Colton Christmas Rescue

by Beth Cornelison

  “Miss Amanda, I—”

  “I know.” She sighed and backed a step away from the housekeeper. “You think I should keep family business to myself and not be dumping all this on you. I’m sorry...I just...needed to vent. Needed someone to listen.” Another rush of tears spilled from her eyes and she shivered in the icy air. She wished Aurora were here. Never had she felt so alone, so out of sorts....

  “No, Miss Amanda, it’s fine. Clearly you needed to get things off your chest.” Mathilda opened her arms again, and with a sad smile, Amanda hugged her back.

  “Thanks for understanding. I don’t really know what else he said. I’d gone back to my suite long enough to arrange for the ransom money to be withdrawn from my father’s and my accounts and brought here to the ranch.”

  She felt Mathilda flinch. “The money is being brought here? Today?”

  Amanda nodded, sobering a bit. “I guess I need to stop blubbering over all the ways my father has betrayed my family and arrange for Chief Peters to escort the bank employee with the cash.”

  As Amanda pulled away from the housekeeper’s comforting embrace, her watch clasp snagged on the high collar of Mathilda’s uniform. “Uh-oh. I’m snagged. I’m sorry.” She used her free hand to try to unhook the catch without tearing the fabric of Mathilda’s collar. “Hold on. I can—”

  She stopped, spying three long scratches low on Mathilda’s neck. Amanda froze, flashing back to her struggle with the masked person in the holding pen ten days earlier. “I— Mathilda, where...where did you get these scratches?”

  The housekeeper tensed and snapped a sharp look at her. “What?”

  “You have scratches on your neck. How—?”

  But the flash of guilt that crossed the housekeeper’s face, followed quickly by a cold, hateful glare, answered for her.

  Amanda shuddered, stunned. “Mathilda?”

  The woman who’d taken care of her family since before she was born grabbed Amanda’s wrist and yanked it free of the snag at her collar. “You gave me those scratches when you fought me in the cow pen!”

  Chapter 20

  “That...that was you?” Amanda sputtered, too startled by the revelation to think clearly. “How... Why... You shot at me!” She straightened her back as rage filled her. “You tried to take Cheyenne!”

  “Correction, I took Cheyenne! Maybe not then, but I have her now, don’t I?” Mathilda gave a smug grin that sent shivers down Amanda’s back. “Well, Jared is the one who actually snatched her, but he did it on my orders.” She sent Amanda a self-satisfied grin.

  Amanda shook from the inside out. “Where? Where is she?” She grabbed at Mathilda’s coat. “Give her back!”

  Mathilda wrenched Amanda’s hand from her coat and flung it away. “Don’t worry. She’s safe. For now...”

  Betrayal, horror and anger coalesced in a hot pool in her gut. “Why? For God’s sake, Mathilda! Why would you want to take my daughter?”

  Mathilda snorted. “For the money, of course. Five million dollars in ransom, remember? Although now I’m thinking I should ask for more. How about ten million?”

  “But you’ve worked at the ranch for years! We trusted you. You were like family to us!”

  “Bull!” she snapped. “You high and mighty Coltons always thought you were better than anyone else. Jethro thought he breathed rarified air, and he lorded his money over the staff. But as you’ve discovered, your sainted father was nothing but a fraud. A low-life liar. A cheating, dishonest criminal who took advantage of people and didn’t care whom he hurt to make his millions.”

  A sharp ache sliced Amanda to the bone. She wanted desperately to defend her father and deny the harsh claims Mathilda made, but she couldn’t. She had learned on her own that her father was everything Mathilda accused him of being.

  The housekeeper’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I stood by him when even his slutty wives didn’t. And how did he thank me? Brushing me aside like common trash. Treating me like a second-class citizen only good enough for the occasional tumble in his sheets, then sent away to wait on him hand and foot.”

  Amanda shook her head as if to clear it. Mathilda and her father had had an affair? She could believe it of her womanizing father, but Mathilda was so straight-laced and starchy and... Amanda braced a hand against the wall of the storage building for support.

  “I could have made him happy, you know. But for my loyalty, he gave me nothing but a cold shoulder. He treated me like trash!” Bitterness filled Mathilda’s voice, and her lips pursed.

  “But I never treated you that way! I loved you like family. I never took you or any of the staff for granted...” She swallowed hard. “And Cheyenne...my daughter is an innocent! How could you do this to her?”

  Mathilda grunted and straightened her back. “Given time, she’ll grow up just as spoiled and pampered as the rest of your lot.”

  The woman’s posture was hard and unyielding. Amanda knew she wasn’t going to change Mathilda’s mind here and now. Clearly the housekeeper’s resentment—including her plan to extort money from Jethro as some type of revenge—had festered for a long time.

  Amanda’s mind reeled, and her emotions were so convoluted and suffocating, she didn’t know where to begin sorting out the horrible truths she was learning today.

  Her father had coldly given Cole, her brother, away. Lied to everyone for years. Allowed Darla to blackmail him. Mathilda had been her father’s lover. Had nurtured a hatred toward her family. Had conspired to kidnap Cheyenne for the ransom....

  Cheyenne! Everything else fell away in an instant. Mathilda had Cheyenne!

  An iron will and blazing purpose swept through Amanda. She locked a steely stare on Mathilda and seized the lapels of the woman’s coat again. “Give me back my daughter! Now!”

  “Not until you pay the ransom.” Mathilda leaned close, sticking her nose right in Amanda’s face. “Not until Jethro pays for all the pain he’s caused me for thirty years!”

  Gritting her teeth, Amanda tightened her grip. She shook with rage and horror. “I want Cheyenne back now! Take me to her!”

  “No,” Mathilda snarled back.

  With her heartbeat thundering in her ears, Amanda tried to sort out her thoughts, to tamp her roiling emotions long enough to think logically.

  Slade. She didn’t want to analyze why his name came to her above all other options, but having him at her side now, relying on him to help her in this moment of crisis, felt right. Fated.

  Stepping back from Mathilda, she dropped her hands from the housekeeper’s coat and fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone. Her hands shook from the cold, from the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Slade, then the police. I won’t let you get away with—”

  With a swift slap, Mathilda knocked the phone from Amanda’s frozen, trembling hand. As soon as it clattered on the storage building floor, the older woman stomped it into a useless heap.

  Amanda saw red. She was about to launch herself onto Mathilda, ripping into her like a wildcat, with fingernails and teeth and anything else she could find. But as she tensed her muscles to strike, Mathilda startled her again.

  “Fine. You want to see your daughter? I’ll take you to her.”

  Amanda stilled. “You will?”

  Joy and relief coursed through her, an instinctive reaction to Mathilda’s offer....

  Until she noticed the scheming look in Mathilda’s eyes. Amanda hesitated, her brain scrambling. Why would Mathilda have such an abrupt change of heart? What was Amanda missing? Could it really be so easy, that Mathilda would give up and take her to Cheyenne?

  Her heart galloped, thrashing against her ribs with almost painful urgency. She had to find Cheyenne. If there was any chance...

  “Sure. I�
�ll take you to her now.” Mathilda grabbed Amanda’s wrist in a viselike grip, and the first wings of panic fluttered in her chest.

  “Wait! I want Slade to come with us.” Amanda struggled, trying to pull her arm free.

  “Fat chance of that,” Mathilda cackled and headed out of the storage building with Amanda in tow.

  Mixed emotions battled for dominance as Amanda stumbled behind Mathilda. The icy wind blasted her when they stepped outside, as if to warn her against venturing farther with the older woman. Shivering, Amanda dug her heels into the snow, fighting the woman’s grip. “No, wait!”

  “Don’t you want to see your baby?” Mathilda’s grin bordered on a sneer and boded ill.

  “Of course. But I—” Amanda cast a frantic glance around the ranch yard.

  Empty. Still. Even the animals were safely ensconced in warm shelter. Her breath clouded as she gasped shallow, panicked breaths. Despite all her doubts about Mathilda’s intent, how could she pass up even the tiniest chance that Mathilda might truly take her to Cheyenne? Her mental battle continued as the older woman yanked hard on her arm, her grip like a shackle. In her indecision and confusion, Amanda allowed herself to be dragged several steps through the snow. Away from the main house. Away from help. Away from Slade.

  “Help!” she shouted, praying someone, anyone, would hear. “Someone help me!”

  A palm cracked against her cheek, stinging all the more because of the icy cold. “Shut up! Keep your mouth shut and come with me.” Mathilda’s glare was glacial, cruel. And soberingly serious.

  Warning bells screamed in Amanda’s head. You can’t help Cheyenne if you’re dead....

  “No! Bring her here. To me.” Again she fought to free herself.

  Mathilda’s face crumpled with malice. “I’m in charge now, missy. You do what I say if you want your brat to live!”

  Ice raced through Amanda’s blood. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

  “Then come with me,” Mathilda grated. “Quietly!”

  Amanda stumbled behind the woman she’d considered family, the friendly face she’d never suspected could harbor such hatred for her family. A strange elixir of hope that she would really be taken to Cheyenne and fear that she was walking into a deadly trap swirled inside her. Mathilda squeezed Amanda’s wrist so hard, her hand grew numb. The farther they walked away from the main house, the ranch yard and the people who could help her, the more worried Amanda became. Finally she recognized where Mathilda was leading her, and a fresh wave of betrayal swept through her.

  The Blacks’ cabin. Was the old couple in on the kidnapping? Were they part of a conspiracy to extort money from the family?

  Mathilda paused on the front step of the small shack and peered in a front window. Then without knocking, she opened the door and poked her head inside. “Horace? Bernice?”

  When no reply came, Mathilda shoved her way inside and pushed Amanda into the cabin’s main room. The cabin was still and silent except for the loud ticking of a clock over the small fireplace. Amanda had the passing thought that such a loud ticking would drive her nuts...and remembered that both of the elderly Blacks were hard of hearing and probably didn’t even hear the annoying ticking.

  She faced Mathilda, her hands balled at her sides. “All right. Where is she? Where’s Cheyenne?”

  Mathilda crossed to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, rolled back a small throw rug under the table and lifted a section of the wood plank floor. Amanda goggled at what she was seeing. A trapdoor? She’d had no idea...

  Mathilda pointed down into the dark hole below. “You first.”

  Holding her breath, Amanda sidled over to peer into the inky darkness. And heard a muffled whimper. Her heart jumped. “Cheyenne?”

  “Maaa!” a tiny voice wailed.

  “Cheyenne!” Amanda scrambled under the table and into the hole, finding a ladder against one wall.

  Mathilda followed her down the ladder, closing the trapdoor behind them. As she descended, the housekeeper flipped a switch which lit a bare light bulb that dangled from the ceiling of the cellar pit.

  At the bottom of the ladder, Amanda turned and searched the small room frantically. She took in the two wooden chairs and shelves of canned foods, blankets, batteries that lined the walls, but her interest was only in finding Cheyenne. Had she been tricked?

  “Where is she?”

  Mathilda stepped over to one of the shelving units and pulled on it. It swung open like a door, revealing a dark tunnel.

  In the dim glow from the bare light bulb, Amanda spotted an old, shabby playpen. Cheyenne stood in the playpen, clinging to the side rail. When Cheyenne spotted her mother, she loosed a loud cry and reached for Amanda. “Maaa!”

  “Oh, baby girl!” Amanda started toward the tunnel, only to have Mathilda step in her path. With a gun.

  Mathilda aimed the weapon at Amanda’s heart. “I took you to her. I didn’t say you got to hold her.”

  Amanda stared at the gun, her anxiety climbing. “Wh-where did you get that?” She was certain Mathilda hadn’t had the gun in the storage building or she’d have used it to threaten her.

  “The Blacks aren’t the only ones who store things down here. Didn’t you ever wonder why the cops could never find the gun that shot Jenny Burke or that fired at you in the holding pen?”

  Amanda swallowed hard as a lot of things from the past months began to make sense. “It was your gun the whole time. You hid it here.”

  “Exactly. Along with the .45 I took from Chief Drucker during one of our—” she gave a smug grin “—late-night interludes.”

  Amanda quickly processed this new tidbit. “You and Chief Drucker had an affair?”

  Her grin spread. “Poor shmuck was in love with me. He’d do anything I asked. Sleeping with him was a small price to wield that kind of influence over the chief of police.”

  Amanda’s gut rolled. How could she and her family have been so blind to Mathilda’s manipulation and cold ambition? The woman had hidden her secret life well, given Oscar-worthy performances, pretending to care about the family, the ranch.

  Now Mathilda took another gun, a bigger one, from a shelf and showed it to Amanda before she stuck it in her coat pocket. “Jared preferred using the .45, and it has the bonus of matching the weapon the police use, since it was Drucker’s.” She chuckled. “Which confused the poor fools plenty when that snooping reporter, Jagger what’s-his-face, was here this summer. When I needed Jared to handle a job, he came and collected one of the guns, then hid it again here.”

  Cheyenne continued crying, her distress breaking Amanda’s heart. “Please, let me pick her up. Comfort her.”

  “No. Crying never hurt a kid.”

  “But—”

  “No!” Mathilda stretched the gun toward Amanda.

  Raising her palms, Amanda tried to pacify the housekeeper. “Okay. Okay...” Get her to talk. Fill in more of the blanks. “So the Blacks are in on this with you?”

  Mathilda scoffed. “Hardly. Those old geezers have no use for money. They wouldn’t live like this if they weren’t perfectly content with this lifestyle. Old Horace has a small fortune sitting in the bank he never touches.”

  She blinked. “He does?”

  “Most of it was his father’s money. His old pop got rich selling moonshine during prohibition. This tunnel goes all the way to the basement of the main house. It was built as a secret escape route in case the police came after Pop Black during prohibition. The Reverend Horace and holier-than-thou Bernice are ashamed of that legacy and never speak of it. While they still use the root cellar as a doomsday shelter—yes, the idiots believe all that end-of-times nonsense and these are their supplies.” She waved the nongun hand at the shelves of food and dry goods. “But they never use the tunnel...on principle. Because of its immoral original use.” She gave a
gloating grin. “Which served my purposes. I found the tunnel quite by accident several years ago and never told anyone.”

  “My father doesn’t know about the tunnel?”

  The housekeeper scoffed. “Of course not. No one does besides me, the Blacks...and now Jared, since he had to have a way to disappear, a way to hide the gun from the cops.” She gave a quick glance behind her at Cheyenne. “And a place to stash your kid while we waited for the ransom.”

  “How could all of this have happened under the Blacks’ noses...under their table...without them finding out?” Amanda shook her head, baffled.

  “As deaf as those two old birds are? Ha! Easy.” Mathilda shrugged. “And we always planned our attacks to coincide with the Blacks’ work hours. They keep a routine, entirely predictable schedule. They never knew anything about what was happening right below their feet.” Mathilda’s expression was pure self-satisfaction, and her gloating fueled the disgust and anger that writhed in Amanda’s gut.

  Cheyenne’s wails continued, and Amanda couldn’t take it any longer. Daring Mathilda to defy her, she strode boldly toward the playpen.

  “Stop!” Mathilda shrieked.

  “My daughter needs me!”

  An earsplitting gunshot echoed through the dark cellar, and a jar of preserved green beans shattered near Amanda’s head. Cheyenne’s plaintive whines became a frightened cry. Amanda’s heart raced, and she raised a wary look to Mathilda.

  “The next bullet goes in the baby’s head, if you don’t do exactly as I tell you.”

  Amanda shook all over. “You’re insane.”

  “Not insane. Just sick to death of bowing and scraping for you Coltons. Now it is my turn to be rich, to have people do my bidding.” She waved the gun in Amanda’s face. “Starting with you. Go sit in that chair and put your hands behind you.”

  Amanda didn’t move. Her thoughts spun wildly as she tried to think of a way to get the gun from Mathilda and rescue Cheyenne.