by LENA DIAZ,
He waved her to stop at the opening as he looked outside. It was a long, quiet minute before he motioned her forward, and she followed him around the corner. They hurried to his car and hopped inside. The wheels spit up gravel as he took off toward town. It wasn’t until they were back at the archway that announced the entrance to Main Street that she finally relaxed against the seat and holstered her gun. Colton hesitated, idling the car.
Silver pushed her hair out of her face with a hand that was embarrassingly shaky. “What are you doing? Don’t you want to head out to the highway to call Drew?”
He nodded and checked his phone. “Yeah, and I will. But between the time we spent at your friend’s apartment and the time that it took to look over that garbage facility, it’s already past six.”
“Mrs. Jones. I completely forgot. And Freddie and her close circle of friends know about Eddie. We really do need to officially notify her before she finds out from someone else.”
“I was thinking the same thing. How far away is her house?”
“If you turn left here instead of going down Main Street, and circle around behind that first business, there’s a little road that heads east to several different homes. The Joneses’ house is pretty much at the end, about five miles or so down.”
“All right. Let’s get that taken care of. Then we’ll circle back to the B and B and get you an overnight bag. I’d like to sit with Drew and the other detectives and talk all this through. If he thinks our theory is worth looking into, he can send that team to the dump, and we’ll plan on bringing a CSI team back here in the morning to go over the garbage facility to see if the cleanup missed anything. We can try to get a warrant, but our best bet will probably be just to get Buddy Johnson’s permission. If neither of those happens, we’ll surround the facility and sit on it until we get something that can convince a judge to issue the warrant. But I don’t want to do anything tonight that will alert someone to go out there and scrub that place any more than it’s been scrubbed.”
“Sounds like a plan. You mentioned an overnight bag. Is there a hotel close to the station where I can stay?”
“Yes. But you’re not staying there. You’re staying with me, at my apartment.” He glanced over at her, his expression unreadable. “You okay with that?”
She expected him to explain his reasons, like that he wanted to keep her nearby so they could discuss the case. But when he didn’t say anything, she realized what this was—his way of saying, finally, hopefully, that making love to her hadn’t been a onetime thing. That maybe there was a future here. That he was interested in a relationship with her. And she wasn’t about to say no to that.
“I think it’s a great idea,” she said.
He gave her a curt nod. “Good.” He shifted gears and sent the Mustang down the road toward the Joneses’.
* * *
LEAVING THE COMFORTING of Mrs. Jones to Silver, now that they’d broken the news about Eddie to her, Colton—with Mrs. Jones’s permission—walked through their one-story house, looking for clues, anything that Eddie might have left behind that could help them figure out who he’d associated with and which one of them might be the one pulling the strings.
The house was a typical ranch house, but built on four-foot-high stilts to keep it high and dry whenever storms or late-afternoon summer rains caused the swamp to encroach on the property. Colton had noticed that all the houses they’d glimpsed back in the trees when driving here were built on stilts. She’d told him that there were only a few that weren’t, like a mansion down a different road that the founder of Mystic Glades had built. It was on a solid foundation but high up off the ground and had never flooded until last summer, the summer when Dex and Amber were here. Both of them had nearly lost their lives in that flood, but thankfully they were okay.
Bunk beds were in three of the bedrooms. He counted six beds. But he also counted six names on the doors. Apparently the Joneses assigned each bed and put the boys’ names on the doors. He rather sourly wondered if that was so they’d remember the kids’ names as they funneled child after child through here. From what Silver had told him, Eddie had never felt loved here.
But then again, Eddie was probably hard to love because he got into so much trouble. So maybe it wasn’t fair to just assume the foster parents didn’t care about the kids in their care. After all, once he and Silver had broken the news about Eddie to Mrs. Jones, she’d broken down. And she’d sent the other boys to a neighbor’s house down the road until she could compose herself. She didn’t want them seeing her cry and worrying, or at least that was what she’d said.
Still, what he was seeing with the bedrooms, and the number of kids he’d counted when they arrived, had him heading back into the living room to ask a question.
Mrs. Jones kept staring straight in front of her as if preoccupied with her sad thoughts, but she’d dried her tears by now and was quietly talking to Silver. They sat beside each other on the couch, holding hands like old friends. He paused in the doorway, admiring Silver once again for the way she seemed to truly care about others and want to help them, even if they didn’t deserve it. He knew she didn’t like the woman she was comforting, and yet he could see the compassion in her expression, in the way she held the other woman’s hand and spoke to her. Silver was a truly special woman, and he was getting deeper and deeper in this. What had he been thinking to offer to take her to his apartment tonight?
She glanced up at him and gave him a watery smile. She must have cried right along with Mrs. Jones.
He returned her smile and headed into the room, taking a seat across from them on a brown leather recliner. “Mrs. Jones, I noticed there are six boys here and six bunk beds. Where did Eddie sleep?”
She glanced off into space before waving her hand, the wadded-up tissue in it flopping as she did. “Oh, he moved out on his birthday. I mean, he still came home for dinner and such. But he wanted his own space. He couldn’t afford anything yet, so we let him move into the tree house out back.”
“Tree house?”
She had the grace to blush. “Yes. I know it sounds bad, but honestly, the tree house is just about as nice as this house inside. Tony built it years ago when we realized we were going to end up taking in middle-school-aged kids. He thought it would be fun to have a big tree house for them and even hooked up a bathroom of sorts, with real running water and a pipe that connects to the septic system.” She patted the corners of her eyes. “Eddie loved that tree house. He spent a lot of time there. I couldn’t tell him no when he begged to move out there.”
“If it’s okay, I’d like to see it,” he said.
She looked off into space again. “Of course, of course. You do whatever you need to do, Officer. And if there’s something I can do to help your investigation, let me know. Tony will be devastated when he hears about Eddie.”
Silver exchanged a startled glance with Colton, who only shrugged. What Mrs. Jones had just said didn’t jibe at all with the way that Eddie had portrayed his foster parents. But where Silver probably believed everything Eddie had ever told her, Colton was more inclined to think that maybe Eddie had exaggerated. There certainly wasn’t anything about this house, or in how the other foster kids had acted when they got here, to make him think they weren’t well taken care of or that the Joneses didn’t care about them.
Eddie had been a teenager, and life through the eyes of a teenager, especially a troubled one, could often be very different from the reality of those around them.
Silver rose from the couch along with Mrs. Jones. “Will you be okay if I go with Detective Graham to look at the tree house?”
“Of course, of course. I’m going to head on up to Betty’s to see the boys. You’ve been very sweet to me this evening, Silver. You didn’t have to be, either, so I want you to know that I appreciate it. You and I have never said more than a few words to each other, but I’ve always admired you.”
Silver blinked in obvious surprise. “You do?”
She nodd
ed. “You went to college and worked hard for everything that you have. And you’ve never been anything but nice to me. I appreciate that. Thank you for being Eddie’s friend, too. I know you tutored him and helped him out. Not that Eddie ever said anything about it. I heard from others what was going on.” She swiped at her wet eyes again. “Eddie and I didn’t always see eye to eye. It does my heart good to know he had you as a friend when I couldn’t be that for him.”
Silver hugged the other woman, and the three of them left the house, with Elisa Jones hurrying up the road toward the house where she’d sent the boys and Colton and Silver heading around to the back of the property.
“You okay?” Colton asked.
“I guess I’m...confused.” She shrugged. “Maybe I misjudged her all this time.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. She’d have to work through this one on her own.
In spite of what Mrs. Jones had said about the tree house being nice, Colton hadn’t expected it to be this nice. A good fifty yards from the house, it was about fifteen feet off the ground, with a massive deck circling around it, snugged up against the tree trunk. A system of steel supports beneath it went all the way to the ground, preserving the health of the tree by not impaling it, but also providing the strength needed to keep the heavy contraption from falling down.
Arched over a split in the main trunk, the actual “house” part of it was about the size of a bedroom, with windows on two sides and a full-sized door on the front. Silver and Colton climbed the steel ladder and he helped her step out onto the deck.
“This is one heck of a tree house,” he said. “But I suppose it makes sense. Drew said that Mr. Jones is an engineer. This was probably a pet project, to use his skills from work in addition to making something the boys would enjoy.”
Silver ran her hand along the railing, her face a mask of awe and pleasure. “It’s beautiful. I love that he used real branches to build the railing system. And the forest is gorgeous up here. What a view.”
Colton couldn’t help smiling to see her joy in something as simple as a view. He loved how she appreciated the simple things that most people missed. The view was amazing, even though most of it was of other trees, too thick to reveal much of the surrounding canals and swamps. But he was more interested right now in the heavy vines hanging down on all sides from the branches above. Instead of twining around the tree trunk, they’d been cut free to swing like thick ropes. He reached out and grabbed one of them and yanked. Solid, sturdy, easy to hold on to because of the offshoots and holes nature automatically built into the vine. He looked down at the railing in front of him. And then at the next tree over, which also had thick vines hanging down.
“Huh. I’ll be.”
“What? Did you find something?” Silver rushed over to him, her eyebrows drawn down.
He held up the vine and pointed to the railing. “See how that top rail is scuffed and scarred? And how that tree over there has more vines hanging down?”
Her eyes widened. “What are you thinking? Surely Eddie didn’t stand on the railing and swing on that vine as if he were Tarzan or something.”
“I’d be willing to bet that he did. And from the way this railing is scarred up, he did it a lot.”
She shaded her eyes from the setting sun that was peeking through the branches. “That’s a scary thought. We’re a long ways up. One wrong step or one mistimed grab and it would be all over.”
“Yeah, but it’s also genius. If someone was after you and you could get up in the trees without them seeing you, boom, you’re gone. A quiet getaway with no one the wiser.”
“I suppose so. But that gives me hives just thinking about it. Someone could have been killed.” She grimaced and exchanged a solemn look with him, silently acknowledging that someone had been killed—Eddie. Just not while he was swinging from the vines.
He squeezed her shoulder. “Wait here. I’ll go in first, make sure there aren’t any critters inside.”
She shivered. “Be my guest. I don’t want to come face-to-face with a raccoon or, worse, a bat.”
He swung open the door. A guttural shout sounded from just inside.
“Colton, look out!” Silver yelled.
He swore and threw his arms up to block the man lunging at him with a knife.
Chapter Thirteen
Silver clawed for her gun. Colton twisted his attacker’s wrist, and the knife clattered to the deck. Colton pivoted and rolled, throwing the other man against the railing. He let out a cry of pain just as Silver brought her gun up.
That blond hair. That youthful face. Oh, no.
Colton drew his fist back.
“No, stop!” Silver yelled as she holstered her gun. “It’s Charlie.”
Colton hesitated, his fist still raised. Charlie jerked to the side, rolled out from under him and ran for the railing.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Colton growled as he jumped to his feet. He ran and dove for Charlie just as the boy grabbed a vine and shoved off the top railing.
Silver gasped and covered her mouth in horror as the young man fell several feet. Then the vine jerked as he caught a good handhold, and it swung him toward the other tree. A flash of white tennis shoes as Charlie grabbed another vine and pushed off the other side of the tree and he was gone.
Colton grabbed the vine by the tree house and looked as though he was considering going after him. Silver jumped between him and the railing and held her hands out to stop him.
“Wait. It’s too dangerous. You could fall. And besides, we don’t know why Charlie was here or what he was doing. As much as I hate to admit it, it could be a trap.”
His jaw muscle worked as he stared at the other tree. He’d climbed more than a few in his day and even swung from a few, courtesy of a well-hewn rope. Vines couldn’t be that much harder and might even be easier to use because of so many handholds. But if Charlie had been watching them and scrambled up into the tree house to lure him into chasing him, it could very well be a trap.
He dropped the vine and stepped back. “Okay, you’re right.” He scooped up the knife Charlie had left behind, a six-inch blade with a serrated edge. “This is a heck of a knife. He meant business. I don’t think we have to wonder whose side he’s on. Definitely not ours.” He hiked his leg up on the railing and yanked back his jeans, then carefully secured the knife inside his boot.
“You’re right,” Silver said. “I shouldn’t have interfered. It’s just that he’s so young, and I was afraid you’d hurt him. But you could have been hurt, or worse. I’m so, so sorry.”
His face softened as he straightened. “Your idiot former boss is right about one thing—you’re softhearted. But he’s wrong to think that’s a weakness.” He cupped her face and pressed a gentle kiss against her lips. “Don’t ever change, Silver Westbrook.”
She stood there in shock as he drew his pistol, then made a textbook entrance into the tree house, searching for intruders of the two-foot variety even though he’d teased her about the four-foot kind. He was doing his job, exactly as he should, while she’d failed miserably in that department.
Distracting him while he was fighting someone was inexcusable and went against her training. But seeing that young face had reminded her of Eddie, and the horrible way that he’d died, beaten to death. And she’d just...reacted.
She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Crying out for Colton to stop was wrong, and dangerous. And yet he wasn’t even upset with her. That kind of understanding and forgiveness was so foreign to her she wasn’t sure that she understood it. And she certainly didn’t deserve it.
“Clear,” he called out from inside the tree house. “You can come in.”
Determined to do better—for Colton’s sake, and hers—she scanned the trees around them. Then she looked below, from every angle. When she didn’t see any signs of intruders, she headed inside.
The tree trunk came up through the middle of the room, making it a doughnut shape w
ith more than three feet of clearance all around the tree. A tiny sink and full-size toilet sat on one side. A microwave and dorm-sized refrigerator formed a kitchen. And an air mattress with a pillow and quilt thrown on top must have been where Eddie slept when he was here.
“I wonder what Charlie was doing in here,” she said.
He was currently kneeling on the floor, looking at an old trunk beside the air mattress. He waved at a trash can off to the side, full of plastic wrappers from candy bars and the kinds of sandwiches that came from a machine, along with a mound of empty water bottles. “Looks like he was camping out. He was supposed to have left with his parents, right? Maybe he ran away?”
“He must have. I wonder why. I hope they weren’t abusing him or something. Sad.”
“I suppose it’s possible, but he didn’t look abused. No bruises or cuts. Then again, I know that stuff doesn’t always show, especially if it’s psychological abuse.”
“No,” she said softly. “And that can be the worst kind.” She hugged her arms around her middle.
Colton’s head shot up. “You sound like you speak from personal experience.”
She thought about denying it, but this was Colton. And although she’d never talked about her troubled past with anyone, she knew she could talk to him about it. He wouldn’t judge her or make her feel ashamed. “Yes. I speak from personal experience.”
He started to rise, but she waved him back down.
“I’m fine. No reason to go over that, certainly not now. But thank you for caring. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Silver, if you want to talk—”
“I know. Thank you. Not now.”
He hesitated, looking uncertain.
She knelt beside him and kissed him, then waved at the trunk. “What are you doing?”
