Kevin’s breath caught slightly in spite of himself.
But as he saw the door open, he let his breath out in disappointment.
A voluptuous blonde, maybe five feet tall and shoehorned into a low-cut black leather dress, walked over to Nigel, hugged him tightly, and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“How are you, Nigel,” she said with exaggerated flair. “I haven’t seen you in hours.” She turned to Kevin and smiled up at him. “And who is your friend here?”
“Kevin,” Nigel said, “this is Heather.”
They shook hands. She had a surprisingly firm grip for someone her size, but then Kevin realized that a limp handshake wouldn’t get a business school graduate very far.
Nigel said something about getting her a drink and walked away, leaving Kevin and Heather alone.
Heather said something which Kevin couldn’t hear over the music. He said, “Excuse me?” and bent down to put his ear closer to her mouth. Her spicy perfume and the tequila on her breath engulfed his nose. The combination almost overpowered his senses, and he had to swallow a cough.
The cut of her dress wasn’t sleazy, but it left little to the imagination. He turned his head so he wouldn’t give the impression that he was staring into her cleavage.
“I said you’re cute,” she repeated, raising her voice. “You’re not in the business school, are you? I would have noticed you before.”
Normally, Kevin’s stomach would be fluttering by now from the compliment, but tonight it was oddly silent.
“I’m getting my Ph.D. in chemistry. Nigel was my roommate last year.”
“Nigel’s great, isn’t he? I’m taking a class with him. He helps me a lot with my homework.”
“Did you go to South Texas for your undergrad, too?” she asked, putting her hand on Kevin’s arm to balance herself.
“No. A&M.” He held up his class ring, the words Texas A&M encircling the border. South Texas and A&M were huge rivals. “Some people don’t speak to me when they find out.”
She tilted her head and one end of her mouth turned up. “I won’t hold it against you.'
“So, when do you graduate?” he said.
“I just started last semester. There’s no way to advance at the bank I work for unless you have an MBA, so I thought night school-”
“Heather!” A brunette ran up to Heather and began talking to her, looking at Kevin several times, but he couldn’t hear them over the stereo. He breathed a sigh of relief and was about to excuse himself when Heather spoke.
“This is Darcy. We were going to Cody’s and wondered if you wanted to join us. Do you like jazz?”
Kevin loved jazz. One of his favorite local bands was playing at Cody’s.
“It’s not really my thing.” He looked down at his shorts. “Besides, I’m not dressed for it.”
“Sure you are. I think you look great.”
“Maybe some other time.”
“Well, if you ever want to go, you can reach me at this number.” She produced a card from her purse. “It was nice to meet you. Hope to see you again.” She put the card in his hand. Her finger trailed down his arm as she moved away.
Kevin let out a sigh as he watched the two leave the apartment, then walked into the kitchen. He crumpled the card without reading it and threw it in the wastebasket.
Nigel was standing by the keg. He spotted Kevin and came over.
“Where’s Heather?” he said. “I thought you two were hitting it off.”
“I guess I wasn’t her type.”
“Wasn’t her type? She was hanging all over you like drapes on a curtain rod.”
“What can I say? She had to go.”
Nigel frowned. “I thought you and Erica were just friends.”
“We are.”
“Really.”
“Yes,” Kevin said, then gulped his beer. He handed the empty cup to Nigel. “Now shut up and pour me another one.”
CHAPTER 3
“That son of a bitch!” Clayton Tarnwell stabbed a finger down on the limousine’s intercom button. “Get Senders on the phone now.” His deep voice boomed, revealing just a hint of Texas twang. David Lobec, who was sitting across from Tarnwell, didn’t flinch.
Tarnwell’s personal secretary was in the front seat, hidden by the opaque glass partition. “Sir, Senders is still in Yosemite camping with his family. He’ll be out of pocket until tomorrow night.”
Tarnwell looked outside in time to see a sign saying “Welcome to Houston” whiz by. It was 7:00 on a Saturday morning and traffic out of the airport was light. “Didn’t he take his satellite phone with him?”
“It’s in his office.”
Christ, he thought, I’ve got some morons working for me. First, the problem with Stein, now this. “When does ZurBank open?”
“Two thirty Monday morning, Houston time.”
“Then call that idiot’s house and leave a message that if he isn’t in my office by two thirty Monday morning, he can kiss his ass good-bye.”
“Yes, sir. Will you be needing the Gulfstream Tuesday as planned?”
“No. Cancel the trip to Wyoming. Murphy can take care of that. But I’ve got to be back in DC Thursday for the meeting with the National Mining Institute. Tell them we fly out Wednesday night, 8 o’clock. And get another pilot. I almost lost a filling on that landing.”
He released the button and looked back at Lobec. “That’s all Ward said? Nothing about the money?”
Tarnwell had called ahead to have Lobec meet him when he arrived to provide him an update of the situation with Ward. He had too much to do to waste the 45 minute drive to his office. As the owner and CEO of Tarnwell Mining and Chemical, he spent a substantial amount of his time in Washington conferring with his lobbyists on the latest legislation that might affect TMC and, more importantly, its growth and profits. He had made most of his money taking advantage of loopholes in US mining laws, buying land from the government at ridiculously low prices and then stripping every last precious mineral from it, leaving the residue to be disposed of at taxpayer expense.
Lately, he had diversified into the chemical industry, relying on his mining interests to provide the raw material. And the only way to make the most of his investments was to ensure that his presence was felt on Capitol Hill. Usually, he took Lobec with him to Washington for special operations which he didn’t want to be directly associated with, but he had stayed behind to take care of Ward.
Ward was a special case. Probably once in a lifetime.
Lobec shook his head. “He died before I could get anything further from him. It must have been a heart attack. The wound was in the shoulder, not nearly severe enough to cause immediate death.”
“And you’re sure he didn’t have the account number hidden somewhere in the house?”
“We took several hours to search it. There was a safe, but nothing was in it besides some insurance documents and jewelry. The computer also looked fruitless, but I copied all of the files and gave them to Mitch Hornung to see if anything is there.”
Tarnwell nodded. Hornung was his resident computer genius and hacker. If anything was there, Mitch would find it.
“We were quite thorough,” Lobec continued, “but it’s very possible that something as small as a piece of paper with a number on it could have been overlooked.”
“What about his university office? On the computer there, maybe?” Tarnwell opened the coffee maker,
