by Debra Webb
“What do you want?” She blinked back the tears of grief that had been building for days…since she’d heard about Yoni’s murder.
Castille stared at the floor a moment as if the generic carpet held some secret.
Secrets…lies…she’d escaped this world once.
As soon as this part was over she intended to return to Chicago and never look back. Again.
“I’m sorry you were hurt by all this.”
Her gaze flew to his. “All of this is your fault!”
He nodded. “To some degree, yes. It is.”
The only good she could see coming of this was if he stepped down from the office to which he’d been entrusted.
“I want to explain how this happened.”
Like she wanted to hear anything he had to say. “I’ll hear it all in court.” She had no choice but to return for that. Damn it!
“Sharon found out about Aleesha and she went a little crazy.”
Kendra glared at him, wishing desperately that looks could kill. “You should have thought of that when you were chasing that poor girl.” She shook her head with the disgust writhing inside her. “I thought you were better than that.”
He held up both hands as if to protect himself from her poisonous words. “It’s not what you think.”
Yeah, right. Every cheater said that.
“Aleesha was my daughter.”
Shock quaked through Kendra. “What?”
Castille heaved a forlorn breath. “She sought me out a few months ago. Her mother had passed away and left a note explaining who her father was. I had a one-night stand with her mother more than two decades ago.” He dropped his head. “It was foolish. Sharon had lapsed into another one of her depressions.” He shrugged. “She wanted children, but cancer had taken that opportunity away from her. I told her it didn’t matter, but as the years went by it just ate at her…taking up where the cancer had left off.”
Kendra tamped back the sympathy that attempted to rise. “Why didn’t you adopt?”
He smiled sadly. “We considered it, but Sharon just wouldn’t be suited with any of the options presented. She turned away from me and to the bottle.”
His wife had a drinking problem? “I never heard any rumors about a drinking problem.” Didn’t seem possible. Nothing about a person’s life was sacred here. How had Kendra not known this?
“She was careful. Always. She reserved her disgrace for late at night at home where no one could see. Including me.
“Eventually I gave in to the loneliness.” He shook his head again. “It was wrong. I know. But I am human and I had needs. But it only happened once.”
“She never told you—Aleesha’s mother, I mean—that she was pregnant.”
“That’s the strangest part. She knew I had money. But she never contacted me. I didn’t know until Aleesha showed up.”
“How can you be sure she was your daughter?” Kendra hated to think the worst, but desperation and greed were strong motivators.
“Anonymous DNA test. Grant took care of the details for me. There was no denying. And, there were other indications.” A sad smile trembled on his lips. “She looked exactly like my mother did as a young girl. And the birthmark.” He patted his chest. “Over the heart. My mother had it. Aleesha had it.”
Kendra couldn’t pretend the man wasn’t grieving, too. Still. Grant had said…Grant. God, he was dead, too. “Grant told me that you’d killed Yoni. That you were having an affair with Aleesha.” None of this made sense.
“Grant realized the power he had,” Castille explained, “when I trusted him with the task of seeing to the DNA test. He used it to push Sharon over the edge, to extort money from her and then from me.”
“Sharon wasn’t the one who killed Aleesha.” Kendra wasn’t ready to let the senator off the hook entirely but he needed to know that.
“Your colleague, Mr. Michaels, showed me the video statement from Delilah Brewer that your agency prepared. You don’t know…” his voice cracked “…how much that means to me. Grant had Sharon convinced she had been driving the car when in fact she had been so inebriated that she barely recalls the incident.”
“I don’t understand why he killed Aleesha. She was a meal ticket for him.”
“Aleesha threatened to go public with the whole thing. Grant wanted to continue holding it over Sharon and I, so he neutralized an unnecessary threat. He had the photos and the DNA results.”
Kendra had known the guy was a sleaze. “But why Yoni? Did he find out what Grant was up to?”
“That was my fault.”
“How so?” Kendra braced for more shocking revelations.
“I saw Grant and the whole situation with my wife and Aleesha’s death spiraling out of control so I contacted Wayne Burton. I asked him to see what he could do to quietly put the brakes on.”
She supposed that made sense.
“At first, it appeared he would be successful. He claimed he might be able to prove Grant was driving the car that struck Aleesha. If so, Grant would likely be easy to pay off. Get him out of our lives. But then things changed. About two weeks ago Burton started insisting he’d hit a stumbling block. Yoni came to me with the threats he had received. At first it didn’t make sense.”
Kendra’s stomach knotted. “He believed the threats were connected to the Transparency Bill.”
“He was right. Burton had gotten a better offer. He has given up the names of the two lobbyists in hopes of getting a lighter sentence. Bernard Capshaw is the ring leader. He’s being brought in as we speak.”
“Wayne killed Yoni.” Kendra could scarcely believe Wayne would be that heartless.
“He killed Yoni and Grant and attempted to frighten you into leaving. When that didn’t work, he was prepared to kill you and your partner. He wanted nothing to get in the way of his big payoff.”
Kendra couldn’t believe she’d once cared about the man. It was…astonishing to learn that he was capable of such evil.
Castille stood. “I’m going to resign my office before this turns into yet another sideshow.”
Kendra looked up at him, saw the defeat and the sadness. She’d thought the worst of him and he hadn’t deserved it…at least not all of it.
“But,” he qualified, “not until I see that this bill is passed. I owe that to Yoni.”
A traitorous tear escaped Kendra’s firm hold. “He would be proud.”
The senator nodded, then started for the door. “One piece of advice, Kendra.”
Until a few moments ago she wouldn’t have wanted to hear any advice this man had to give. But, like he said, he was only human. Circumstances had prompted wrong decisions from him, as it did from all mere humans.
“Don’t devote all you have to your career. If you do, you’ll end up old, tired and alone.” He heaved a sigh. “Like me.”
The door closed, leaving Kendra alone once more.
The memory of how it felt to have Rocky’s arms around her, of his hot kisses made her tremble…made more of those damned tears slide down her cheeks.
Castille was right.
Maybe even Wayne had been a little bit right about her.
But she wasn’t too stubborn to acknowledge her weaknesses and to institute change.
“ALL RIGHT, MR. ROCKFORD,” the police captain announced, “you’re free to go.”
Rocky nodded and turned to the door. Lucky for him one of the rescue personnel had given him a T-shirt since he’d tossed his shirt into the river in an attempt to throw off the bastards chasing them. Right now, he was tired as hell and he ached all over. Bruised ribs and lots of abrasions were about all he’d gotten in the fall, except for the sore muscles. Of course that didn’t take into account the black eye and split lip that he’d gotten from one of Burton’s dirtbags.
He would live.
More important, Kendra was okay.
He stepped out into the corridor fully expecting to see Ian Michaels waiting for him, but Michaels appeared to be in deep conversati
on with the chief of police at the other end of the hall.
Right now, Rocky just wanted to find Kendra.
As if luck was on his side for once, a door opened and she stepped out into the long gray corridor. She smiled.
He smiled back, then winced at the burn in his lip.
“You were wrong about Yoni, you know,” she said. “You have to wear a suit to work every day for a week.”
“I’ve always been a man of my word,” he relented. At the moment he would have done anything she asked. He was just glad she was okay.
She walked straight up to him then. Despite all the scratches and bruises she looked amazing. “I gave lengthy consideration to your offer.”
Confusion furrowed his brow making his head hurt. What the hell was she talking about?
“I decided that I don’t want to wait or to weigh the consequences or anything else.” She threw her arms around his neck, went up on tiptoe and kissed him.
Then he understood.
Kendra was ready to give them a chance. To take the risk.
He drew back, smiled at her even though it hurt like hell. “You won’t regret it.”
She kissed his bruised jaw. “I know. You’re my partner, you would never let me down.”
The Colby Agency, Monday, July 10, 5:15 p.m.
“DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE?”
Victoria Colby-Camp looked up from her desk and smiled at her son. “Absolutely.”
He swaggered into the room. Such self-confidence. Incredibly handsome just like his father. And full of compassion for others. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t feel immensely grateful for having him here…where he belonged.
“I was thinking,” he said as he settled into a chair, “that we should celebrate.”
“What’s the occasion?” Tasha, Jim’s wife, was due any day, but she felt relatively certain that if he’d gotten a call about that he would already be en route to the hospital. A man didn’t get the chance to welcome his son into the world every day. Last week’s false alarm had heightened the already merciless tension.
“Considering this latest case and the amazing way our teams have merged, I think it’s time to celebrate that success. The Colby Agency and the Equalizers are now one. We have full velocity.”
Victoria agreed. Kendra and Rocky were back home, but taking a few badly needed days off. A smile tickled her lips. Rumor was that the two had formed more than a professional bond in the past week.
“I think that’s an amazing idea,” Victoria agreed. “You call Tasha and I’ll call Lucas.”
Jim braced to stand. “Excellent.”
The phone on Victoria’s desk rang. Mildred, her assistant, had already gone for the day so Victoria took the call herself.
“Victoria, is my husband in your office?”
Tasha. She sounded a little out of breath. Victoria bit her lips together…this could be the call. “Certainly, he’s right here.” Victoria reached the phone across the desk. “It’s Tasha.”
“Put it on speaker,” he said, grinning, “and we’ll tell her about tonight’s celebration.”
Victoria did as Jim requested though she had a feeling there would be a different kind of celebration tonight. “Tasha, you’re on speaker. Jim is right here.”
“You’d better come home. Now,” Tasha said, her voice rising as she spoke. “This boy is ready! For real this time!”
Jim jumped to his feet, his eyes wide with anticipation and maybe a little uneasiness. “On the way!” Jim backed toward the door. “Sorry…about tonight.”
Victoria grinned. “Go! Lucas and I will pick up Jamie and be right behind you.”
Jim Colby bounded out of the office. Victoria blinked back the tears building in her eyes. She had already been blessed with a beautiful granddaughter, Jamie, now she would have a grandson.
She stood, grabbed her cell phone to put through a call to Lucas.
A new Colby was about to be born.
The name would live on…and so would the agency.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6480-3
COLBY VELOCITY
Copyright © 2010 by Debra Webb
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
*Colby Agency
††Colby Agency: Elite Reconnaissance Division
**Colby Agency: Under Siege
§Colby Agency: Merger
