close, but still... Lee was his father.”

“Do the police have any idea who did it?”

Kenzie pressed her lips together and glanced away.

“Wait a minute. Surely they don’t think you had anything to do with it?”

Kenzie sighed. “It’s complicated, Louise.” She shoved her dark hair back from her face. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. I need to use the ladies’ room.”

Leaving her assistant staring after her, Kenzie headed down the hall. In the last few days, her life had been turned upside down. First, Griff had landed in the hospital. Then the custody suit. Then she had seduced her employer, a man she respected and admired, putting both of their jobs at risk. Now Lee was dead, she was a suspect in his murder, and Reese had lied to give her an alibi.

Kenzie was afraid to imagine what would happen next.

FIFTEEN

The afternoon turned stormy, dark clouds on the horizon, the wind blowing like a bitch. Reese was meeting Chase in his office at Maximum Security, one of the top detective agencies in Dallas.

Briefly, he’d filled his brother in on Lee Haines’s murder and the ongoing investigation. But Chase wanted details. Reese dreaded the confrontation. Hell, he didn’t know that much about it himself.

Shoving open the glass front door, he walked into the single-story redbrick building on Blackburn Street.

“Chase is expecting me,” he said to Mindy Stewart, the receptionist. The petite brunette sat behind a big oak desk that matched the Western decor of the office.

“He told me you were coming in,” she said, pushing her round tortoiseshell glasses up on her nose. “I cleared his calendar for the afternoon.”

Good news and bad. Plenty of time for his older brother to rail at him for what he’d done, one of the few people Reese allowed to get away with it.

He waved at Jason Maddox as he strode across the open area where oak desks sat in a line of neat rows. Since he was short on time, he didn’t stop to chat. He’d call Hawk later to thank him for his help with Rico Alvarez and ask him to keep his ears open for anything that might help him find Lee Haines’s killer.

With a light rap on the door, he walked into Chase’s office. His brother rose behind his wide oak desk, his dark blond hair slightly mussed, a scowl on his face. Reese was surprised to see Brandon sprawled on the brown leather sofa, sipping a bottle of beer.

Resigned, Reese headed in that direction while Chase rounded the desk to join them.

“I talked to Heath Ford,” Chase said. “He told me as much as he could. What the hell have you done?”

“I’m helping a friend, all right? I’ll straighten things out in a couple of days. I just needed to buy a little time to get things started.”

“Tell me you aren’t really sleeping with her,” Chase said. “You just made that up to help her out of a jam.”

Reese clenched his jaw. “Who I’m sleeping with is none of your business.”

Brandon rose from the sofa to stare him in the face. “It is when she’s your employee, bro. You know how dangerous that is. The company belongs to all of us. That woman could ruin you and cause us endless grief.”

His jaw went even harder. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“Kenzie is a suspect in a homicide,” Chase said.

“She didn’t kill her no-good ex-husband,” Reese replied.

“How can you be sure?” Chase asked.

Reese’s temper inched up. “Because I know her. I’ve worked with her five days a week for the last six months.”

“What about the gun the cops found a few blocks away?” Bran asked. “It belongs to her, right?”

“Ford said it was registered to her. We haven’t had time to talk about it.”

“Well, you damned well better make time,” Chase said.

Bran’s gaze, a lighter shade of blue than Reese’s, pinned him where he stood. “You ever consider she might be playing you, bro? She could have set you up so she could off her ex old man and you’d take the bait, give her the alibi she needed. Could have been a lot more was going on between them than what you know.”

Reese shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Kenzie isn’t a murderer.”

“You’ve only known her six months,” Chase said. “How