Colton First Responder (The Coltons 0f Mustang Valley Book 4)

by Linda O. Johnston

  Then Grayson looked toward Savannah. “I gather you’re not sure Zane had any kind of recorder here, though he implied it.” As Savannah nodded, Grayson shrugged and shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t see anything here that would do what you hoped for.”

  He somehow looked cute in his frustration Cute? Why was she even thinking in that way?

  To pull herself out of this situation, out of here? Out of her own frustration at not finding what they needed—something to clear her, right away?

  That was ridiculous.

  “We should probably look other places, though, just in case,” Grayson continued. “If he was trying to hide something, his office would probably be too obvious, after all. Where else did he spend time?”

  “He liked to watch the big-screen TV in the den,” Savannah said after realizing that Grayson was right and pondering an answer to his question. “We were kind of separated for a while inside the house, both emotionally and physically, even before we got divorced. He had his own bedroom then, before I moved into the guesthouse, so that’s another possibility.”

  “A potentially good one,” Grayson said. “Let’s start there and check it out, okay?”

  “Sure.” Savannah felt a bit embarrassed taking Grayson to her ex-husband’s bedroom, although she hadn’t been there for ages, and the last time she was there was probably well before Zane and she unofficially split up.

  But that might make it a perfect place for him to hide something, right? Not that it would have mattered after she moved out. He could even have hidden the recorder in the room she had last used inside this house, the master bedroom.

  She showed Grayson where Zane had slept while staying far away from her at night. They went up the wide wooden stairway, turned left at the end of the upstairs hallway and walked along the hall that was covered with imported Persian carpets laid end to end.

  It felt so odd to Savannah to be here, seeing some of the things she still loved about this place. Her emotions roiled, but she ignored them. She was here to think, not to feel.

  The white wooden door was closed but not locked. Inside, the place looked as Savannah remembered it, with a king-size bed beneath a woven, imported coverlet embroidered in gold and silver threads. Zane had a very tall and wide chest of drawers on one side and an ornate, full-length mirror beside it. He always liked to admire how he looked.

  The place still smelled like him—not that “dead” Zane was likely to have visited recently. But he had used an aftershave with a lime citrus scent, and that aroma remained in the air.

  The large dresser had two sides, each with separate drawers, with a bottom cabinet area with two separate doors. Savannah began searching through the drawers on the right side. Not that she appreciated thumbing through Zane’s expensive underwear, but she had to find that recorder—unless Grayson did.

  Nothing in the first drawer, and as she turned she noticed that Grayson was on his side on the floor, looking under the bed. Then he rose a little and began prodding the area between the mattress and the box spring.

  Savannah turned back and closed the top right drawer, opening the next one—and almost gagged. It contained mostly socks of different styles and colors, no big deal there. But it also held a moderate-sized box with a colorful exterior that was labeled with a manufacturer’s name and the word “Condoms” written decoratively in the middle.

  She knew full well how much Zane engaged in sex with other women, and this suggested he had continued to have a lot of fun in that way before his “death.” Before their divorce? She’d known he had but never found a good way to prove it.

  She started slamming the drawer shut, too—but before she could, Grayson’s arm reached out to stop her, startling Savannah. “Just a sec,” he said.

  Why? Did he want to take some of those condoms along with him? Even having him see them in Zane’s drawer embarrassed Savannah. She had wanted out of that horrible relationship, but this could give the impression not only that her ex was a sex fiend, but that Savannah hadn’t satisfied him in that department.

  Sure enough, Grayson pulled that box out of the drawer. Feeling mortified, justifiably or not, Savannah started to walk away. But then Grayson opened the box and crowed, “Here we are! I figured that might be a place to hide something without nosy people getting into it—except for us.”

  He pulled a black technological gadget out of the box. It was not very large but had a screen in front with buttons below and auxiliary ports. It was maybe an inch thick at the widest spot but tapered toward the bottom. With it were a couple of long wires with plugs at both ends.

  “What is it?” Savannah asked in a hushed voice.

  “Not my area of expertise, but I’d guess it’s a landline phone call recorder. I just hope the memory card has lots of helpful recordings on it. Now we can continue looking for something else, too, but—”

  A loud noise sounded from downstairs. “Police!” yelled a loud voice. “Is anyone here?” Savannah noticed what looked like some bright lights through the door from that direction. It was late morning, but even so maybe the cops were using inside searchlights before barging inside.

  “Damn!” Grayson muttered softly. “Could the alarm have gone off after all?”

  “Zane might have modified it,” Savannah said nervously. He had talked about hiring a security company to improve the system someday, but he hadn’t done that while she was living here.

  “Anywhere we can hide?” Grayson whispered.

  She felt her face light up, if only a little. “Yes. Zane was always secretive.” She, too, kept her voice low. Raising a finger, she beckoned Grayson to follow her. She hurried as quietly as she could back to the same dresser, where she pulled open the wooden door on the bottom left. The open area there was surprisingly vast and even extended into the wall. Savannah had wondered what Zane planned to hide there someday. Cash stolen from his job? She wouldn’t have been surprised—but if he had, he’d fortunately taken the money with him. That left an area large enough to hide both Grayson and her.

  They both got down on the floor and crawled inside, and Grayson, holding the recorder, pulled the door closed behind them.

  They waited. Savannah felt terrified, but it helped that Grayson snuggled against her as they both sat on the base of the cabinet and bent forward at the waist. He even put an arm around her. He was warm and comforting—and Savannah hoped that the cops didn’t find them here and now.

  It apparently took a while for the police to conduct their search of the place, and eventually Savannah heard footsteps in the hallway, then voices as the cops came inside Zane’s bedroom. She glanced at Grayson, who was hardly visible in the darkness of the cabinet. He hugged her slightly harder as if in reassurance, then eased up. And stared at the cabinet door as if ready to leap out and attack the intruders.

  But it didn’t sound as if they would remain there long. They seemed to be grumbling about being there, talking about how the damned wind might have blown a door open and set off the alarm at the security company, which had notified the police station. From what Savannah could tell, they just walked through Zane’s bedroom, circling it for maybe a minute as they talked, then started out again—or so she hoped.

  Savannah was a bit startled when Grayson pushed the door open just a little and looked out.

  And appeared a bit startled, too. He closed it quietly and quickly, then held Savannah’s arm to keep her motionless for a short while that felt like forever.

  He seemed to be listening. Concentrating.

  And in a while he whispered to her, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 19

  Grayson extracted himself from the bottom of the cabinet first and stood. He stretched, listening, and heard nothing. No one.

  Not even his cousin Spencer.

  Grayson had thought he recognized Spencer’s voice when the cops were in the room talking. That was why h
e had carefully peeked out. And confirmed who it was. And fortunately hadn’t been noticed.

  If the other cops hadn’t been there too, would Grayson have let Spencer know of his presence and Savannah’s?

  No. He couldn’t do that to either Savannah or Spencer. Spencer would have had to arrest fugitive Savannah, even if Grayson made a good case for her innocence.

  Which he certainly believed he could.

  Even so, to do his job right, Spencer would probably have felt compelled to take Grayson into custody for abetting her.

  Maybe even Grayson’s brother Rafe’s fiancée, Detective Kerry Wilder, would feel the same way.

  Grayson hadn’t thought he would have to hide anything from his family members, but that was before Savannah.

  Grayson waited another few minutes in case he heard more from the cops, then said quietly to Savannah, “Okay, I think they’ve left. Time for us to get out of here.”

  He helped her to her feet, noticing the pinkness to her face beneath her makeup. That jacket had to be making her feel awfully warm. But it did help in her disguise, so he didn’t suggest she take it off, at least not yet.

  In fact, in case someone saw them, he handed her the recorder and its wires, and asked her to hide them beneath the jacket, since it wouldn’t fit in her small purse nor in his pockets. The base of the jacket was secured by a cord belt, so the recorder should easily remain there.

  “Okay,” she said. “Do you think it’s all right for us to go out the same way we came in?”

  “Better than the front,” Grayson responded. “And I gathered that the neighbors at that side don’t use that entrance to their place, or so I figured from the amount of cactus around their gate. They probably won’t notice us. So, yes.”

  Grayson insisted on preceding Savannah slowly along the hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen, continuing to remain alert the entire way. But fortunately, he still believed he was correct in assuming the police had left.

  Finally, they reached the door they had come in. Again, he insisted on going first and opened the door just a little to ensure he didn’t see or hear anyone outside before they exited.

  In a few minutes, they had gone out that door and through the gate. He held Savannah’s hand as they inched their way along the fence to the alley.

  Soon, they were making their way along that alley. A breeze was still blowing, but it didn’t affect them now. In fact, Grayson was glad for that wind. It had sounded like the cops had accepted it as the reason the house’s front door had opened and set off the remote.

  Did anyone look this way from their homes backing onto this alley or otherwise? Grayson didn’t think so, or at least he hoped not. They walked quickly to his car and got inside.

  Grayson felt relieved. “Let’s listen to those recordings back at the bunker,” he told Savannah as soon as he drove away in that direction.

  “Fine with me,” she said, “although do you have enough batteries to power the recorder along with the lights? We may be listening to it for a while and using up its juice.”

  “I’ve got something better,” he told her. “A generator. As I mentioned, I used to spend a lot of time at my bunker.”

  He hoped, though, that they’d be able to work things out so Savannah didn’t have to spend much time there. It was partially underground, after all, an even more stressful place for her to hang out than the fishing cabin, or so he believed. Still, although it was a former mine, since he’d closed off the shafts years ago he didn’t consider it dangerous.

  Besides, now that they’d begun testing her disguise, maybe she would be able to get out and about, at least a little.

  Better yet, prepare to move somewhere else altogether and let Grayson ultimately figure out how to clear her name around here. But his ability to do that might depend on what was on that recorder that was now on the center console between them.

  “That bunker of yours is amazing,” Savannah said. “You’ve got the place furnished quite nicely for what is pretty much a cave. You must have really liked it while you were growing up.”

  “I did,” he said, “though now I have even better ways of staying away from my family when I choose to. And I never let them control my life.”

  “You’re fortunate,” Savannah said, surprising him a little. “My dad’s gone now, but I married Zane largely because of his urging me to. I miss my father, but I certainly don’t miss his pushiness.”

  Interesting. “My dad’s on the pushy side, too,” he said. “Or he was, before.” He knew Savannah was aware of how Payne Colton had been shot and remained in a coma. Even though he still resented some of his father’s attempts to control him in the past, Grayson felt awful about what had happened.

  Another thought struck him about his family, something he really ought to let Savannah know about. “By the way, I should tell you one of the reasons I acted a bit stupid while we were hidden and peered out toward the cops. I thought I recognized a voice, and I was right. My cousin Spencer Colton was one of them.”

  He heard Savannah draw in her breath. “Oh, that could have been terrible. If he’d found you, I mean. I’m so sorry that I’ve been putting you into that kind of position, where even your family members might turn against you.”

  “Oh, I doubt that would be the case with Spencer.” Grayson tried to keep his tone light, though he appreciated that this woman was smart enough to recognize problems like that without his suggesting them.

  And it wasn’t only Savannah’s intelligence that he appreciated about her. He enjoyed her company, her warmth and caring, her body, and, well, nearly everything about her. Would there be any possibility of their developing a relationship after Savannah was cleared? He was beginning to hope so. A lot.

  But none of that mattered now, while he still had to figure out how best to help her. Hopefully, that would get resolved when they listened to the recordings.

  And the things he admired about her might not matter after this was all over.

  They might wind up going their own ways...

  But he certainly hoped not.

  Meanwhile, now, he continued to drive around town as he had become used to doing, avoiding potholes and ruts still there after the earthquake, looking in the rearview mirror often to see what vehicles might be behind them, turning off onto smaller streets to ensure they weren’t being followed, then veering off again to keep checking all was well.

  He knew the cops were smart, too, especially Spencer. It was possible his cousin had seen him in Zane’s house, or saw him after they left the house, and was now stealthily following them.

  He had to be sure that wasn’t the case before they finally headed to his bunker. It was not someplace he had ever told Spencer—or anyone—about.

  It was still late morning, so no chance of hiding easily if anyone happened to be following them. But Grayson was being careful. He pulled into the parking lot of a small chain grocery store. “We need some supplies for tonight,” he said. “And probably tomorrow, too.”

  Like breakfast, he thought. Would he stay the night again?

  Quite possibly. If he could.

  “Wait here,” he told her, but she got out of the car at the same time he did. She drew closer to him on the sidewalk in front of the entrance. There were other people around, so he didn’t want to scold her.

  Especially when she got close enough to kiss him on the cheek—just pretending they were an item, he figured. She also used the opportunity to whisper to him, “Just checking my disguise again.”

  “Be careful,” he instructed, and shook his head as she stuck out her tongue and preceded him inside.

  He looked around the parking lot but didn’t see anything that made him suspicious, so he followed.

  The stuff they picked up after quickly strolling the narrow aisles of the store was the usual—a few sandwiches, more water, some chips and dip, a
nd sweet rolls for the morning. Not a lot of the latter, but enough that they both would have an adequate amount if he did wind up staying the night, and Grayson was sure Savannah recognized that. But neither of them mentioned it.

  He paid, of course. The young woman at the cash register didn’t pay much attention to them, a good thing. Then, with Grayson holding the paper bag, they returned to the car and he began driving again.

  On the route back, he did a few more twists and turns just in case but still saw no indication of anyone following or otherwise showing any interest in them. He finally headed his SUV toward his bunker.

  “So everything’s okay?” Savannah asked from beside him. Of course she would have noticed his weaving around local roads even after their small shopping expedition and understood why—smart lady that she was.

  He aimed a smile at her before turning onto the street that would take him to the dirt road toward the bunker. “Yep, but we can’t be too careful, can we?”

  “No,” she said, then added, “I’m learning so much from you, Grayson. And I’ll never be able to thank you enough for all you’re doing for me.”

  “Sure you can,” he said teasingly. “I’ll always be glad to hear it. First responders always are.”

  Once more he glanced at her—and wished he could just pull over and put his arms around the woman who was smiling so sadly at him. A pretty woman despite her disguise, including those silly glasses.

  A sexy woman—and he definitely knew that about her, thanks to experience. Not that he dared to anticipate much more, if any.

  But he had to keep his eyes on the semblance of a road through the forest beyond his family ranch, so he turned back to look out the windshield. Soon, they got to the area where he always parked and he put his car in its secluded spot.

  She waited for him to go first as they approached the opening to the former mineshaft, though. Inside the cave, he again used the light from his phone to illuminate their path, and they quickly reached the rear part and entered the bunker area.

  He lit the lanterns, then walked quickly to where he had stored the generator in an area off to the side and picked up the large container of gasoline he always left there, poured it into the machine, then turned it on.