Colby Roundup: Colby RoundupColby Agency Companion Guide

by Debra Webb

  “I’m calling nine-one-one, ma’am.”

  “Unfortunately, that may be the only step at our disposal.” Still, time would be required for the appropriate authorities to arrive.

  Reporters pressed their faces and their microphones to the windows and shouted questions. Was the Colby Agency supporting a stay of execution for Rafe Barker? Had new evidence indicating his innocence been uncovered? Victoria tried to slow her respiration and to relax. She couldn’t respond to their questions because she had no answers. Then came the inevitable angrily shouted slogans of the protestors.

  None of that bothered Victoria. It was an unavoidable aspect of having made the decision to look into Rafe Barker’s claims. It was the questions that eventually came that clamped like a vise around her heart.

  Is it true that the Barker girls are still alive?

  Chapter Ten

  Broken Egg Café, Livingston, 9:30 a.m.

  “Something’s wrong.” Olivia peered out the large plate-glass window but there was still no sign of Keisha Landers. Their appointment had been for nine and this was the only Broken Egg Café in Livingston so there was no misunderstanding.

  “You want to try her cell again?”

  Olivia didn’t see the point. She’d called both her cell and her office three times in the past half hour. The receptionist had no idea where Keisha was. She hadn’t come into the office that morning. Worry dug its claws deep into Olivia’s ribs, making it difficult to breathe.

  “If we don’t hear from her soon,” St. James began, “we should speak to her employer and get the number for a family member we can call. Maybe there’s been a family emergency.”

  Olivia knew what he was really thinking but she didn’t want to go there. With the bombing of her car, there was no way around considering the possibility that something had happened to Keisha. She could be in a hospital somewhere…or worse.

  Evidently noting her distress, he added, “I sent Simon a text and had him check with the local police to see if any accidents or other incidents involving Landers had been reported. Nothing so far.”

  Olivia appreciated his effort but she still couldn’t relax. Not until she knew for certain. The buzz of his cell phone vibrating on the table sounded at the same instant that hers rang. That couldn’t be good. Holding her breath, she blurted a hello.

  “Olivia, I’m at the hospital.”

  Keisha Landers.

  “What happened?” Olivia’s gaze tangled with that of her protector, who was in deep conversation with his caller. Those blue eyes warned that the news on his end was equally grim.

  “About three this morning someone broke into my house, set the place on fire and almost did me in. Actually I almost did myself in. The bastard made enough noise getting out of the house to wake the dead. I smelled the smoke and got out of the house immediately but I went back in for my father’s papers. Dumb move. I ended up having to climb out a second-story window. The rose trellis didn’t make for such a good ladder.”

  A chill seeped through Olivia. “Are you okay?” Keisha’s voice sounded a little rusty and a lot tired but she was alive. Olivia should never have called her. She shouldn’t have involved anyone else in this.

  “Other than the smoke inhalation and a mild concussion, I’ll live.” Keisha blew out a big breath. “But my house is done. Worse, my father’s papers are gone. Just gone. Everything. All that’s left is what I gave you and your friend. Guard it with your life. I can’t lose that, too.”

  “I will,” Olivia vowed. “You have my word.”

  “I had a visit from a man named Simon Ruhl of the Colby Agency,” Keisha went on. “Apparently they’re investigating this case, too.”

  Olivia felt contrite that she hadn’t been honest with her about St. James. But she’d given him her word.

  Olivia didn’t ask what Ruhl had wanted. Keisha assured Olivia that she would do as the doctor advised and stay in the hospital and rest. She urged Olivia to be very careful. “Someone doesn’t want this investigation reopened badly enough to push just shy of murder.”

  As Olivia ended the call she considered the way the reporter had put her warning. Keisha was correct. Whoever was trying to stop this hadn’t blown the car up while Olivia was inside or while anyone was nearby. He or she had waited for just the right opportunity to levy the most fear without hurting anyone. The same with Keisha’s house fire. What perpetrator makes that much noise or forgets to disable the smoke detectors if murder by fire is the goal? Not only had her smoke alarms started wailing but the fire department had gotten a call from someone claiming to see smoke. The caller hadn’t left a name.

  That was a lot of extra trouble to go to in an effort to avoid unnecessary collateral damage unless the only intent was to destroy records that might confirm the investigation had been mishandled twenty-two years ago.

  Clearly the person responsible had no intention of causing physical harm.

  St. James ended his call, his attention still focused on Olivia. “The perp is either a cop or an ex-cop. Maybe a family member of one of the vics, but my money’s on a cop.” He withdrew his wallet and tossed several bills on the table.

  Olivia’s thoughts snagged on that move. “It’s my turn to pay.” She pushed his money to his side of the table and reached for her purse.

  “Did you hear what I said, Olivia?”

  She stared at him, blinked. “Yes. A cop.” Apparently Simon Ruhl had gotten the story on the fire. Maybe even more insight from the cops investigating the case. She wanted to ask what he’d learned but she had a bad feeling where this was going.

  The man seated across the table from her heaved a frustrated breath. “The only cops who would have a stake in this beyond a basic sense of justice are in Granger. Going there would be a bad move. Your reporter friend is in the hospital. Two of my colleagues just got out of the hospital. Another man is dead. Simon, my boss, has located a safe house where we can lay low until the dust settles.”

  Fury whiplashed her. “You mean until the next sixteen days have passed and Rafe Barker is executed? Or maybe until Clare and her twisted son hurt someone else? Is that what you mean, St. James?” She slapped her own money on the table. “Because if it is, our deal is off. I want the truth before Rafe Barker is dead.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. She tried to pull away but he held on, his grip firm and strong yet gentle and unthreatening. “Listen to me. Just because this guy, whoever the hell is doing this, is playing it safe at the moment doesn’t mean he’ll keep it that way if he feels cornered or if desperation sets in too deep. Are you really prepared to sacrifice everything, even your life, to know the truth that you may already, in fact, know?”

  If he hadn’t been searching her eyes with such hope in his own, hope that she would understand he wanted to protect her, she might have grown even more angry. But he wanted to keep her safe. It was his job and that was important to him.

  Part of her regretted that the job was likely his primary motive. Foolish. Foolish. “Last night I had that same nightmare I’ve had a thousand times before. I take my sisters into that closet because that’s what our mother told me to do. I can hear her or someone, female and mature, not a child, screaming. I can feel the fear vibrating in my little sisters who aren’t even old enough to understand what true fear is. And then when I think it’s safe, I open the door and there’s blood everywhere.” Her fingers tightened around his. “I need to know what happened. Can you understand that?”

  He gave a nod of agreement. It was vague, almost nonexistent, but at least he didn’t say no.

  “Then you won’t try to stop me?” Her lungs seized, holding the air inside hostage. She had to do this. If he wouldn’t help her, she hoped at least he wouldn’t hinder her efforts.

  “We had a deal, didn’t we?” He gave her a smile, not his usual dazzler but brilliant enough to make her heart skip a beat. “Let’s go.” He glanced at the cash she’d left on the table lying next to the bills he refused to take
back. “Our waiter’s going to think you have a crush on him with a tip like that.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and took back her hand. “Let’s go before something else blows up.” Like her libido. It was already smoking with the heat he’d generated just holding her hand. How in the world could she be attracted to a man, even one as good-looking and honorable as this one, at a time like this?

  Bad genes. It was the only rational explanation.

  Olivia hit the ladies’ room first. The westward journey to Granger was well over three hours. If they wanted to arrive by midafternoon, they needed to limit stops. St. James had filled up the gas tank this morning so maybe there wouldn’t be any stops at all.

  After taking care of business, she studied her reflection as she washed her hands. No amount of concealer would take care of her dark circles. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in ages. The nightmares had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember but the past couple of weeks they had become a nightly ritual. Maybe something trapped deep in her memory was attempting to resurface. Certainly the details in this latest nightmare had been more vivid.

  Olivia supposed the shrink she’d seen two years ago was right. Talking about it had prompted more details. She grabbed a paper towel and dried her hands. It wasn’t every night she had a big strong guy to hold her afterward and comfort her fears. That was another thing she decided wasn’t so bad, having a partner in this.

  Her boss was very supportive but only for the paperwork and the guidance. Nelson wasn’t entirely convinced her quest was a good idea but he wouldn’t deny her the leave from work to do what she felt she had to do. Funny, no matter that St. James was only doing his job, it felt like he actually cared what happened to her. Then again, she’d never had a bodyguard. Maybe this was the usual routine.

  “You really are pathetic, Liv.” She shook her head at herself. Had it been so long since she’d had a man, besides her father and her boss, in her life that she was overreacting to the mere presence of testosterone?

  Maybe.

  St. James waited for her right outside the ladies’ room door. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Definitely.” As they moved toward the café exit, she offered him a piece of advice she had found handy on numerous occasions when time was of the essence as it was now. “Speed limits have a ten-mile-per-hour grace in my experience. No cop is going to bother pulling you over and giving you a ticket for anything less than that.”

  “That,” he said as he opened the door and the bell overhead jingled as if punctuating the word, “is because you’re a woman. Trust me, I know.”

  Outside she sent him an annoyed look.

  “And you’re cute,” he added.

  Before she could rail at him for making such a sexist remark, he was striding toward the SUV. She hurried to keep up. “That is absolutely not true.”

  He performed his usual checks before unlocking and opening the vehicle. “You’re right,” he said when he at last opened the passenger-side door for her. “You’re more than cute. You’re very pretty in an uptight kind of way.”

  She settled into the seat and fumed. Uptight? She was not uptight. Her gaze crept down to the skirt and blouse she wore. Her choices had been limited. The navy skirt was not as tailored as the ones she usually wore. And the blouse was very plain. White, button-up. She never bothered with accessories like jewelry or scarves, and wore minimal makeup. She spent more time and money on her hair than anything else. It was too thick to manage easily. She kept it as short as she dared and still it was a handful. But there was nothing uptight about her.

  “I resent your implication that I’m uptight.” This she finally announced when they were well on the road toward Granger a full fifteen minutes later. Working up her nerve was not a task she generally had to perform. But everything was different with this man. “And your suggestion that women don’t get tickets just because they’re women isn’t true. I’ve had lots of tickets.”

  “Statistics show,” he argued, “that women do get fewer tickets than men. I should know, being an ex-cop and all.”

  “Maybe because we’re better drivers.”

  He ignored the jab. “The other is just a figure of speech,” he said, moving into the right lane and settling in to a nice speed just five miles per hour above the one posted.

  “I dress and conduct myself in a professional manner. What’s wrong with that? People have become far too lax in their manners, business and social.”

  “You have a point there.” He glanced at her. Her cheeks flushed as if he’d stared at her a whole minute. “Do you want to hear what I really think or would you rather I kept my thoughts to myself since these particular ones have nothing to do with business?”

  Olivia moistened her lips and ordered her heart to slow. “Why would you speak to me any other way besides frankly? We are a team, after all.” Did two constitute a team? They certainly weren’t a couple. Perhaps the better term was partnership.

  “Whatever you say.” He gave her another of those assessing sideways glances. “It just seems a shame to cover up so much of a gorgeous body like yours. The skirt could be a few inches shorter. Two or three buttons opened on the blouse would take the look from stiff and uncertain to relaxed and confident. The shoes are pretty damned awesome just the way they are.”

  Six or seven seconds were required for her to summon her voice after absorbing his suggestions. “You appear to have spent a great deal of time analyzing the way I look.” She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended. What she did feel was too warm. She reached out and adjusted the vents and prayed the air coming from them would do the trick of lowering her body temperature.

  “That’s part of my job, too.”

  Surprised, she studied his profile. “To what end, Mr. St. James? Unless you’d rather not say. I wouldn’t want you to give away any trade secrets.” Were all men alike in that respect? They first measured a woman by the way she looked.

  He sped up to move around a massive truck. “First off, my name is Russ. When you call me Mr. St. James it makes me feel old.” He cut her a smile. “I’m not that old.”

  “Russ it is, then.” Olivia stared straight ahead and wished she could unbutton the top two buttons of her blouse. But she would melt first. Not in a million years would she loosen her collar and have him think his suggestion had prompted the measure. She would be fine in a few minutes when he stopped talking in that deep, rich voice and he stopped sending her those sexy smiles.

  “I assess the way people think and react in order to do my job. For instance, I know you get up at six every morning—usually,” he qualified with another of those smiles tossed in her direction. “You go for a three-mile run on the same route, you shower for the same length of time, you eat a bagel or a cup of yogurt, get dressed and take the same route to the office.”

  “It’s called a routine,” she defended. “All organized people have one. That’s why in two years I’ve never been late for work or court once.” It was true. She did take the same route with her runs and her drive to the office. What of it?

  “That kind of routine makes you an easy target. Even without a case like this on your plate, there are random assaults every day. Organized people make it easy for the bad guys.”

  Well, she would certainly never look at her routine the same way again. The idea stunned her. And it shouldn’t have. She was well aware of the elements that made victims more vulnerable. But she had never considered herself a victim, which was the average person’s first mistake. When had she stopped paying attention to her life to that degree?

  “You wear gray on Mondays, navy on Tuesdays, brown on Wednesdays, and black both Thursdays and Fridays.”

  “I…” She stared down at the navy skirt she had chosen at the store in the wee hours of the morning without thought. “I hadn’t really noticed.” She was focused. Ambitious. And busy. She worked ten-hour days most of the time. What did he want from her? She was no clotheshorse. As long as she looked p
rofessional and well groomed, what difference did it make?

  “You’re totally different from your sisters.”

  The silence thickened while she steadied her bearings. Did he think he could make a statement like that and not follow it up with some explanation?

  “What does that mean?” She didn’t know her sisters. Why would she be anything like them other than in terms of genetics? The concept that she had two sisters and knew absolutely nothing about them still rattled her.

  “Sadie runs a small ranch outside Copperas Cove. She rescues horses. Laney owns and operates a classy saloon in Beaumont. She rescued the place from the wrecking ball and renovated it herself. Her old farmhouse, too. Both are never caught in anything but jeans and boots. I’ll bet they don’t own a single suit between the two of them.”

  Country girls. Rescuers. She did her share of rescue work, too. Only it was with legal advice and papers. She wore jeans in her off time. But never boots. She hated boots of any sort.

  “What’re they like beyond how they dress?” Part of her was afraid they wouldn’t like her. That somehow they would blame her for not protecting them. She was the oldest. She should have done more…should have done better.

  “They’re good people, Olivia.” He slowed for a bottleneck in the interstate traffic. “Hard workers, compassionate.” He glanced at her, his gaze lingering long enough to send her pulse rate escalating. “Like you.”

  That his words pleased her so inordinately frustrated her.

  “What do they look like now?” Would she recognize either one if she ran into her on the street? The thought tugged at something deep inside Olivia. It wasn’t natural not to know one’s family.

  Russ picked up his cell from the console and passed it to her. “There’s a photo of Sadie and Laney as well as Laney’s son, Buddy.”

  “I have a nephew?” Had he mentioned that before? Olivia shouldn’t have forgotten that no matter how caught up she was in this insanity.