Sam laughed shortly. “He said the word Texas.”
“Texas,” Zoe repeated, trying to make sense out of the so-called “clue.”
“As in that’s where he was?”
Sam shrugged. “No, as in that’s where he buried my mother, I guess.”
“He didn’t hint where in Texas?” she asked hopefully, even though she knew Matthew Colton wasn’t the type to give anything away, even a clue, unless he was well compensated for it.
Sam frowned as he led the way out of the building. “That would have made him human and I learned a long time ago that the old man was, and is, a lot of things. ‘Human’ was never one of them.” There wasn’t a drop of compassion in the man. “He did say that when going through his letters, we should be looking at the ones from his female admirers.”
“Well, that’s something,” Zoe said, excited.
“I hope,” Sam qualified. Where the old man was concerned, he took nothing for granted and reserved even the mere idea of breaking into a happy dance until the final verdict was in. “But right now, I’ve got something more important to attend to.”
She stopped walking for a moment and looked at him quizzically. “Oh?”
Taking her hand in his, Sam resumed leading her to where he’d parked his vehicle. “Plan B,” he said mysteriously.
“Which is?” she prodded.
“Hopefully going down soon,” he answered, still refraining from elaborating just to tease her.
“What’s the penalty for beating on a detective?” she wanted to know.
Sam laughed. She made him feel good. Despite everything that was going on, Zoe made him feel human, something he’d almost forgotten he was capable of feeling.
“That depends on who’s doing the beating and how hard,” he replied. And then, because she’d been through a lot already and had come through it all without a single complaint or recrimination, he told her, “I’ll fill you in on the way in the car.”
She nodded, relieved he wasn’t going to be closemouthed about the information. “I have a feeling this is going to be some car ride.”
* * *
It was all very simple, actually, she realized once Sam explained it to her. The moment he’d found the key Vine was so desperate to get his hands on, he had it taken to the largest hardware store in the two counties and analyzed. The key maker there informed the police officer it was a locker key.
Specifically, it was the kind used for lockers found in an airport.
That, Sam told her as they drove to the county airport, gave his team the focal point for their stakeout.
“Lots of boring downtime spent trying not to fall asleep,” was the way Sam referred to it.
Zoe, however, saw it as the final moments that just might bring closure to an elusive puzzle.
* * *
Sam parked his vehicle as close as he could to the center of the airport while still managing to get some shade so they didn’t wind up roasting.
Shutting off the engine, he turned to her. “Okay, here’re the rules. The minute I get the call that Vine’s been spotted in the airport, I’m going to join the takedown. You,” he emphasized, “are going to remain in the car and wait for me. The second I leave, I want you to lock the car, understood?”
She wanted to protest that there had to be something she could do to help, but one look at the expression on Sam’s face and she knew she might as well save her breath. She had her marching orders, or, in this case, her sitting orders. If she argued the point with him, Sam might even get someone to either take her home, or, at the very least, sit in the car with her as if she were two years old.
So, she said the only thing she could under the circumstances. “Understood.”
“Good.” No sooner did he brush his lips against her forehead than his cell phone started to ring. He lost no time extracting it out of his pocket. “Colton.”
“Sir, Vine was spotted in the north end of the airport. Looks like he’s heading toward the lockers. He’s wearing a gray hoodie and torn jeans.”
“On my way,” Sam responded. Within a second, he was opening the door. “You stay,” he said, issuing Zoe her final orders just before he slammed the door and ran for the main terminal.
Had he not spat out the commands as if he were training a pet dog, she might have abided by the agreement they had just struck. But he had and it rankled her. So much so she began imagining all sorts of scenarios being played out inside the terminal, none of them ending well for Sam.
She couldn’t just sit here, waiting. She knew he wanted her to, but she couldn’t do it. Somewhere along the line since this had all started with Celia’s murder, she had ceased being the passive good little soldier she’d always been. Inactivity no longer suited her. So, less than five minutes after Sam had left her and entered the airport, she got out of the car and headed for the central terminal.
Zoe vaguely knew where the lockers were located. She’d been to the airport just once before in her life, to pick up a friend who was flying back for a visit. Knowing how slowly things had a tendency to move, she assumed the airport hadn’t been remodeled since then, which meant the lockers were still located where they had been previously: at the east end of the central terminal.
She was just about to go there when someone suddenly grabbed her arm from behind and yanked her around, all but knocking the air out of her.
“Well, well, well, here we are again. Seems like old times, doesn’t it?” She found herself looking up into Vine’s face. His voice was friendly enough, but his eyes were malevolent. “Nice of you to volunteer to be my insurance policy, especially since it worked out so well for all of us last time.”
“Let go of me,” Zoe cried. Incredibly, she felt more angry than afraid at the moment.
She yanked hard, trying to get free, but Vine’s grip on her arm tightened even more. She felt as if her arm was caught in a vise.
“Yeah, right,” Vine snapped, dragging her with him. “Hey, Colton,” he yelled out.
The moment he did, people began looking in his direction. The sight of his drawn gun had them instantly screaming and running away in panic. Within seconds, the floor of the central terminal was cleared.
“I know you and your two-bit team are out there. Anyone makes a move toward me, you know the drill. Celia’s sister dies. I just want what’s coming to me, nothing more. You let me get it and everybody goes home happy—and breathing,” he emphasized.
He was hurting her as he dragged her with him, but she wouldn’t give Vine the satisfaction of saying so. Instead, she glared at him as she accused, “You killed Celia.”
“The hell I did,” Vine retorted. The denial surprised her. “Throw away my life just to kill that bitch? She’s not worth a week in jail, let alone a life sentence—or the death penalty. No, sweetheart, somebody else killed your slut of a sister, not me,” Vine informed her.
Holding her so tightly around her waist now that he all but cut off her air supply, Vine managed to fish the key out of his pocket while still holding his gun trained on her.
“Okay, here’s the key. Open the locker and take out what’s inside. And remember, you do as I say and no one gets hurt, including that Lone Ranger of yours. Get the least bit creative and it won’t just be you I’ll be shooting at.”
Sam stepped out from around the lockers, his handgun trained on the man holding Zoe prisoner. “Put the gun down, Vine!” he ordered.
“You first,” Vine shouted back. “And remember, you might get me, but she’s the first casualty. You wanna risk that?” he taunted Sam. “You put your gun down and everyone goes their own way, nice and tidy. I just want what’s in the locker,” he reiterated. “Now open the damn thing!” he told Zoe. “And ease it out slowly. Once you’ve got it, we’re going to back out of here. Nobody else is going to make a move. Right?�
� he barked.
“Right,” Zoe agreed, the inside of her mouth so dry, it felt as if the word was literally sticking to the roof of her mouth as she uttered it.
Zoe did as he ordered and opened the locker. She was surprised her hands didn’t shake. Everything inside of her felt as if it was.
There was a box inside the locker. The same kind she’d seen used as a safety deposit box in a bank. Raising the lid just a crack, she saw that there was something inside the box that looked like cellophane-wrapped bricks of narcotics. She closed the lid.
Taking hold of the box, she slowly drew it out.
She had one chance at this, Zoe thought. Vine might very well mean to let them all go, but she doubted it would go off without a hitch. It was more than likely that someone was going to get hurt and the thought that it might be Sam was more than she could bear.
“Here!” she cried and instead of holding on to the box the way he’d instructed her to do as he backed the two of them out of the terminal, she suddenly swung around and slammed the long metal box into him, clipping him against his chin and his chest at the same time.
Vine howled in pain from the impact. The unexpected blow was enough to completely throw him off balance.
At the same time, the gun discharged, its bullet going wild, and as Vine screamed in pain, Sam and his team rushed the man from all sides.
This time, there was no getting away.
“I told you to stay in the car!” Sam shouted at her as Vine was being cuffed and then hauled away.
Stunned, Zoe stared at him. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
“I ought to wring your neck,” Sam cried. When he thought of what could have happened to her, how this all might have gone down, he felt sick to the pit of his stomach.
“Nice follow-up,” she quipped. “I think Celia was trying to keep these drugs out of circulation... Maybe she did have some redeeming qualities.”
“Maybe,” Sam agreed.
Suddenly Sam pulled her into his arms, holding her as if he was never going to let her go again. In that one instance, as if the exchange the other day hadn’t been enough to bring the point home to him, he realized he wouldn’t have been able to survive losing her like that.
Or losing her at all, period.
“Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again,” he warned her, his anger still fresh and hot.
“You’re getting better,” she told him as if weighing the validity of his response to her help in bringing Vine down against what he’d just said about wringing her neck.
Then, despite the fact that his men were still in the terminal and there was an abundance of loose ends that still needed tying up, Sam gave in to his own inner needs and kissed her.
Kissed Zoe with every fiber of his being.
Kissed her as if he knew that, had it gone down any other way, he wouldn’t have ever been able to kiss her again.
When he drew back for a moment to get his bearings, he saw the wide smile on Zoe’s face.
“Much, much better,” she pronounced, her eyes shining.
“I can do even better than that,” he told her in a low whisper. His heart felt full enough to burst. It was an entirely new feeling for him and he was savoring it as much as he could.
Zoe tilted her head up as she looked at him. “Show me,” she whispered.
And he did.
Epilogue
Once Johnny Vine was taken to the police station, booked and secured behind bars, Sam met with his brothers and Annabel. He wanted to pass along the single word that Matthew Colton had volunteered in exchange for his agreed-upon visit.
It would be a full month before the next one of them was to follow in his footsteps, sit down with Matthew and wait until the old man deigned to offer another so-called clue. The arrangement, as the others saw it, was not exactly a satisfactory one, but for now, it was the best they could hope for.
Opinions were mixed as to whether or not they were being played by the man who was, at least biologically, their father.
Some chose to believe, as Zoe had, that faced with his swiftly approaching morality, Matthew had finally decided to make some sort of amends and attempt to live up to his role as their father.
Others were of the opinion that an old dog, especially one that was a rogue, couldn’t be taught new tricks.
In this case, only time—if indeed the old man actually had enough left—would tell.
And although finding the location of his mother’s remains was very important to him, as was finding his missing sister, Josie, Sam had an equally, slightly more pressing matter he wanted to attend to and hopefully resolve.
It involved Zoe.
The moment he was finished with meeting with his family, Sam hurried back to her house to see her, putting police work on temporary hold.
The second he rang her doorbell, Zoe opened the door. “How did it go with your family?” she wanted to know.
“They’re skeptical, like I am,” he told her, coming in. “But we don’t have much of a choice. We have to play along with his game, just in case he is telling the truth and these pieces do add to up a final location.
“I’ve also been thinking about this new serial killer the old man seems to have inspired. I think he knows more about the killer than he’s saying—and he seems pretty convinced the killer’s a woman, not a man. Which means Vine’s really not our killer,” Sam reluctantly reiterated the conclusion they had already come to. “He’s a low-life drug dealer and now a cop killer, but he’s not the serial killer we’ve been looking for.”
There was only one conclusion to be drawn from that. “That means that whoever killed those four victims is still out there, killing women alphabetically for some insane reason.” His own words sounded incredibly strange to his ear, but they were also true, which only made the matter that much more horrific.
“Unchecked,” he continued, “this loon could really get into full swing.” Which brought him to the point of all this. “You’re going to need protection, Zoe,” Sam told her.
She was touched by his concern, but he was overlooking a very salient point. “I’d like to think that the combined efforts of the Granite Gulch police department and the FBI, not to mention the combined efforts of the rather impressive Colton clan, would catch this deranged serial killer before he gets to the letter Z. Besides, maybe you haven’t noticed,” she went on to point out, “but I don’t have dark brown hair. I’m a blonde.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed,” he assured her. “I’ve noticed everything there is to notice about you. And, in all probability, what you said is true. Male or female, we’ll wind up catching this killer before all the letters of the alphabet are gone through. But I’ve never been known for my optimism,” he reminded her. “Which means I don’t like to take any unnecessary chances. And leaving you unguarded is definitely taking an unnecessary chance. You never know when this nutjob might decide to switch things around and start doing away with twentysomething blondes.”
“So you’re doing what?” she wanted to know, “Posting a round-the-clock guard on me?”
Sam slipped his arms around her, drawing her closer to him. Inhaling her scent and invigorating his very being by that simple act.
“In a manner of speaking,” he allowed.
“What kind of a manner of speaking?” she gently prodded.
Sam took a breath. Now or never. “Zoe Robison, will you marry me?”
She looked at him, stunned. This was something she’d dreamed about longer than she could remember. Something she’d fantasized about. But never in her wildest dreams did she ever expect any of it would actually come true.
“Sam, you don’t have to do this.”
“That all depends on your definition of ‘have to,’” he told her. “But I do know that I want to. Now, if you
don’t want to, I understand. Becoming a Colton carries a certain stigma with it for some people, so if you don’t feel—”
“Yes.”
It took a second for the word to register in his brain. “What?”
“Stop talking,” she told him, then repeated, “Yes.”
“Yes, you agree it carries a certain stigma, or—”
She decided that saying anything further would just get them bogged down with words. In this case, actions spoke louder than words, so she threw her arms around his neck, rose up on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Hard.
Her message came across, loud and clear.
Sam stopped talking.
* * * * *
COLTON COPYCAT KILLER by Marie Ferrarella
Look for the next thrilling installment in the new
COLTONS OF TEXAS miniseries,
coming in February 2016!
And if you loved this novel, don’t miss other
suspenseful titles by Marie Ferrarella:
SECOND CHANCE COLTON
HOW TO SEDUCE A CAVANAUGH
CAVANAUGH FORTUNE
CARRYING HIS SECRET
Available now from
Harlequin Romantic Suspense!
Keep reading for an excerpt from
COLTON’S SURPRISE HEIR by Addison Fox.
SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
When pregnant Lizzie Connor is threatened by a serial killer, she’s desperate to keep herself and her unborn child safe. So Lizzie turns to the one man who can protect her—sexy cowboy Ethan Colton, who’s also the father of her baby! As sparks fly, danger and true love rear their heads…
Read on for a sneak preview of
COLTON’S SURPRISE HEIR by Addison Fox,
the second book in the 2016 COLTONS OF TEXAS series.
“Did you—” Lizzie broke off, her voice heavy and out of breath as she came through the door.
“He’s gone.”
“He?”
“I thought.” Ethan stopped and turned back toward the window. The figure had vanished, but he conjured up the image in his mind. “He was wearing a thick sweatshirt with the hood up, so I guess it could be anyone. He was too far away to get a sense of height.”
Colton Copycat Killer Page 20