Colby Law

by Debra Webb

  Lucas shook his head. He had watched the occupant of this apartment come and go. A much younger woman than Clare Barker, the woman who was identified by the apartment manager as Toni Westen had dark hair and carried at least fifty pounds more than the older woman. Lucas had been had.

  The officer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “I will remove you by force, sir.”

  “Sorry.” Lucas adjusted his jacket. “You were right, she’s not here.”

  The cop shook his head and ushered Lucas toward the front door. The lights started to flicker. Three feet from the door Lucas stalled.

  “Go,” the cop shouted with a nudge at Lucas’s back.

  Lucas stared at the wall between the window and the door. Clare Barker had left a message.

  On the wall four stick figures had been drawn. A woman and three little girls, stair-step in size. A big red X had been drawn across the stick figures.

  Clare Barker was gone. Her destination and intent as clear as the drawing on the wall. A mother-and-daughters reunion.

  * * *

  CLARE SCANNED THE MOB gathered in the convenience store parking lot across from the burning apartments. She didn’t see the man who had been watching her. He would never find her in this crowd or dressed as she was. She had slipped out twice already, just to test her disguise.

  A hand clasped her elbow. She jumped and turned to face what she hoped would not be an officer of the law. It was him. Thank God.

  He leaned close. “This way. We need to hurry.”

  With his hand clasped around her arm, he hurried her through the frightened people. They rushed around to the rear of the convenience store.

  The lot behind the store connected to another that sprawled out in front of a strip mall. She removed her dark wig and the padding that gave the appearance of bulk and tossed them into one of the trash cans that lined the back of the store. She glanced up, thanked her Maker and hurried after her friend.

  At the end farthest away from the fray at the convenience store, a small white car waited in the shadows. He moved quickly to the driver’s side while she climbed into the passenger seat.

  She couldn’t draw in a deep breath until he had driven around behind the deserted strip mall and eased out onto the street running along the back side.

  Clare closed her eyes and started to pray an offering of her gratitude for her successful escape. She had waited so long… These past few days had felt like a lifetime.

  “Will the police be looking for you?”

  His voice drew her to the present and the steps that needed to be taken as swiftly as possible. “Not right away.” She smiled at the driver, who had been immensely kind to her. “With all that’s happened, I’ve failed to thank you properly.”

  He glanced at her. “We do what we have to.”

  Yes, that was true. “Do you have all that I require?”

  “Everything on the list.”

  That was very good. “I will repay you one day.”

  He looked at her again as he braked for a traffic light. “I’ve already been well compensated.”

  It wasn’t until then that she allowed her gaze to rest on his right shoulder. He was preoccupied with driving so he wouldn’t notice. She had no desire to make him feel uncomfortable or to injure his feelings in any way.

  Her visual examination slid down his right arm, which ended only six or so inches below the shoulder. He’d lost that arm twenty-three years ago as a young man. No one had ever known the truth about that day. Only Clare and him, and the person responsible, of course.

  He and Clare both had suffered greatly. Those responsible would all pay. She would see to it.

  Her time was finally here.

  She relaxed into the seat as he drove her through the night. The drive would take a while. Sleep pulled at her but she refused its tug. There was too much to do to waste time sleeping. As much as she fully trusted this man, it was best to remain alert and attentive.

  Nothing or no one would be allowed to stop her.

  * * *

  “CLARE.”

  Her eyes drifted open to complete darkness. She jerked forward, but the seat belt confined her. “Where are we?”

  “It’s all right. You’re safe now.” He got out of the car. The interior light blinded her until her eyes adjusted. Her door opened. “Come on, Clare. It’s okay. We’re here.”

  She released her seat belt and slowly emerged from the car. He closed the door and took her by the hand with his left. “Hurry.”

  She followed alongside him, her feet getting tangled in the tall grass. When they had moved beyond the trees, the moonlight spotlighted their destination. Her heart shuddered to a near stop before bursting into a frantic race.

  “You’re home, Clare. You’re really home.”

  She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Yes. She was home.

  Vengeance is mine, the Lord said.

  But He had come to her in a dream and whispered in her ear. Because of the special circumstances, He had decided that vengeance would be hers this time.

  And it began now.

  Chapter Twelve

  Second Chance Ranch, 10:00 a.m.

  “I don’t want to argue.” Sadie turned away from him, stalled on the walkway that led to what had once been her front porch.

  Lyle’s head throbbed, and he hadn’t managed any sleep for the past two nights. He wasn’t at his best by any means. They’d spent eight hours at the hospital. Both had been checked out thoroughly. He had a mild contusion and six stitches where some bastard had whopped him in the head with a blunt instrument that had not as of yet been found.

  Sadie suffered from a good dose of smoke inhalation. He closed his eyes and shook his head, winced at the pain the move prompted. If he’d been hit any harder and lost consciousness rather than just being rattled, she would be dead now. She’d gotten the dogs out, but the smoke had gotten to her and she hadn’t been able to get herself out.

  That was Sadie. Looking out for the animals before taking care of herself.

  Her house was a total loss. A cleanup crew would arrive in a couple of days to go through the rubble in an attempt to salvage any personal belongings. Sadie had wanted to do that herself, but Lyle had talked her out of it. That was a job for professionals.

  He moved up behind her, wanted to hold her more than he’d ever wanted to do anything in his whole life. “You want answers. I get that. But your sisters don’t know what you know.”

  She whipped around, went nose to nose with him. His body tightened near the point of pain. “They should know. This is not a game. They have the right to know.”

  He worked at calming the emotions tangling inside him, but every minute with her was a struggle. The ability to maintain even a semblance of objectivity had vanished when he’d pulled her through that window. At this point, talking was not what he wanted to do. The atmosphere between them had changed, and there was no turning back. “Two of my colleagues are working 24/7 right now to get close enough to protect them. We can’t screw this up. Their safety is at stake. If we get in the way…the worst could happen.”

  Those green eyes darkened and widened with her own mounting frustration. “Why aren’t the police protecting them? If they knew the truth—” she waved her hand as if the remedy should be crystal clear “—they could agree to protective custody!”

  Calm, Lyle. Stay on the point. “What do we tell the police? That a man on death row wants his three daughters—who the world believes were murdered twenty-two years ago—protected from their recently released mother!”

  The hurt that shimmered in her eyes instantly doused his flare of irrational anger. She looked away. Lyle dropped his head back and blew out a blast of frustration. He had to get a handle on these damned emotions. In an effort to do just that, he pulled in a deep, hopefully calming breath. The air smelled of smoke and charred wood, and yet the sky was clear and blue, as if nothing bad had happened.

  “
Are they safe?” Her voice sounded too small, trembled. She lifted her gaze to his. “Can the people from your agency protect them right now? This minute?”

  “Yes. These men are the best at what they do. They’re prepared to risk their lives without blinking.” Before she could launch a counter, he went on. “Clare Barker is at this moment unaccounted for. Whoever is working with her is, as well. If she knows your identity, we could inadvertently lead her to the others by making contact. We can’t take that risk, Sadie. It’s too great to them and too great to you.”

  She surrendered. The defeat showed in her slumped shoulders and the weary sigh that hissed past those pink lips. “She’s just gone? This woman, Clare?”

  Lyle nodded. He had briefed Sadie on the news from Lucas. “Simon, my boss, and Lucas reviewed the video security footage at the convenience store across the street from the apartment complex. She left with a man in a white or gray car. We didn’t get a model or license plate number. The only identifying factors we did get were that her accomplice was tall, had light brown hair and that he was missing his right arm. He never looked back, so we didn’t get a face or profile shot.” Clare, on the other hand, had looked back, almost as if she knew there was a camera and she wanted whoever was watching to know it was her under that disguise.

  “You think this one-armed man left that message on my door? Gus said Sheriff Cox got word from the lab that it was deer blood. God knows, there’s always one getting hit on the highway. Finding a carcass wouldn’t be that difficult.”

  Lyle turned his palms up. “We don’t know who left the message. The one-armed man is certainly a prime suspect.” There hadn’t been any rain in days. The storm that had threatened earlier had blown around Copperas Cove. The ground was too dry for a vehicle to leave tire impressions. There was no way to say who or how many uninvited had driven up to Sadie’s house. The sheriff and the fire marshal couldn’t tell them anything conclusive just yet about the fire. One thing was definite, it was one hell of a coincidence that Sadie’s house had burned within hours of Clare Barker’s apartment complex going up in flames. Fortunately, no lives had been lost in either event. That in itself was an outright miracle.

  Sadie gave her head a little shake. “I don’t want to believe it was Gus. But the list of those who know about my birth parents is seriously limited. That message was meant to scare me, and whoever left it knew the trick to use.”

  Lyle recognized she was scared, even if she would admit it only in a roundabout way. He also grasped that even though she and Gus didn’t get along, he was her father and she loved him. She just didn’t like to say it out loud. “There is also the possibility,” Lyle suggested, “that Barker is orchestrating certain things from prison. And don’t forget the stick-people drawing Clare left on the wall of her apartment. We can’t be sure of anything right now.”

  “Jesus.” She chewed her bottom lip.

  He bit back a groan. This wasn’t the time to be feeling this way, but there was no stopping the intense response to the way she was torturing that lush lip. He was in no shape to be that strong. They were both exhausted and in need of clean clothes, which only made him think about stripping hers off. They’d had showers at the hospital, but their clothes reeked of smoke. Pretty soon they would need to find clothes and a place to stay.

  “Have you seen him?” She searched Lyle’s eyes, the question surprising him. “Do you think he killed all those girls?”

  Somehow he had to find his focus, for her. “I watched the interview Victoria Colby-Camp, the head of the Colby Agency, conducted with him.” Lyle lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He was thinner than in the photos you saw. Older, of course. Hair was gray.” He met that searching gaze. “He looked tired and resigned to his fate. But when he spoke of his desperation to have his daughters protected…there was a glimmer of the kind of compassion that you’d expect from a man who rescued small animals.”

  Her lips trembled and her face pinched with the misery his words had elicited. God almighty. He didn’t know how to choose the right words to give her what she wanted and still protect her feelings. Would it have been better if he’d said Barker looked like the monster the newspapers reported him to be?

  “And her?”

  “Older, thinner. Gray.” The prison photos he had seen of Clare Barker showed a woman who was every bit as determined as her youngest daughter—unfortunately, for the wrong reasons it seemed. He opted to leave that part out of his answer.

  “Do you think she did it?” Again, she watched his face and eyes closely, looking for signs that he was keeping anything from her. “Could she have been the one doing the killing instead of him, like he said?”

  Lyle implored her with his eyes to see the truth in what he was about to say. “I honestly don’t know. But those girls didn’t kill themselves. One of them, or both, has to be a killer.”

  She pressed her fingers to her lips to hide their trembling. Tears, glittering like tiny diamonds, perched on her lashes.

  Damn it. He’d said too much again. “Sadie, you know who you are. As difficult as this crazy story is to reconcile, it doesn’t change the person you are.”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s more like it.” He smiled, tried to relax. Him stressing out wasn’t helping her calm down. “We’re gonna get through this. The house, everything will work out.” He glanced over his shoulder at what used to be her home. The move had been an effort to break the tension, but if she didn’t stop looking at him that way, he was going to lose his grip on that last shred of control.

  “And then you’ll leave again.”

  His heart did one of those dips and slides, all the way down to his boots. She had every right to throw that at him. “I was wrong to leave last time.” He’d same as admitted that already, but this time he said the words he should have said before. “That won’t happen this time until you’re ready for me to go.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  Had she lifted her face closer to his, or was he the one who moved? Didn’t matter. All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t take it anymore. He was going to kiss her, because he simply couldn’t not kiss her. She needed it as badly as he did.

  The growl of trucks roaring toward them snapped him back, mentally and physically. Her breath caught, as if she too had just been dragged away from the brink of self-indulgence. They couldn’t keep dancing all around this thing between them, or they were going to lose it and go too far. Lyle had to do this right this time.

  Sadie turned around just as Gus and two of his men, all three driving their big trucks, braked to a stop. Did these guys not understand the concept of conserving? One of the trucks pulled a horse trailer. Gus and the others bailed out and strode toward them.

  Sadie put her hand up to shade her eyes. “Is there a horse in that trailer?”

  The hope in her voice made his gut clench. “Don’t think so.” She was still hoping to find Dare Devil.

  Lyle took a breath and braced for the battle of wills that Gus’s presence unfailingly provoked. He checked the weapon at the small of his back and hoped like hell he wouldn’t need to use it. It wasn’t enough that Gus had been at the hospital almost as long as they had, hovering and listening. The man was worried about his daughter, for sure. But he was also trying hard to learn exactly what Lyle was up to. If he didn’t already know, Lyle felt reasonably certain he had a hunch.

  “What do you want?” Sadie crossed her arms over her chest. That appeared to be her standard greeting for dear old dad.

  Lyle sensed that to some extent she held Gus responsible for part of this mess that was her history. She understandably felt that he should have told her at some point. In Gus’s defense, how did a man tell the woman he’d raised as his own child something like that?

  “I found Dare Devil.”

  “Where? Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know his status,” Gus told her. “But I got word where he was being kept.” He shook his hea
d. “The Carroll place. I should’ve known when that old bastard started drinking again, he couldn’t be trusted.”

  “I’ll get my keys.” Sadie hesitated, threw her hands up in frustration. “I can’t get my keys.” She turned back to the house. “They burned along with everything else I own.”

  “You two can ride with me,” Gus offered.

  Lyle slid two fingers into his pocket. “I’ll drive.” Gus shot him a look that declared he wasn’t happy about that interception.

  “I don’t want you digging around in that mess, Sadie.” Gus gestured to the heap that had been her house. “My men will be over tomorrow. They’ll salvage what they can and bulldoze the rest.” The elder Gilmore wasn’t giving up on getting his daughter’s attention, if not her respect.

  “The insurance company is sending someone on Monday,” she informed him, visibly bursting his bubble. “Professionals.”

  “You want strangers going through what’s left of your worldly possessions, little girl?” Gus argued.

  “I sure as hell don’t want your men touching my stuff.”

  Sizemore, Gus’s constant shadow, laughed. “You just don’t know how to be a grateful little girl, do you, Sadie Adele?”

  “Shut up,” Gus growled at him. “Let’s go find that damned horse.”

  * * *

  SADIE WAITED IN THE truck. Lyle had insisted. She didn’t like it one bit, but she wasn’t totally stupid. Her house had burned. Someone had whacked him in the head. This was not the time to be foolhardy. Her throat and nostrils were sore as hell. Her chest felt as if she’d sucked in the fire instead of just the smoke.

  Gus banged on the door of the shack Jesse Carroll called home, Lyle right next to him. Sizemore and his buddy were walking the property. Sadie didn’t see why they didn’t go straight to the barn. If Dare Devil was here, he’d be in the barn most likely. Then again, if old man Carroll had hoped to hide him, he might do otherwise. She hugged herself, wished all of this insanity was over.