The Colton Heir

by Colleen Thompson

  Soon, he found himself visiting one of the gossipy news sites his sister seemed to favor. He skimmed one article after the next, with topics ranging from which Hollywood stars had undergone breast augmentation to the sexiest celebrities of the year. Sprinkled among these were a handful of stories featuring the kinds of crimes the media loved to dwell on, namely, those involving the lurid murders of attractive blonde victims.

  If one of those victims happened to have connections, however obscure, to the rich and famous, so much the better...which was how he found himself looking at a photo of a stunning pageant queen with a rack that made him salivate. When he stared into her face, he started, but was what he was seeing real or only wishful thinking?

  He squinted at the photo, trying to imagine the sleek, wheat-blond hair darker, the vibrant blue eyes brown. Still not completely certain, he began to read the details of the story, a story speculating about a possible connection to a mysterious fire death in Florida and the victim’s missing daughter....

  A daughter whose secrets, Trip soon realized, would provide him all the ammunition he would need to make her his.

  “As soon as I catch you alone,” he whispered, the lit fuse of his desire burning even hotter.

  * * *

  Hope didn’t look at the digital clock at her bedside until just after 5:00 a.m.

  Dark as it still was, she jolted awake, remembering that she and Dylan were to leave by daybreak, and there was no way she was going anywhere with her grubby clothes and unwashed hair. Sitting up and stretching, she psyched herself for the short walk to the communal shower most of the women on the floor used. After donning a fuzzy, white robe and shower shoes from the wardrobe where she stored her clothing, she made her way to the end of the hall.

  With the lights low and the hall empty, it was quiet—the lull between the kitchen staff, the earliest risers, and the maids, who started their day somewhat later to avoid disturbing the family while working. Hope did hear a few noises, from the groan of a water pipe to the quiet thump of a dresser drawer closing, reminders that both this floor and this mansion had no shortage of inhabitants.

  One of whom had deliberately tried to do her harm. Or at least that was what Dylan and Levi were both thinking. But what if they were wrong? If, instead of harming her, the mastermind had meant to kill another of the maids?

  The more Hope thought about it, the more likely the idea seemed. For one thing, she’d seen nothing that stuck out as suspicious during her short tenure. Besides, the carts were stored together in an unlocked utility room when not in use, and no one would recognize her name.

  Yes, it was true that each maid had her favorite, with cleaning tools and solutions arranged according to her preferences. One of the first things Mathilda had warned her about was to take care never to touch another woman’s cart, as the maids could get a little territorial about them. But the mastermind wouldn’t necessarily know that, she decided, warming to the idea as she stepped inside the shower stall and latched the door behind her.

  It was never really about me at all.

  After hanging her robe and towel out of range of the stream, she turned on the water and let the warm steam loosen her lungs. She lingered longer than she should have, imagining the water sluicing through her hair and body washing away her worries about poisoners who were masterminds and electricians who were killers. Washing away the nightmares she’d been having about her father’s death, along with half-remembered dreams featuring a certain handsome wrangler.

  As the tension drained from her, she began to think she might melt away, too, chasing both the swirling water and her problems down the shower drain....

  Until the showers’ outer door creaked and the lights abruptly went out, leaving her standing, frozen, heart jumping and teeth chattering as if she’d been turned out naked in the cold.

  For what seemed like an eternity, she stood in silence, her mind trying to convince her that the mansion’s power had not been repaired correctly, or maybe someone had turned the lights out not realizing she was in here.

  But she’d heard the hallway door squeak, she was certain, and whoever had opened it would have surely heard the shower’s hiss.

  “Hello?” she ventured, shutting off the water and fumbling in the darkness for her robe. “Is someone in here?”

  The only answer was the pounding of her own pulse in her ears.

  “If this is some kind of prank,” she called, her voice thin and shaky, “it isn’t funny.”

  Could it be as simple as that? Was this merely one facet of some sort of initiation played out on the new staff? But try as she might, she couldn’t imagine any sort of hazing taking place on Mathilda Perkins’s strict watch, or involving cleaning chemicals, either, for that matter.

  No, whoever was doing this was out to either hurt her or drive her away. But who would want to...?

  “Misty?” she wondered aloud.

  It made perfect sense, she realized, remembering the younger woman’s jealousy when she’d seen her wearing Dylan’s jacket. Though Hope had seen no sign of a real relationship between the two, Misty clearly had ideas of staking an early claim on Jethro Colton’s missing heir—and, ridiculous as it seemed, she clearly saw Hope as the competition.

  “If this is about Dylan,” she called, her words echoing in the darkness, “I promise you, I’ll back off. Besides, I won’t be here much longer. You can ask Mathilda. I’m going back to... I’m just going. Very soon.”

  To testify, provided she lived long enough.

  But aside from the drip, drip of the draining water, she sensed only emptiness around her. Whoever had turned off the lights must have reached inside the room, then fled, leaving her alone to cower in the darkness. If it truly was someone’s idea of a joke, she wasn’t laughing.

  Drawing a deep breath and her courage, Hope slung her towel over her shoulder and unlatched the stall door. With her hands outstretched to avoid bumping the hard sinks or tiled walls, she groped her way toward the rim of light around the hallway door, telling herself in her calmest voice, “Just a few more steps.”

  But in that place, at that time, Hope didn’t have a few steps.

  Only one, before the first blow landed, slamming her down hard.

  Chapter 10

  Dylan was heading down for breakfast when he heard a woman’s voice, high-pitched with hysteria, above him in the stairwell.

  “Wait, please!” Her panic echoed in the stairwell. “Someone—someone’s tried to— I’m hurt.”

  Wheeling around, he looked up at Hope, his gaze catching on the starkness of a white robe splattered with bright red. But she was moving, stumbling downstairs, her face streaked with the blood dripping from a small cut above her right eye. “Please. Help me.”

  He met her halfway, too afraid of hurting her to do more than grab her by the shoulders and scan her for other injuries. “Hope—what happened?”

  She was shaking uncontrollably. “I was alone, in the shower. The lights went out and then—before I could get out of there, something hit me, hard. Knocked me right off my feet. My head slammed against the floor and—”

  “Who? Who did this?” he asked, pulling back to look into her wild eyes. As painful as the bloody lump looked, it was the purpling line across her throat that sent his stomach plunging. “Your neck. Is that— That looks like—”

  “I was knocked facedown, and then there was this heavy weight on my chest. Someone’s knee, I think, and then a sharp pain. I reached up, clawing at what felt like a strap or a cord, maybe, across my throat. I couldn’t move it, couldn’t breathe.”

  As her eyes welled with remembered horror, he took her into his arms and pulled her close, heedless of the blood. “Thank God you were able to escape, but how?”

  “Something from a self-defense class I took switched on in my brain, and I pushed up with my arms and threw my head back. I smacked into something hard—his face, I imagine, and when he jerked back, I broke his hold and rolled free.”

  “He
, you said. It was a man?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t be certain. I only know that when I fought back, whoever it was backed off. I heard the door creak. I caught a glimpse, a silhouette, and then I was alone.”

  “Then your attacker could still be up there.” Dylan glanced toward the stairs, wanting to destroy the monster who would do this, needing to put a stop to the terrifying attacks once and for all.

  But Hope was shaking her head. “I—I don’t know. Could be. But it took me a few minutes before I dared to leave the bathroom. I was so afraid someone would be waiting for me in the hallway. Waiting to finish—” Her hand floated above her bruised throat. “To finish me.”

  Galvanized by necessity, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the men’s hall, where he shouted for help. Two of the younger hands came boiling out of nearby rooms. The sandy-haired Stewie Runyon was bare-chested, his shirt still in his clenched fist, and the darker-haired Cal Clark hadn’t yet put on his boots, but neither hesitated when Dylan told them what had happened and asked them to head upstairs to check on all the women.

  “I don’t care how shocked Mathilda and Agnes are to see men on the women’s floor,” Dylan added. “Make sure they leave the floor for their own safety—and keep a sharp eye out for any of the ladies who might look a little extra breathless or disheveled.”

  “You aren’t thinking one of them would have done something like this?” Cal asked, his worried gaze flicking toward Hope, who had insisted she could stand on her own two feet.

  “I don’t know what to think at this point,” said Dylan, but as both hands headed upstairs, he realized that Cal was right, that such a physical attack didn’t sound like the sort of thing most females would attempt, especially against a young and healthy woman like Hope. But that didn’t rule out another male accomplice, paid off just as young Duke Johnson had been before he’d killed Dylan’s mother. If only the mercenary little punk had been able to name the person who had hired him, so much bloodshed could have been averted.

  Hope shook her head, telling him, “I wish I could be more helpful. Wish I’d seen or heard something, anything at all.”

  “You got away,” he said, hugging her to him again and stroking the back of her damp hair. “That’s the most important thing. If things had gone the other way...”

  She squeezed him back, her voice only a little shaky as she told him, “What did I tell you about us Jersey girls? We’re tougher than we look.”

  Relieved to see her looking stronger, he pulled a clean bandanna from his pocket, along with the new cell phone he’d picked up to replace the one he’d broken.

  “You might want to blot that forehead until we can get you checked out in the infirmary,” he said, passing her the folded square. “First, I’m calling the police.”

  “Do you really have to?” Hope looked more worried about their involvement than the fact that someone had tried to kill her. “Is there any way we can leave them out of this?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said. “Because unless I miss my guess, these attacks have nothing to do with your ex-husband and everything to do with the mastermind who’s already killed three people in this mansion.”

  “But why?”

  “There’s only one explanation I can think of. You had to have seen something without realizing it—something so incriminating that the mastermind feels she has no choice but to kill you. Or have you killed by another of her henchmen.”

  “Then I’m not safe here at all. Not until this person’s caught.”

  “That’s why it’s more important than ever that I get you out of here as soon as Levi clears you.”

  * * *

  Several hours later, Hope walked beside Dylan as he carried her bag to the pickup, his boots crunching on the gravel. Every few steps, he looked back toward her, tension written in his clenched jaw and troubled gaze.

  “If you have any doubts at all about this,” he told her, “we can still go to the medical center to get you checked out like Levi advised.”

  “He said himself my injuries look superficial.”

  “Not from where I’m standing, they don’t. And I’m betting they don’t feel it, either.”

  “Those painkillers he gave me are helping.” Glancing back toward the huge hulk of the mansion, she shivered. “And I’ll feel even better once we put some distance between me and whoever did this. Even police chief Peters said he thought it was a good idea.”

  He’d been disappointed that she’d been unable to provide more details of the attack and even more disappointed that the hands’ search of the third story turned up nothing.

  Opening the passenger door, he put her bag behind her front seat, then offered her a hand up. Her first impulse was to tell him not to treat her like an invalid, but she was feeling a little shaky, queasy with the idea that someone had actually jumped on her and tried to choke the life out of her. She could still feel the knee jammed into her back, the pressure against her neck, the darkness spilling over her, like an oily slick of evil.

  “Thanks,” she managed, grateful for the warm strength of his hand as it squeezed hers. His chivalry might be old-fashioned, but it made her—he made her—feel safe, and right now there was nothing in the world she needed more.

  Once they were both inside and buckled in, he slid another look her way and shook his head. “People are going to take one look at you and think I’m the kind of scum who gets off on beating women.”

  “Nobody who knows you, that’s for certain.” She smiled and adjusted her scarf to better hide her bruised neck. “There you are. That better?”

  “Nice try,” he said, his gaze zeroing in on the bandaged square stuck to her forehead, which didn’t begin to cover the bruise she’d gotten from her earlier fall in Tawny’s room. Shaking his head, he added, “But it won’t be better until police chief Peters makes an arrest.”

  “You really think he will?”

  “Not until we find him some better leads to go on. He seemed to agree that it couldn’t have been one of your ex’s goons, or you would be dead, but the idea that someone in the mansion, someone we all know and trust, could do something like—”

  “Three women have been killed here, right? And there’ve been other attacks, too.”

  “But why you now? Why you in particular.”

  She sighed, knowing it was a question with no answer. Not one of the possible motives she’d discussed with the police chief had sounded anything but laughable, from the late delivery of a load of laundry to poor housekeeping skills to a borrowed jacket on a cold night.

  Only a mile or two after leaving the ranch gate, he crested a small hill and Dylan pulled over to the shoulder, to a spot that overlooked a herd of white-faced cattle grazing on the range.

  “Forget something?” she asked, then nodded toward the animals, some of whom had looked up at them, still chewing. “Or did you stop to say goodbye to all your buddies?”

  “I stopped to make sure we aren’t being followed,” he said, peering steadily into the rearview mirror.

  “Of course.” She hugged herself, pulling her jacket tighter around her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Need me to turn up the heat?”

  “I’m warm enough. It’s not that. It’s—you’d think I’d be used to it. For over a year, now, I’ve been looking over my shoulder, waiting for Renzo’s men to show up. But somehow, having this mastermind in the picture, too...” She threw up her hands and shook her head. “And to think, I was once the popular girl around town. You know, popular with other people besides killers.”

  His gaze was somber as it drilled into hers. “You know, you took ten years off my life when I saw you in that stairwell.”

  The memory slithered up her spine, making her skin erupt with goose bumps. “I was so relieved that the first person I ran into was someone I could trust. I was afraid, just terrified that I’d meet up with...”

  She swallowed hard, her hand drifting reflexively toward her throa
t.

  “It’s all right now,” he assured her.

  “But you’re worried someone might be right behind us, aren’t you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s possible you aren’t the only target.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She listened intently as he explained how—and why—he had made it known that he’d be traveling on his own to Jackson.

  “It’s only fair that you should know,” he said, “that while I might be getting you clear of both the ranch and your ex-husband’s assassins, you might still be at risk as long as you’re with me.”

  “Then I’ll have to help you, won’t I?” She straightened her back, suddenly infused with purpose. “With your investigation, I mean.”

  His eyes met hers in the mirror, those deep blue eyes she couldn’t help but want to fall into, to drown in, no matter how hard she fought the attraction. But how much of what she felt was real, and how much because she saw him as a safe place, the one thing that was keeping her alive?

  Either way, she could never risk pursuing a relationship with this man. Soon, she’d have to leave here, and she refused to consider ruining or risking his life, too.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t repay his concern and kindness in some other coin.

  “You’ll see,” she said, cheering with the idea of helping him to find his mother’s killer. “I’m not always such a burden.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to. Since you’ve met me, I’ve been nothing but a headache to you and Amanda. I should have never come here in the first place.”

  “You’re not a headache, Hope. You’re Amanda’s good friend, and you’re in a horrendous situation. A situation you had nothing to do with.”

  A pang of conscience made her stiffen, a reminder of a truth she would far rather forget. Unable to face his sympathy, she looked away from him, toward rolling hills bathed in the silvery light of a cool morning.