Colton's Lethal Reunion

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Looking around for an alcove big enough for her to fit in, she noticed a pile of tumbleweeds off to her left. They generally blew and conglomerated in places where they got stuck—an inlay? Looking around the craggy mountainside, to see if she could make out any indication that anyone was coming back down, she turned, thinking she’d hide for a minute or two, just in case, maybe check her phone to see if she had service...

  Before she could move, blinding pain struck the back of her skull.

  * * *

  Rafe had had no problem finding Kerry’s car. From there he had no idea where to go, but figured up was more likely than down so he headed up the road, keeping to the mountain side, looking for any sign of underbrush that had been broken down recently, stepped on. Listening for any sign of human habitation.

  Was he too late?

  No way was he going to be too late.

  As soon as he’d gotten her text he’d headed out of the office, and into a clothing store half a block away. Bought the first pair of jeans and tennis shoes he could find in his size, and wore them out of the store, carrying his pants and dress shoes with him.

  He thought he heard a rock drop. Stopped. Listened, and then saw an old, beat-up black car pulled off into an alcove on the side of the mountain. Instinct told him Kerry would have seen it, too, and he headed in that direction. It didn’t take him long to find the trail that led up the back of the mountain.

  Could just be a hiker out there. It wasn’t uncommon, especially with January being the beginning of hiking season, but something was telling him that Kerry needed him.

  Or maybe he just needed her to need him.

  Wanted her to need him.

  He’d gone a quarter of a mile up the trail when he heard a sound that gave him a sickening feeling. Maybe a startled yelp. Human, he thought. But a large thump, too. Like something had been dropped, as opposed to sliding rubble.

  Visions of the brick thrown through Kerry’s front window that morning had him racing toward the sound. Whoever was out there would hear him, but he figured that couldn’t be bad at the moment. Not if the distraction saved Kerry’s life.

  Could be she’d just slipped.

  Might not have been her he heard at all. His feet raced forward anyway, sliding on the mountainside as he veered off the uneven path, taking shortcuts wherever he found them.

  He saw her a couple of minutes later, lying in an unmoving lump on the ground—several yards below him. He’d gone too far.

  Movement off to his left alerted him he wasn’t alone just as a hunk of black came sailing toward him.

  “What did you do to her?” he yelled as he caught the flying weight and threw it down to the ground. Thank God for the karate lessons he’d taken to spite Payne during college. The man, all in black, was easily fifty pounds heavier than Rafe, but the anger fueled energy flowing through him, and the heavy landing with the man’s own weight working against him, gave Rafe the upper hand. If this man had killed Kerry, he wasn’t getting off the mountain alive.

  He punched. And punched again. With every bit of force in him, he kept attacking until he realized that the other man wasn’t fighting back. He didn’t know if he’d killed his opponent, or just knocked him out, but left him on the ground there as he raced toward the body lying so still down below.

  God, let her still be breathing. She had to still be breathing.

  If she wasn’t...

  She was breathing. He could discern the small up-and-down movement of her chest while he was still several feet away.

  “Kerry,” he called, aware that the guy up above them could regain consciousness at any moment.

  She moaned. Blinked. Then lay still again.

  “It’s okay, Ker,” he said softly, not sure if he was crying or not. Hoped not. Suddenly, he was thirteen again, being forced to stay in his room and watch the person he loved most in the world heading out to their hill all alone.

  Crying as he knew he’d lost her.

  They were the last years he could remember shedding tears...

  He felt for her pulse as soon as he reached her. Let out a breath as he felt the strong beat.

  “Okay, I’m going to lift you, sweetie. I hope it doesn’t hurt, but I have to get you off this mountain.”

  Her lashes fluttered once more, but she didn’t open her eyes again.

  Rafe wasn’t going to worry about that yet. He’d seen a small stain of blood on the ground as he lifted Kerry’s head. There was a gash on the back of her skull. With all her hair, he couldn’t tell how bad it was, but figured that the man up above had dropped something down on her. Probably a rock. He didn’t take the time to find out which one of the many ones around them could have been the one. Taking off his belt to tie her to him, he wrapped one arm around her and used the other to balance them both as he half climbed, half slid down the mountain.

  Chapter 10

  Her head hurt. Kerry turned, easing the pain, and opened her eyes to see Rafe sitting in a chair, leaning in close, watching her.

  She’d been in the emergency room for hours, having to wait until the tests came back that would tell them that, other than the surface pain which was completely manageable, she was as fine as she’d said she was. She wasn’t feeling drunk. Her thinking was clear and quick. She was bristling at the inactivity while Odin Rogers’s thug had a chance to get away.

  And was pretending to doze, too, so that she didn’t have to converse with the man who’d just risked his own life to save hers. Didn’t trust herself to speak to him while the intense emotions his actions had raised in her were still so raw. Didn’t want him to see how much he meant to her. Not when she didn’t trust him to always be there for her. Not when his being there for her that day made those times when he wasn’t hurt so much more. He had a scrape on the side of his chin. And some blistered knuckles, too, she’d noticed when he’d thought she was resting and had been talking to one of the technicians who’d come into their little white-curtained cubicle.

  She’d heard Rafe’s voice, and then the scuffle above her on the mountain, had just wanted to be able to sleep for a few minutes, until her head stopped hurting, but had known, too, that she had to fight to stay conscious. So she’d lain completely still, praying the pain would subside so she could be sure she wouldn’t pass out if she stood up.

  And then Rafe had been there and she’d focused on the soft tones of his voice, rested against him as he’d carried her off the mountain. She’d looked at him and smiled a thank-you when he strapped her into the front seat of his truck and then kept her eyes closed the rest of the way to the hospital.

  “If he’d been just an inch over, he’d have caught you on the back of the skull and could have killed you.” His voice in that small cubicle was low, but didn’t hide the intensity behind the words as he noticed her watching him.

  She gave a very small nod. “The guy who did the CT scan said that the full weight of the boulder just skimmed the back point of my skull.” It had been enough to stun her, knock her over. They weren’t sure if it was the fall or the rock that knocked her out. She hadn’t even needed stitches. Or to have her hair shaved, thank goodness.

  She’d only lost consciousness for a few seconds, a minute at most, they figured, based on how soon Rafe came upon the guy and her ability to hear him up there beating the guy to a pulp.

  “I’m just pissed he got away,” she said. The chief had been in to see her. And to tell her that by the time Dane got to the mountain, the black car was gone and there was no sign of any man, dead or alive, up above the car. He’d collected the rock that was used to hit her. It was close to where the small pool of her blood had been and had a tiny bit of blood on it. Probably hers. If they were lucky, they’d get prints from it.

  They’d brought her Jeep back to the station and put out a notice on the black car, which had so far netted nothing. Kerry had written down the license a
nd they’d done a search to find the car was reported totaled two years before and sent to a scrap yard.

  Rafe hadn’t gotten a good look at the man’s face and neither had Kerry. But she remembered he was big. Had a beard, which he could easily shave, and dark hair. Chief Barco had asked, and no one matching that description had come into the hospital, or any of the clinics in town, seeking medical attention for a pummeling, but anyone could have taken him into Tucson. Or even up to Phoenix.

  And Dane had gone to the house where she’d seen the car pull out of the driveway, but the woman who answered the door said she didn’t know anyone by the man’s description, that she’d been at the house alone with her elderly mother all day and that she didn’t recognize the car. She suggested it could have been turning around in her driveway. She showed the detective the green hatchback she had parked in her garage and the plates came back registered to her.

  Whether she was covering for the thug, or had been telling the truth, they were no closer to finding out who the man was, why he’d met with Odin, and what he was doing up on that mountain.

  “I’m going back up there,” she told Rafe.

  “I know.” He looked so serious, sitting there in his stained shirt, with his tie still knotted at his throat, and jeans and tennis shoes.

  He looked approachable. More like a guy who’d hang out in the same general world she inhabited, rather than a member of the privileged wealthy.

  Leaning forward again, his elbows on his knees and his bruised hands clasped, he glanced at her. “I need you to promise me that you won’t go back up there alone,” he said, frowning as though preparing for an argument.

  Leading her to want to say, “Make me,” like the kid she’d once been would have said to the kid he’d once been when a dare had been issued.

  But the truth was, he probably could make her. He could hire someone to watch her, to follow her. Hell, he could probably have her boss put her on permanent leave, forcing her to move out of Mustang Valley if she wanted to work.

  Recognizing the ridiculousness of the thought, Kerry also knew there was truth in it. The Coltons really were that powerful in Mustang Valley.

  Still...

  “I have to, Rafe,” she told him. Because she couldn’t afford to hire her own goon. “If the chief knows I’m going, he’ll order me not to do so.”

  “I know.”

  He probably knew that the chief figured she’d be back up on that mountain, too. He didn’t try to stop her from doing what she had to do. Unless she made an official request that would force him to do so.

  So, the promise request? That had just been for show?

  “That’s why I’m going with you,” he told her. “I’m already in as far as anyone could get, I’ve not only been seen, but I’ve now beat someone unconscious. And I’m going to see this through, Kerry.”

  He wasn’t going to let this go. Or leave her alone, either, until Tyler’s murder was solved. And truth was, she had a better chance at success with his help. As proven by his actions that afternoon. If he hadn’t come running as soon as he’d gotten her text...

  She’d have lain there until the thug was gone and then gotten herself off the mountain. Or pretended to be dead until he got close enough for her to shoot him.

  But it could have gone badly, too. She could have been dizzy. Missed her shot. And ended up in a gully just like her brother and the ranger.

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  “Okay? You’re not just saying that because you think it will get me off your back on this, are you?”

  “No.” She looked him right in the eye. “I’m saying it because I want to find out who killed my brother. I can’t tell the chief what I’m doing and get official help, and I can’t afford to hire anyone to help.”

  He nodded. Sat back. Gave her the first smile she’d seen on his grim face since he’d made love to her the night before.

  And then, bringing his chair closer, he took her hand, his expression serious again. “I won’t let you down again, Kerry. I’ll always be here for you.”

  Her heart slammed shut. “No, you won’t be,” she said, just as softly. “Please, Rafe, please don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “I...”

  She shook her head twice, back and forth, in spite of the pain. “I mean it, Rafe. I need you to agree that there will be no promises between us. Because we both know that as soon as Payne gains consciousness, as soon as your life gets back to normal, our paths won’t be crossing again.”

  She wanted him to deny her declaration. To give her some hope that there could be a possibility of a miracle in their future. Someday. That he’d leave his family and their wealth and come into town to live with her.

  Because they both knew Payne would never accept her at the family dinner table at the RRR. Or in Rafe’s house, either.

  When he said nothing, she had her answer.

  * * *

  Rafe went upstairs to see Payne while Kerry’s physician was in with her. He was her ride home; he knew she wouldn’t leave without him, but still, he was on edge leaving her.

  Not good. Or healthy. And one of the reasons he left her. That, and because of his late shower followed by the board meeting and his need to get some other time sensitive things done in the office, he’d missed his morning visit with the older man.

  Genevieve was sitting alone in the room and smiled when Rafe came in, accepting his invitation to be with Payne while she went to the cafeteria for a snack.

  “How you doing?” he asked the elder Colton as he took a seat close to the bed. The doctor had told them there was every chance the comatose Payne could hear them talk, encouraging them to do so, and Rafe took the opportunity to tell his adoptive father how much it hurt him to lose his oldest friend in the world. He talked about what Kerry had meant to him as a five-year-old, and as a thirteen-year-old, too. He told Payne that he didn’t think it was any mistake that she’d been assigned to his case. He didn’t vent. Didn’t place blame. He just talked, stopping short of admitting to any current relationship with his ex-friend. He wasn’t ready to go there.

  To put limits on it.

  Or add a definition to it.

  The talk wasn’t all that long; Genevieve returned quickly and Rafe had to get back downstairs to Kerry, not that he told his stepmother that he had any other purpose at the hospital. If she noticed the scrape on the side of his jaw, she didn’t mention it.

  Nor did she ask why he was in jeans.

  Because she didn’t notice enough about him to know the dress was unusual? Didn’t care? Or was just too upset about Payne to bother with anything else? He didn’t know.

  She didn’t ask about the morning’s board meeting. Chances were Marlowe, who was her daughter, had already been to the hospital and filled her in.

  Nothing had changed as he rode the elevator back down, but he felt better, nonetheless. Didn’t matter whether Payne heard the words or not; he’d needed to tell his father how he felt.

  Kerry was fully dressed, disconnected from all hospital monitors and sitting in the chair he’d vacated, when he returned to her cubicle.

  “No internal bleeding, not even any brain swelling,” she said as soon as he pushed through the curtain. She stood, reaching for the gun that the chief had taken from her holster when he’d visited her earlier, and then, not finding it, frowned. “Can you just drop me at the station?” she asked. “I need to get my Jeep and my gun.”

  He planned to follow her home, too. To make sure she didn’t have any problems driving, not that he told her so.

  “I was thinking, maybe since we’re here, we could ask around for some long-term employees, see if anyone remembers the fire from forty years ago, or knows who was working in maternity back then. Or knows someone who would know. If we can’t find Payne’s shooter in one way, we’ll go about it another.”

&nbs
p; He stopped at the end of the bed. “You know that the email couldn’t be traced?”

  “Ainsley left a message late this morning,” she said. As Colton Oil’s attorney, Ainsley’s choice made sense. Rafe just didn’t like not being the one who gave Kerry Colton news.

  He’d been sitting at that table. Had voted on the motion.

  “I actually would like to question employees,” he said, “but I think we should wait until tomorrow.” When she looked ready to argue he glanced at her clothes. Her hair. And down at himself. “I think we’d get a better response after a shower and some rest.”

  For once, she didn’t argue with him.

  Or have a better idea.

  * * *

  “Detective! Detective Wilder!”

  Kerry was just getting into her car at the station after a brief talk with the chief and Dane—assuring them both she was fine and would be at her desk in the morning, and retrieving the gun and cell phone the chief had taken into safe custody when he’d seen her at the hospital—when someone called her name from behind. Called it loudly. Demandingly.

  Turning she noticed three things at once. Rafe’s truck was still where he’d parked it when he dropped her off. He was getting out of it and approaching her. And from a slightly different direction, so was Ace Colton.

  “Mr. Colton,” she addressed Ace, ignoring Rafe’s presence for the moment, not sure whose side he was on for this conversation. Thinking he might have told Ace where to find her. “What can I do for you?”

  “What can you do for me?” The forty-year-old intimidating man asked. Tall and leanly muscled, Ace had a reputation for being somewhat ruthless. Kerry wasn’t the least bit intimidated. Even after the day she’d had.

  “That’s what I asked,” she said. “Did you need something?”

  “Yeah, I need something.” The man, in a suit coat and tie, glanced at Rafe, almost as though just noticing he was there, and then back at Kerry. “You can tell me what’s going on with my father’s case. Three nights ago you haul me away from my family, while we’re all still in shock, you make me call my lawyer away from his family, ask me a bunch of questions, tell me not to leave town, and then...nothing.”