The Colton Ransom

by Marie Ferrarella

  If only...

  She was making herself crazy. Just answer the question, Gabby silently ordered.

  “I thought I was doing something nice for her. I would have never dreamed I was putting her in any sort of danger. If I’d had the slightest inkling, then I wouldn’t have—”

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” the chief acknowledged kindly, politely cutting her off. “Nobody ever expects these kinds of things to happen to them. Just like those kidnappers didn’t expect to take the wrong baby,” he emphasized. “Hell of a surprise for them when they realize they did.”

  The panic Gabby was trying so hard to bank down began to flare up again, threatening to consume her.

  “Do you think they will realize it?” With each word she uttered, she talked faster, as if she were trying to outrun the idea, the suggestion that the kidnappers would suddenly be struck by the difference in the two infants, which was minimal at best. “The babies do look alike and they’re the same age—maybe the kidnappers won’t even notice.”

  There was an expression of pity on Drucker’s face, as if he couldn’t see how she could believe the charade would continue indefinitely. There was a very real fly in the ointment. “They’ll notice when your daddy refuses to pay the ransom, saying his grandbaby is all nice and snug at Dead River.”

  The horror of the scenario he’d just tossed out so cavalierly appalled Gabby.

  “My father won’t refuse to pay to get Avery back,” she insisted. The idea was too terrible for her to entertain even for a moment.

  The look of pity briefly intensified in the chief’s gray eyes. “We talking about the same Jethro Colton?” he asked with a barely suppressed smirk. “’Cause the one I know would have trouble parting with money to rescue his own kin. There’s no way he’d do it to bring back someone else’s,” Drucker stated flatly.

  Gabby raised her chin, something within her temporarily galvanizing. She refused to accept what Drucker was saying. That would make her father a monster. “You’re wrong.”

  The chief shook his head, as if he thought she was being delusional, but for now he kept that to himself. Instead, he looked at Trevor.

  “For your daughter’s sake, I sure hope so.” But his very tone said that he sincerely doubted that he was wrong.

  It was at that moment, while the chief was predicting Jethro Colton’s far-from-stellar reaction to the situation, that Trevor suddenly realized the truth of his feelings.

  He wasn’t resentful of the burden Avery represented or indifferent to her existence. The thought of possibly permanently losing Avery made him come to grips with the fact that he actually loved the little girl. What he’d been struggling with these past two weeks was not that he didn’t want her but that he realized this tiny little human being was going to wind up changing the whole world as he knew it.

  But now, if the chief’s prediction was right, Avery might never get that chance to change his whole world. Never get the chance to grow up, to experience her first kiss, her first love. Never be any of the things that she was meant to be.

  Not unless he found a way to rescue her.

  “You’re wrong,” Gabby repeated with feeling, catching Trevor’s eye. “My father won’t withhold the ransom money.”

  Right then, they heard the sound of cars—a large number of cars—approaching the house.

  The chief went to the window and looked out. “Looks like we’re about to find out which one of us is right about your daddy, little lady,” he said to Gabby. “You two keep on taking pictures of anything that looks out of order—and don’t touch the body,” he emphasized, instructing the two officers to continue with their work. “That’s for the medical examiner to do.”

  With that, he left the room, moving at a slightly faster pace than he normally assumed. Watching the man brought the term slow but steady to mind.

  Drucker got down to the bottom of the stairs just as the front door opened and the various members of the Colton family, as well as their staff, began to fill up the vast foyer.

  Seeing the police chief among them created confusion, and a cacophony of voices mingled together, each asking questions.

  It was Mathilda Perkins, the head housekeeper, who had been the first to notice Drucker. Mathilda had been running the main house as well as the staff for as long as anyone could remember, and her sharp eyes took possession of any room she entered.

  She missed nothing.

  “What are you doing here, Chief?” she asked, suspicion entering her voice. “Thought you might have been at the rodeo. Riders were in top form—” She stopped abruptly at the sight of the chief’s grim expression. “Is something wrong?” The last vestiges of cheerfulness had left her voice, and she sounded far more somber—and somewhat apprehensive as she waited for a response to her question.

  “’Fraid so,” the chief began.

  Jethro Colton pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Well, out with it, man,” he ordered gruffly. “Don’t play out the suspense, trying to make yourself look like some sort of metropolitan supersleuth. You’re a small-town, plodding tin star. Now, what the hell is going on?” he demanded coldly. “Some of us are tired and not interested in cheap drama.”

  It was Trevor, rather than the chief, who answered Jethro’s insensitive question. During his law-enforcement career, both in Cheyenne and on the ranch, he had never learned how to deftly soften a blow or say something other than just shooting straight from the hip. He followed his instincts now.

  “It’s Faye, Mr. Colton.”

  Jethro’s eyes squinted, all but boring into his security head’s very countenance. “Faye? What about her?” He looked around. “Where is she, anyway? I told her she could ride in my car to and from the rodeo, but right in the middle, she starts to worry about ‘her babies,’” he jeered, the term referring to both his granddaughter and to Trevor’s daughter. “Next thing I know, she’s taking off. So she did come back,” he concluded, appearing somewhat disgruntled. He wasn’t a man who took being disregarded lightly.

  “Yes, sir, she did come back,” Trevor replied, so much emotion warring within him that he sounded all but paralyzed inside a monotone prison as he answered, “She’s been murdered.”

  “She’s been what?” Jethro shouted angrily, as if someone on his staff had acted independently, indifferent to his edicts. His voice grew in volume as he demanded, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  At the same time Mathilda shrieked, “Oh, my God, no!” Her knees apparently buckled and she fell to the floor, sobbing and rocking to and fro.

  Cries of horror and disbelief echoed throughout the foyer as the rest of the people who had just come in tried to assimilate the information that one of their own had been killed.

  A flood of questions all but bounced off the very walls as well as the people within them.

  “Who did it?”

  “Why would anyone kill Faye?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Dead? Really dead?”

  “Oh, God. Are we all in danger?”

  Others, severely numbed by the news, said nothing, only listened, waiting either to be convinced or given details. Or, better yet, for someone to tell them they were dreaming.

  No one could believe that she was really dead. They had just seen her early this morning, talking and as full of life as ever.

  “Why would someone kill her?” Catherine, one of Gabby’s two older sisters, asked, her voice shaky as she asked the question.

  “Apparently she was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the chief said, speaking up. His authoritative tone indicated that he had the floor now. “Looks like she tried to stop the kidnapping.”

  “What kidnapping?” someone from the staff cried.

  “There’s been a kidnapping?” Jethro’s question sounded more like an accusation that the chief had been withholding information from him.

  Amanda all but went into shock. She covered her mouth with her hands to hold back the guttural cry that was clawing
at her throat, seeking release.

  “Oh, my God, my baby,” she cried, her eyes darting toward Gabby. She’d gone to the rodeo only because she trusted Gabby implicitly and Gabby was supposed to be babysitting.

  But then she realized that her sister was holding a baby. That was her baby. Then what was the chief talking about?

  Rushing over to take her baby from Gabby, Amanda scooped the infant into her arms, holding on to her as tightly as she dared. The sudden, terrified ache in her heart abated.

  “No,” the chief said. “As you can see, your little lady wasn’t the victim. She stayed nice and safe and sound.” For emphasis he needlessly gestured toward Gabby just as Amanda took hold of her little girl.

  It took Amanda more than a few seconds to reconcile the alternative waves of terror and exhilaration going through her, neutralizing the effects. All that mattered, she told herself, taking a deep breath and drawing in the baby’s sweet all-but-newborn scent, was that Cheyenne was safe.

  “If these murderers didn’t get Cheyenne, who were they after?” Catherine asked.

  “Oh, don’t fool yourselves—they were after your baby, all right, Ms. Amanda. But what they got was Avery Garth—his baby,” the chief concluded, pointing a finger at Trevor.

  Amanda, who was still holding her daughter as if she never intended on letting the little girl go, struggled to establish a sense of peace.

  Though for the most part it was still eluding her, she looked toward Trevor. “They kidnapped your baby girl?” she asked, utterly stunned.

  Before he could acknowledge her question or tell her that, with all due respect, it was none of her business how anything involving his personal life went down, Gabby took the initiative—and the blame.

  “I put Avery down for her nap in Cheyenne’s crib in the nursery.” Because both Mathilda—still sobbing—and Amanda looked at her as if she’d just turned feeble-minded, she felt compelled to explain herself. “Cheyenne had already taken her nap, and I thought the surroundings in the nursery might be nicer for Avery.”

  “Well, that was a damn fool thought,” Jethro said sharply to his youngest.

  “It’s an infant.” Darla Colton, Jethro’s ex-wife, felt compelled to add her two cents. Every time there was some sort of an argument Darla and/or one of her two less-than-savory adult children could be found at the heart of it, fanning the flames. “It can’t tell the difference between an embroidered pillow and a pile of hay,” the woman insisted as she looked at Gabby. “They barely know which end is up at that age. Now I—”

  “You certainly know which end is up, don’t you, Mom?” Tawny interjected her two cents’ worth with a less-than-pleasant laugh. “You always made sure to keep that end up, too, didn’t you, Mom?” the young woman asked, taunting her.

  A malevolent look slipped into Darla’s eyes. “That’s enough,” Darla snapped at her daughter. She clearly needed more information in order to figure out which side to successfully play.

  Rather than answer her mother, Tawny merely inclined her head.

  Dislike glowed in Gabby’s eyes. Why did her father insist on keeping this woman with her annoying offspring on the premises? Any promise he’d made to the gold digger was long since nullified by time. Someone needed to do a little housecleaning and get rid of annoyingly insidious people.

  “It was a mistake,” Gabby spoke up, owning her error. “And I’m the one who made it. Because of me, Trevor’s daughter was kidnapped.”

  “I know, I know, but we’ll get her back once the kidnappers realize they got the wrong baby. They just couldn’t be heartless enough to hurt her. In the meantime,” Amanda added, lowering her voice, “you did inadvertently save Cheyenne,” she said with gratitude shining in her eyes. She leaned over and kissed her sister’s cheek.

  Gabby tried valiantly to muster a smile in response, but deep down, all she could think of was that, although she’d inadvertently kept Cheyenne out of harm’s way, by the same token, she had placed Avery in its direct path.

  The one did not blot out or balance the other. There was still an infant out there in serious danger because of her.

  Chapter 5

  “Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think I need a drink,” Darla Colton announced to no one in particular as the mounting tension within the room became almost overwhelming. Turning, she began to head toward the liquor cabinet in the living room.

  “You always think you need a drink,” Jethro bit off as he glared at his ex-wife. “Matter of fact, I never knew a time when you didn’t.”

  Darla turned back to look at the man she’d spent one inglorious year with. She tossed her head indignantly. Her artificially vivid strawberry-blond hair swayed about her perfectly made-up face. It was said that she didn’t wear her sins upon her face, so the years appeared to have been kind to her. She was still an attractive woman.

  “I don’t have to stay here and take this abuse,” she snapped at Jethro.

  “No,” Jethro agreed wholeheartedly, his eyes shooting daggers at her, “you don’t. You can just pack up and leave anytime—and that goes for those two leeches of yours.” Since the first day of their divorce, it was what he’d been hoping for. But given she wouldn’t budge, he could make her life as miserable as possible. She almost seemed to enjoy their mutual disdain.

  The expression on the woman’s face grew almost dangerously malicious even though her lips curved in a smile that never reached her eyes. It was the sort of expression that sent icy chills into the heart of the recipient. Most of the time, Jethro was immune.

  “You really wouldn’t want me to do that, Jethro,” she warned “sweetly.” “Because I’ll be leaving one hell of a parting gift in my wake.”

  It was a threat—not the first—and everyone within hearing range took note of it except for the chief. It wasn’t that Drucker hadn’t heard; it was a case of hearing the threat far too often, to the point of being anesthetized to it.

  But whatever it was that Darla was rumored to have to hold over Jethro’s head, that problem existed between Jethro and his ex, and it was none of his concern right now. Faye’s murder and the subsequent kidnapping of the Garth baby was priority number one.

  The chief glanced over toward the head housekeeper. Her gut-wrenching wails had toned down into something like pronounced sobs. His eyes met hers and he waited for a beat, until the sobs subsided as well.

  Drucker inclined his head, indicating that enough was enough.

  Taking in a few deep breaths, and barely covering up the glare she spared the chief, the woman looked toward the stairs. “I’ve got to go see her,” Mathilda told the person, a maid, closest to her.

  “Can’t let you go up there just yet, Ma—Ms. Perkins,” the chief said, quickly correcting his slip of the tongue. He moved in front of the woman to block her path up the stairs. “The medical examiner hasn’t gotten here yet, and he needs to make his preliminary findings first.”

  “After he does, then can I see her?” Mathilda asked.

  The chief shook his head, looking just the slightest bit uncomfortable about refusing the woman’s request. “He’s got to take the body back to the morgue and do an autopsy on her first.”

  “What autopsy?” Mathilda cried in disbelief. “Why is he going to be cutting her up like she was some giant jigsaw puzzle? Don’t you already know how she was murdered?”

  Her question took the chief aback for a moment. “Well, it looks like she was shot, but we won’t know for sure until—”

  Mathilda waved his words away impatiently. “Shot, stabbed, strangled, bludgeoned, what does it matter? Any way you look at it, Faye’s still dead.” She tried to duck under his arm to gain access to the stairs.

  Drucker was quick to block her path to the stairs for a second time. She had better moves than the two who were part of his department’s team, the chief thought.

  It looked to Trevor as if a power struggle was going on that seemed to go beyond the obvious. The chief, who had authority on his side, s
eemed to be hesitant about establishing that point with the distraught housekeeper. Mathilda did have an intimidating quality about her when she dealt with the staff, but Drucker, after all, was the chief of police. That was supposed to trump any sort of minor dictatorial power the housekeeper could exert.

  “It might make a difference in finding her killer,” Trevor pointed out. “And the person or persons who took Avery.”

  Mathilda hardly seemed to hear him. Her attention was on the man blocking her way up the stairs. She appeared entirely focused on her one goal: to get to see Faye one last time. She made it seem as if she needed closure.

  “Faye was my best friend,” she cried. “I need to say goodbye.”

  Drucker was somewhat frustrated, like a man at the end of his options who didn’t know which way to turn to minimize the coming confrontation.

  “You can say goodbye after the autopsy. I’ll escort you to the morgue personally,” Drucker promised.

  She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something terse about his offer just before she rejected it, but instead, Mathilda surprised everyone—including, apparently, the chief, by saying, “You’re right, of course. I didn’t mean to challenge you, Chief. This whole thing has just thrown me completely for a loop.”

  Rather than take her apology in stride, the chief actually seemed relieved to Gabby as she looked on from the sidelines.

  “That’s understandable,” he agreed. Moving back to the center of the room, he announced in a loud voice, “I know you all have other places to be and other things to be doing, but if you can all just be a little patient, this’ll be over before you know it.”

  “Too late,” Trip quipped, a sneer all but consuming his thin, bony features. His complexion appeared that much pastier because of his dyed hair, which for all the world looked as if he’d used black shoe polish to achieve the color.

  His sister, Tawny, perched on the arm of one of the sofas in the living room, snickered.

  Gabby, whose nerves felt dangerously close to snapping, glared at the duo. “I’m glad you all find Faye’s murder such a chuckle.”