Loe raamatut: «Colton's Lethal Reunion»

Chapter 1

He had to see her. This wasn’t news. Rafe Colton had known for years that he owed Kerry Wilder an explanation for the way he’d cut out on her—on them—abandoning her and their budding love with no warning. Leaving her to face life alone after they’d been friends, best friends, even secret friends, since they’d been old enough to walk and talk.

For years he’d known. And for years, he’d been avoiding her.

For so many reasons. Not the least of which was that he suspected, maybe even feared, that he was still in love with her. He couldn’t be, of course. There was no way the pubescent feelings of youth would carry unrequited into adulthood. And certainly wouldn’t still be incubating in a grown man of thirty-six.

And yet, he’d procrastinated. Which made him not real fond of himself—deep down in the places he rarely visited, at least.

And then, in the middle of the shock that had rocked his whole adoptive family—the Coltons—she’d walked in the room. And in the two days since, he’d been able to think of little else. Payne, his adoptive father, had been shot—was still lying comatose, unchanged since he’d been admitted to the hospital—his oldest brother was the prime suspect in the murder, and Kerry was the detective assigned to the case.

How could that possibly be?

Okay, he knew how. At eighteen, Kerry had left the ranch where they’d both grown up, but she’d returned to Mustang Valley after college. Had joined the police force in the small Arizona town that was home to Colton Oil. As far as he knew, she hadn’t been near Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch since. Probably didn’t know that, unlike the biological Colton heirs, he’d moved out of the family mansion he’d moved into at five, when he’d been orphaned and subsequently adopted by Payne and his first wife, Tessa.

Kerry also wouldn’t know that, instead of moving back into the old foreman’s house he’d lived in until his father had died—which, as a Colton, and CFO of Colton Oil, would have been completely inappropriate—he’d built his own home. The adopted, nonbiological Colton house. Sitting on a stretch of land out of view of the mansion, a flat piece on the other side of a hill close by the barns—the place where he and Kerry used to go play until he was no longer just the foreman’s son and they weren’t allowed to be seen together anymore. Then it was the place where they hid out, just to be able to see each other.

None of which mattered as the long stretch of two-lane road he’d been traveling through the barren and stark Arizona land gave way to signs of the town ahead. What mattered was that he had to see Kerry.

It wasn’t a mistake that she’d been assigned to investigate his adopted father’s attempted murder. It was fate. Forcing him to do what he should have done long ago. Especially since his adoptive brother Ace, who’d recently been outed as a non-Colton by blood, appeared to be a person of interest to her.

Giving him an excuse to go see her, to talk to her, without raising any eyebrows. Or Payne Colton’s ire. Spoken displeasure, clear lessons that had held Rafe in check where Kerry was concerned for far too many years.

The last admission made him slightly sick. He wasn’t thirteen anymore, ashamed after being caught during his first kiss. He was a man who should have known better then to have let so much time pass. Who should have come clean sooner.

Or at the very least, apologized.

She could look at the video for the hundredth time. Study it another few hours and still come up with no more than she already knew. Payne Colton’s elegant and luxurious corner office showed up in black-and-white on the security footage. And a tad bit grainy. Made the looking easier for her without the proof of his lavish living so obvious. And identifying his shooter more difficult.

She knew what she knew—very little and not enough—and all the staring in the world wasn’t changing that.

“Kerry! You got a visitor.”

James Donovan, the redheaded officer ten years her junior, was leaning back in his chair to peer into the small office Kerry shared with the department’s only other senior detective, P. J. Doherty. Why Doherty couldn’t have pulled the Colton case she didn’t know, but there you had it. Kerry was stuck with it. Spencer was a sergeant, but he was also a Colton. Just a distant cousin, and not close with his family, but also not appropriate for him to be working the case.

Standing, she nodded to Donovan, shut down her screen, headed out front, and a so-so day got a whole lot worse.

Rafe Colton. CFO of Colton Oil. The boy who’d once been a lowly farmhand kid, like her, on the Colton family’s Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch.

With a backward look at Donovan, letting him know she didn’t appreciate him not giving her any warning, she walked to the small reception area.

Donovan didn’t know about her past with Rafe—as far as she knew, no one did. But he should have given her a heads-up that a member of the Colton family was there. Especially since he’d just been involved in a Colton case himself—helping catch a stalker who’d been after another sibling, Marlowe.

It wasn’t like they handled cases involving billionaires all that often. Or ever. And while the Coltons weren’t the only wealthy family within fifty miles of sleepy little Mustang Valley, they were by far the most prominent. The Colton heir, Ace, was her prime suspect at the moment.

“Mr. Colton.” For anyone else, she’d have held out a hand in greeting. “What can I do for you?”

His head tilted a bit, as though her formal response to his sudden presence in her sphere surprised him. Whatever.

“Can we go someplace and talk?” While his body had changed enormously since the last time she’d stood close to him—filled out, sprouted up—his hair was still the thick blond mass she used to imagine running her fingers through. And those blue eyes… They looked right into her.

“No.” She realized the inappropriateness of the stark response a second too late. “Not really,” she amended. His dark pants, white shirt and tie were all new to her, but fitting for one who’d traded her away for a chance at having finer things. “I assume this is about your father’s case?”

The word father stuck in her throat, but she got it out. Payne Colton might be Rafe’s adoptive dad, but Kerry had known Rafe’s biological father, Carter Kay. Known and loved him, probably as much as Rafe had. The man had taken Kerry’s own father under his wing, and Kerry and her younger brother, too, because they were a package deal.

Carter had been foreman of Rattlesnake Ridge when Kerry’s ranch hand father had been at his lowest point, recovering from the defection of his young wife, struggling to raise two young kids on his own. Tyler Wilder Sr. had been a hard worker until the day he’d died after falling thirty feet into an old grown-over mine in the desert. He’d also been a heavy drinker—mostly when he wasn’t working, which didn’t bode well for Kerry or Tyler Jr.’s home life. He didn’t hit them or scream at them much. He was just too drunk to parent, and sometimes so drunk he needed to be parented. He’d stumble and break things. Said he’d take them places they needed to be, but then couldn’t. Couldn’t always even remember to pay all the bills.

“Please, Kerry, can we talk?”

Again, she shook her head, standing tall and slender in her jeans, oxford shirt and cowboy boots. If she’d known he was coming she’d have done more that morning than throw her long auburn hair—her best trait—up into a ponytail. Ha. If she’d known he was coming, she’d have made an excuse not to be there.

“I don’t have much to tell you,” she said. “Until or unless your…father…comes out of his coma and can answer some questions…”

Not entirely true. The shooter wasn’t going to get away with attempted homicide. Or murder if Payne Colton didn’t pull through. Even if she couldn’t personally stand the man—or his adopted son.

The chief wasn’t in, but two of their three full-time officers were busy behind her. They’d have no reason to pay attention to her discussion with a member of the victim’s family. Unless they, like Rafe, were enamored with the Colton money.

“I’ve been over the security footage from your father’s office,” she offered, mostly to get rid of him. “The shooter can mostly just be seen in shadow and is hunched, so it’s hard to tell much other than he or she is dressed all in black and is wearing a ski-type mask. We don’t have an accurate height measurement of the body, only of the projectile of the bullet. Don’t really even know if it’s male or female, or have any idea of age. Just know that whoever did this is of a lean build. Maybe thin and the clothes add a little weight, but definitely not heavy.”

Sliding his hands in his pockets, Rafe studied her with that potent gaze, and then said, “But you suspect Ace anyway, even though you have no real evidence against him. Because, what, he’s not overweight?”

Okay, good. He was going to let the past go and just play his Colton part, as she was insisting he do. There was no reason for her to be disappointed by that. Or in him.

She didn’t care enough.

“I have to consider what I do know,” she said, ready to show him that while she might not be impressive enough for him in the personal department, she was a damned good detective. One of the best. “His whole life as he’s known it has just been snatched away from him—something we call a stressor. He just finds out he’s not really a Colton and then he threatens…your… Payne, in front of witnesses, telling him he’d regret having just removed Ace as CEO of your billion-dollar company. He admitted to me that he’d made the threat. He had access to Payne’s private office here in town. And has no way to corroborate his alibi.”

“He was at home, in his wing at the mansion, from eight o’clock on—dealing with work he brought home with him.”

So Rafe had become a puppet for the man he now called brother. Spouting family speak.

“Security cameras don’t bear testimony to that. Yet they show two of your other siblings coming in just before nine. You and Asher.” If Rafe had been a suspect, she’d have had to recuse herself from the case. Too bad he wasn’t.

“The system was probably on a momentary lag—it happens. Being set in the middle of thousands of acres of cattle ranch, it’s not like the reception out there is perfect. And in the evenings, when most of the ranch hands are in their cabins using the internet, rather than out working, service can get a little sketchy.”

Because, of course, the Coltons had the fancy, wireless camera system, not some independent job with a tape you could actually remove and take with you.

“And I suppose you’ll use that same excuse to explain why there was no digital time stamp to verify that he’d been signed on at home, or to show any work he’d done?”

“He was going over employee files, ones that had been flagged from a recent performance review. He was looking at the physical files, signed documentation, which is why he was doing it at home. He didn’t want anyone walking in on him.”

Which was exactly what Ace and his attorney had told her. Didn’t mean it was true. Only that the family had their story straight.

If only she had some solid forensic evidence, but there were so many people in and out of Payne’s office; they’d found fibers and hairs from a number of people, including Ace, which meant little since he worked there. Rafe did, too. As did other siblings.

If only Ace hadn’t insisted on having his lawyer present when she’d questioned him the other night, she might have been able to get more out of him.

“Your brother sure didn’t tamp down his anger when he was here the other night,” she told Rafe, stumbling over that last word as she met his gaze head on. She’d shown him a dent in her armor and felt like she’d let herself down.

“How would you feel if there’d just been an attempt on your father’s life, you’re dragged away from the hospital where he’s lying in a coma, from the rest of your family, and treated like a suspect?”

She wouldn’t know. Her father hadn’t been murdered. But her brother had. Not that anyone believed her about that yet. Another case she had to solve.

One she was actively working, albeit secretly, and determined to prove.

“Do you want whoever shot Payne to be caught and pay for what he or she did?” She looked him straight in the eye—to show him she could. That he had no hold over her whatsoever.

“Of course.”

“Then you need to let me do my job,” she told him. “And that means I look at every possibility and talk to anyone and everyone for whom I have questions.”

Which didn’t include him.

Although she could see him siding with Ace. Sympathizing with him. After all, now neither of them were able to hold the coveted CEO position of Colton Oil, since neither of them were biological Coltons.

“Kerry, please, I want to…”

She shook her head. Glanced at the small, big box store watch her father and brother had bought her for her sixteenth birthday. Her dad had forgotten to get a battery and had been too drunk to drive the ten miles into town to get one. Since she hadn’t been allowed to take her driving test yet, and Tyler was only eleven, she’d worn the watch for almost a week before it actually told the correct time.

It hadn’t been wrong since.

“I really have to get back, Mr. Colton,” she said. “This case isn’t going to solve itself and I’m the only detective working on it. I’ll be sure to call your stepmother as soon as I have anything to share with you all.”

Maybe she should have asked him how Payne was doing. She already knew. She’d called the hospital that morning to hear that there’d been no change in the older man. Each day he remained in a coma had to lessen his chances of coming out of it. Asking still would have been polite.

And had it been any other Colton…

Turning, she left Rafe standing there, her back ramrod straight as she walked, feeling the heat of his gaze all over her body.

He’d had more to say. She’d read his intent.

Had seen the sorrow in his gaze. The regret.

And absolutely could not stand there and take it.

Sometimes, no matter how much someone might have to offer, it really was too little, too late.

Chapter 2

A smart man would cut his losses. Tuck the regret so far away it would eventually fade into oblivion. Do whatever it took to help his family through both crisis and tragedy: one followed by the other in the space of mere hours.

He was the financial wizard. The one they all looked to for levelheaded, clear thinking. The mathematician who could figure out the way to make everything add up.

But nothing was adding up.

DNA proving that Ace wasn’t a Colton? It made no sense. Seriously, a baby getting switched at birth? A sick one for a healthy one? No formula was going to be able to calculate that one.

And to think, even for a second, that Ace was capable of shooting Payne? Sure, he’d been pissed that Payne had removed him as CEO, but he’d also known that killing Payne wasn’t going to help his cause any. Payne had only been following Colton Oil bylaws, appointing a CEO who was a biological Colton, to protect the company. It hadn’t been about Ace, but about keeping their billions safe. He knew Ace wanted that as badly as any of them. Would have stepped down himself if he’d been given a few days to come to terms with everything. Ace lived for Colton Oil and was surely more pissed at the fact that his whole life had been stolen from him, pissed at whoever had switched him at birth, pissed at fate.

And, as far as Rafe could see, Ace adored Payne Colton, if such a thing were possible.

Rafe had never found it so, in spite of the years he’d spent trying.

So what was it about him that drove him to give himself impossible tasks? To set himself up for emotional failure? Because that was certainly what he was doing, knowingly doing, as he parked his fancy new metallic navy blue truck out in front of Kerry’s small, but nicely landscaped stucco home that afternoon before heading back to the ranch.

His own, much more opulent home was waiting for him. It was full of food brought over by one of the mansion staff and left in his refrigerator, as was procedure any night that he didn’t present himself at the family table for dinner. And whether he made it back to the ranch on time that night or not, he wasn’t going to dinner. The staff had always spoiled him. Possibly because when Tessa Ainsley Colton died, his upbringing had been largely left to those running the household.

Payne’s first wife was the only reason Rafe had become a Colton. Carter had been such a vital part of their lives for so long, had lost his wife right there on the ranch from valley fever, and Tessa Colton had insisted that the family take in Rafe. Payne had argued with her about it, which he wasn’t supposed to know, and no one knew he knew. He’d gone to see Tessa one night and had heard them. And had gone back to his room and cried himself to sleep. He’d worried about what was going to happen to him and then, suddenly, he was told he was going to be a Colton. Obviously, Payne had eventually given in. Then Tessa had died and Payne’s second wife, Selina, hadn’t given a rat’s ass about the little orphaned boy.

He wasn’t even sure how many of the siblings would be at dinner that night. They were taking shifts sitting with Payne at the hospital. He’d done his stint before going to see Kerry that morning.

A light was on in her front window, though it was only four in the afternoon. The garage door was shut. There were no vehicles in the driveway. He didn’t pull in. Leaving his parked truck at the curb, he approached the front door. She could still refuse to talk to him. He wouldn’t blame her.

She could threaten him with a restraining order if he didn’t leave her alone. It wasn’t like she’d have to call the cops. She was the cop.

And still, he lifted his hand to knock.

She’d been over the files again and again. Had a wall in her dining room covered with a huge ten-year calendar, chronicling her brother’s life from the time he’d graduated high school until his death. All of the jobs he’d had were marked with color-coded dots for the months or years he’d worked them. The bills he’d paid, banking transactions, times when she’d found nothing to account for his whereabouts. No credit card charges because he hadn’t had any cards. And she only had phone calls from logging into his account because she hadn’t had a warrant.

Next to the calendar was a smaller one, covering the two-year span before Tyler’s death. It showed what she could find of the activity of Odin Rogers, a slick local criminal who had his hands in many dirty dealings—seriously dirty, Kerry suspected, like drug running and maybe weapons, too. Yet he managed to always skate free of any charges against him. Also, in color-coded dots, she’d marked the phone calls and known meetings between her brother and the slimeball. Odin had had some kind of hold on Tyler. She figured it had to do with Tyler’s earlier, druggie days.

Those phone calls and meetings lasted several months, before Tyler had supposedly committed suicide by falling off a cliff. The calendar showed only two colored marks. One the same week that Tyler had sworn to her that he was straightening out his life, and the other one early in the morning on the day he’d died.

The day Odin Rogers had had him murdered. She was sure of the truth. Just could not find the evidence to prove it. To get justice for Tyler…

A loud rapping interrupted her focus. She’d thought she’d heard a knock, but had ignored the summons. She was on her own time now, and as much as she loved her town, her job, there were times when the well-meaning citizens of Mustang Valley needed to get along without her. After seeing Rafe earlier in the day, that evening was definitely one of those times.

While she hadn’t changed out of the jeans and oxford she’d worn to work, she’d pulled the elastic out of her hair on her way to an eventual hot soak with lavender-scented candles and bath beads before dinner. Pouring on the calm. She’d gotten distracted on her way through the dining room, though.

Still, whoever was out there was being persistent, so of course she had to take a peek. The chief would have called her if there was anything urgent. As would anyone else from the department. An intruder wouldn’t announce themselves so boldly…

Rafe. Still in the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d descended upon her that morning.

Shaking, hating the sudden feeling of being afraid of herself, she froze there by the window, able to see him without him knowing she was looking. If she waited long enough, he’d go away. He’d have no other option. And no way of knowing for sure that she was in the house.

He frowned. Shook his head. Glanced at his watch. Stared at her front door. Then looked toward the sky.

No. It had to be coincidence. Or something that had just become habit without any correlation to anything that had once meant something.

He did not just implore their mothers to help them.

He’d looked up. That was all. Had certainly long forgotten the ritual they’d made up together when they were six or seven and meeting on the other side of the hill that backed up to the RRR barns. They and Tyler—who was five years younger, still a baby when Kerry’s mom had taken off—were the only motherless kids on the ranch. They were best friends. And a year or two earlier, Payne and Tessa had adopted Rafe. Since the day he was adopted at five, Payne had forbidden Rafe to have anything to do with Kerry. But they’d sneaked away anyway. Knowing that if their birth moms were still alive, like the rest of the kids, the mothers would have made sure they still got to play together. They’d look to the sky and ask their moms to not let them get caught by Payne. And for eight years, their pleas had been answered.

Of course, that was back before Rafe knew the value of the Colton dollar. And before she’d known that her mom was in Phoenix, more interested in drugs and men than any children she’d birthed.

When Rafe’s chin lowered, he glanced at the window. For a second she was afraid he saw her. And then saw herself. Saw how ridiculous she was being.

She was a thirty-six-year-old police detective, not a thirteen-year-old virgin having her first kiss. And had long since rid her heart of Rafe Colton. She had nothing to hide. Not even from herself.

With that thought in mind, she pulled open the front door.

Kerry didn’t look happy to see him. He didn’t blame her. Hadn’t expected any different.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

He nodded. “I’m more ashamed than I can say that it took Payne’s attempted murder to bring me to the point of seeking you out,” he said. She wasn’t likely to give him a second chance to explain. Or much time, either. “I’ve known for years, ever since you got back, that I had to speak to you, to explain…”

Her brows rose, her long, auburn hair trailing down around her shoulders, just as he remembered it. When he was twelve, he’d worked up the guts to tell her he liked it that way. That had been a tough year for him—noticing her as a girl, not just a friend. Wanting to be more than just friends, but having no clue what that even meant in any practical sense.

“I didn’t expect you’d have noticed,” she said. He paid close attention to the words. They didn’t say a whole lot—and yet, they said so much more than he deserved.

There were chinks in her armor. He’d hoped, for a second that morning, that he’d witnessed one of those chinks, but she’d recovered so quickly he hadn’t been sure.

“I have always noticed everything about you,” he said. Like the fact that she’d just looked past his shoulder toward the street. He’d heard a car go by. Someone she knew?

“You shouldn’t have parked that fancy truck of yours out front,” she said. “People will talk.”

“More so if we’re standing out here on your porch,” he told her, a weak attempt to get into her house. To see her space, to be able to picture it, to have a real conversation with her.

Nodding, she stood back, held open the door. “But you aren’t staying, Rafe,” she told him. “You can say whatever it is you feel compelled to say, but then you go. And you don’t come back.”

“You’re the one with the weapon, Detective,” he said. “I left my rifle in its case on the floor of my truck…” He was pretty sure there’d been some pithy follow-up on the tip of his tongue, but all thought vanished as he caught his first scent of her space. His first view.