Kathleen Long - High Society Sabotage

He hadn’t planned to go up into the mountains, so if the attack had been made purposefully, he and Sara had been followed from the time they’d left the party. No one but the two of them knew where they had been headed.

Kyle thought of the alleged memo bearing his signature and the call he’d placed to Dwayne. Surely today’s accident had nothing to do with his demand for an explanation, did it?

He shook his head.

Pure coincidence. Though, he’d never been a fan of coincidence.

He twisted off the water and reached for a towel. After he’d dabbed at his wounds and anchored the towel snuggly around his waist, he padded barefoot to his personal office.

Here, he could access the TCM computers twenty-four hours a day. No one knew of his setup, not even his stepfather.

The one perk of his bad-boy reputation was the fact that everyone had forgotten he actually had a brain beneath his well-styled hair.

He stopped as he passed through the kitchen to snag a tall, cold beer from the fridge. He deserved a drink—or several—after today’s events.

Kyle popped the cap and took a long pull. Even though he’d literally fallen off a cliff and had had one of the worst days of his life, he couldn’t avoid the way he’d felt since the moment he first met Sara Montgomery.

Shaking her hand.

Debating land issues.

The feel of her slender shoulders beneath his touch.

His stomach tightened and he chastised himself as he dropped into his leather desk chair. He’d never let a woman get to him before, so what made this one different?

For one, she didn’t hesitate to argue with him.

He smiled. Now there was something new.

Typically, the women he met were so eager to please in order to get their claws into him that they’d agree with most anything he said.

Kyle fired up the computer and leaned back, kicking his feet up onto the handmade wooden desk. He took another long taste of his beer, staring out into the night sky. The Denver skyline twinkled in the distance.

When his architect had suggested a full glass wall in the office, Kyle had thought the man a bit mad, but every night when he sat in this very spot, he knew he’d been wrong.

The man had been a genius.

Something about the view, the expanse of land and sky, the enormity of it all, kept Kyle grounded. The sight was a constant reminder of who he was—and how small he was—in the grand scheme of things.

His father would have loved this view.

Kyle’s gut twisted. He’d never known his dad after his mother had taken Kyle back to the States as a kid. When he and Robert Prescott had reconnected a few short years ago, the relationship had been strained, but there’d been a bond that Kyle had never felt with his stepfather.

Stephen Turner was a good man, but a chasm of awkwardness existed between them that Kyle could never quite bridge.

His father had been another matter altogether. Robert Prescott had been bigger than life, at least in Kyle’s eyes. When his plane had gone down on a trip to Spain, Kyle’s playboy antics had spiraled out of control. And he’d let them.

Why not?

He had no reason to do anything else.

Robert’s wife, Evangeline, had taken over Prescott Personal Securities with an icy resolve. Matter of fact, he’d never so much as seen his stepmother flinch after his father’s death. For all he knew, she was secretly happy to find herself in the position of boss.

Marriage.

He took another drink and shook his head.

Based on what Kyle had seen, he was the smart one. Love ’em and leave ’em. That way no one stuck around long enough to get hurt, or produce offspring.

The computer blinked the entry screen for his pass code and he dropped his feet to the floor, pulling the chair close to the desk.

He had work to do.

He typed in his code and waited for the TCM welcome screen to appear.

Kyle had decided not to wait for Dwayne Johnson to return his call. There was no time like the present to search the files in case he’d “signed” more than one memo in absentia.

If someone had used his electronic signature, Kyle had every intention of finding out who…and why.

SARA BYPASSED the cubicles inside the Prescott Personal Securities headquarters and headed straight for Evangeline Prescott’s corner office. She’d received a call from her boss on her secure line not long after Kyle’s physician left.

Word had spread about the accident and Evangeline wanted a face-to-face. Like Sara, Evangeline didn’t think the SUV’s maneuvers had been anything but deliberate.

But why? And who?

Was Kyle Prescott the next name on the list of land investors in the TCM scheme? Had Sara merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Or was the man a target for an altogether different reason?

Sara knew the collision hadn’t been meant for her. She hadn’t been on the case long enough to raise anyone’s interest. Had she?

She rubbed her shoulder absentmindedly as she tapped on the doorjamb to Evangeline’s office. Her boss looked up and smiled, pushing herself to her feet.

Her long blond hair had been sleeked into a flawless twist and her vivid blue eyes sparkled through the reading glasses that sat partway down her nose. She pulled Sara into a quick hug, the move taking Sara by surprise.

Sara hadn’t seen her parents in years, and she had no personal life to speak of, so the genuine display of affection was something she wasn’t used to. It was also a side of Evangeline rarely witnessed.

“Thank goodness you’re all right.” Evangeline pushed Sara out to arm’s length and smiled. She gestured to the sofa that sat facing the bank of windows overlooking downtown Denver. “Sit down. Can I get you something? Coffee? Water?”

Sara nodded. “Coffee sounds great.”

She stared out into the lights of the city as Evangeline pressed the intercom. “Coffee please, Angel. And bring in the other items we discussed, if you would.”

Sara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Other items?”

A smile tugged at one corner of Evangeline’s mouth. “Secret weapon. You’ll see.” She sat down on the sofa and patted Sara’s knee. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave out a single detail.”

Her expression turned from gentle to intense. “You never know what’s going to be the clue that breaks this investigation wide open.”

Sara nodded and launched into a blow-by-blow description of the day’s events. She left out nothing, even going so far as to detail the kiss she and Kyle had shared at the top of the mountain.

“Plates on the SUV?” Evangeline asked as soon as Sara stopped speaking.

“Wyoming.” Sara shook her head. “I got the first three digits, nothing more.”

Evangeline nodded and stood, reaching for the notepad on her desk. She handed it to Sara along with a pen. “Let’s get it all down. We’ll see what magic we can work with what you got.”

A pang of sadness hit Sara as she remembered the man who would have had no trouble making the information sing. Only a few weeks had passed since Lenny had been senselessly murdered, and the sudden shock had begun to give way to acceptance and grief.

The man who had been PPS’s resident computer genius was sorely missed. A geek among geeks, as he’d referred to himself. A true one-of-a-kind.

Sara wrenched her thoughts to the present. Surely someone else could make the database sing using just the SUV’s description and the partial plate.

Sara had no sooner finished making her notations than a knock sounded at Evangeline’s door.

Angel, one of the company’s receptionists, entered, black hair gleaming and multiple piercings shining.

“You’re all right?” she asked Sara, a note of genuine concern softening the harsh, Goth facade she maintained.