by Lisa Childs
She sighed. “I know you don’t, that you can’t...unless you’ve lived through it.”
“Lived through what? What are you talking about?” he asked, his brow creasing with a furrow of confusion like it had when she’d offered the false alibi for him.
She closed her eyes and saw again that image of her mother being arrested for something she hadn’t done and how distraught she’d become.
“You know my grandmother raised me,” she said. She’d talked to him about Baba; he’d even come to her grandmother’s funeral with her.
“Yes, you were an orphan and your grandmother took you in,” he said.
“I don’t know if I’m really an orphan,” she admitted. “I don’t know who my father is. My mother would never tell me. I suspect he was married. She had a habit of falling for the wrong men and doing the wrong things for them.”
Furrows formed in his brow again. “What are you saying? That you’ve fallen for me? That’s why you lied for me?”
She chuckled. “Gina really did get to you this morning. I am not in love with you,” she insisted. “But I do care about you, and I didn’t want the police to drag you off like they did my mother.”
He pushed a hand through his already rumpled golden hair. “What are you talking about?”
“My mom was a brilliant woman,” she said. “A doctor, you know.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t know that. You never told me about her. Just about your grandmother.”
“I don’t like to talk about my mother,” she admitted. “And I really don’t remember all that much about her.” But that image of the police dragging her away and then those few times she’d gone to visit her in prison before she...
“What did the police do to her?” he asked.
“They accused her of selling drugs,” she said. “Of writing illegal prescriptions. She died in prison before she could prove her innocence.”
He gasped. “I—I’m sorry, Kylie. I didn’t know.”
Heat flushed her face with embarrassment. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
He stepped away from the closed door then and approached her. His fingers touched her cheek, sliding softly over her skin. “I’m sorry you went through that.”
She nodded. “I didn’t want you to go through that. For you to be arrested for something you didn’t do.”
“But Kylie...” he said; she knew what he’d left unsaid.
“My mother didn’t do it, Heath. One of her crappy boyfriends stole her prescription pad and forged her signature. She wouldn’t sell drugs. She wouldn’t...any more than you would have killed your father and uncle.”
He nodded, but she could tell that he clearly didn’t believe her. He made it even clearer when he said, “You were a child. I doubt she or your grandmother wanted you to know the truth.”
“What? That innocent people go to prison? That’s the truth, and if you’ve watched the news, you’d realize that it happens more often than you think.”
He nodded, but she suspected he was only humoring her.
“I know,” she insisted. “I know that she was innocent of those charges. She’d made some stupid mistakes, but that had been about the men she’d trusted and nothing else.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“Have you trusted the wrong men?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I’m very careful,” she said. She’d only dated men she’d known very well, men that she hadn’t been able to fall for. Because falling in love made a person stupid, like her mother.
Hell, even like his ex-girlfriend. Gina Hogan had probably been a nice, normal woman before she’d fallen so hard for Heath. She should have known better, like Kylie did, than to trust a man with her heart.
“What about me?” he asked.
She furrowed her brow now as she studied his handsome face. “What about you?”
“Why do you trust me?” he asked.
A chill chased over her skin despite how warmly she’d dressed—in a wool suit with a sweater beneath the oversize jacket. “I know you wouldn’t kill your dad and uncle,” she repeated.
She trusted that was the truth, but as a man...
She knew him much too well to ever fall for him. Even though he’d shared that he’d wanted to fall for Gina, he hadn’t been able to give her the love and commitment she’d wanted, and that had broken the woman’s heart.
No. There was no way Kylie would ever trust Heath Colton with her heart.
* * *
Maybe he should have been grateful for her loyalty and trust in him, but Heath couldn’t shake the notion that Kylie’s lie was going to come back to bite them both on the ass. Even after having the day to think about what she’d done, and how he’d blindly backed her up, he wasn’t sure how to fix it, how to save her from getting in trouble.
And maybe it was for the best. This way the detective would rule him out as a suspect and focus on finding the real killer. He just had to make damn sure that Parker didn’t find out that they’d lied because then he would assume the worst. And Heath might wind up like Kylie’s mother, carted off to jail for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Had Kylie’s mother really been innocent, though? Or was it just a child’s blind love and trust for her parent that had convinced Kylie of her innocence?
His heart ached for the childhood she’d endured—because of the poor choices her mother had made, or the mistakes the police had made. Either way Kylie had overcome a hell of a lot and was one hell of a strong woman.
Even now, she was soothing all the worries of his staff while he hid in his office, focusing on the pending patents for Pop and Uncle Alfie’s latest inventions. They would live on in all the amazing things they’d created and in their family.
What would Heath leave behind if something happened to him? What had he created? Who had loved him?
Loneliness gripped him, pressing heavily on his chest, so that he struggled for a moment to draw a deep breath. He was alone by choice.
He could have proposed to Gina. She would have accepted; hell, she’d pressured him for months to propose. And the girl in college.
Melissa.
He could have married her. But he’d never felt for any woman like his father had felt for his mother or Uncle Alfie had Aunt Farrah.
Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe he just wasn’t capable of that kind of deep love and commitment. He could be predestined to remain forever a bachelor. After all—unlike his parents who were from two sets of twins—he’d been born single.
Forever to remain single.
A knock at the door made him tense. Had Detective Parker returned? Had he already disproved Heath’s fake alibi? It probably wouldn’t take long to come up with evidence that they hadn’t been together, that she’d been at her house and he’d been driving in his car until he’d arrived at his. Both alone. Not together like she’d claimed.
Before Heath could prepare himself, his door opened. Instead of Detective Parker, Kylie stood before him. Maybe she hadn’t slept as long as he’d thought because dark circles rimmed her deep brown eyes, and her shoulders slumped beneath her jacket either with exhaustion or guilt.
She could have realized what a mistake she’d made in lying about his alibi, and she wanted to confess. But Heath was worried that it was already too late for that.
“Everyone else has left for the weekend,” she said. “I think I will too unless you need something.”
“I do,” he said.
She stepped away from the door, closer to his desk. “What do you need?”
“You.”
She tensed. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
“The only way we’re not going to get in trouble about lying is to sell the hell out of this alibi,” he said. “So we’re going to have to make
sure everyone thinks we really are in a relationship.”
Her lips curved into a slight grin. “We could just have Detective Parker talk to Gina. He’d certainly believe us after talking to her.”
He grimaced. His ex would definitely share how she’d found the two of them in bed together and how she’d always figured something was going on with them. “He’s going to be talking to the rest of my family,” Heath said—with dread. “He must have started with my mom and aunt.” Because he’d already known where they’d been last night.
“Then he moved on to you as the next likely suspect,” she finished for him.
He couldn’t believe that anyone would think he could have actually killed the men he’d idolized. Even after identifying their bodies, he struggled to accept that they were really gone and not just working feverishly on some invention on the ninth floor. So many times today he’d been tempted to go up there, to look for them.
Tears threatened, but he blinked them back. He had to stay strong now. Stay focused.
For his family—so that the truth would come out, the real killer caught.
And for Kylie, so that she didn’t get in trouble for lying for him.
“So how are we going to do this?” she asked. “How are we going to sell the hell out of your alibi?”
“We’re going to do what you claimed we already do,” he said. “We’re going to spend all of our time together.” He waited for the feeling of panic that had attacked him whenever Gina or Melissa had wanted to move in with him, whenever they’d wanted to spend all their time with him. But he didn’t feel any anxiety at all.
That was probably just because he knew this was fake. He didn’t have any feelings for Kylie and she had none but friendship for him.
* * *
“Answer your damn phone...” Gina murmured.
But it went right to voice mail, Heath’s deep baritone emanating from her cell. This is Heath Colton. I’m not currently available.
He had never been.
But please leave a message and I will return your call at my earliest convenience.
She sighed, doubting his word. But yet she felt compelled to leave a message, to warn him. “Heath, it’s Gina. I just want to say again that I’m sorry about your father and your uncle and about this morning.”
She’d acted like such a fool. But seeing that opportunist in his bed...
“I just want to make sure that you’re well and safe.”
She was so worried about him, so damn worried about him.
“I’m really concerned about you,” she said. “And I hope that you’re being careful, especially now, about who you trust.” And about who he shouldn’t trust.
Kylie Givens...
Gina knew things about that woman that Heath didn’t know, about her past, about her criminal mother.
“I’m just worried that you’re so vulnerable right now that you’re going to be taken advantage of...” And once Kylie got her hooks into him, she was never going to let him go—not like Gina had.
That was the biggest mistake she’d made. It had cost her her heart. If Heath trusted that woman he had working with him, he was going to lose more than his heart; he was probably going to lose his life.
Chapter 7
January Colton leaned over and peered at the picture on the detective’s desk. “Your little boy is adorable,” she told him. Just his picture made her smile and that wasn’t easy for her to do right now.
Not after what had happened Thursday night.
Even two days later, it still didn’t seem real. Every time she dropped by the house to check on her mother and grandmother, she expected her father to walk out of his den and grab her up in a bear hug.
Joe Parker grinned. “Yeah, Isaac’s a cutie for sure. He looks like his mother.”
January hadn’t met his wife, but she could see a resemblance between father and son although the little boy’s hair was long enough to have some curl while the homicide detective kept his short. When she and Sean had children, they would probably resemble them both since they both had green eyes and her blond hair was just a couple of shades lighter than his light brown. Of course that was because of her highlights.
“How are you doing?” Parker asked her, and he seemed genuinely concerned.
She drew in a shaky breath and brushed away an errant tear. She’d been crying on and off for the past couple of days. Despite some of the horrors she’d witnessed as a social worker, nothing had prepared her for the murders of her own father and uncle. “I’ll be okay.”
“I’m glad that you have Sean,” Parker said. “Stafford is a good man.”
“Yes, he is,” January agreed, her heart swelling with love for the detective she’d met when they’d both been protecting a little girl for whom January had been assigned as her caseworker and advocate.
“He says you were together Thursday night from early in the evening until you got the call from your grandmother,” Parker remarked almost idly.
She suspected there was nothing idle about the remark or the man who made it. Heat flushed her face, but she nodded. “Yes, we were.”
“Seems like you weren’t the only one of your family who was with someone that night...” Parker murmured. “Like your cousin and that coworker of his...”
“What cousin?” she asked. She had three cousins although they were more like siblings than cousins since they’d all been raised together. “Jones?” Was he seeing someone? He hadn’t mentioned her yet. But then that wasn’t unusual for him; Jones wasn’t as open as the rest of the family was.
“He’s talking about Heath,” Sean said as he joined them at Parker’s desk which took up one of the cubicles in the detectives’ bullpen.
“Heath,” she said. Then realization dawned and she shuddered as she thought of the crime scene and how close her cousin must have been to it. “Of course. Were he and Kylie at the office when it happened?”
Parker shook his head. “No, that’s the strange thing. He said they were together at his place.”
“Guess they were probably working there instead,” she mused, which might have saved their lives. “Sounds like a good thing.”
“Or convenient,” Parker remarked. “They admitted they weren’t working.”
“What?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”
“They told him that they’re seeing each other, like all the time, as a couple,” Sean explained. “I didn’t know that. Did you?”
She shook her head. “No. I just thought they were coworkers and friends, like work spouses but nothing more.” Sometimes work spouses were closer than real spouses, though. Heath was certainly closer to Kylie than he’d ever been with any of his former girlfriends.
Parker nodded. “That’s what I’m hearing.”
“I’m sure they weren’t lying,” January said in defense of her cousin. “They were probably just being discreet—not wanting their coworkers to get the wrong idea about their relationship.”
He nodded. “And what would the wrong idea be? That she’s sleeping with the boss to get ahead?”
January gasped. “That’s sexist,” she said. “Kylie is brilliant. She doesn’t need to sleep with anyone to get anywhere. She can do that on her own merits.” Her father had often spoken of how much the young vice president impressed him, and few people had impressed her father that much.
“So you don’t think they’re lying?”
“No,” she said, offended now for her cousin and for herself. And Sean had told her what a good man Joe Parker was. “And neither am I if that’s what you’re going to imply next.”
“Joe,” Sean said, his deep voice holding a slightly threatening tone. “January came here voluntarily to answer your questions. You don’t need to treat her like a suspect.”
“I’m not the suspect,” she said. “But you think my cousin Heath is.�
� She shook her head. “That’s not possible. He was so close to both my uncle and my father—probably closer than any of us. He worked with them every day.”
“And he stands to gain a lot as the result of their deaths,” Joe said.
She shuddered at the implication. “No. Heath’s not like that.”
“You’re a social worker, January,” Joe said. “You’re well aware that sometimes the people who hurt us the most are those that are the closest to us.”
She flinched, but she couldn’t deny the truth of his statement. She could only say, “I know that’s not true in this case.” She knew her cousin too well, or at least she’d thought she had. She hadn’t known about him and Kylie.
Joe shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“You said Heath has an alibi,” she reminded him.
“Maybe not,” he murmured again.
January shook her head. “They wouldn’t lie about that.”
“No,” the detective agreed. “Not if they had nothing to hide.”
She bristled now. She’d always liked the detective, had always considered him to be one of the best investigators she’d ever met...until Sean. “My cousin has nothing to hide,” she insisted.
Parker just shrugged again.
“Let’s get some lunch,” Sean told her. “Since you’ve come all the way downtown...”
For nothing. At least that was how she’d felt. She’d had nothing to do with the murder of her father and uncle, and she was certain she didn’t know the person who did.
Parker stood up. “Lunch sounds like a good idea,” he agreed.
“I didn’t invite you,” Sean said with a little grin, but that tone was still in his voice—that cautionary tone.
“I thought of a great place to go,” Parker said as he headed toward the elevator.
January started after him, but Sean held her back. “Let him go.”
“How in the world can he suspect anyone in my family of hurting Dad or Uncle Ernie?” she asked.
“You know why. Just like he said, you’ve seen it all, too, January,” he reminded her—unnecessarily—of the sad realities of life.
