Her Colton P.I.

by Amelia Autin

  Holly changed the subject back to Josie. “So you’ve been searching for your baby sister for six years, that’s what you said.”

  “Off and on. Whenever I can.”

  “But no luck.”

  He almost agreed, then realized that wasn’t quite true. The whole Desmond Carlton thing was setting off alarm bells in his mind, telling him there should be a connection there...he just hadn’t been able to figure it out. “There is something new on Josie—at least I think there is. Remember when I asked Annabel to look after you and the boys the other afternoon?” Holly nodded. “I needed to meet with a reporter in Dallas about an article he wrote.”

  He went on to give her all the details. If he’d stopped to think about it, he might not have. Holly wasn’t a PI. She wasn’t even family. But he suddenly wanted to share this with her, knowing instinctively she could be trusted to keep everything to herself. Including...

  “So you’re worried Josie might have killed Desmond Carlton,” Holly stated, going right to the heart of the matter, “and that’s why she disappeared.”

  Chapter 16

  “I never said that,” Chris was quick to point out.

  “You didn’t have to say it. But you are worried.”

  “Maybe. Okay, yeah. I am.”

  “If she did—and that’s a big leap, Chris—but if she did, did it ever occur to you it was probably in self-defense?”

  He took a deep breath, trying to dispel the tightness in his chest. “It occurred to me.”

  “Josie was seventeen,” Holly said gently. “If she’s anything like Annabel—I know Josie has dark hair and Annabel’s hair is blond, so I’m not talking about that, I mean her features—but if she resembles Annabel, then she’s extremely attractive. She wouldn’t be the first seventeen-year-old to be accosted...possibly assaulted...by an older man. Especially if that man was a frequent visitor to her home. If Desmond Carlton was related to her foster parents...”

  “Doesn’t make it any easier for me to think she killed him in self-defense,” he said grimly. “It just reminds me I failed to keep my baby sister safe.”

  “Oh, Chris...” The hint of gentle chiding in Holly’s voice reminded him of the way she talked to the twins sometimes, when they did something she didn’t approve of. “You can’t blame yourself for everything.”

  “I’m not—” he began, then realized she was right. “Okay, maybe I am,” he conceded. “But...”

  “But nothing. You tried to get custody of her. You tried. She turned you down. You can’t make other people do the things you want them to do, no matter how much you love them.” A stricken expression slashed across Holly’s face, and though they’d been discussing Josie, Chris knew instantly she wasn’t talking about his sister anymore. “No,” she whispered. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone choose you. You can’t.”

  * * *

  Regina Willard shuffled her way up the aisle with the rest of the crowd exiting the movie theater. Her prey was right behind her. Ingrid Iverson—the name the bitch went by these days—had no idea she was being stalked, of course. Inside Regina was cackling with glee. But outside she appeared no different from the other movie patrons who’d just spent an hour and fifty minutes in the darkened theater.

  The bitch was with a friend, but Regina wasn’t deterred. She slowly made her way to her car while the two women stood talking for a couple of minutes Then the women waved at each other, got into their own cars and pulled out of the parking lot, one turning left, the other turning right.

  Regina turned right, following her prey from a safe distance. The woman drove a few miles over the limit. Breaking the law, she thought self-righteously as her foot depressed the accelerator to keep pace. But what do you expect from a loose woman like her?

  She’d first spotted Ingrid Iverson a few weeks back, at the Granite Gulch Bar and Saloon. Regina hadn’t recognized her at the time, though. Hadn’t realized Ingrid was the bitch in disguise. But she had seen what a loose woman Ingrid was. Flaunting herself to the men in the bar in a tight-fitting, low-cut blouse and jeans that appeared to be spray painted on. Accepting offers from three different men to buy her drinks. Then letting one of the men sweet-talk her into a booth, where the two sat canoodling until after midnight.

  Disgusting, Regina had thought at the time. No modesty. No morals.

  But she hadn’t recognized Ingrid as the bitch who’d stolen her fiancé until she’d spotted her in the movie theater tonight just as the lights were dimming. Then she’d had an epiphany.

  Regina had killed the bitch only three nights ago. What name had she been using then? Helena Tucker, that was it. But she was already back. The days between sightings of the bitch were getting fewer and fewer, forcing Regina to take shortcuts. Risks. But she didn’t mind, because she was on a mission—making sure the bitch stayed dead.

  So Ingrid Iverson had to die. And Regina could rest...for a few days, anyway.

  * * *

  Angus McCay propped the phone against his shoulder, writing furiously. Then he put the pen down and gripped the phone in his right hand. “Thank you very much, Mr. Colton,” he said, waving the notepad on which he’d written an address and a phone number, trying to catch his wife’s attention. “What’s that?...Oh. Oh, yes, we’ll see if we can get a flight up to DFW first thing tomorrow.”

  He listened intently to the man on the other end. “Hold on while I write that down. Bridgeport Municipal Airport, you said. Do I have that right?” He jotted the name down on his notepad. “Appreciate the suggestion, Mr. Colton. Not likely any plane out of Houston’s international airport flies into there, but Houston Hobby might. We’ll check.”

  He listened again, then said, “No, no, we don’t need you to pick us up at the airport. We’ll rent a car. We’ll fly into whichever airport we can get the earliest flight to—we’ll let you know. What’s that?...Come to your office in Granite Gulch first?”

  Angus glanced at his wife, who was nodding vigorously. “Of course, Mr. Colton. We’ll call you once we have our flight, let you know when you can expect us tomorrow. And thank you for everything. My wife and I are thrilled we’ll finally be able to see our grandsons after all this time.”

  He hung up. “Why did you say to tell him we’ll go to his office?” His face displayed his surprise. “I don’t think that’s—”

  “Of course we won’t go to his office.” Evalinda McCay’s expression was the long-suffering one Angus had seen many times. “That was just a ruse. We aren’t even going to book a flight. Call Leonard,” she ordered, referring to Leonard Otis, the man who’d been behind the wheel during the last of the three attempts on Holly’s life. “Tell him to drive up there tonight with his partner and take care of the problem. Permanently.”

  * * *

  Holly was lying on top of the comforter on the king-size bed in her room, crying softly to herself because she didn’t want Chris to hear her. She’d retreated to the bedroom after they’d done the dishes, and she’d been in here alone for the past two hours. Chris hadn’t followed her. Hadn’t sought her out. Had he sensed her need to be alone? Or was there another reason?

  She’d almost blurted out her most closely guarded secret at the dinner table...but she hadn’t. She’d managed to change the subject while they finished eating and had steadfastly refused to think about it until the kitchen was spotless. But then...then she’d escaped.

  She’d called Ian and Jamie, needing to talk to them one last time before they went to bed. And when Peg had gotten on the phone, Holly had been secretly relieved the twins were missing her, although she would never have said that to Peg.

  But that wasn’t the only reason she’d called. She’d also needed to reassure herself she wasn’t a bad person because of what she’d done. That the ends justified the means. And while she’d been talking with the twins, she’
d believed it.

  When she’d finally hung up, though, her thoughts had inevitably returned to her dinner conversation with Chris. She’d been trying so hard to convince him he shouldn’t feel guilty over Josie...but she was just as bad. The guilt she was carrying...the guilt she would always carry...could never be forgotten. Pushed to the back of her mind much of the time, but...always there. Waiting to sabotage her happiness.

  Her heart was breaking. Not for Chris and what he was going through—although she wished with all her heart she could take his pain and heal him. And not for herself—she’d long since acknowledged she couldn’t undo what she’d done and she just had to live with it. No matter how often her conscience gave her hell, she deserved it.

  No, her heart was breaking for Grant...and her boys. Knowing she could never tell Ian and Jamie. She couldn’t. Knowing, too, that wherever Grant was, he knew. Had he forgiven her? She would never know. Not in this lifetime.

  A knock on the closed bedroom door startled her, and Chris’s deep voice sounded on the other side. “Holly?”

  She dashed the tears from her eyes and realized there was no way she could disguise the fact that she’d been crying. She darted toward the master bathroom, grabbed a clean washcloth from the shelf and ran it under cold water. She wrung the washcloth out and placed it like a cold compress against her red and swollen eyes.

  “Holly?” he called again. “Are you awake?”

  “Just a minute! I’m in the bathroom.” Which she was, but not for the reason Chris would think.

  She repeated her actions twice, then checked her appearance in the mirror. Passable. Maybe. She clutched the washcloth as she opened the door and pretended to be scrubbing her face, hoping the pink in her cheeks would make Chris think the remaining pink around her eyes was due to the same thing. “What’s up?”

  Chris stood in the doorway with a partially drunk bottle of beer in one hand, an unopened wine cooler in the other—the wine coolers he’d bought that first day over Holly’s not-very-insistent protests. But the first words out of his mouth were “You’ve been crying.”

  And what do you say to that? she asked herself. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “But nothing to do with you, so don’t add it to the load of guilt you’re already carrying.” Her tone was wry. “That load is already stacked way too high.”

  The worry in Chris’s face over Holly crying morphed into something else, and for just a moment she couldn’t figure it out. Then she recognized it—an expression she’d begun wearing herself shortly after she and Grant were married, whenever she forgot to disguise it. Remorse was a big part of it. And something else—a lack of forgiveness...for oneself.

  “Why do you look that way?” she whispered, wanting desperately to know. Wanting Chris to confide in her. Wanting him to trust her...the way she already trusted him.

  “I should never have touched you...” Holly barely suppressed a gasp, but then he continued, “Without telling you...”

  “Telling me what?”

  Chris glanced at the king-size bed behind her. “Not here,” he said curtly. “Not where I...where we...”

  “Then where?” She wasn’t about to let him get this far without telling her everything.

  “Let’s go into the family room. I have something to tell you anyway.” He handed her the wine cooler and smiled faintly. “And you might want Wally for moral support.”

  * * *

  “I called Angus McCay,” Chris said without preamble as soon as Holly settled on the sofa, with Wally at her feet, her wine cooler sitting unopened on a coaster on the end table beside her. Chris perched on the arm of the recliner, a few feet away, one booted foot swinging. He took a sip of his beer. “I told you I was going to, but I wanted you to be aware I actually spoke with him. Starting now we both need to be on high alert. Annabel and Sam will join us for breakfast again—and will stay with us all day tomorrow. So whatever the McCays intend to try, we’ll have plenty of witnesses, and plenty of firepower.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “In addition to Wally, this house is as safe as I could make it,” Chris explained. “You know the little tinkling sound whenever the front and back doors are opened from the inside?” She nodded. “All the doors and windows are wired. Anything opened from the inside just warns you—that tinkling sound is the interior parent alarm, so parents know if a child is opening a window or a door. But the exterior alarm system is something completely different—it will give us ample warning in case someone tries to break in. I built the house knowing that Laura—” He broke off for a moment, and that remorseful expression returned.

  He stared at the beer in his hand, then continued. “I knew Laura might be here alone at times, so I built in every fail-safe I possibly could. If the phone signal is lost, the alarm company calls the police. If someone cuts the electricity, the alarm has a battery backup it can run on for up to eight hours. And if the alarm switches to battery power, it goes off immediately—loud enough to wake anyone—and the alarm company is notified. You can override the alarm, in case the electricity goes out because of a storm or something like that, but you have to have the alarm code. Same thing for letting the alarm company know. There are special codes that tell them if something’s wrong and you can’t discuss it with them.”

  Holly started to ask when the battery had last been checked, but Chris forestalled her. “I checked it the day I brought you and the boys here, Holly.” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “You think I would have let you stay here a single night without that safety feature?”

  In her mind she heard Chris saying the other day, No one is dying on my watch ever again, you got that? I made myself responsible for you...

  That was when she made the connection. Annabel telling her Chris blamed himself for Laura’s death. Peg telling her Chris needed to take care of her and the twins.

  “That’s what you meant when you said you should never have touched me without telling me,” she whispered. “It’s something to do with Laura, isn’t it?”

  Chris stiffened, but he didn’t look away. “Yes.”

  “Not that Laura was the only woman you ever slept with before me, because you told me that up front. It’s something to do with her death.”

  His face could have been chiseled from granite. “Yes.”

  “Then...” Her throat closed as her heartbeat picked up. Whatever Chris told her was going to take their relationship to an entirely new level. One she wanted. But she would have to be as open with him as she was asking him to be with her. And that would take all the courage she had. “Then tell me whatever it is. Because I want you to touch me.” She breathed deeply. “I want you to touch me again, and if you can’t until you tell me...then tell me.”

  He contemplated his beer, then took a swig. And Holly knew whatever it was wasn’t easy for Chris to talk about. He wasn’t much of a drinker—this was the first beer she’d seen him with in all the time she’d spent in his company—but apparently he needed a little something to loosen his tongue.

  Abruptly he said, “Do you know what it’s like growing up in a town like Granite Gulch? Not many secrets remain secret for long. And of course, when something bad happens in your family, it’s an albatross around your neck forever.”

  Holly nodded her understanding. “Your father was a serial killer and he murdered your mother. Granite Gulch never let any of you forget it.”

  “Yeah.” His eyes met hers. “So I always felt I had something to prove. From that time on I was driven—to excel. Not just to succeed, but to succeed spectacularly. Does that make sense?” She nodded again.

  “I met Laura sophomore year in high school. I took one look at her and I knew I was going to marry her—it was that simple. Through the rest of high school and four years of college, I never really looked at another woman.”

  Envy unlike anything she’d ever known
stabbed through her. Envy of a dead woman who’d had the unswerving love and devotion of a man like Chris, while she... “You loved her,” Holly managed. “I know. And she loved you.”

  “Yes, Laura loved me, and I loved her. But not enough to temper my ambition. Not enough to make her my first priority...as I should have.” He was silent for a moment, then dropped the bombshell. “And when she told me she wanted a baby, the first thing I thought of was that would at least give her something to do so she wouldn’t always expect me to be home. She never complained, but I knew. I just never...” The expression of savage self-recrimination on his face tore a hole in Holly’s heart.

  “When she got sick, I wasn’t here. I was at work. I was always at work. One office wasn’t enough for me. Not even two. I was spreading myself too thin—I knew that—but I was driven to succeed...spectacularly. I was going to prove to everyone in Granite Gulch that I wasn’t my father’s son. Living here in Granite Gulch but having offices in Fort Worth and Dallas meant I had a hell of a commute every day. Something had to give...and that something was Laura. I loved her, but I didn’t make time for her. I gave her things,” he said bitterly, waving his free hand to encompass the beautiful house around them, “but not the one thing she wanted the most. Me.”

  He tilted the beer in his hand and drained the dregs, setting the empty bottle on the chair behind him. Then he faced her again and said, “That’s the kind of man I am, Holly. My father’s son. A cold, uncaring bastard.”

  She couldn’t bear it. She left the sofa and moved swiftly to stand in front of him, cradling his face in her hands. “You may be his son, but that’s not the kind of man you are,” she said softly. “You think you’re the only one who makes mistakes? Mistakes you can’t ever make up for, no matter how much you regret them?” She brushed her lips over his and blinked back tears.

  “I never told Grant...never told anyone...but I...I trapped him into marriage.” She swallowed hard. “The McCays were right. I trapped him. I loved him so much, I thought that made it right. I thought I could make him love me.”