Chapter One
She didn’t belong to this most exclusive gentlemen’s club in Manhattan, but the attendant who manned the lobby had let her in because he was mesmerised by her boobs.
She had a great pair.
They were real, thank you very much. Clothed in the black, lacy, padded Victoria’s Secret bra and a white cocktail dress with a dangerously low décolletage, her best assets had charmed many men and let her nose around places that were usually out of bounds.
Catherine Kovac was a private investigator. Not a good one at that, since she barely had a hold on this trade. She had inherited the business from her late brother Jon. She used to be his secretary before Jon died in a car accident a few months ago, and already the agency was sinking like the Titanic. Detective work wasn’t like answering calls or running the payroll, and she’d found herself lousy at locating missing cats or tailing a cheating spouse.
Her current gig, which she hoped would save the business, was to dig up as much dirty laundry as possible on a businessman named Gabriel Larousse. Her client, a forty-something reclusive named Judith Rossi, insisted that Gabe, as he was known, had been responsible for the death of her brother, Cameron Rossi, fourteen years earlier in Africa. Gabe was currently thirty-five years old. The incident must have happened when Gabe was twenty-one, three years before he’d started his real estate business.
Gabe was a self-made billionaire. He’d started from nothing, working his ass off to flip the first property he’d managed into a profitable venture, and had built his empire from there. He had also been voted this year’s most eligible bachelor, on account that he’d reached the pinnacle of his success at quite a young age. It didn’t hurt that Gabe was easy on the eyes.
Okay, Gabe was hot.
Like, smoking hot.
He and his brothers, Alexandre and Renaud, were the talk of the town. There must have been some good genes in the Larousse family because they were all devastatingly handsome. Cat wasn’t a gal who used that type of hyperbolic shit in her vocabulary, but the brothers were really gorgeous. They all stood over six feet tall, with signature coppery-blond hair, broad shoulders, tapered waists, and long legs. They could have passed as GQ models. And, armed with deep pockets, they were chick magnets. Too bad they were all socially tight-assed—it would take gallons of prune juice to clear up their plumbing. None of the brothers liked reporters, the media, or people like Cat. If they got a whiff that a nosy PI had invaded their personal playground, she would see her ass thrown to the kerb in a blink of an eye.
She tried to be inconspicuous as the club attendant seated her at a table near the bar. His gaze was still hovering over her chest. She sighed inwardly. It was as if he’d never seen natural D cups before. But who was she to judge about men and their obsession with breasts? The compulsion was deep, as if it were coded into men’s DNA.
She ordered a gin and tonic and threw the attendant the sweetest smile she could manage. She hoped he’d be distracted enough not to ask why she was here in the first place. The gentlemen’s club, Rococo Country, was a private establishment catering to members only, a watering hole in which wealthy businessmen in the upper crust of society could socialise, kiss ass, and plot on how to make themselves even richer. She told the attendant in black livery that she was here to meet her lawyer. He was going to be suspicious when her lawyer never arrived.
In the meantime, her target, Gabriel Larousse, stood in the billiards room about twenty yards from where she sat. He was leisurely chalking his cue. His gaze was fixed on the white, red and yellow balls strewn across the table as if they were his mortal enemies. He tapped the cue ball with the precision of a sniper, scattering the other balls into the pockets.
Cat didn’t know much about pool, but that had been pretty impressive. Gabe seemed like one of those people who treated everything as if it were a challenge to conquer. M
aybe that was why he was a successful businessman.
As she’d suspected, one of Gabe’s brothers was with him. Alexandre Larousse, Gabe’s second—or Gabe’s shadow, as people nicknamed him—was leaning by the wainscoted wall, talking in hushed tones on his cell phone. Gabe never went anywhere in public without one of his brothers. Alex and Ren, both younger than Gabe, were very protective—like capos to the don. One didn’t just flounce up to Gabe without Alex’s or Ren’s approval. If Alex or Ren didn’t like what they saw, one couldn’t get within ten feet of Gabriel Larousse without risking one’s neck.
Luckily, she wasn’t here to talk to the big guy today. She was just stalking him. Observing what he was like in the flesh. The media had painted him as an enigmatic young god. Rumour had it he was a dangerous man to have as an enemy, and yet some vouched for him as a child-loving philanthropist. No one had ever figured out what kind of man Gabe really was.
Aside from the fact that he was fucking hot.
The club attendant came over with her order. She murmured her thanks and batted her eyelashes, flirting a bit.
The man looked happy with the attention. “If I may ask, what would be the name of the gentleman you’re waiting for?” He drew himself straight, as if to make himself taller than he really was. “So I can direct the gentleman straight to your table, madam.”
“Jackson,” Cat lied smoothly. “Marvin Jackson.”
He inclined his head in a perfect gesture. He withdrew in silence. His eyes weren’t straying to her boobs any more.
Good riddance.
She sipped from her glass while furtively spying on Gabe. He wasn’t dressed in his usual tailored Brioni suit. He was wearing a white shirt with sleeves folded to his elbows and a pair of crisply pressed, black Armani slacks. No tie. No suit jacket. The black, casual Bruno Magli loafers on his feet must be the real thing, unlike the knock-offs she had bought for her ex-boyfriend as a birthday present a long time ago.
Since Gabe had sent all the balls into the pockets, he set up a new rack. He stalked around the table like a predator hunting its prey before he leant forward and took a shot. Loud taps filled the billiards room as he sent the different coloured balls scattering across the green baize.
Cat took another sip of the gin and tonic and fished out a small journal from her purse. She leafed through it, looking for her notes on Gabriel. Particularly her interview with her client, Judith Rossi.
On October fourth, fourteen years ago, Judith and her brother Cameron had gone to South Africa for a safari vacation. They’d met Gabriel Larousse and his friend, Oliver Duval, both students from the University of Cape Town, at a local cafe. The four quickly became friends and planned a trip to the Kruger National Park. Since Judith and her brother were trust-fund kids, they’d been allergic to hardship and had wanted their travel arrangements to be as comfortable as possible. Judith had booked expensive accommodation in Kingston Camp, a colonial game lodge in Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. The camp had offered dangerous game hunting as one of its main attractions.
On the fateful afternoon of October fifteenth, the four of them had coursed along with the park ranger, Nisi, on a dry creek in an open vehicle. They’d spotted a warthog. The party didn’t have a hunting licence, but Cameron had been hell-bent on killing something that day. He’d pulled out an antique Colt he’d purchased from a fellow lodger and shot the warthog. Instead of killing the overgrown male boar, though, Cameron had only pissed the warthog off. It had charged in their direction and managed to topple the vehicle. The five of them had scampered for cover and become separated.
As the evening had approached, Judith had reunited with Oliver and Nisi, but they had lost contact with Gabriel and her brother. Oliver had broken his arm and wrist in the accident. Nisi had only scraped his knee. They’d spent the night in the wilderness before the other rangers had rescued them in the morning.
Back in the camp, Judith had immediately faced bad news. Cameron had died from an accidental gunshot wound during the time they had been separated. Gabriel had been with him when it had happened. Judith had been devastated. Only when she’d come back to America with Cameron’s body had she realised that her brother’s death hadn’t been an accident. Cameron had been murdered.
Joseph Hearne, a doctor who’d served as Rossi’s private physician at that time, had voiced his concern over Cameron’s gunshot wound before the wake. Cameron’s death couldn’t possibly have been caused in a self-inflicted accident. Judging from the entrance and exit wounds and the trajectory of the bullet, the deed must have been done by somebody shooting Cameron at close range.
Armed with the new evidence, Judith had gone to the police to report the incident. Unfortunately, on the way there, Judith and Dr Hearne had been involved in a twenty-car pile-up, which had resulted in Dr Hearne’s instant death. Judith herself had become trapped in the burning car. She’d suffered extensive second-and third-degree burns that had landed her in a three-week coma. When she’d regained her consciousness, Cameron had already been cremated, Dr Hearne was dead, the evidence had been destroyed in the accident, and her family was stricken with grief.
It had taken Judith five long years to pull herself together. Her family had been torn apart by the tragedy and deep in her heart she harboured suspicions that Gabriel was the one responsible for her brother’s death. The park ranger, Nisi, had been with her the night she and Cameron had been separated. Oliver had been injured—he couldn’t possibly have been the one who had committed the murder. Judith insisted that Gabriel must have been the cold-blooded killer.
Cat took another long drag from her drink while she spied on her target. Gabe was in the middle of a serious discussion with Alex. A sliver of light from the low-hanging lamp above the pool table illuminated his youthful face. He didn’t look thirty-five at all. More like in his late twenties. Her heart gave a quick stir. Gabe was a really good-looking man. The photos she’d seen in the magazines and tabloids didn’t do him any justice.
Could that soft-spoken, handsome man be the killer who’d murdered Cameron Rossi fourteen years ago?
It was hard to believe Gabriel was capable of that heinous crime.
He hadn’t had any motive to kill Cameron that Cat knew of.
Jon had told Cat that people committed crimes for three main reasons—love, money or revenge. Gabriel hadn’t profited from Cameron’s death. The two had been good friends at the time. And there had been no love interest rivalry between them. Gabriel was as straight as a flagpole, so the chance that he and Cameron had been lovers was slim.
So what could have been Gabriel’s motive for plucking the Colt from Cameron’s hand and shooting him execution-style the night everybody had got separated?
Cat closed her journal. This case was the hardest one she’d ever taken. Somehow, she wasn’t sure if she could solve it, but she wanted to keep the agency running in Jon’s memory. And, if she was successful, the payment from Rossi would keep this business afloat for another year.
“Excuse me, miss.”