Читать книгу The Pregnant Colton Bride - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 12

Chapter 4

Watkins silently walked into the small area that doubled as an interrogation room when it wasn’t being used as a break room by his deputies. Zane had been sitting there for the better part of an hour, waiting for the sheriff to return after he had placed him there, telling him to wait and that he would be back soon.

Obviously they had different definitions of the word soon, Zane thought. But then, he was aware Watkins was toying with him.

Entering from behind Zane, the sheriff dropped a sealed evidence bag on the table right in front of him. The contents of the bag made a small “ping” noise as it made contact with the metal tabletop.

“Now, then,” Watkins declared, “I believe that there is your cuff link, Mr. Colton. You’re not going to waste your breath and my time denying it, are you?” he challenged, sitting down opposite Zane. “What with those pretty initials on it and all, saying Z.C., I figure that cuff link’s gotta be yours.”

Zane looked at the item in question. Even contained in the see-through evidence bag the way it was, the cuff link managed to catch the room’s overhead light. It gleamed almost defiantly as it lay there in the center of the small metal table.

Zane raised his eyes to look at the smug expression on the sheriff’s face. He could see Watkins was just itching for him to deny ownership. The sheriff was a man who relished fighting—and enjoyed winning.

He was not about to give Watkins that satisfaction.

“It’s mine,” Zane replied.

He’d only noticed that the cuff link was missing sometime toward the latter part of the day that his father had been presumably kidnapped. With bigger things to deal with than a missing cuff link, he hadn’t even tried to find it.

Apparently Watkins had.

“Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way,” Watkins said, referring to his suspect’s admission. “Now, just what was it doing in the bushes right outside your stepdaddy’s window?” Watkins asked in a faux friendly voice, his eyes once again all but pinning Zane to his seat.

Watkins was the kind of man he could easily lose his temper with, but Zane knew he only stood to lose if he did so. Exercising total restraint, he managed to control his temper. He only sounded mildly sarcastic as he answered the sheriff’s question.

“I don’t know, I must have lost it while I was out there, looking for Eldridge after we discovered he wasn’t in his room and we found his blood all over the floor.”

Watkins’s expression remained skeptical. “Or maybe you lost it while dragging your stepfather’s body out through his bedroom window. If you ask me, that seems more logical,” Watkins deliberately concluded.

Aggravated, Zane bit back a few choice retorts. Instead, he said evenly, “I was in an entirely different section of the house when my stepfather was taken.”

Watkins asked dubiously, “Can anyone verify that?”

Zane met the man’s eyes without any hesitation. “I was with my mother.”

“Your mother,” Watkins repeated with a smirk. “Sure you want to go with that?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Zane fired back. “It is the truth.”

Watkins’s short laugh told him what the sheriff thought of his alibi. “Well, throughout history, a lot of mamas have been known to lie for their sons. For instance, the mamas who were the wives of rich, powerful men. They often just looked the other way when their sons rid them of those men.” Watkins leaned closer over the table as if he were sharing some sort of deep, dark confidence. “You take that Emperor Nero’s mama as an example. Did you know Nero’s mama poisoned her husband so her boy Nero could become emperor?” Watkins asked, chuckling as he spoke.

For two cents, Zane would have been more than willing to tell the sheriff exactly what he thought of the man, but he knew it would do him no good, only harm. Zane was determined not to allow the man to goad him into losing his temper.

“Fascinating as that is, Sheriff,” Zane told him, “I do have another witness.”

The hell you do, boy.

Watkins clearly didn’t believe him as he asked, “And this witness just happened to conveniently pop up in your memory now?”

Zane ignored the sheriff’s mocking tone and continued telling him his alibi. “The family housekeeper, Moira, was there at the time, as well. You might recall the name, Sheriff. Moira was the first one to discover my father was missing after my mother had sent her to the master suite to wake him up. It was Moira’s screams that alerted everyone else to the crime.” And then Zane restated his location. “I was nowhere near that side of the house when my father was taken.”

Unfazed, the sheriff continued with his accusation. “You could have taken him earlier.”

Watkins wasn’t letting up. Zane was now convinced the sheriff was just trying to bait him and get him rattled. Rattled people said all sorts of incriminating things.

Zane continued to maintain his innocence.

“There was evidence that my stepfather fought his kidnapper. The room looked like a hurricane had hit it.” And then he homed in on the main thing that would back up his claim. “One of the things knocked over in the struggle was an heirloom clock. Its face was smashed and the time on it stopped at 7:30.” He remembered his sister pointing that out at the time. “At 7:30 I was sitting in the dining room, having coffee with my mother.”

Watkins made a dismissive noise. “That’s a nice little story.”

All right, he’d been polite. He’d been patient. But enough was enough, Zane thought. He wasn’t about to be bullied or browbeaten by Watkins any longer. The sheriff had fixated on him long enough. The man needed to turn his attention to catching the real kidnapper, not sit around, spinning fairy tales because it suited his purposes.

“Do you have any real evidence linking me to my stepfather’s disappearance, other than a cuff link I could have easily lost at any time?” Zane demanded. When Watkins made no response, other than to glare at him begrudgingly, Zane nodded his head in satisfaction. “I didn’t think so.”

Rising from his chair, he declared, “We’re done here. Sheriff.”

“For now,” Watkins allowed as he got up, as well. “But I’ll be in touch.”

“I’m sure you will,” Zane snorted.

“Charlie,” Watkins called out to his deputy. “Take Mr. Colton back to his office.”

Zane was quick to cancel the order. He just wanted to leave all three officers of the law behind him. “Don’t bother, Charlie,” he said. “I’ll find my own way back.”

He didn’t like being countermanded, but to save face Watkins shrugged indifferently. “Suit yourself, Mr. Colton. Have a nice day,” he called after Zane.

Zane didn’t bother turning around or even acknowledging he had heard the sheriff’s sarcastic parting words.

Zane suppressed a sigh. He was in the clear for now, but he knew it would be just a matter of time before the sheriff came up with something else that would help him point a finger at one of the Coltons again.

Although theirs was the most prominent family living in the area, that didn’t keep some people from viewing his family in a vindictive, jealous light. Those were the people who would be willing to do anything to tear the Coltons down in the public’s eyes.

Watkins either belonged to that group, or to the group determined to show everyone that they were not influenced by the Coltons and would do whatever it took to bring one of them to so-called justice. Apparently the little matter of first being found guilty by a jury of their peers had mysteriously fallen by the wayside.

Zane blew out a breath. There was no point in making himself crazy over this. There was another way to deal with it.

Once outside the sheriff’s station, Zane took out his cell phone and put in a call to his office. It rang a total of five times before the receiver was finally picked up.

“Mr. Zane Colton’s office. How may I help you?”

Zane unconsciously smiled to himself. There was no mistaking that voice.

Mirabella tried not to sound breathless. She’d just gotten back from the ladies’ room and had nearly been too late to pick up the line. She’d run to her phone. After five rings, the call would have gone to voice mail.

“You can pick me up and get me the hell out of here.”

Relief did a quick sashay through her before Mirabella could think to block it. “Zane?” she cried happily. Belatedly, she realized she’d addressed him far too personally, given her position. She quickly cleared her throat and said, “I mean, Mr. Colton, is that you?”

“Yes, Belle, it’s me.” Zane looked over his shoulder, half expecting the sheriff to emerge from the office and ask him to come back under some new pretext. “And I need you to bring my car down here and pick me up.”

All sorts of things were going through her head, more than half of them having to do with fugitives fleeing the law. Her breathing grew more rapid as her concern escalated.

“Where are you, sir?”

“Right now, I’m standing in front of the sheriff’s office,” he told her. “And I’d really rather not spend any more time doing that than I absolutely have to. The man is out for blood. It doesn’t matter whose.”

But Mirabella was still focused on the first part of his statement.

“They let you go?” she cried.

“They had nothing to hold me on,” Zane informed her, surprisingly touched by the concern he heard in her voice. “I told you not to worry,” he reminded her. “I didn’t need our lawyer, after all.”

Her sigh of relief was audible over the phone. “I should have realized you’d make them see reason, Mr. Colton.”

He didn’t need to be flattered. What he needed was to be picked up.

“How soon do you think you can get here?” He wanted to know.

“I’m already on my way to the elevator,” she answered, which was stretching the truth since she’d taken the call on the office phone and was thus forced to stand there until she terminated the call. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Don’t commit any traffic violations,” he warned. “I don’t want you arrested for speeding or going through a red light.” He warily glanced toward the sheriff’s office again. No one was coming out. “I’m not exactly friends with the sheriff around here.”

“Understood. Speed limit all the way,” she promised. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Can’t be soon enough for me,” Zane commented as he hung up.

Mirabella’s heart jumped as she hurried out of the office and toward the elevator. She knew Zane was referring to the fact that he wanted to get away from the sheriff, the man’s department and his office, but just for the space of a moment, she isolated Zane’s last sentence and pretended the words had a completely different meaning, a different intent behind them. Specifically, that he was eager to see her, not just eager to be taken away from the sheriff’s presence.

If only...

* * *

True to her word, Mirabella got there as quickly as humanly possible while still abiding by—for the most part—the speed limit. The way his face lit up when she turned the corner and first came into his view would have been well worth any amount of traffic tickets in exchange.

She came to a full stop at the curb. Her relief over Zane not being arrested was so huge, it was all she could do to restrain herself from jumping out and giving Zane a heartfelt hug.

Knowing she couldn’t overstep her boundaries, Mirabella did her best to appear calm and collected. She waited until he opened the passenger door before asking, “Then everything’s all right?”

“Oh, it’s far from all right,” Zane responded as he dropped into the passenger seat. Then, before she could ask any further questions, he explained. “My father’s still missing and presumed dead by some. And even though Watkins was forced to let me go right now for lack of evidence, it’s just a matter of time before the good sheriff is back at it, not carrying on a proper investigation and trying to pin my father’s kidnapping on either me or someone else in the family.”

Mirabella knew all that was required of her was silence. That and a ride back to the office. But she just couldn’t keep quiet, not when she looked at him and saw what he was going through.

“What are you going to do?” she finally asked him, watching a cavalcade of emotions parade across Zane’s rugged face.

“Same thing I was going to do before the sheriff decided to accuse me of kidnapping and whisked me off to that poor excuse of an interrogation room. I’m going to find out exactly what happened to my father and who’s responsible for it.” He thought about the assignment he’d given to his IT expert. “I’ve got a lead Meyer Stanley is following up on. Hopefully, he’s made some headway and will get back to me soon.”

Taking in every syllable as if it was golden, Mirabella nodded. “And until then?”

Zane sighed, resigned to playing a waiting game for the time being.

“And until then, we’ll keep my father’s company running as smoothly as we can, getting things done that need doing. When he comes back, I don’t want my father returning to a corporation that’s falling apart or on the verge of bankruptcy, or a takeover. Or some kind of trumped-up investigation.”

At this point, until he knew who he was dealing with, he wouldn’t think of anything as unapproachable or safe. “I want him coming back to a business that’s doing even better than it was when he suddenly disappeared.”

Mirabella smiled at him as she came to a stop at a red light. “I hope you know Mr. Eldridge is very lucky to have you.”

“It works both ways, Belle,” Zane told her. “My sister and I are lucky to have him. A lot of men in Eldridge Colton’s position would have kicked their wives’ first kids to the curb, or exiled them to a year-round program at some boarding school the second they were old enough. But he didn’t. Eldridge did right by Marceline and me. The least I can do is to repay that kindness and do right by him—that means, in part, keeping his department running smoothly—and it also means not sitting back while the sheriff and his people stumble along, trampling on clues. It means taking an active part in finding him,” Zane concluded.

She was moved by his passion and his dedication. “What can I do to help, Mr. Colton?”

He smiled at her offer. The woman really was very sweet, he thought.

“I’ll let you know,” he promised, although he really doubted there was anything she could do to help him find his father, which was his top priority at this moment and would continue to be until Eldridge was finally found.

* * *

They got back to the office building rather quickly. Mirabella returned his car back to its designated parking space, and then they rode up to the twenty-third floor together. Despite the fact that he was understandably preoccupied, Zane still couldn’t help noticing the queasy look on Mirabella’s face. It seemed to get more pronounced as the elevator bypassed all the lower floors and went straight up to their floor in what felt like record time.

The swift ascent had all but drained the little color from her face, bringing in its stead an exceedingly pained, pale hue.

The moment the elevator door slid open, Mirabella vacated the silver enclosure. In his estimation, she seemed rather unsteady on her feet.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” she said, making a beeline for the ladies’ room.

The woman definitely belonged home. He watched as she disappeared into the bathroom farther down the hall.

He was debating following her and placing himself next to the ladies’ room door. If he heard her being sick, he was going to insist she get herself checked out by her own physician. He didn’t want to be responsible for her ruining her health.

However, right at that moment, he felt his cell phone vibrating in his jacket pocket.

Now what? he couldn’t help wondering, exasperated. Swiping his finger along the bottom of the screen, he braced himself as he said, “Zane Colton.”

“Mr. Colton,” the voice on the other end of the line said, “it’s Meyer.”

Zane instantly snapped to attention. “Have you got a name for me, Meyer?”

“Not yet, sir,” the man said apologetically. “Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of decryption to wade through. It’s taking longer than I thought, but I’m getting closer. I did find out the payments stopped a couple of days before your stepfather was kidnapped. That might have been motive enough for someone to kidnap him.”

Hopefully it wasn’t motive enough for someone to kill him, Zane thought.