by Maggie Price
“Sounds like a logical assumption.”
“Yeah. Shortly after that, two kids woke up sick. They’re both younger, smaller in build. They bunk next to each other in the building we call The Homestead. It’s a dormitory-style lodge where our temporary residents awaiting fostering or adoption stay. Both kids had the same symptoms—headache, vomiting, high fever, muscle aches, disorientation. It was winter, so we’d assumed they’d come down with the flu. At first, the doctor who treated them thought that, too.”
“I want to talk to that doctor about the symptoms. What’s his name?”
“Jason Colton. He’s a GP. His office is across the street from Prosperino Medical Center. I’ll give him a call and set up a time for you to see him.”
“Good.” Rory lifted a brow. “He any relation to the foster family you lived with after your parents split up?”
“Good memory, pal.”
“Comes in handy in my job.”
“Joe and Meredith Colton are the doc’s aunt and uncle.”
Rory nodded. “After those first two kids, how long did it take others to start getting sick?”
Blake furrowed his brow. “Not long. They all lived in The Homestead. The floors used there for the sleeping areas are all open and lined with bunk beds. The living room, dining room and kitchen are communal, so everyone intermingles.”
“I take it you thought the flu was spreading fast, like it always does.”
“Yes. A couple of the counselors got sick, too.” As he spoke, Blake knocked a fist lightly against the chair’s arm. “I should have figured out the connection to the water sooner.”
“The doctor thought it was the flu. From the sound of things, everyone else did, too. I don’t know why you should have thought any different.”
“I’m director of Hopechest Ranch. That makes me responsible for everyone who steps foot on this property.”
“That’s a big responsibility for one man to shoulder.”
“Yeah.” Blake blew out a breath. “Anyway, after about a week, it dawned on me that the only people getting sick were those who live or work on Hopechest Ranch. Some of my employees live in downtown Prosperino, others on the Crooked Arrow Indian Reservation, which borders the ranch’s land. Some of the staff who live here drive into downtown daily to buy supplies. It kept nagging at me that if a rampaging flu was what was making the ranch’s people sick, surely it would have spread to the town or the res.”
“One would think.”
“So, since only the people here were sick, it stood to reason that the cause was something on the ranch. I thought maybe it could be low levels of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater in one of the lodges. E-coli from contaminated meat. Anthrax. Asbestos. I considered everything but the water.”
“Why?”
“We test it. The last time was two days before the dog and the kittens died. Everything checked out.”
“So, if the contamination was intentional, that gives us close to an exact date when it occurred.” Rory pursed his lips. “What about your water pump? What sort of filter do you have?”
“A gas chlorine injector.”
“So, even if whatever got into the water had a distinctive odor or taste, the injector would have masked that.”
“For a while, anyway. But this stuff is odorless and tasteless. Otherwise, with the number of people we’ve got around here, someone would have noticed a difference in the water.” Blake leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. “One morning, I got a call from a counselor at Emily’s House—that’s our dorm for unwed mothers. Five of the girls had woken up deathly ill. One was having premature labor pains. Doc Colton admitted all of them to the hospital for tests. At that point, I knew time was running out. I couldn’t wait around until someone died before I got to the bottom of this. I called the health department and the EPA.”
“What happened after that?”
“The health department tested all the food, the heaters and the air inside all the facilities, everything. While they did that, Charlie O’Connell showed up and checked the water. Bingo, we had the source of contamination. I shut down the well. Since then, I’ve had water trucked onto the ranch.” Blake stared down at his hands dangling between his thighs. “You meet up yet with O’Connell?”
“A couple of times.”
“What’s your impression?”
“That his favorite pastime is putting the moves on my landlady.” Rory’s brows drew together, the annoyance self-directed that the comment had been the first thought to pop into his head. It sure as hell wasn’t what Blake needed to know.
His friend’s brows lifted. “O’Connell making any progress?”
“Mrs. Honeywell has threatened to toss him and his belongings out in the street.”
“Good for Peggy.”
“Yeah.” Shifting in his chair, Rory heard again the edge that had settled in her voice, pictured the heat of temper that had sparked in those compelling green eyes when she laid down the law to O’Connell. Dangerous territory, Rory cautioned himself before steering the conversation back to business. “I talked to O’Connell for a couple of minutes this morning about the ranch’s water.”
“He give you any information?”
“Only that the bacteria that causes cholera isn’t what put your people in the hospital.”
Blake blinked. “Holy hell, I never thought of cholera.”
“Don’t, because the EPA has ruled it out. They’ve probably ruled out other things, too, but O’Connell isn’t forthcoming. The bottom line is, he isn’t happy about your hiring a private consultant to do the same testing he’s doing.”
“Too bad. I can’t shake the feeling he’s up to something. And that something doesn’t concern the well-being of Hopechest Ranch or its people.”
“You mentioned on the phone you caught O’Connell having some sort of clandestine meetings at one of the ranch’s hay sheds.”
“Right, it was late evening when I drove by and saw his rented car parked there.”
“You didn’t get a look at who he was with?”
“All I saw was the rear of their car. It was white.”
“Maybe he met a woman there,” Rory pointed out. “O’Connell could have been enjoying a literal roll in the hay.”
“Possible.”
“Since he isn’t inclined to share information, I’ll have to run duplicate tests that he’s already had the EPA’s lab run. That’ll take time.”
“Dammit, Rory, we may not have time.” Blake clenched his hands into fists. “If someone purposely contaminated the ranch’s water, they might have done it to get back at me, at my family. God knows what the hell they might do next.”
Rory’s thoughts went back to what Peggy had said in the kitchen that morning when she discovered he knew nothing about the trouble that had befallen Blake the previous year. I thought you and Blake were friends.
The echo of her words, and the angry frustration he now saw in his friend’s face, had guilt balling in Rory’s throat. If he had been any kind of friend to Blake, he would already know what that trouble was.
Setting his jaw, Rory shifted his gaze to the far side of the office where a bookcase sat, its shelves lined with obsessively neat rows of leather volumes. Over the years, there had been many times when he could have phoned Blake, just to say hello. Should have phoned him. Rory hadn’t, not once. After all, he was a man who shrugged off relationships. He didn’t like maintaining ties. He always felt it was pointless to look back toward the past or to give much thought to the future. He lived for the moment. The now.
For the first time in his life, Rory felt the sharp blade of regret for having taken for granted the closest friendship he’d ever had. “I’m sorry, Blake,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what happened to you or your family. Or the reason someone might have to get back at you.”
Blake rose, moved to the nearest window and stared out. “We haven’t exactly kept in touch, have we?”
“My fault,” Rory said. “I always put the job first.”
Blake slid him a look across his shoulder. “Thanks to your dad, you never learned how to do anything else.”
“True.” Rory eased out a breath. Blake was one of the few people who knew the history between him and his late father. It was a history that Rory had no desire to discuss.
“Look, we’re not talking about me right now. If you think someone contaminated the water on this ranch as revenge against you, I need to know about it. Everything.”
Blake ran a palm across the back of his neck. “Christ, you’d think with time, this would get easier to talk about.”
“Some things never get easy.”
“This is one of them.” With a restless move of his shoulders, Blake walked back to his chair. “My dad’s gone through three wives—my mother, and the other two left him because of his drinking. I’ve got three stepsisters I barely know because we all got shuffled from household to household while we were growing up.”
Blake paused, as if collecting his thoughts. Rory waited in silence.
“I don’t know if I ever told you any of this, but my dad served in the army with Joe Colton. After their discharge, they went to Wyoming where Joe started Colton Mining. A couple of years after that, Joe branched into oil. Later on, shipping. Dad always considered himself Joe’s equal partner, but that’s not the way things were. Joe’s brother, Graham, was his legal partner in Colton Enterprises.”
“I take it your dad resented that?”
“Yes. Even when I was little, he felt that Joe and Graham had cheated him out of what was rightfully his. That made him drink more. When my parents’ marriage started falling apart, they fought and screamed at each other constantly. Home became a war zone.”
“With you in the middle,” Rory added.
“Right. I still don’t know how, but Joe and Meredith Colton figured out what was going on. They insisted I move in with them at Hacienda de Alegria, their ranch in Prosperino. If they hadn’t done that, I would have eventually run off and never come back.” Blake shrugged. “Joe took me under his wing, gave me a foundation. He became more of a father to me than Emmett Fallon ever was.”
“In college, whenever you mentioned Joe Colton, I got the impression you thought he walked on water.”
“I did. Do. Unfortunately, you’re not the only one who formed that conclusion. My dad did, too. My going around singing Joe’s praises only fed his anger. Last year his drinking got so bad that Joe forced him into retirement. That pushed Dad over the edge. On two separate occasions, he took a shot at Joe. Nearly killed him both times.”
“Jesus,” Rory said softly. “What happened to Emmett?”
“After evidence against him surfaced, he confessed. Waived a trial and pled guilty. He’s at the prison in San Quentin.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Blake shook his head. “To the people in this town, Joe Colton is a saint. My dad’s in prison where no one can get to him. The water on Hopechest is contaminated—so far, it’s the only water around with a problem. What if this is all about my dad trying to kill Joe? What if someone contaminated the water here solely to get back at me?”
“The sins of the father visited on the son?”
“Exactly.”
“Until we know what got into the water and how it got there, we can’t discount anything.” Rory furrowed his brow. “Have you received any threatening letters about what your dad did? Any phone calls?”
“A couple of calls.”
“Did you report them to the police?”
“No. They came in at night on my private line when I was upstairs in bed. The caller didn’t actually threaten me, just railed against Dad and called him names. I figured a few people needed to blow off steam.”
“There’s always a chance one of those people decided you need to suffer, too.” Rory tilted his chin. “What about a family member of Joe’s?”
“No. The Coltons bent over backward to help Dad after his arrest. Joe even persuaded the judge to give him a light sentence.”
“Colton does sound a little saintlike.”
“Trust me, he is. He and his wife are paying the cost of all medical expenses for anyone who drank contaminated water.”
Rory expelled a soft whistle. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Right. So, I doubt Joe would have contaminated the water, then turned around and offered to pay everyone’s medical expenses. You can cross off everyone close to him, too.”
“Your dad was close to him,” Rory said quietly. “Sometimes the guilty party is the last person you’d suspect.”
“Yeah. I sure as hell didn’t suspect my dad of taking those potshots at Joe.”
“I need a list, Blake. I want the name of every person who stands to profit in any way if you lose your job. I also want the name of anyone who might hold a grudge against you or your family for what Emmett did. That includes all the Coltons, everyone connected with them and the people who might take offense at your father trying to kill Prosperino’s favorite citizen.”
“That would be about everyone in town.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll get the list from you later today.” Rory checked his watch. “I’ve got my evidence kit in the trunk so I’ll take samples from your well before I leave. If possible, I’d like to see Dr. Colton after I’m done here.”
“I’ll set it up.” Blake sat back at his desk.
“Will he balk about releasing copies of toxicology reports on everyone who got sick?”
“No. The kids are legally in the care of Hopechest Ranch so we have access to all their medical information. I’ll call Suzanne Jorgenson and have her get the reports. She’s one of our counselors who’s sitting in on this morning’s city council meeting.” Blake smiled. “Suzanne has a knack for keeping Mayor Longstreet on his toes.”
Blake settled into the chair behind his desk and reached for the phone. In a few minutes, he hung up. “Jason will be at his clinic all day. His receptionist said for you to just drop by and she’ll squeeze you in to see him between patients. Suzanne will get the copies of the tox reports for you and drop them off at Honeywell House.”
“Fine.”
Leaning back in his chair, Blake gave Rory a tired smile across the expanse of polished desk. “You mentioned you ate breakfast at the inn.”
“That’s right.” Rory retrieved his leather jacket off the chair at the front of the desk. “It is a bed and breakfast, you know.”
“Do I. Sometimes, when I have an early meeting in town, I drop by Honeywell House first. I always make sure I show up hungry so Peggy will take pity on me and feed me. What did she serve this morning?”
“Pecan pancakes and apple cinnamon sausage.” Rory’s mouth curved. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”
“Wait until you taste that apricot cobbler I told you about.”
“That’ll be tonight.”
“Oh, yeah? You already manage to charm the charming Mrs. Honeywell?”
“My charm, although considerable, had nothing to do with it,” Rory said dryly as he shrugged on his jacket. “I made a deal—I test the inn’s water twice a day, Mrs. Honeywell bakes me a different dessert every night.”
“That’s some deal.” Blake’s smile faded. “So, how is the inn’s water?”
“Fine. No problems.”
“I hope we’ll be saying that soon about the ranch’s water. Then we can all go back to our own lives.”
“Let’s hope.”
Rory slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket, fisted them. Once he identified what had contaminated the water, he would leave Prosperino, as he had left dozens of other places, hundreds of other people, and go on to the next.
That just the thought of leaving tightened his gut was something he filed away to think about later.
Four
“I hope he’ll make a difference.”
Peggy glanced at Suzanne Jorgenson who sat sipping tea across the sma
ll polished span of the table in the alcove just off the kitchen. “Who?”
“Your scientist.”
“Mr. Sinclair is your boss’s scientist. Blake hired him.” As she spoke, Peggy used her gardening shears to snip off the end of an iris stalk. Earlier, she had decided to treat her guests to a touch of spring on this gloomy January afternoon. She had headed to the greenhouse she’d had built on one side of the inn’s parking lot and clipped stalks from the bulbs she forced year-round. Now the lush green stalks sporting purple and pink blooms lay like colorful blobs of paint on the newspapers spread across the table.
“Right, Blake’s scientist.” Violet eyes shadowed by fatigue met Peggy’s gaze over the rim of the teacup. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he can figure out what contaminated the ranch’s water.” Replacing the teacup on its saucer, Suzanne settled a palm on the manila envelope that contained the toxicology reports Blake had asked her to pick up and deliver to Honeywell House. “Watching so many of the kids get sick, then some of the other counselors and staff members has been a nightmare.” She shook her head. “Jason Colton still has two of our pregnant teens under observation until he knows for sure what they consumed in the water. Let’s hope Sinclair figures it out fast.”
“Let’s hope.” Peggy knew that Rory would immediately check out after he identified the contaminant. Leave Prosperino. She would never again be forced to gaze up into those extraordinary blue eyes while her heart pounded against her ribs. Never feel his long, firm fingers tangle with hers when he helped her to her feet. Never have to stand inches from him while a single, mesmerizing word rolled off his tongue. Ireland.
She had never known one word could sound like that—soft and smooth and vaguely exotic. A part of her yearned to wallow in the silky feel of it. Another part cautioned her to keep her distance.
