Her Colton P.I. Read online

  She swallowed against the dry throat, which terror had induced, then whispered, “Who are you?”

  “Chris Colton. And yes,” he answered before she could ask, “Peg’s really my sister-in-law.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you here? Why did you force your way into my room?”

  An enigmatic expression crossed his face, and he looked as if he was of two minds about answering those questions. “If I let you go, are you going to run for it? Or are you going to give me a chance to explain?”

  A tiny dart of humor speared through her, despite the dregs of terror that still clung to her body. “You’d catch me before I ran three steps,” she said drily. “So I guess I have no choice but to listen to what you have to say.”

  He surprised her again by laughing softly, but “Smart woman” was all he said. He took a step backward, then another and another, slowly. As if he was expecting her to make a break for it. But Holly wasn’t stupid. If he was there to kill her, she’d be dead already—her strength was no match for his. And if he was there to rape her, he’d never have let her go.

  Besides, she’d felt the bulge of his gun in its shoulder holster when he held her pinioned against the wall, but he hadn’t drawn his weapon and used it against her. This meant he was probably telling the truth. Probably.

  “I don’t understand,” she said again. “If Peg sent you, why didn’t she tell me she was going to? I was just there, and she didn’t say a wor—”

  “She didn’t send me. Not exactly. And I know you were just at her house. I followed you there...and back. I’ve been following you for days.”

  “Why?” She managed to tamp down the sudden fear his revelation triggered. So she wasn’t crazy. She had been followed.

  He removed his Stetson as if he’d just realized he was still wearing it. Then ran his fingers through the hair the hat had flattened. “Because the McCays hired me to find you.”

  “What?” She barely breathed the word.

  His face took on a grim cast. “I’m a private investigator, Holly. The McCays came to my office a week ago. They spun me a cock-and-bull story about you, which I almost swallowed hook, line and sinker. Almost.” He looked as if he were going to add something to that statement, but didn’t.

  “Let me guess. I’m an abusive mother, and they want to rescue Ian and Jamie from my clutches.”

  “No.”

  A wry chuckle was forced out of her. “Well, that’s a change. That’s the story they told the court when they tried to wrest custody of my boys from me after Grant died.” Curious, she asked, “So what was their story this time?”

  Chris glanced down at the Stetson in his hand and ran his fingers along the brim. “You’re the trustee for the boys’ inheritance from their dad,” he said when he raised his eyes to meet hers again. “You wanted to use the money on yourself instead of for the boys’ benefit, and you took Ian and Jamie away from their loving grandparents so no one could call you to account. And you won’t let the McCays even know where you are...where the boys are. Won’t let them be a part of your children’s lives.”

  Holly closed her eyes for a second, laughed again without humor and shook her head. “All of that is true, except for one thing,” she admitted. “I am the sole trustee. And I did run with Ian and Jamie—three weeks before Christmas, did they mention that?” Chris nodded. “And I haven’t told the McCays where we are...for a perfectly good reason. Because—”

  “Because they’re trying to kill you.”

  Stunned, Holly asked in a breathless whisper, “How did you know that?”

  One corner of Chris’s mouth twitched up into a half smile. “Because I’m damned good at what I do, Holly. Because the minute I found out you were friends with Peg, I knew the McCays were lying through their teeth, and I wanted to know why. I hate lies and I hate liars. But even more than that, I hate being taken for a sucker. So I did a little more digging...on them. And found out a hell of a lot more than they want the world to know.”

  “I can’t believe you believe me.”

  “It’s not so much a matter of believing you, it’s putting the facts together and believing the story they tell—no matter what that story is. No matter if the story seems incredible on the face of it.”

  Holly buried her face in her hands as emotion welled up in her. For months she’d had no one she could confide in about her suspicions. No one she could share her worry with. She hadn’t even told Peg. And this man, this stranger, was telling her she’d been right all along.

  When she finally raised her face to his, her eyes were dry. She wasn’t going to cry about this, not now. She’d cried enough tears over the McCays, almost as many tears as she’d cried over Grant’s death. Her lips tightened. “That means I’m doing the right thing taking the boys and leaving town.”

  Chris shook his head. “I didn’t tell them I located you. And I won’t.”

  “But don’t you see? Even if you don’t tell them where I am, if they hired you they know I’m in this area. And the next PI they hire might not... What I mean is, not everyone will suspect their motives. Not everyone will believe the truth.”

  Chris stared thoughtfully, then nodded. “You’re right. But I can’t let you run away again. Not knowing what I know. I’d never be able to forgive myself if...” He seemed to reach a decision. “I think the best thing would be for you and your boys to check out of this rooming house...but stay where I can keep an eye on you until we can set a trap for the McCays.”

  Holly shook her head vehemently. “I can’t do that to you and your wife—put you in danger that way.”

  All expression was wiped from Chris’s face in a heartbeat. “My wife is dead.”

  She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered eventually. “I didn’t know. You said Peg’s your sister-in-law, and since you and she don’t have the same name, I assumed...” Her words trailed off miserably.

  “Peg never mentioned her younger sister, Laura?” Holly shook her head again. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Chris said. “Peg and Laura were particularly close. She took Laura’s death hard.” He didn’t say it, but Holly could see Peg wasn’t the only one who’d taken Laura’s death hard. But that closed-off expression also told her this wasn’t a topic of conversation Chris wanted to pursue.

  Is that why Peg bonded with me so quickly? Holly wondered abstractedly. Because she saw in me the little sister she’d lost?

  “So you’re not putting my wife in danger,” Chris said, drawing her attention back to the here and now. “Most of my family is in some kind of law enforcement, too, and I can recruit them to help me set a trap for the McCays. Of course, everyone’s focused on capturing the Alphabet Killer right now, so the McCays aren’t going to be a top priority. Especially since there’s no concrete evidence against them. In the meantime, though, I want you and your boys in safekeeping.”

  “Ian and Jamie aren’t in danger,” she was quick to point out. “Just me.”

  “Are you so sure?” Chris’s eyes in that moment were the hardest, coldest blue eyes she’d ever seen. “If the McCays are willing to kill you to gain custody, who’s to say they wouldn’t eventually arrange ‘accidents’ for the boys, too, once they had them in their control?”

  “Their own grandchildren? I can’t believe—”

  Chris cut her off. “Believe it. Once you’ve taken the first life, the next one is easier to justify in your mind. And the next.” A bark of humorless laughter escaped him. “I should know. My father is Matthew Colton.”

  Holly’s brows drew together in a frown. “I don’t think I—”

  “Mathew Colton, the original bull’s-eye serial killer. He was infamous in his day. The Alphabet Killer is a copycat of sorts, marking her victims the way he did.” His face hardened into a grim mask. “My father killed ten people
twenty years ago. Including his last victim—my mother.”

  Chapter 3

  “Oh, my God!”

  Shock was obvious on Holly’s face, followed quickly by the emotion Chris hated the most—pity. He’d had a bellyful of pity in his life—from the time he was eleven and became a quasi-orphan, right up through Laura’s death almost two years ago. He didn’t want pity and he didn’t need it.

  “My father killed nine men who reminded him of his hated brother, Big J Colton,” he said brusquely, “before he killed my mother...whose only crime was that she loved him. So don’t tell me the McCays couldn’t possibly kill their innocent grandchildren.”

  “I...won’t.” The fear in Holly’s eyes surprised Chris, because it wasn’t fear of him. It wasn’t even fear for herself as a target of the McCays. No, the fear was for her children. Then her face changed, and the fear morphed into fierce determination to protect her children at all costs, no matter what. If Chris had needed one more bit of proof Holly McCay was a good mother, he’d just received it.

  “They’re not getting anywhere near Ian and Jamie,” Holly stated unequivocally. “What do you want me to do?”

  He glanced away and thought for a moment, then nodded to himself. His eyes met Holly’s. “I’ve got a house on the outskirts of Granite Gulch. No one lives there, but Peg looks after it for me, so it’s not...abandoned.” A wave of pain went through him and his right eye twitched as he remembered this was Laura’s dream house, the one he’d built for her right before she died. The house she’d never had a chance to live in. The house he couldn’t bear to occupy after her death. “It stands all by itself on several acres, and it’s up on a ridge—you can easily spot someone coming almost a mile away. I can’t think of a safer place for you and the boys to hide out.”

  “Just us?”

  “And me. Until we can set a trap for the McCays, I don’t want you out of my sight if I can help it.”

  “What about your job? You can’t just—”

  Chris’s jaw set tightly. “I run my own business. I haven’t taken a day off since Laura’s funeral, so I think I can manage this. Besides, I do a lot of my work over the phone or on the computer. I can work from the office in the house. We designed the house—” ...with that in mind, he started to say, but his throat closed before he could get the words out.

  Holly didn’t respond at first, just assessed him with an enigmatic expression on her face. The silence stretched from ten seconds to twenty, to thirty. Nearly a minute had passed before she said, “Okay. I appreciate the offer. And I’ll accept it on my children’s behalf. If it was just me...that would be a different story, but it’s not.”

  * * *

  A half hour later everything Holly and the twins had with them was loaded into her SUV, with the exception of the two fold-a-cribs she’d bought when she moved to Rosewood. Chris stashed those in the back of his truck, and Holly realized if she’d taken Ian and Jamie and run, she would have had to leave the twins’ cribs behind—they just wouldn’t fit.

  “I’ll follow you to Peg’s,” Chris said as he raised the hatch and clicked it firmly closed. “But first, we’d better stop in town and get some groceries. The utilities at the house are on—so we’ll have water and electricity—but there’s no food.”

  Holly nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “And while I’m at it, I’d better stop off and pack a suitcase, and pick up my laptop from my apartment. I live above the Double G Cakes and Pies.”

  “Oh, I love that place!” she exclaimed. “Mia—the woman who runs it—she always gives Ian and Jamie special cookies she makes just for them.”

  Chris smiled. “Sounds like Mia. She and my sister Annabel are best friends—they were foster sisters together.” His smile faded, replaced by the closed expression that was becoming familiar to Holly, and she knew instinctively this was another topic of conversation he’d never intended to bring up. Foster care joined the growing list of subjects to avoid...unless Chris brought it up himself.

  As they drove the short distance to Granite Gulch, Holly wondered about Chris. About his motives for doing this—protecting her boys and her. She also couldn’t help wondering about his wife, Laura, and what had happened to her. Car accident? Some kind of illness, like cancer? Peg had never mentioned Laura that she could recall. But it wasn’t just idle curiosity. She really wanted to know, because it was obvious Chris had been in love with his wife.

  Holly glanced in the rearview mirror at the man in the truck behind her and sighed. If only Grant had loved her the way Chris had loved his wife. If only...

  She couldn’t help feeling a dart of envy comparing Chris to Grant. Not that Grant hadn’t been a good man—he had been. So very different from his parents. No, the problem was that Grant had been her best friend growing up, and while he’d loved her, he hadn’t been in love with her. Not the way she’d been in love with him.

  She’d grieved for Grant. Those first few months after his death she’d been devastated...but she hadn’t been able to grieve for long. The McCays had seen to that.

  Was that why I recovered from Grant’s death so quickly? she asked herself now. Because Grant’s parents tried to gain custody of Ian and Jamie and that took all my energy and concentration? Because when that didn’t work they tried to have me killed, forcing me to take my babies and flee?

  The first time a car unexpectedly swerved into her lane on the expressway just as she was approaching an overpass, Holly had dismissed it as merely poor driving on someone’s part. The second similar attempt only two weeks later had raised her suspicions, especially since she thought she recognized the car. But the third try on her life had been the clincher—someone had deliberately attempted to run her down in the grocery store parking lot, and she’d escaped with her life only by diving between two parked cars as the vehicle in question sped away without stopping.

  Holly glanced in the rearview mirror again. Or is the reason I’m not still grieving because Grant never loved me the way I wanted him to love me? The way I loved him.

  She would never know. All she knew was that not quite a year after Grant’s death she was ready to move on with her life...if the McCays would let her.

  * * *

  Holly buckled Ian into one car seat while Chris buckled Jamie into the other. She’d been surprised at first at how baby-knowledgeable Chris was, but she quickly realized she shouldn’t be—Peg’s kids adored their “Unca Chris,” as Susan called him. Which meant even though she’d never met Chris at Peg’s house in the three months the two women had been friends, he had to be a fairly frequent visitor.

  Holly turned back to thank Peg just as the other woman came out of the house with a bag of dog food balanced on one hip, a bag of doggy treats perched precariously on top and a leashed Wally dancing joyously beside her.

  “What the—” Chris began, but Peg cut him off.

  “Holly’s kids adore Wally, and he’s attached to them, so that will help the kids acclimate faster. Besides, it won’t hurt to have a guard dog out there, Chris. You know that. It’s why you got Wally for Laura in the first place.”

  Chris’s slow smile did something to Holly’s heart. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she wouldn’t have minded having that smile aimed at her.

  “Thanks,” Chris said, relieving Peg of the dog, the dog food and the doggy treats before planting a kiss on her cheek. “Come on, boy,” he said, opening the door of his F-150 and letting Wally scramble up onto the front seat as Chris plopped the dog food on the floor.

  Holly turned to Peg. “Thanks for watching the boys for me,” she said softly. “I wasn’t going to leave without telling you—please believe that.”

  Peg smiled and hugged her. “I do.” She stepped back and her smile faded. “But you can’t run forever, Holly. I know it’s not easy, but sometimes you just have to face up to the truth and tak
e a stand. Chris’s idea is better any way you look at it. You owe it to your boys to have the McCays put away so y’all can stop running.”

  “I know.”

  The two women embraced once more, and Peg whispered in her ear, “Chris needs to do this, Holly. I can’t explain, but he needs to do this. So just let him take care of you and your boys.”

  * * *

  Chris drove at a sedate pace—unlike his usual hell-bent-for-leather style—watching Holly’s SUV in his rearview mirror, making sure he didn’t lose her. And as he drove he wondered about her. Not the facts and figures he’d uncovered in his investigation—he already knew far too much about her past, much more than most people would find out in a year of knowing her.

  He knew where she’d grown up, what had happened to her parents, where she’d gone to college and where she’d worked after graduation. He knew she’d been a stay-at-home mom when her husband had been sideswiped on the I-45 in Houston, triggering a massive pileup that had killed three people...but not the drunk who’d instigated the accident—a driver who’d been using a revoked license, and who now resided in the state prison. He knew how much Holly had received from her husband’s insurance, and he knew how much her twins had inherited from their father in the trust the McCays had told him about—just about the only truth in their pack of lies.

  But he didn’t care about all that. What he wanted to know was what made her tick. She obviously loved her sons. Had she loved their father? His investigation hadn’t uncovered any men in her life other than her now-deceased husband, which put her head and shoulders above most of the women he’d been hired to investigate. While the bulk of his work was doing background checks for a couple of major defense contractors in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, as well as extensive white-collar-crime investigation, no PI could completely avoid divorce work. Infidelities were profitable.