Colton K-9 Cop

by Addison Fox

  If Sutton Taylor was his father, who was his mother?

  And if Sutton had abandoned him, had the woman spent the ensuing years looking for him?

  Alternatively, what if Sutton didn’t know at all? Maybe his mother had been the one to abandon him, leaving him to his fate in the Colton barn.

  “You look like hell, Colton.” Archer handed off a steaming to-go cup of coffee, his gaze irritatingly bright for 6:00 a.m.

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t even look like warmed-over hell. You actually look like that special sort of tired reserved for first-year medical residents and parents of brand-new babies.”

  Donovan took a long sip of hot coffee and barely winced as the brew scalded his tongue, such was his need for the caffeine. “How would you know about either of those scenarios? Last time I checked you got queasy at the sight of blood and your ugly mug hasn’t had a date in a year.”

  “Six months, but thanks for checking.” Archer took a sip of his coffee and glanced toward the woods. He’d already left one of his deputies as backup in a cruiser parked in Bellamy’s driveway before reiterating his intention that he wanted to go on the search himself. “I know Alex is good and all, but you think he can catch the scent again?”

  “I know he can.”

  Donovan dropped to a crouch, his gaze level with Alex. “You ready to go to work?”

  Alex’s thick tail began its fast metronome thump against the ground and Donovan couldn’t help but grin up at Archer. “Alex is ready. The real question is if you can keep up.”

  “Lead the way.”

  “Let’s go get ’em, Alex.”

  The three of them took off in the direction of the copse of trees that surrounded Bellamy’s property. The area was thickly wooded, though not nearly as overgrown as it had looked in the dark. Alex navigated it with surety, trailing over leaves, twigs and the occasional downed log as he pushed them onward, farther into the trees.

  Donovan took it in, the air growing quiet as the foliage grew thicker. While a big part of him would have preferred to end this all the night before, he was still sure of the decision to return to Bellamy. Barreling into the trees, heedless of a man with a gun who potentially had a better view on them than they had in return, was a suicide mission.

  “You come up with a motive yet?” Archer asked.

  Donovan kept tight hold on Alex’s leash, his focus on the dog’s small signals that confirmed a change in direction or an increase in the intensity of the scent he tracked. His partner saw the world against the dimension of smell and Donovan had learned long ago to let him work against the pictures that world made.

  “Money or power’s my pick.”

  “Money’s usually a good one. They teach you that at the academy?”

  Donovan ran a tired hand over the back of his head. “First day, I think. Funny how it’s a lesson that keeps repeating itself.”

  They tromped in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds Alex’s thick sniffs and occasional whines from the back of his throat as he caught a fresh direction.

  “I put in a warrant for access to LSP’s tech,” Archer spoke. “But I am hitting a wall so far. Between the holidays and a ‘flimsy case’ as Judge Carson told me, I’m not getting very far on diving into the LSP email server.”

  “Carson’s tough.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not wrong. I need something more than a printout of a suspicious email to go on.”

  “You been looking at anyone else? You and I both know Bellamy Reeves is innocent in all this.” It was on the tip of Donovan’s tongue to ask about Jensen Taylor but something held him back. His questions from the previous evening and his hunt for information on Sutton Taylor had left him exposed and raw, and Donovan wasn’t quite ready to poke around that one.

  Especially not with someone as astute as Archer Thompson.

  “I’ve got notes to call Human Resources today. Something about Bellamy’s description of her time with the director kept ringing my bell. It feels funny, you know? Who gets fired on the spot for bringing something to HR’s attention?”

  “A guilty someone?” Donovan asked.

  “Guilty on which side is my concern.”

  Archer’s comment pulled Donovan up short and he tugged lightly on Alex’s leash to pull him to a stop. “You think HR’s got something?”

  “I think it’s awfully strange that Bellamy goes to HR to make a formal complaint and is not only fired but walks out to an explosive device in her car. I’m not much into coincidences, nor do I like situations where our victim appears to be bullied.”

  “So why’d you give her a hard time in your office?”

  “To make sure she is a victim and not the puppet master behind the scenes.”

  Donovan chewed on that idea, the opportunity to bounce things off the chief a welcome distraction from his own thoughts. “I’m not a big conspiracy buff but the puppet master angle has legs.”

  “Don’t you mean strings?”

  Donovan only shook his head and wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Alex groan at that one. “They clearly didn’t make you chief on your rockin’ sense of humor. But they did make you chief on your nose for bad guys. Who’s in a position to pull those strings?”

  “Offhand? I’d say bigwigs at LSP. Maybe a few enterprising drug distributors who have some of the biggest accounts in hand and already locked up. Maybe even a disgruntled employee who manages the supply chain high up.”

  “I’ve looked but haven’t found anything to suggest LSP is in dire financial straits.”

  “Me, either.” Archer crushed his coffee cup in his hand before shoving it into his back pocket. “Wall Street’s happy with their quarterly and annual performances and their stock remains strong. Something like this puts that performance at risk instead of enhancing it.”

  “Not including the profit they might make in the meantime.”

  Archer shrugged. “Still seems awfully shortsighted. Why ruin the company reputation and long-term health for the sake of a few bucks in the short term? Especially if you’re profitable to begin with.”

  “Back to our original motive?” Donovan asked. “Money.”

  “Short-term money versus long-term success, aka money. Still seems shortsighted to me.”

  Shortsighted, illegal and overconfident. Each description fit and suggested a person who had little self-control and more than their fair share of arrogance.

  Which only brought Donovan right back to Sutton Taylor. The man had proven himself out of control and arrogant when it came to his personal choices, but in his business, he’d seemingly exercised control and long-term vision.

  So why ruin that now?

  * * *

  SUTTON RAN HIS hands over the thin hospital blanket, his fingers tracing the weave over and over. He’d begun counting the interlocking squares, desperate to stay awake and focused. It was so hard to concentrate and he needed to concentrate.

  Needed to stay alert.

  More, he needed to figure out what was wrong.

  He’d have windows of time when he understood something was the matter and then would fall back to sleep, groggy and unfocused, his body exhausted from the mere effort of thinking. But it had to stop.

  Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.

  He couldn’t afford to sleep anymore. Like last night. What was he thinking about? And what had filled his dreams with oversize cars that floated in the air before exploding, their parts shattering like a firework?

  Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two.

  Jensen. Wasn’t he worried about his son? Sutton tried to focus on that as he kept counting, forcing himself to stay awake with the repetition.

  Where was Jensen?

  Forty-four. Forty-five. Forty-six.

  Jensen was watching over LSP. But
why was Jensen in charge? He hadn’t shown a great aptitude for the business. In fact, some of his ideas were flat out wrong.

  We need to focus on managing our production. Too much product floods the market, Dad. Scarcity is our friend.

  We produce the drugs people need to get well. Why would I throttle production? We need to find opportunities to expand. To push past our production limits to get more into supply. To help more people.

  Profit. Jensen had slapped him on the back with a barely concealed eye roll. Profit is why.

  When had they discussed that? A few days ago? Or was it months?

  Sutton stopped counting squares, his hands going still on the blanket. It had been months. Back in the spring when they were finalizing the formulary and the orders on the flu vaccine.

  And now their suppliers didn’t have enough vaccine?

  Their suppliers. The emails. He’d read the emails last night.

  Sutton reached for his phone where it lay on the rolling tray that sat beside the bed. He lifted the device, his hand shaking as he tried to turn it on. Damned phone, what was wrong? His hand shook as he stabbed at the small button at the base, only to see the phone screen black and lifeless.

  Out of charge.

  His hand shook harder as he tossed the phone back onto the tray. A loud beep started from the machine behind his head as his entire body began to shake. The dim lights in the room quavered, shimmering in and out of focus as several nurses came running through the door.

  * * *

  BELLAMY AVOIDED ONE more look out the front window, well aware of what she’d find. The deputy’s car would still be in her driveway, the man perched behind the wheel with his gaze on the road. She was impressed by his diligence, even as she questioned how horribly bored he must be just sitting there.

  For her.

  Once again, that thought struck her. It had hit hard when she realized how focused Donovan was on keeping her safe and protected, but it extended to the broader Whisperwood police force. So many people trying to keep her safe from a killer.

  Would they succeed?

  Was it even possible to succeed against someone so determined?

  Sick of pacing and worrying, she crossed her arms and tapped her fingers on her biceps. What else could she do? She’d already cleaned up the kitchen and freshened Alex’s water and food for when he and Donovan returned. The beds were made and the living room had been straightened up. She’d even toyed with mopping the kitchen floor, which meant her boredom had reached unprecedented heights.

  Still, her thoughts flipped and tumbled, one over the other and back again.

  Who was behind all of this? And why had they targeted her?

  When she stopped asking that question through the lens of the victimized—Why me?—she’d begun to ask different questions. It was less a question of why was this happening to her and, instead, why had she been targeted.

  Did she know something? Or had she been inadvertently exposed to some sort of information that had made her an easy target?

  Her laptop was closed and still sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter. She’d nearly glanced past it, her eyes roaming over the floor once more as she considered pulling out the mop when she refocused on the laptop.

  Was it possible?

  Reaching for it, she opened the lid and waited for the computer to come out of sleep mode. In moments, she had a browser window open and tapped in the familiar remote address that would put her into the cloud.

  And access into her email.

  Butterflies dive-bombed her stomach as she walked through each step. Technically she was no longer an employee. Which meant she had no right to log into the system and even less right to hunt through her email.

  Which made it all the more imperative that she take what she could while she could.

  Her latest password—HOLIDAYSSUCK, all one word—spilled easily from her fingers. She hit the return key, shocked and extraordinarily pleased when her email filled the screen.

  She was in!

  In HR’s rush to fire her, they’d forgotten to go through the proper protocols to turn off her email and remote access. All standard when an employee was terminated.

  Yet they’d forgotten to dismantle her accounts.

  Well aware diving into her email didn’t put her in a good light, Bellamy shrugged it off as the least of her problems. She sorted through the unread emails that had come in over the past few days. She passed notes about the holiday schedule, the latest financial reports for the prior week and even a note about using up benefits before the end of the year, scrolling toward the email that had started it all.

  Staring at it with fresh eyes, she noticed there wasn’t a named sender in the chronological listing of email. Instead, all she read was the word INTERNAL. Which was odd. She’d been at LSP long enough that she knew the form their email addresses took. There was no sender called INTERNAL.

  Of course, no one sent anonymous email detailing corporate greed and illegal behavior, either.

  Yet someone had sent this one.

  She opened the email again, quickly sending a copy to her personal address before looking once more at the details she’d not paid enough attention to upon first viewing. She was no tech whiz, but she’d used enough software programs throughout her career that she figured the navigation bar at the top was the place to start.

  The information command didn’t provide any detail beyond the date and time sent. Ticking through the other options, she tried to open the actual sender’s email address, only to find a string of gibberish that read like a garbled line of code.

  Was there something in that? Something an expert could track back and use?

  The peal of her cell phone pulled her from the screen and Bellamy practically dived for the device, desperately hoping it was Donovan telling her he was on his way back. Instead, her friend Rae’s name flashed on the screen. They’d texted recently but hadn’t spoken. Bellamy regretted her hasty info dump of what had happened the other day and wanted to minimize Rae’s involvement in what was going on.

  But ignoring her friend wasn’t fair, either.

  “Hey.”

  “You’re lucky this week’s one of the busiest at the store or I’d be camped out on your front lawn as we speak.”

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “Your sister was in here last night. Told me that your car blew up.”

  “It didn’t—”

  Before she could protest, Rae pressed on. “Bell. The bomb squad was called and you’ve got protection detail at your house. What am I missing here?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.” Or risk involving you in something that grows more dangerous by the hour.

  “I’m your friend. Of course I’m worried about you. And Maggie is beside herself.”

  “Maggie already read me the riot act.”

  “Good for her.”

  A small gasp caught in Bellamy’s throat. “Don’t tell me you’re on her side.”

  “In this I am. I don’t care what’s in the past or how far apart you two have been. She’s your sister and she’s worried. Rightfully so.”

  Bellamy toyed with the track pad on her computer, the cursor circling the screen in time to the sweep of her finger. Rae had always been her rock, her supportive champion who was always on her side. To hear her defend Maggie was a major departure from her usual stalwart defense.

  “Does the silence mean you’re mad at me?”

  “Of course not.”

  And she wasn’t. But it did sting to hear her friend so easily defend her sister. She and Maggie had been on opposite sides for so long, it was startling to realize the sands beneath her feet might have shifted.

  Did Maggie actually care about her?

  She’d believed it once. The baby sis
ter whom she loved and adored could do no wrong and Bellamy had believed their sibling bond would keep them close forever. Then her father had gotten ill and Maggie had grown more and more distant. It was easier to blame her or think poorly of her instead of trying to see her side of things.

  And that was on her, Bellamy acknowledged. She had a right to her opinion and an even bigger right to disagree, but her unwillingness to hear Maggie’s side sat squarely with her.

  “So what’s going on?” Rae’s question pulled her back from her thoughts, and Bellamy pictured her friend up to her elbows in holiday inventory as she worked to get the general store open for the day.

  “I wish I knew, Rae. Really, I wish I did. Things have gotten weird and scary.”

  “Is Donovan Colton with you?”

  “You know about that?” Why did that bother her so much? Donovan wasn’t her personal property and it wasn’t exactly a secret he was helping her. Even with the pep talk and the silent acknowledgment not to get flustered about it, Bellamy couldn’t quite hide her frustration. “Let me guess, Maggie told you.”

  “I didn’t need Maggie to tell me. Marie in HR at LSP was in here yesterday. You were all she could talk about. You and the hot guy helping you.”

  Bellamy caught on the name, cycling through the people she knew at LSP. Marie was the woman who’d brought her files into Sally’s office the day she went to HR.

  “You know Marie? Do you know anything about her?”

  “No more or less than I know about most people. She and her husband settled in Whisperwood about three years ago.”

  “And she told you what happened?”

  “Quite happily. Told me some stuff had gone down at LSP and that HR took an employee to task. Unfairly, too.” Rae’s smile traveled through the phone. “I put two and two together that it was you. And when she started telling me about the hot cop seen around town with his dog, I took my two and two and multiplied them even further. Donovan Colton doesn’t make it to Whisperwood all that often. The fact that he’s stuck around is a testament to you.”