Colton 911--Family Defender

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Good to meet you.” The other man nodded, his hands in his pockets. Maybe his glance lingered for a second, but no more than that. Expression completely serious, and...guarded...he glanced back at Riley.

  “You said you had some news.”

  “I do. And if you don’t mind, I’d like Charlize to be present while I tell you.”

  News to her. The glance Riley sent her was apologetic. Completely. And while she sensed that he really wanted her there for some reason, a professional one, she also got the idea he’d just figured out that she could be of assistance.

  She got it, though. She was a counselor and the man was about to have final confirmation of devastating news.

  She suggested they move to the family room. And by the blink of Riley’s eyes, the way he cocked his head and frowned a bit, she knew he was surprised that she’d suggest such a thing. She was guessing that the family room was usually off-limits to CI customers, but this wasn’t going to be all about business. Avis was never going to forget the coming moments and anything they could do to give him a warm second in those memories, they had to do.

  Luckily, Riley didn’t argue with her, but rather, followed as she led the man into a room that, as far as he’d have known, she’d never been in.

  So she’d just given herself away for the snoop she was. He’d told her she could make herself at home. And could kick her out if he didn’t like it. For now her thoughts were only on preparing the man as best she could to grieve his older sister’s death.

  She sat on the couch. Invited him to take a seat. “I’d rather stand,” he told her.

  Joining Charlize on one of the three couches in the room—albeit on the end opposite of her—Riley suggested that the younger man take a seat. With a nod, Avis Martin perched on the edge of a chair across from them, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped while his thumbs met and did their own nervous dance.

  “As I told you, I have some news,” Riley started, looking deadly serious now. “But before we go any further, I need to know if you’re capable of keeping this to yourself for the rest of your life. And if, no matter what I tell you, you’ll agree to do nothing with the knowledge except find peace from the knowing.”

  “He can’t really make an agreement like that, Riley, not without knowing what he’s going to have to carry.”

  “I disagree,” Avis said. “I’ve been without Shannon for more than ten years. I’ve learned how to love the spirit and soul that she was. If you’re afraid I’m going to try to get some kind of revenge, or get justice...” He shook his head. “What good would it do? Except to prolong the anger. I want to move on, Detective. To have a more normal life. As I told you when I called, I’d like to fall in love, have a family someday. But I can’t. Not until I know...it’s like I’d be asking a woman to take on a broken man with no answers. One who’s always wondering, always looking at women on the street, in stores... I just need to know. To put this to rest.”

  Riley looked at her, brows raised. “What do you think, counselor? Do you think there’s a good chance, given what he just said, that he’ll be able to keep his word to leave well enough alone?”

  The question was odd. And yet, if they were dealing with some kind of cartel, or mafia connection, she got it, too.

  “Counselor?” Avis asked. “You an attorney?” He was frowning, now, too, looking between her and Riley.

  “I’m a family counselor,” she told him. “A clinical social worker. I’m truly not here because of you,” she assured him.

  “But you know what he’s going to tell me.”

  She did, of course, because she’d figured it out, but shook her head. “He hasn’t told me yet, either.”

  Avis looked at Riley.

  And in clear, concise words, without stating any names or places, he told the young man that his sister had been witness to a crime and had agreed to testify to save hundreds of people from potential further harm.

  “Hundreds?” Avis’s voice broke. His eyes glistened. Charlize surmised that he’d figured out where this was going, too.

  “At a minimum,” Riley told him. “Her accounting to the police was the missing piece. It came from out of nowhere, a crime they hadn’t even been looking at him for, but it was enough to put him away forever.”

  If Charlize hadn’t already thought herself in love with Riley—only to discover the feeling to be a figment of her own fantasyland—she’d have fallen a little in love in those moments, as Riley’s intensity helped the young man feel how important his sister’s sacrifice would have been. The incredibly selfless choice she’d made.

  “He got to her. Killed her before she could testify in court,” Avis said aloud what Charlize had known. His tone was deadpan, but she knew it had to cover myriad feelings it would take months, maybe years for Avis to deal with. She also believed he was finally on the way to finding his own happy, healthy life.

  Riley’s shake of the head startled her, but she was so focused on Avis, she didn’t really comprehend it.

  “He’s on death row for federal charges.”

  Tears flooded Avis’s eyes then. And Charlize’s, too, though that usually didn’t happen when she was working. “She succeeded,” Avis said, his voice taking on a new note. Satisfaction, at the very least, Charlize’s professional opinion told her. A step toward closure.

  “She testified and put the bastard away,” Riley said.

  “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I do.”

  Lips pursed, Avis nodded, his gaze never leaving Riley. “That’s what you needed my agreement for,” he said. “I’m not going to get to bring her body home to the family plot.”

  Riley shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

  Avis stared at him, then very slowly nodded again, his Adam’s apple moving up and down as he struggled to control obvious emotion. “Do you know where her body is?”

  “No and I’m not going to, and neither are you.” Riley’s tone was menacing.

  “Okay. Seriously. You gave me what I needed.” He stood. Held out a shaking hand. “There is no thank-you that will ever express...”

  “We aren’t done yet,” Riley said, still seated on the couch.

  Avis dropped back to his chair.

  “Your sister isn’t dead, Avis.”

  “She’s not?” Charlize and Avis spoke at exactly the same time.

  “She’s in witness protection.” Riley dropped the news with all of the seriousness that famed program deserved.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Shannon’s name isn’t Shannon anymore. She isn’t living a life anyone can trace. She can’t ever look for you, or in any way attempt to contact you. And if you even so much as say a prayer too loud in her direction, you could be putting her life in jeopardy. Because there are still people who aren’t on death row. People who will be looking for Shannon. And if for one second they thought you knew something, or were in contact with her...”

  The man dropped back in his chair, his head fully supported by the cushion behind him, and laughed out loud. A hearty, full-bodied release.

  “She’s alive,” he said, as though trying on the words, through a huge smile. “I’ve learned to live my daily life without her,” he said, looking to the two of them. “And you have no idea...no idea...” He stood. “It’s like...all these years... I’m free...” He laughed again. “My big sister is out there. Alive. Living life. She wasn’t raped or tortured or sold. She did the right thing and...” He shook his head, tears spilling from his eyes. “I just can’t believe it. I wish my parents had lived to see this day, but then, they probably already know.” He turned a full circle. And then faced Riley, who was standing now, too.

  “Do you know anything about her? Is she married? Does she have kids?”

  Riley shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “The marshals who contacted me becaus
e I was getting too close and needed me to back off can’t say, and even if they could I wouldn’t ask. Just as I need you to keep your word, and never mention this to anyone. Your safety, and Shannon’s, depends on you both going on with the lives you have now—separately.”

  “I understand,” Avis said. “I wish there was some way she could know I know...”

  “Maybe she does.” Charlize stood, too. “People, when they’re related, close, they sense things...”

  Not everyone believed in spiritual things, but if Avis did, the reminder would serve him well.

  They talked for a bit longer and then she walked with the men back toward the front door.

  “You know,” Avis said, turning just before they reached the door. “Our father used to say, ‘Will it matter thirty years from now?’ As though if not, we’d realize something wasn’t such a big deal, but suddenly I’m thinking...who knows what the future can bring? By the time we’re in our eighties, the danger...won’t matter so much. Even if it put our lives at stake. So who knows? Maybe someday, when I’m old and gray I’ll be approached by an old lady with my sister’s shining blue eyes...”

  With another handshake, he thanked Riley again, and Charlize watched as the hard-core ex–FBI agent turned professional investigator patted the younger man on the shoulder, telling him to take good care and call him if he ever needed anything.

  She watched and smiled, choked up. She was proud of the father of her child. The work he did. Glad that her baby had him for a father.

  Chapter 15

  On a high—having what in his life was comparable to Christmas morning as a kid—Riley turned from saying good-night to Avis Martin to see Charlize already heading up the stairs.

  But...

  He’d turned to share the moment with her. To hear her impressions of Avis. To have her tell him that in her professional opinion, the young man really had been set free and could move forward to the life he’d envisioned for himself.

  He was feeling good, and wanted to feel good with her.

  Like he and Marisol used to do after they’d closed a case that had ended well. It didn’t happen that way all that often—where there was an actual happy ending to a criminal investigation.

  The woman pregnant with his child was halfway up the stairs. “Thank you,” he called up to her.

  When she stopped, turned, her hand on the heavy, well-shined, hundred-year-old banister, his insides gave a jump of approval.

  “I was glad to be there,” she said. “Thank you for including me.”

  He nodded. Fingers in his pockets. Wishing there was a way to have them all over her body and then be able to extricate himself from the situation after the sex. Before it required more of him than he was going to give. Only a fool jumped into the middle of a bottomless lake when he knew he wasn’t a good swimmer.

  “And I wanted to tell you...” She came down a step and he took a step forward. “I spoke with my aunt this evening. She said that she took one more of those pills. Just couldn’t believe they were bad, that she’d not only been swindled out of her money, but that she’d also been scammed into believing in a worthless product.”

  She wasn’t coming down any farther. Riley stood his ground, too.

  “She got sick, Riley. That’s what she wanted you to know. She paid attention to what else she did and ate, and she’s certain, this time, that the pill made her really nauseated.”

  All personal thought fled as Riley’s natural radar kicked in. “I hope she’s decided not to take any more,” he said, on fire in a different way—the right way for him as he thought of the older woman taking ill.

  His baby’s great-aunt. A warm, loving person who’d be made happy by the presence of a child in her home. A woman who’d helped raise the mother of his.

  He had to get this Matthews guy. Find the scientist. Stop the vitamin distribution...

  “She assured me she flushed the rest of her bottle and told me I could dispose of the case under her bed,” Charlize was saying. If people really were getting sick from RevitaYou...he now had two counts of it making people sick: Brody’s girlfriend, whose account he wasn’t quite sure he’d believed, and now Blythe. Something had to be done.

  “Anyway,” Charlize said, turning back toward the top of the stairs, “you did a great thing tonight.” She gave him a sideways glance.

  Their gazes met.

  He felt her calling to him. His bed was there, empty and inviting, just yards away. They were alone...

  Except for the baby she carried.

  He nodded. “Sleep well,” he told her and headed into his office to nurse a painful hard-on. He couldn’t remember a time he’d needed sex so badly. Or walked away from the woman he wanted when she so obviously still shared his desire.

  He couldn’t do that to the mother of his child.

  Because he’d have her and then still want to walk away. Whether or not he’d have been able to do so was a moot point. A vitamin on the market that was making people sick was not moot. Rerouting his adrenaline to a more productive pursuit, Riley picked up his phone. There might not be anyone he could call at the moment—without more evidence the police couldn’t do anything in any official capacity. He couldn’t seem to will Wes Matthews’s capture, or even, in that second, lasso the scientist behind RevitaYou, but he wasn’t powerless.

  Opening his Twitter app, signed in on the CI account, he typed.

  #RevitaYou People got scammed and product is junk. Reports of illness. Throw out any bottles of the stuff and don’t sell it.

  Copying the message, he opened CI’s Facebook page and Instagram account, as well, sharing the same message.

  There. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. But it was something.

  And then, tweets and posts done, he sat there. Alone. The events of the evening washing over him. He’d solved a case. Hadn’t even told his team about it, but Charlize knew.

  That was different.

  Understandable. She was living there. Avis had come to CI headquarters.

  But things were changing. Within him. And within his family, too. Maybe this had all started with Sadie’s engagement. Was Tate Greer the good guy he seemed on paper? Did Riley have his back up just because the guy was taking his little sister out from under Riley’s thumb?

  And now with the baby...shaking his head, he put his feet up on his desk, leaned his head back on the chair and opened a game on his phone. Something to occupy an overactive brain that wasn’t cooperating with him—going over and over the same things—and coming up with the same answers, too. It was a no-win situation, that kind of brain spend.

  The game timed out on him. Staring didn’t tend to score well.

  With a flip of his thumb, he opened his Facebook app again. Just to check his CI post. And then he’d get to work. Nine o’clock or not, he wasn’t tired and there were always internet searches he could do. Sometimes it just took persistence, perseverance and patience...

  His feet dropped to the floor and he sat up.

  He had received forty-five comments in less than fifteen minutes. From all over the United States. Quickly opening Twitter and Instagram, he saw the same. Even as he watched, responses were pouring in with people saying the vitamins worked. Some even attached before and after pictures to their replies, and looking at those images, he had to agree he could see a difference. Of course, images could be doctored, but that quickly? And to what purpose?

  Were there that many people selling the pills that they’d all jump immediately to its defense?

  Not likely.

  He scrolled farther, and...wait. Replies about the toxic effects of RevitaYou began to appear.

  Putting down his phone, he pulled all three apps up on his computer. Opening replies. Checking profiles.

  An hour later he had a physical list of more than twenty-five responses from people, profiles he’d verified
from individuals representing pretty much all demographics, all saying RevitaYou pills made them sick.

  Now he had something. Phone in hand again, he called Iglesias.

  Left a message with the detective that they needed to speak.

  And went back to work.

  * * *

  On Friday Charlize awoke knowing she had to get out of the house. Staying at CI headquarters was keeping her and the baby safe. She was grateful for that. Wanted it. Would stay as long as it took to find whoever was threatening her.

  But being cooped up in Riley Colton’s space with no break...that just wasn’t proving healthy. She was letting him consume her. Everywhere she looked there were thoughts of Riley as a younger man, or Riley in his current life, living all alone in the massive house in which he’d grown up.

  She smelled his musky scent from the second she woke up in the morning until she fell asleep at night. Listened for his voice. Or his step on the stairs.

  She’d heard him come up the night before. She’d still been lying there awake, thinking about Avis, about the investigative work that had brought the man a resolution that freed up his life. And interspersed with all the other thoughts, she’d laid there burning for Riley. Had heard him come upstairs sometime after midnight. Heard his door close. Listened for sheets rustling, though she knew she wouldn’t really be able to hear them.

  She had no problem imagining, though. All she had to do was remember the hours she’d spent with him in a luxury hotel room...

  Yeah, she had to get out. To get her head back into the real world. Even if only for a few minutes.

  She wasn’t going to be stupid about it, though. Sending a text to Riley while she munched a cracker in her bedroom before heading into the shower, she asked him to schedule a few minutes for her to leave the house.

  He’d responded before she’d even swallowed her second bite.

  Where do you need to be and when?

  She pondered that. Didn’t need to be anywhere. And he was a busy man. Saving lives. Hers included.