Colton 911--Unlikely Alibi

by Lisa Childs

  Where had Heath been last night? Why hadn’t he been working late like he was rumored to always do...with Kylie Givens? She hadn’t been working late either.

  Where the hell had they been?

  Joe needed to know. He needed to know everything about the Colton family and the Colton business—because he’d discovered, after spending more than half of his forty-six years of life working for the Chicago Police Department, that rarely was it ever a good idea to do business with family. It usually brought out the worst in people.

  Greed.

  Ambition.

  Resentment.

  The people who’d told him that the CEO usually worked late were some of the other tenants in the building; they had described Heath Colton as a very ambitious, very hard-working businessman.

  Joe had just gotten the case last night, but he’d already started working it looking for possible eyewitnesses then and this Friday morning. After canvasing the crime scene, he’d come into the precinct so that he could go over everything he’d already learned.

  Not enough.

  Not yet.

  He ran his hand over his hair that he kept short—so it was easy to handle. Not like his son’s longer, tight coils...

  He glanced at the picture on his desk—of his giggling little boy, of his beautiful wife with her flawless dark skin and of him, a tall, proud husband and father. Joe was a lucky man because they were the happy Black family they appeared like in that picture.

  What kind of family was the Coltons?

  And what kind of man was Heath Colton? Just how ambitious was he?

  Ambitious enough to kill his own father and uncle so that he had no one to challenge his completely taking over the company?

  Chapter 4

  “I thought you left,” Heath said when he joined her in the kitchen of his penthouse.

  Kylie clutched the cup of genmaicha tea in her hands, bracing herself for more of his anger. She could have gotten angry, too, with his attitude, with how harshly he’d spoken to her, but knowing him as well as she did, she understood why he’d lashed out. He was like an animal in pain, snarling and snapping at anyone who tried to help it. His heart was broken.

  So was hers.

  Alfie and Ernie had been wonderful men and she had loved them as if they were her own family. Hell, she wished she’d had a father like Ernie. She inwardly sighed. She’d wished she had any father at all.

  “I didn’t want to leave you with the mess in the kitchen,” she said, indicating the clean granite countertop.

  He chuckled. “Last night you reminded me of my mom. She always cooks to deal with stuff.”

  Maybe she had been acting like his mother—with how stubbornly she’d tried to take care of him. Maybe she hadn’t been as respectful of his wishes as she should have been.

  “And now you’re acting like my aunt Farrah with the cleaning,” he murmured.

  She’d met and respected both women as much as she had their husbands. His family was so damn special. He probably didn’t need her, like she’d told him. Maybe she just needed him to need her, especially now, when her heart ached for his loss and for her own. She couldn’t imagine going back to the office today. But it was Friday.

  She needed to work.

  Especially because of that situation she’d wanted to address with Heath the night before.

  But she didn’t want to burden him with business now.

  “I made you some toast,” she said, pointing to the plate on the counter. The butter had melted into the golden bread which she’d slathered with the strawberry jam she’d found in his refrigerator. With all the big chunks of berries, it looked homemade, probably his mother’s handiwork. He’d mentioned more than once that Gina didn’t cook. “And I put together the vegetables for a salad if you want one later.”

  “Kylie...”

  “I know,” she said, and she raised her hands, palms up toward him. “You just want me to leave.”

  “And yet you keep refusing to go.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. I know you’re only trying to help me through all this, and I appreciate your efforts.”

  She smiled. “I’m also being selfish,” she said. “I didn’t want to be alone either.”

  “I know you loved them, too,” he said, acknowledging her feelings.

  This was the Heath she knew and...

  Respected.

  He was a good man, like his father, like his uncle.

  Tears choking her, she couldn’t speak; she could only nod. He walked across the kitchen and wound his arms around her, like she had him the night before. Holding her close, he said, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” she asked. “For finally getting rid of Gina for you?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know if you have.”

  She doubted it, as well. Gina knew she’d had a good thing, and Kylie didn’t blame the woman for not wanting to lose it, to lose Heath. He was so smart and handsome and...

  She pulled back from the hardness of his muscular body. “You think she might be coming back? That’s why you’re hugging me now?”

  He chuckled again, just as she’d intended. “No, I’m hugging you to express my gratitude.”

  “For toast?” she asked. “It’s not much.” She intended to do more, to handle everything that she could at the office. “I am going to leave you now, though.”

  “You really don’t have to go,” he said. “I was being an ass earlier.”

  “Yes,” she agreed with a little chuckle to indicate she was only teasing him. “But I do need to go into the office.”

  He groaned. “Oh, God, all the employees will have seen the news. They’ll know...” He pushed a hand through his mussed hair. “I need to talk to them and assure—”

  “You need to be with your family,” she said. “I’ll talk to the staff. I’ll assure them that the company is in good hands. That you’ve got it all under control.”

  He shook his head. “But I don’t...” His voice cracked. “If I had anything—anything at all—under my control, my dad and uncle wouldn’t be dead. Murdered.”

  She pressed her fingers over his lips. “That was not your fault, Heath. That was some maniac out there who has nothing to do with you.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his lips moving against her fingers. “Are you sure it has nothing to do with me? With the business?”

  A frisson of unease raced down her spine, chilling her despite the warmth of her grandmother’s sweater. “I don’t think we can be sure of anything until the killer is caught,” she said. “And the police will catch him.” She hoped, but she didn’t have a lot of faith in them, not when they’d never caught the real criminal in her mother’s case. But she wasn’t going to express those doubts to Heath, not right now when he needed assurances.

  Like their staff needed assurances.

  “I better leave now,” she said. “I need to go home and change before I head into the office.” When she turned to leave, his hand caught her arm, holding her in place. She tilted her head back and smiled at him. “You’ve been trying to get rid of me since you found me here,” she reminded him.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t mean that, and you know it.”

  She’d hoped he hadn’t meant it. “But I really do have to go to the office now.”

  He nodded. “I know. I just...”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just want you to be careful.”

  That was when it fully dawned on her that she wasn’t just returning to the office. She was returning to the scene of a crime—a heinous crime.

  The senseless murders of two wonderful men.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be perfectly fine.”

  But she doubted that even as she profe
ssed it. She wasn’t going to be fine, not with Ernie and Alfie gone. But as hard as it was going to be on her, she could only imagine how hard it was going to be on the men’s wives and children. “And please express my condolences to all your family,” she told him.

  He nodded. “They know how important you were to Pop and Uncle Alfie.”

  Tears rushed to her eyes again, and she turned to leave. But his hand closed around her arm again and he murmured, “And to me.”

  Her heart did a little flip in her chest, and her pulse quickened. But she reminded herself that he meant just as a friend, which was all she felt for him, as well.

  Friendship and respect.

  “You be careful, too,” she said.

  And finally his hand slipped from her arm, and she slipped away...slightly shaken. But that was from all the talk about the murders...

  And danger...

  Was anyone else in danger?

  Or had Alfie and Ernie been the killer’s only intended victims? There was no way of knowing until the killer was caught...or until he or she tried to kill again.

  * * *

  The sound of a door shutting startled Farrah, making her splash her hands in the water in the sink, sending droplets of water and suds into her face and hair. Had she fallen asleep standing up?

  Maybe. They had been awake all night. She and Fallon. Mom had gone to sleep after they’d assured her they would get some rest. They’d lied to her. Both of them had known they wouldn’t go to bed. That they couldn’t go to their empty beds.

  “Someone else has just arrived,” Fallon said. “See, it’s a good thing I cooked all this food last night. Everybody is showing up and will be hungry.”

  Farrah doubted that. She wasn’t hungry, and usually her twin’s culinary creations tempted her to eat more than she should, and she had the thicker waistline because of it. But she wasn’t tempted to eat anything at all now.

  Her empty stomach roiled at the thought of food and the smells that wafted from the Crock-Pots Fallon had lined up on the counter. Farrah didn’t have the heart to tell her sister that even if an army showed up, they wouldn’t be able to eat all of the food she had prepared.

  Fallon wouldn’t really care, though. She’d just needed to stay busy, just as Farrah needed to stay busy—so that she didn’t think.

  Didn’t feel...

  Didn’t miss Alfie any more than she already did. He couldn’t really be gone—not forever. There had to have been some mistake.

  But then Heath walked into the kitchen, and she saw the grimness of his face, the pain in his eyes...and she knew. It was true. He had correctly identified the bodies.

  Alfie and Ernie were really dead.

  That look on his face, the devastation and pain.

  That must have been what they’d felt. What he’d seen when he’d identified their bodies.

  “Aunt Farrah...” he called out to her, but it sounded as if he was far away instead of just across the kitchen. Then he was at her side, but it was too late.

  Her legs had already given out beneath her, and she dropped to the cold tile floor in front of the sink.

  “Farrah!” Fallon called out to her. But even she—who was always so close—seemed far away. Nobody seemed as far away as Alfie. He was really gone.

  Forever gone.

  * * *

  He hated the way she’d looked at him—the way they all looked at him. It was almost as if by identifying them that he’d been the one who’d killed them. At least that was how Heath felt.

  And how Aunt Farrah had reacted...that just the sight of him had had her fainting in horror. No. She hadn’t fainted. She hadn’t lost consciousness, and she’d tried to reassure him that her reaction had had nothing to do with him. But he knew better.

  The rest of his family stared at him, too, as they milled around the kitchen, picking at the food Mom had piled on plates for them. She and Aunt Farrah were constantly in motion, Mom messing with the food, Farrah cleaning. It was as if they didn’t dare to stop moving, as if they were somehow running from the truth even though they basically moved in slow motion.

  “Good thing I didn’t bring food from the restaurant,” his cousin Tatum remarked as she looked down at the plate his mom had thrust in her hands. Her blue eyes were swollen and red, like she’d been crying all night, and her long blond hair was limp instead of in its usual waves. Tatum, a chef, had recently opened her own restaurant downtown, and it was doing so well that it was difficult to get a table—although she always made exceptions for family.

  Gina had always wanted to eat at True. Maybe because it was so trendy that it was the place to be seen. He wasn’t being fair, though. She could have just wanted to eat there because she wasn’t a cook like Mom, like Kylie.

  How was his vice president handling the office? He shouldn’t have let her face all the employees’ grief, questions and concerns without him. But she was better at dealing with the staff than he was.

  She was better at dealing with him than anyone else was. Nobody but her would have stuck with him with as surly as he’d been last night and this morning.

  “Heath!” Tatum called out with concern, like she’d been trying to get his attention for a while.

  He hadn’t noticed. “What?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  She slid an arm around his waist and leaned against him. “Me neither.”

  “None of us is,” his sister Carly murmured as she joined them. With her pale blond hair and blue eyes, she looked more like Tatum’s sister than his. She looked at him then quickly looked away, like everyone else had been doing. Even though Tatum had her arm around him, she was more focused on her plate of untouched food than his face.

  Aunt Farrah couldn’t even look at him now.

  Did they all blame him for the deaths? Did they think as CEO, he should have had more security in that parking lot? Colton Connections didn’t own the building, and he’d never been able to control his dad and uncle. They’d set their own erratic schedule based on whatever invention they were working on.

  “When will the funeral be?” Carly asked, her voice cracking with dread.

  “The police won’t release the bodies until they’ve concluded the autopsies and evidence collection,” he said, sharing what he’d been told.

  Carly gasped in shock then rushed out of the kitchen. Tatum put down her plate of food and followed her cousin. And Heath groaned.

  He wasn’t helping his family; he was only making them feel worse. He would be of more use at the office. He set the plate he hadn’t realized he’d been holding onto the counter next to Tatum’s, then he slipped out of the crowded kitchen and headed toward the back door.

  His hand closed around the knob, but before he could turn it, a small hand settled on his arm. He expected his mother to be the one trying to stop him, but he turned to see his grandmother standing behind him. Not remembering if he’d greeted her or not yet, he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Hi, Grandma.”

  “Hi and bye, apparently,” she said.

  He nodded. “I really need to get to the office.”

  “You really need to get out of here,” she said, as astute as ever.

  He nodded again. “I feel like it’s too hard on them to even look at me.”

  “It has nothing to do with you, dear. It’s just hard for everyone right now.”

  “I know,” he said, dread settling heavily into the pit of his stomach. “Especially Mom and Aunt Farrah.”

  “I’ll take care of them,” she promised with a strength that belied her seventy-eight years. She was a strong woman, though, and she loved fiercely and no one more than her twin daughters.

  “I know,” he repeated.

  “Who will take care of you?” she asked.

  An image of Kylie, her hair splayed across his pillow,
popped into his head, but he shook it out. “I will take care of me and the company.”

  “You can’t bury yourself deep enough in work to forget what happened,” she said.

  “I’ll never forget,” he agreed. “I don’t want to forget. I want to figure out why and who...” His voice trailed off as rage joined his grief.

  “Leave that for the police,” she urged him. “That’s their job, not yours.”

  “Then they damn well better get to it,” he said. He hadn’t even talked to a detective yet, just that sergeant and his sidekick last night.

  “They will,” she said. “But in the meantime, please be careful.”

  “Of course, Grandma,” he assured her, and he leaned down to press another kiss against her smooth cheek before he left. Her words stayed with him, ringing inside his head.

  Be careful...

  Could he be in danger?

  Had the killer gotten the wrong Colton last night? His dad and uncle weren’t the only ones who worked late. He and Kylie often worked later than they had, much to the discomfort of a certain former girlfriend of his.

  Heath jumped into his SUV and drove out the circular drive, past the other vehicles parked on it. Besides his siblings and cousins, neighbors and friends of his family had been in the house, offering support and sympathy.

  He hadn’t been able to provide either. Not like Kylie had provided him last night. He needed to talk to her...about work, about the murders.

  Kylie was insightful, smart; she might have some ideas. Because he was clueless as to why anyone would want to harm his dad and uncle.

  Like Grandma’s words, a strange feeling stayed with him, too—that feeling he’d had in the house when everyone had been looking at him. But they’d looked away when he’d caught them staring.

  Whoever was watching him now wasn’t looking away because that sensation stayed with him all during his drive, so much so that he kept glancing into the rearview mirror of his SUV. And then when he arrived at that parking lot where the broken crime-scene tape fluttered in the breeze, the sensation intensified. Was someone watching him?