Serena flashed a wide smile at him. “Must be nice for you to be able to count on some things never changing,” she told Carson sweetly.
He had a feeling that Serena could go on like this until the proverbial cows came home. But he didn’t have time for that.
“I hope your brother’s having more luck with your parents than I’m having with you,” Carson told her as he headed straight for the mansion.
When he walked into the foyer, he was just in time to hear Serena’s mother making her displeasure loudly known to one and all. Somehow, though he hadn’t walked into the house until just now, Joanelle Colton was holding him and his family accountable for this newest inconvenient series of events in her life.
“You,” Joanelle cried, sidestepping her daughter as if she didn’t exist and making her way directly over to the detective. She stopped short abruptly, pulling back as if she wanted no part of her clothing to touch either Carson or his K-9 partner. “Just exactly what is the meaning of all this?” she demanded, furious. “Anders says we have to leave the ranch. Are you the one behind this proposed exodus?”
Aware that there were four pairs of Colton eyes fixed on him, Carson didn’t rise to the bait.
Carson removed his hat before he spoke to Serena’s mother. “I did suggest it, yes, ma’am. And it’s for your own safety,” he told her politely.
“Since when is a Gage worried about a Colton’s safety?” Judson demanded, coming to his wife’s side, his deep, booming voice all but echoing through the ground floor.
“Since I swore an oath to protect all the citizens of Red Ridge, Mr. Colton,” Carson replied calmly.
He was determined that neither of the older Coltons were going to rattle him. If worse came to worst, he could always turn the matter over to Finn and have him deal with his family.
Though she had her own issues with Carson, Serena knew that he was only trying to protect her family. She also knew firsthand how overbearing both her parents could get. Memories of their reactions when she was forced to come to them and tell them she was having a baby were very fresh in her mind. Neither parent had been easy to deal with or sympathetic, thinking only how this baby would ultimately reflect on them.
Angry bears were easier to reason with, she thought. Possibly also friendlier. Which was why, just for now, she threw her lot in with Carson.
“Someone shot at me, Dad,” she said emphatically. “Detective Gage is just trying to get you to stay somewhere safe until he can catch whoever it is that’s out there, using us for target practice.”
By the look on the patriarch’s face, this was the first he was hearing of this. Incensed, Judson turned on Anders.
“Is this true?” he demanded.
“Someone did take a shot in Serena’s direction when she was out by one of the barns where the hands have their quarters.” Anders relayed the incident as best he could, given he hadn’t been there to see it for himself. He had arrived after the fact, only drawn by the sound of gunfire.
Joanelle gasped, her hand flying to her chest. Carson expected the woman to express concern about her daughter’s welfare, or at least ask Serena if she was all right. However, Joanelle appeared horrified that this sort of thing had happened on her ranch—to her.
“I knew it! I knew something like this would happen when you allowed that dreadful girl to invade our home. She had no business setting foot on my ranch!” Joanelle cried. “That branch of the family is just poor trash, tainting everything they come in contact with and you can’t expect anything better from them. How could you, Serena?”
Her mother’s histrionics never ceased to amaze her. “This isn’t Demi’s fault, Mother,” Serena insisted, annoyed.
“Huh! Well, it’ll take more than you saying that to convince me,” Joanelle declared, wrapping her arms around herself and in essence sealing herself off. “What sort of a woman makes her living by being a bounty hunter for heaven’s sake?”
Serena was exceedingly tired of her mother’s judgmental, condescending attitude. “A resourceful one would be my guess,” Serena countered.
Frosty blue eyes glared at Serena. “That’s not what I call it,” Joanelle fired back.
Serena was aware of the expression on Carson’s face. He looked as if he felt sorry for her. Her back went up. She wasn’t about to put on a show for the detective’s entertainment.
“Shouldn’t you be packing for the hotel, Mother?” she pointed out.
Joanelle scowled, obviously insulted by the suggestion. “That’s what I have the maid for,” she answered haughtily.
Wanting her mother to leave the foyer, Serena rephrased the question. “Then shouldn’t you be supervising Marion as she packs for you?”
Unable to argue with that, Joanelle regally turned on her heel and made her way up the spiral staircase. “Come, Valeria!”
There was no room for argument or resistance in her voice.
Uttering an unintelligible, guttural cry, a furious Valeria stomped up the stairs behind her mother.
Judson looked at Serena. “I’d expect Anders to stay and run the ranch, but you should come with us,” he told her in a voice that was only mildly less authoritative than his wife’s.
“The household staff is staying,” Serena began but her father cut in before she could finish.
“Don’t worry.” He looked at his son. “Anders will make sure that they don’t take anything in our absence,” Judson told her.
Serena instantly took offense for the staff. She liked the hardworking people, and they were definitely a lot nicer and kinder than her parents were. How like her father to think that the staff was only interested in stealing from him.
“I’m sure they won’t,” she immediately replied. “Because they’re honest, not because someone is watching them. However, I have work to do with the horses. Anders can’t see to that as well as to everything else. Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll be fine, but you need to take Mother and Valeria out of here,” she insisted in case her father was having second thoughts about going to the hotel.
Although she felt she could handle any danger to herself, she did want her family to be safe. “Mother’s high-strung. If she stays here, she’ll see a gun aimed at her behind every post and tree and make your life a living hell, you know that,” she stressed.
The expression on her father’s face told Serena that Judson Colton was well aware of what his wife was capable of.
As the elder Colton appeared to be mulling over the situation, Carson spoke up. “I’ll stay on the ranch to make sure nothing happens to your daughter or your granddaughter, sir,” he volunteered.
Unable to bring himself to actually express his thanks to a Gage, Judson merely nodded curtly.
“I have to pack,” he said, more to himself than to the detective or his daughter. With that, he went upstairs.
The second her father left the immediate area, Serena swung around to confront Carson. “You’ll do no such thing!”
She caught him off guard. “What is it that I won’t do?” he wanted to know.
“Stay here. I don’t need you playing bodyguard,” she informed him.
Unfazed by her rejection, Carson told her, “Just think of it as your tax dollars at work.”
This wasn’t funny. “I don’t want—”
He’d held his tongue long enough. Serena would try an angel’s patience, and he was far from an angel. “What you want, or need, is of no concern to me, Serena,” he informed her. “Someone took a shot at you. I aim to find out who it was and to keep it from happening again,” Carson told her fiercely. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to see those safe rooms you mentioned earlier.”
Serena blew out an angry breath. She’d just assumed that he’d forgotten about the rooms. “I thought we were past that.”
“No,” he answered, “we’re not.” Just like Justice when he was hot on a
scent, Carson was not about to get distracted. “And the only way we’re ever getting ‘past that’ is if I can find Demi and question her about how her necklace wound up under the tire of that car that was near my brother’s body.”
Feeling as if she was the only one in Demi’s corner, Serena tried to come up with some sort of an explanation for the evidence.
“Maybe someone’s trying to frame her.” The moment she said it out loud, it sounded right to her. “Did you ever think of that?” Serena challenged.
“No, gosh, I never did. What an unusual thought,” Carson said sarcastically. And then he changed his tone, becoming serious as he told her, “Of course I thought of that, but until I can talk to Demi again and get some facts straightened out, I’m not going to waste time investigating that theory. Not when everything else clearly points to her killing my brother. Am I making myself clear?” he all but growled at her.
Serena’s eyes narrowed, shooting daggers at him as she struggled to hold on to her temper. “As transparent as glass.”
“Good,” he retorted with finality. “Now, then, just where are those safe rooms that you said were in your house?”
She was sorely tempted to tell him to go look for the safe rooms himself, but she didn’t want to give Carson an excuse to go wandering around the mansion, possibly tearing things up on his own. Although she found that being around him really unsettled her, especially after Carson had thrown his body over her like that, Serena thought it best if she just showed him the two safe rooms herself.
“They’re this way,” she said, sweeping past Carson.
Her attention was riveted to the top of the stairs. The less she looked at him, Serena felt, the better. Carson was too damn good-looking and she knew all about good-looking men. They were as shallow as a puddle and only interested in their own self-satisfaction.
Been there, done that, she thought as she went up the stairs.
Finding himself unaccountably more amused than irritated, Carson walked behind her. He maintained a light grip on Justice’s leash as he led the canine up with him.
Bringing the detective and his four-footed partner to the second floor, Serena made her way into her suite.
When she entered, she saw that the housekeeper was there, changing Lora. The woman appeared surprised to see her—and even more surprised to see the detective and Justice.
“Are you back, Miss Serena?” the woman asked, one hand on Lora to keep the baby from kicking. Lora’s diaper was only half-on.
“Just passing through, Alma,” Serena answered. “Detective Gage wants to take a look at something,” she explained vaguely.
Carson scanned the area. He’d already been to her suite the other night. There’d been no sign of Demi at the time, except for that discarded sweater.
“Where’s the room?” he wanted to know. She had just brought him over to her walk-in closet, but that certainly didn’t qualify as a safe room, he thought. Was she trying to pull something on him?
“Right here,” Serena answered.
Reaching in, she pressed a button just inside the closet entrance. As she did so, the back wall with all her neatly arranged shoes parted and moved aside, exposing another door. There was a keypad on the wall right next to it.
Serena positioned herself in front of the keypad so that he wasn’t able to see which of the keys she pressed. When she finished, the door opened, exposing a room that was nothing short of huge. Carson judged that it took up the entire length of the floor.
In it was a king-size bed, a state-of-the-art kitchenette and all sorts of things that would make having to take refuge here anything but a hardship.
Carson looked around slowly, taking it all in. It was impressive. “My first place was one-third this size,” he commented.
Serena didn’t doubt it. “My father tends to go overboard,” she answered. “And he thought that if it came to us having to actually use a safe room, we might all have to stay in here.”
Carson nodded. “It certainly is big enough. Go for it, Justice,” he told the dog as he released the animal. “Seek!”
But rather than take off, the German shepherd moved around the huge area slowly. Nothing had caught his attention.
The safe room was actually more than just a single room. There were a couple of smaller “rooms” attached to it. Justice went from one end of the space to another, but unlike when he had uncovered her sweater, he found no trace of Demi.
In the end, the dog came trotting back to him.
“Satisfied?” Serena asked the detective.
Instead of answering her questions, he said, “You said safe rooms.”
Serena sighed. “So I did.”
Resigned, she turned around and led the way out of that safe room and then her suite. She wordlessly proceeded to lead Carson to another wing of the mansion.
“How do you not get lost here?” Carson asked her as they went to the wing that faced the rear of the property.
“I use bread crumbs,” she answered drolly, then immediately regretted it.
The sound of his laughter was way too sexy.
This safe room, like the other, turned out to be a room within a room. This one was hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling bookcase that housed a wealth of books as well as expensive knickknacks and memorabilia.
“It’s here,” she told him, entering another code on the keypad beside that door.
In Carson’s estimation, the second room looked like a carbon copy of the first one, containing the same supplies, the same well-furnished distractions.
She stood off to one side, silently telling him he was free to search this room the way he had the other. She felt that the sooner this was out of the way, the sooner Carson would leave and she could stop feeling as if she was having trouble breathing.
“Okay, Justice,” Carson said, removing the canine’s leash for a second time. “Go for it. Seek!”
Again the German shepherd moved about the large room and its connecting rooms as if there was a heavy dose of glue deposited in his veins.
Nothing seemed to pique the canine’s interest, but the dog dutifully went around the entire area, sniffing, nudging items and in general taking a very close account of the room. Again there was no sign that Justice detected Demi anywhere within the very large area.
Finished scouting around the second safe room, Justice returned to Carson’s side.
He looked up at his partner’s face, waiting for further instructions, or the command that allowed him to lie down on the door and rest.
“Are these the only two safe rooms?” Carson asked her.
She laughed drily. “My father believes in overkill, but even he has his limits, so yes, these are the only two safe rooms in the mansion.” She looked at Carson pointedly, expecting him to finally take his leave and go away. “Are you satisfied now?”
“Not by a long shot.”
Chapter 11
Serena stared at the detective. He’d asked to see the safe rooms and she’d shown him the safe rooms—why wasn’t the man leaving?
“What is that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.
“It means,” Carson said patiently, “I’m still looking for Demi.”
“Even your dog doesn’t think she’s here,” Serena pointed out. She petted Justice’s head despite the canine’s partner annoying the hell out of her. “You’re welcome to continue turning over rocks on the property and looking for Demi, but I guarantee that no matter how long you spend here, you’re going to have the same results,” she told him, straightening up. “You’re beating a dead horse, Detective. And where I’m from, that’s offensive in too many ways to count.”
“It’s not my intention to offend you,” Carson said as they left that wing.
“Good.” She gave it another shot, hoping that this time she could induce him to leave. “Then go back to the police
station or home or wherever it is you go after you clock out.”
“Funny thing about police work,” he told Serena. “You really don’t get to ‘clock out.’ It’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week calling.” His eyes met hers. “I can’t go ‘home.’”
She made her way to her wing of the mansion. “Sure you can. All you have to do is just get in that car of yours and drive away.”
Maybe she forgot the exchange he’d had with her father when Judson had tried to get Serena to go with her family to the hotel. “I told your father that I’d look after you and your daughter.”
Did he actually believe that was a compelling argument? “I’m sure he didn’t take it to heart. You’re a Gage. Not believing a word you say comes naturally to him.”
“And living up to my word comes naturally to me,” he countered. Maybe the idea of having him stay here made her uncomfortable. He could understand that. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. “Don’t worry, Justice and I will just sack out in one of the empty rooms upstairs. We won’t get in your way.”
Her eyes met his pointedly. He had got in her way from the first minute he’d stormed into the house that night, waving a warrant.
“Too late,” she said.
Blowing out a breath, she tried to tell herself that he wasn’t trying to annoy her. That he was just doing his job as a member of the police department. But if he had to be here, she didn’t want him underfoot.
“There’s food in the refrigerator in the kitchen. Why don’t you go help yourself? I’ve got work in the stable,” she said. Maybe keeping him informed of her work schedule would buy her a little good grace and some leeway.
When Carson followed her down the stairs with Justice, she didn’t think anything of it. But when the two continued walking behind her as she headed for the front door, Serena stopped dead.
Pointing behind him, she said, “The kitchen’s in the other direction.”
“I know where the kitchen is,” he answered matter-of-factly.
“So why aren’t you headed there?” she wanted to know. “It might sound unusual to you, but that’s where we keep the refrigerator.”
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