Colton's Fugitive Family

by Jennifer Morey

  Her expression smoothed now that she understood they hadn’t come to talk about her sons’ arrests for possessing illegal guns and threatening an officer. He’d get to that after she agreed to talk.

  “May we come in for a few minutes?” Lucas asked.

  After brief hesitation she said, “I’m allergic to dogs. That thing has to stay out here.”

  “Stay, Queenie.”

  Queenie sat. She wouldn’t move from the porch until he came back outside.

  Mae stepped aside to allow them in. Lucas entered ahead of Demi. The interior of Mae’s home hadn’t seen any updates in decor in a couple of decades. Pictures of her husband and their kids, along with those of their grandkids, cluttered one wall of the living room.

  Lucas remained standing in the entry with Demi.

  “What do you want to know about Devlin? My grandsons talked about him on occasion. They were at least acquaintances.”

  “Did Evan or Noel ever talk about buying guns from them or anyone who worked with them?” Lucas asked.

  “My boys never sold any guns.”

  So she’d deny that, even after Noel and Evan Larson had been arrested for selling guns and evidence had been found on burner phones and hard drives.

  “Aren’t you facing some charges yourself?” Demi asked. “For letting them store the guns here?”

  Mae swatted her hand.

  Did she think she’d get off? Her grandsons sure seemed overly confident of that.

  “You’ll go to prison for your role in what they did,” Lucas said. “No lawyer in the country will change that.”

  Mae’s brow lowered and creased. “I didn’t sell any guns.”

  “You helped them,” Demi said.

  “There are witnesses coming forward to testify against them now that they are in jail,” Lucas said. “You could reduce or eliminate your jail time if you also came forward with what you know.”

  Mae wrung her hands in front of her, clearly undecided as to what to say.

  “We know you love your grandkids, Mae,” Demi said. “But they’ve done a lot of illegal things and now they’re going to go to prison. Nothing you say will change that, especially if other witnesses are coming forward.”

  “What witnesses?”

  “Slater, for one.”

  Recognition made Mae’s head draw back.

  “Several other small-time drug dealers.”

  Mae wandered to the wall of pictures, almost a shrine to her family. “I heard Evan joke once that Devlin bought a gun so he could use it on Hayley, since he was so taken with her and with her not wanting anything to do with him.”

  “Did Devlin talk about Hayley with them?” Lucas continued with his questioning.

  “Not that I ever heard, and they didn’t tell me, but I assumed so since Evan cracked that joke.” She turned to face them. “Devlin liked my grandsons. He liked the way they lived.”

  “Did Devlin ever tell anyone where he stashed his guns?” Lucas asked.

  “Evan and Noel didn’t tell me. They didn’t tell me much about what they did. They needed a place to store their inventory and I agreed to help them.”

  “Did you know they were dealing in illegal activities?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Will you come to the station and give your statement? We can see about lightening your charges if you agree to testify against them.”

  “Testify against them!” Mae passed an indignant look to Demi and Lucas. “I wouldn’t testify against my own grandsons! You said if I gave you information I could lessen my sentence.”

  “I said if you came forward with what you know. That includes testifying to what you know, but first we would need your statement.”

  Mae covered her mouth with her hands.

  “Think it over, and remember, if you don’t testify, you’re facing serious jail time.”

  “Did Devlin ever say anything else to Evan and Noel about Hayley?” Demi asked.

  “They laughed about all the pictures he had of her and once they said Devlin would follow Hayley and wait for her at the K-9 center. He’d watch her train the dogs and things like that. I found it rather disturbing.”

  She found that disturbing but not the evil things her grandsons did?

  “But nothing about what he did with his guns.”

  She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware.”

  After they left, Lucas made a call to Finn to let him know Mae might agree to testify for a lesser sentence. He’d get the team ready to take her statement.

  “Where would Devlin have hidden the other weapon?” Demi asked as she walked with Lucas and Queenie.

  Lucas wished he had a better idea.

  “He buried a gun at his property.”

  “No prints. You can’t assume he was the one who buried it.”

  “No, but what if he buried another one somewhere else? As obsessed as he was over Hayley, maybe he hid it somewhere that meant something to him, something relating to his fantasy world that revolves around her.”

  She’d had a good idea. What would Devlin do with the guns if he wanted to have an impact on Hayley? If he’d given up all hope of ever winning her love, then maybe he’d try to punish her in some way. Or maybe he’d just get his rocks off hiding them in her environment. Home? Work? Somewhere the two of them went that meant something to him?

  * * *

  Dressed as his girlfriend again, Demi slipped into Hayley’s home behind Lucas. He’d just picked the lock. With Hayley at work, they wouldn’t be interrupted while they searched her place. She’d just moved into a small apartment not far from the training center. She had an electronic photo album that flashed pictures of Bo and her, and several of just her, posing for selfies. A large black-and-white painting of her hung above a white trim fireplace.

  “She likes herself,” Demi said.

  Lucas glanced at the painting and grunted with brief humor. “She does seem like a confident woman. Good trainer.”

  “Yes, she does seem nice, but do you think she really loved Bo?” Demi searched a shelf while Lucas went through a built-in desk.

  “She seems like she did.”

  “She seems nice, too, but she talks a lot of smack about people.”

  “She did say you killed her fiancé because you were jealous.”

  “Of course she did.” Demi shook her head. “She knew I broke up with him, didn’t she?”

  “Don’t know.” He also sounded like he didn’t particularly care.

  She moved on to the spare bedroom, Lucas joining her and tackling the closet.

  “Not your type, huh?”

  He stopped in the act of looking at the shelf. “Hayley? I’ve never been attracted to her.”

  “Your brother was.”

  “My brother liked blondes.”

  “I wasn’t blonde.”

  “Redheads are a brand of their own.”

  A brand? “You like redheads?”

  He walked over to her. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  She didn’t really know. Maybe it was all the hot sex they’d been having. “Yes or no?”

  “I like redheads.” He left and went into Hayley’s room. Demi followed but didn’t search. The guns weren’t here.

  “Did you ever meet a woman you thought might be the one?”

  He turned from the closet. “No.”

  “Not even close? What happens when you meet someone? Are you only interested in physical connections?”

  He thought a moment, putting his hands on his hips and looking across the room. Then he met her eyes again. “There was one woman. I met her about six years ago. She was in college, going for a chemistry degree. Smart. Pretty. We had a good time together and I liked talking with her.”

  “Tell me the best thing you ever did wit
h her.”

  “We went on a ski trip. She wasn’t a very good skier but we had fun, talking on the lift rides and leisurely runs down the slopes. We talked more at the ski lodge and later at the hotel room. She had an interesting family and wanted to become a college professor.”

  “Teaching chemistry?”

  “Yes.”

  “She must have been smart.” So, he liked smart women? Demi had gone to college but her degree had been natural resources with a minor in criminal justice. Did Lucas even know that about her?

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I found out later that she didn’t like skiing or any other outdoor activities.”

  “Is that when you broke up with her?”

  “I didn’t break up with her. She broke up with me. She got tired of being outside all the time. She was more of a bookworm.”

  Demi would have thought he was the one who always did the breaking up. “She doesn’t sound like she looked like any of your other girlfriends.”

  “I didn’t date fashion divas all the time.”

  “What did some of those women do for a living? How did you meet them?”

  “I didn’t meet any models in South Dakota,” he said. “Mostly I met them on the job. At restaurants. Through the victims of some of the fugitives I hunted, family members or friends. Also through my father’s company, people who worked for him or associates of his.”

  That sounded normal. Maybe she had exaggerated on the bimbo part, but he still picked women who were ill-suited for him, whether he realized it or not. “There’s hope for you yet.” She smiled at him.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Lucas headed for the door.

  She trailed behind. “Why did the college student break up with you? Was it really because she didn’t like the outdoors?”

  Out in the hall, he walked beside her. “She wanted to move in together, to take things to the next level, I said I wasn’t ready for that. We dated a little more and eventually she told me we felt stagnant. She wished me well. I wished her well and we parted ways.”

  “Did she catch on that you weren’t interested in love?”

  He didn’t respond, seeming to travel back in thought to that time.

  “Did you ever tell her that?”

  “We had a conversation about it.” Outside the apartment building, they headed for the car. Lucas checking the surroundings. He put his hand on her lower back. At the car, he opened her door.

  She didn’t get in. “Tell me about your conversation.”

  His eyes squinted slightly under the bright sky. “She asked if I’d ever been in love. Married. And I told her no and that I didn’t believe in any of that. She asked why and I told her pretty much what I told you.”

  “That you were afraid your heart would break?”

  He grunted as though she joked. “No. I preferred to be single and not start a family. I saw what that did to my father and I don’t want to end up like him.”

  “Yes, but not every woman dies in a relationship, Lucas. Don’t you see how flawed your logic is?”

  “Flawed or not, that’s the way I want it. A woman doesn’t have to die to cause drama in a man’s life.”

  Cause drama. Did he actually think women caused the drama? “Men can cause drama just as easily. What if you did get married and you were the one to break a woman’s heart? Better yet, what if you ended up happy for the rest of your life with a woman?”

  “Demi, we’ve been over this.”

  “What did that woman tell you after you explained your flawed thinking?” Demi asked regardless.

  He didn’t answer and Demi knew whatever she’d said had gotten to him.

  “Tell me.”

  After a few more seconds of hesitation, he finally answered. “She said she felt sorry for me.”

  She smiled again, broader than before.

  * * *

  Back at the cabin, Demi sat on the floor, laptop in front of her crossed legs, going through Devlin’s photos of Hayley again, searching for some clue as to what Devlin might have done with the missing gun. There may not have been prints on the weapon found buried, but Demi had no doubt whatsoever that Devlin was the one who’d buried it. If he’d buried that one, why not bury others? Right now she concentrated on photographs.

  There were several shots taken from afar. Clearly Devlin had spied on her, stalked her. Hayley coming out of her home. Hayley at the supermarket. Hayley going to work. Hayley at work, training dogs. How had he accessed the training yard? The photos were taken outside the perimeter fence. He must have hiked in from the side or back. In some photos the edge of the equipment shed was captured. The center used the shed for storing things like a riding mower and snow removal equipment. Devlin must have used it for cover, so no one saw him drooling and sickly ogling Hayley.

  She came across another photo of Hayley smiling, with her hand on the chest of a K-9 cop. They appeared to be flirting. Devlin had taken several of her with the man, the two of them sharing dinner at a local restaurant, him dropping her off and kissing her. More at the training center. He seemed to spend a lot of time watching her there.

  The training center.

  “Lucas?”

  He turned his attention from his laptop.

  “Come look at these.”

  He stood and stepped to where she sat on the floor. He sat beside her, one leg bent up and the other stretched out beside her and the laptop. He rested his arm on his knee and Demi grew distracted by the sexy pose.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She pointed to the photo of Hayley with the K9 cop. “The training center. Devlin took several pictures of Hayley there.”

  “How? Where did he hide to stay out of view?”

  Demi scrolled through the folder of photos until she found one that showed the corner of the equipment shed.

  “That would be a good spot,” Lucas said. “Only the facilities workers use that shed and it’s far enough away from the building and the fenced-in training area to serve as cover.”

  “If any workers approached, he could move to the back and hide in the trees back there.”

  Lucas took control of the mouse and looked through all the pictures she’d just seen. “So, what are you thinking? Where would he hide guns if he decided to hide them at the training center?”

  “Maybe he buried them there, somewhere on the grounds. In the training area?” Under where Hayley’s feet had stood with that K-9 cop?

  “He’d have a hard time getting in there.”

  “Somewhere around the equipment shed then.” Maybe he’d memorialized the burial site.

  Lucas thought a moment and Demi gave him time. “I’ll take Queenie there tomorrow.”

  “We should look for other clues, too, like maybe Hayley’s computer.”

  “If you keep showing up there, somebody is going to recognize you.”

  “I’ll take my chances. I’m getting good at my disguises.” Besides, she wanted to go with him in case he did find something. She could clear her name. If Queenie found the guns and they had prints on them and the bullets matched the ballistics testing, she could stop sneaking around and trying to avoid detection.

  “I can see there’s no point in arguing with you.” Lucas’s eyes sparkled with affection as he looked at her.

  What did he see? Her enthusiasm must show, her determination and earnest anticipation of clearing her name.

  Slipping his hand behind her neck, he leaned in and kissed her.

  She kissed him back, a now-familiar tingle spreading like a sweet wildfire through her body. He must have the same reaction, because he deepened the kiss with heavier breathing and pulled her closer with his hand on her lower back.

  After several seconds, he finally withdrew and she looked up into the heated passion darkening his eyes. The urge to have more of him
overwhelmed her. If they were back at his cabin, she had no doubt where this would lead. Straight to his bedroom.

  “Have you ever felt like this before?” she asked, not really thinking before the words came out.

  “No.”

  The question sobered him. He immediately stepped back, the spots where his hands had been going cold.

  Chapter 15

  Lucas let Demi in the back door of the center. It was close to the end of the normal work day. This time she was dressed as a janitor again, hair up in a ponytail and wearing thick-rimmed glasses. No makeup. She hadn’t worn makeup before Bo was murdered and worried someone might recognize her face. She kept her head down as she made her way through the office space. She started with Hayley Patton’s desk. Lucas had managed to get hold of the passwords for her. She easily logged on to the computer, pretending to clean the desk surface.

  She checked email and files and found nothing of significance. She hadn’t expected to. Devlin would have been stupid to try and harass her with a trail of emails.

  After emptying the trash, she found another unoccupied desk and proceeded to hack into Miller’s account the way Lucas taught her. What she stumbled upon startled her. Miller and Williams had been in contact with Devlin. They’d arranged to meet. No wonder they were so convinced Demi killed all those grooms. Had Devin paid them? Then why had Devlin killed them? Perhaps for the same reason he’d killed that witness he’d paid to lie. Or simply to stop them from arresting him. The latter would be plenty of reason for a madman to kill. Devlin did not intend to be arrested. He’d gone to great lengths to prevent that—namely in how he’d framed Demi.

  “What are you doing?”

  Demi flinched and closed out the open email. She began wiping the desk, looking up to see Hayley standing there. “Cleaning.”

  “What were you doing on that computer?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You were looking at something.” Hayley moved around to inspect the screen. “What was it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Demi put the cloth on her rolling cart and bent to empty the trash.