Читать книгу Her Colton P.i. - Amelia Autin - Страница 9

Chapter 2

Two days later Holly drove away from Peg’s house with her vision blurred from unshed tears. She’d left the twins in her friend’s care one last time, but that wasn’t why she was practically crying. She hadn’t told Peg—she’d chickened out at the last minute—but she wasn’t going to do errands. She’d wanted Ian and Jamie to have one last opportunity to play with Susan and Bobby...while she packed up the contents of their room in the Rosewood Rooming House and loaded everything into her SUV. Then she would pick up her boys, hand Peg the note she was trying to compose in her mind so Peg wouldn’t worry about them...and they’d be gone.

* * *

Chris followed Holly away from Peg’s house, keeping enough distance between his truck and her little SUV so she wouldn’t spot the tail. He was surprised when she didn’t stop at any of the stores in Granite Gulch but kept driving. She kept driving even after she reached the state highway that was the boundary between Granite Gulch and Rosewood. Puzzled but not really worried, Chris let the distance between their two vehicles increase, because there weren’t any cars out this way to hide the fact that he was following her.

When Holly pulled into the Rosewood Rooming House parking lot, Chris was faced with a dilemma. He drove past, then doubled back as soon as he could, just in time to see Holly entering the rooming house’s front door.

“What the hell is she doing?” he muttered to himself, wondering if she’d forgotten something and would be back outside soon. He made a U-turn a hundred yards down, parked close enough so he could watch the front door and Holly’s SUV, but far enough away from the rooming house so he wouldn’t be spotted, and waited. And waited.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind that the Rosewood Rooming House wasn’t really the safest place for a woman on her own with two young children. Not only was the rooming house full of transients, but Regina Willard—whom law enforcement had pretty much identified as the Alphabet Killer—was known to have roomed here not that long ago. Not his baby sister, Josie, thank God. The Alphabet Killer hadn’t been caught yet, but at least now everyone in town knew it wasn’t Josie.

Thoughts of Josie reminded Chris that she was still missing, even after all these years he’d been searching for her. His two most spectacular failures as a PI both had their roots in his family history—Josie...and his mother’s burial place. He touched his heart in an automatic gesture. The pain he felt over those failures ranked right up there with Laura’s death and his guilt over that.

If his serial-killer father could be believed, however, his mother’s burial place might at last be discovered, something all the Colton children devoutly wished for. When their father had killed their mother, he’d hidden her body. She’d never been found, not in twenty years. But Matthew Colton had provided four clues to where Saralee Colton’s body was buried. Not that the clues made any real sense...so far. But they were clues. He’d promised one clue for every child who visited him in prison. Annabel had been the last to visit their father, and her clue—Peaches—had been just as enigmatic as the first three: Texas, Hill and B. The siblings had theorized that maybe—maybe—the clues were pointing to their maternal grandparents’ home in Bearson, Texas. But that house sat on acres of land. Even if their mother was buried somewhere on her parents’ property, they weren’t really much better off than they’d been when they started this sorry mess.

Chris sighed. This month was his turn to visit their father in prison. He didn’t know why Matthew was putting his children through this torture—other than the fact that he could because they were all desperate to locate their mother’s body and give her a decent burial—but it almost seemed as if their father was getting a perverse pleasure out of it. “The serial killer’s last revenge,” he murmured. Matthew Colton was dying. Everyone knew it, especially Matthew himself. “It would be just like that bastard to torture us with these disparate clues...then die. Taking his secret to the grave.” He relieved his anger and frustration with a few choice curse words...until he remembered he was supposed to be giving them up. He’d resolved two days earlier that he was going to clean up his language for Susan Merrill’s sake, and Bobby’s, just as Joe Merrill was supposed to do.

“Heck and damnation,” Chris said now. It didn’t have the same impact.

* * *

Regina Willard groaned as she rolled out of her uncomfortable sleeping bag and staggered outside to relieve herself. She hated this hideout, hated being forced by the Granite Gulch Police Department and the FBI to hurriedly leave the Rosewood Rooming House. Her place there hadn’t been luxurious by any means, but at least she’d had a comfortable bed and civilized facilities at her disposal. Not this hole-in-the-ground living quarters without any running water.

She thought fleetingly of her half brother, Jesse Willard, and his thriving farm. The last time she’d talked to him, years ago, he’d tried to encourage her to move on. To stop grieving for her lost fiancé. Jesse didn’t understand. That bitch had stolen the only man Regina could ever love, and she’d had to pay. No matter how the woman disguised herself, no matter how many times she changed her name, Regina recognized her...and made her pay.

Regina shook her head. She kept killing that woman, but the bitch refused to stay dead. So Regina had to keep killing her again and again. If she killed her enough times, eventually she would stay dead. Then she could relax, move away from this area and try to forget.

She blinked, then rubbed her eyes, trying to focus. How many times had it been altogether? She ticked them off on her fingers. “Seven,” she said at last. She chuckled to herself. Yes, she’d been forced into hiding out in this shelter in the middle of nowhere, but not even the vaunted FBI had been able to stop her. She was on a mission, and no one would stop her until the bitch was dead. Permanently.

* * *

Holly packed swiftly. While her hands were performing that mindless task, she tried to make plans. Where to go? she thought. New Mexico? Arizona? Or should she just keep driving until she’d put thousands of miles between herself and the McCays? She’d never lived in the United States outside Texas, and a little niggling fear of the unknown made her heart skip a beat as she envisioned going to a completely strange place. Not just the difference between Houston and Fort Worth, but completely different. Yes, she’d visited South America as a young child with her missionary parents, but that was a long time ago—Texas had been her home ever since she’d started school.

Leaving again hadn’t been an easy decision for Holly to make—she didn’t want to leave. Not just for her own sake but for her boys, too, who had reached the age where they noticed changes in their lives. But the time had come to move on.

She wasn’t really concerned about the Alphabet Killer, despite the fact that the killer was up to the Hs now. All seven of the killer’s victims had long dark hair, and while Holly’s wig was dark, it was very short. Not that she was careless of her safety—she wasn’t going to risk being the exception to the killer’s rule.

But she wasn’t running from the Alphabet Killer. She was running from the McCays. The McCays...and their attempts on her life.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it at first. But when one near miss had led to a second, then a third, she’d been forced to look at the McCays with suspicious eyes. Someone wanted her dead. Who else could it be? She didn’t have an enemy in the world. But she was the trustee for the twins’ inheritance from Grant. Which meant she controlled the income earned on nearly twenty million dollars. Over and above the cash invested conservatively, the trust also owned stock in Grant’s software company—now being run by others, but still doing well. So the trust had unlimited growth potential.

She’d always known Grant’s parents—especially his mother—were cold and calculating. Grant had known it, too, although they’d never really discussed it—not when they were kids, and not after they were married. It was one of those things they’d just taken for granted. Was that why he hadn’t left them anything in his will? Because he knew they were more interested in the fortune he’d earned from his breakthrough software design than they were in him or their grandsons?

She had no proof the McCays were trying to kill her, though. Nothing to take to the police except a growing certainty it couldn’t be anyone else. Especially after the McCays tried to gain custody of the twins through the courts and had lied about Holly in their depositions—warning bells had gone off loud and clear. But even if she’d gone to the police, what would they have said? Those near misses could have been a coincidence. Accidents. The McCays were solid, middle-class, upstanding, churchgoing citizens. The salt of the earth. Or at least that was the image they projected. How could she even think of making a slanderous accusation against them...especially for such a heinous crime as attempted murder?

Which was why she’d packed up the bare necessities three weeks before Christmas, buckled her sons into their baby car seats and headed north toward the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex with fierce determination. She hadn’t really had a plan—plans could wait, she’d told herself—but she knew she had to put herself out of reach of her in-laws until she had time to think things through. She’d thought she could lose herself in Texas’s second-largest metropolitan area.

But she wasn’t a criminal on the lam, and she had no idea how to go about getting a fake ID. Not to mention she couldn’t carry huge wads of cash with her in lieu of using her credit and debit cards. She had to withdraw money from the bank periodically—a bank account she’d opened with her real social security number and driver’s license.

She’d moved a week after she’d opened the new bank account—as she’d moved every time she got the feeling the McCays were getting close. But she hadn’t switched banks. She’d picked the Cattleman’s Bank of Fort Worth precisely because it had hundreds of branches throughout the DFW area, including small branches in grocery stores. And Holly had used many of them to throw the McCays off the scent...assuming they were still trying to track her down. But she had to assume that. She didn’t dare assume otherwise.

Which meant her time in tiny Rosewood, right next door to Granite Gulch, where Peg lived, had finally come to an end. Rosewood was so small she’d thought the McCays would never find her in this out-of-the-way place, since she was still paying cash for everything and varying which bank branches she was using to withdraw that cash.

She loved the small-town atmosphere here, and after she’d made friends with Peg at the Laundromat—thank God Peg’s washing machine broke down that day!—she’d started to feel at home. So she’d convinced herself she was safe. But for the past three days she’d had...well...the willies, she told herself, for lack of a better term. A feeling she was being watched. Followed.

It could be the Alphabet Killer, she supposed. But she didn’t think so. Either way was a disaster in the making, and she wasn’t going to stick around to find out for sure one way or the other.

Holly stashed two suitcases into the rear of her SUV, then headed back to the rooming house for another load.

She held the door to her room open with one foot as she picked up a box of toys and books, then tried to scream and dropped the box when a tall blond man in a black Stetson loomed in the doorway.

A large hand covered her mouth, stifling her voice, and all Holly could think of in that instant was No! No, she wasn’t going to be a victim. She wasn’t going to let herself be raped or murdered or—

She tore at the hand covering her mouth, but the man plastered her against the wall inside her room and kicked the door shut behind him. Then just held her prisoner with his body as she desperately tried to free herself. She gave up trying to fight the hand that muzzled her and went for his eyes instead. But he ducked his head, placing his mouth against her ear as he said in a deep undertone, “Stop it, Holly! I’m not going to hurt you—I’m trying to save your life. Peg Merrill’s my sister-in-law.”

She froze. Her heart was still beating like a snare drum, but she stopped fighting at Peg’s name. And when she did that, she realized the stranger wasn’t using her immobility to his advantage. She tried to ask a question, but the hand over her mouth prevented her.

“If I take my hand away, are you going to scream?” he asked, still in that same deep undertone. Holly shook her head slightly and was surprised, yet not surprised, when he did just that—he removed his hand. But it hovered near her face, as if he’d clamp it back in place if she screamed.

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.”