Colton's Lethal Reunion

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She’d barely said a word to him, other than telling him she’d do his laundry. He’d followed her home and, at her earlier instruction, parked his truck in her garage, then waited as she pulled into the driveway behind him.

  He could easily have stayed at Marlowe’s condo.

  He could have called Ace or got a room at the Dales Inn.

  He could have done a lot of things.

  He did what felt right rather than what the family would have expected of him. The distinction was small. Overall no one watched over where the others slept. But somehow over the years, family expectations had become a major measure in the choices he made.

  “I just got off the phone with Bubba’s,” Kerry said, coming in from the laundry room to join him at the dining room table. He’d insisted on a stop at Colton Oil to collect the laptop he had there. If nothing else, he had financials to study that night. “I ordered a couple of rib plates.”

  One of his favorite meals of all time. Even with his well-traveled palate. He glanced at her, ready to ask if she’d remembered, and then stopped. He’d given her his word that he would never again ask her to have sex with him. He was going keep that word, which meant he couldn’t be taking any trips down memory lane. With or without her.

  Seeming to be on par with his mental state, she spent the next several minutes giving him the details of Grant Alvin’s autopsy. “The coroner ruled his death a homicide. And since he was killed, and even lying in a position similar to Tyler, this should be enough to get Tyler’s body exhumed,” she said. “To have my brother’s death ruled a homicide will let us open an official investigation. Not that I’m going to rock that boat at the moment, but that fingerprint Dane told you about? It’s from Alvin’s neck. If we get a hit, we’ll know who killed him.”

  That was the best news he’d heard all day. He told her so and followed it quickly with, “Is there anything back on the rock that was used to hit you yesterday?”

  She shook her head. “No clear prints. But if we get this guy tonight, the chief will probably get a full confession out of him. He’s the best interrogator I’ve ever known.”

  He wanted to be the best she’d ever known. And was truly glad to know that she had people in her life who were far better at some things than he was. She was looking at him. They’d been talking about the case.

  He had to keep his mind focused. Stop trying to make things personal.

  “Did you have a chance to look up Nan Gelman?” he asked, because it was the first case detail that sprang to mind.

  “I was just getting started when you called,” she told him, leaving him to wonder what else she’d been working on. To be followed by a reminder to himself that it was none of his business.

  Starting up her laptop, she sat down, still fully dressed in the clothes she’d worn all day, besides the gun she’d taken off and laid on the table beside her. Her hair was still tightly secured in a ponytail. He figured that for a good thing. The last thing he needed was to have those long auburn tresses moving freely around him.

  “You mind if I set up here?” he asked, pointing to a spot where, with a couple of folders moved, he could have some free space.

  She grabbed the folders, showed him the closest electrical outlet, offered an extension cord and then sat down to work.

  If he was lucky, he’d make it through the night just fine.

  * * *

  They ate dinner while they worked. Kerry directed Rafe to help himself to anything he wanted to drink, told him where to find things, and sat down with her cardboard box filled with ribs and coleslaw. Had she been alone, she’d have had a glass of wine. With Rafe there, she stuck to water.

  “You done there?” His question broke the silence that had fallen over them for most of the evening. She looked up to see him pointing to her mostly empty dinner container. His, which looked as though it had practically been licked clean, was in his hand.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said, handing it to him. He was standing. She was sitting. Which put the crotch of those flannel pants right in her line of vision. She closed her eyes. And then jumped up. She’d forgotten the laundry. “I’m going to put your things in the dryer,” she said. And pretended to herself that she wasn’t fantasizing as she pulled each piece of his laundry from the washer, one at a time, touching each one, as she tossed it into the dryer. The underwear was last. Boxer briefs. Two pairs. Not one.

  He’d had on a black pair the night before. She’d just thrown a black pair in the dryer and the last item of clothing was an identical pair. Only these were blue. Obviously donned after his shower that morning. So... What was he currently wearing?

  The answer was fairly obvious. Those flannels were it.

  The woman inside her got a little bit excited at the thought.

  Chapter 16

  Kerry’s phone rang just before nine. “It’s Dane,” she said, and he listened while she mostly just said, “okay” and “thank you.” There were a few other things, a “you, too” and “yeah.” The last was accompanied by a smile. He wanted to know what the other man had said that made her smile.

  Like he was jealous.

  Was he jealous?

  Of all the men who were in Kerry’s life long-term, he had no right to be jealous, but he was. And probably the women, too. It wasn’t a sexual thing. He just wanted to be one of those who had the right to share her life.

  The thought wasn’t new. He’d had it many times as a kid. Could just be flashing back. He didn’t think so.

  But he took it like the man he was. He would never do anything that would unleash the wrath of Payne, or any of the Coltons, on Kerry. She was too precious to be involved in their high-pressure—which sometimes translated into high-drama—stakes.

  He wouldn’t let any of them be a threat to her in any way. Keeping that promise to himself was more important than anything else.

  “The state police had had no luck finding any vehicle even close to the one you described,” she said, hanging up the phone. She sounded frustrated. “I just don’t get how they keep disappearing into thin air. They’ve got to have some kind of hideout in the desert that we don’t know about.”

  He didn’t disagree. But... “The Triple R is in the opposite direction from Mustang Mountain. So are we thinking they’re doing something up on the mountain and then hiding out on the other side of Mustang Valley?”

  Her frown deepened. “Or the guy after you tonight didn’t have anything to do with Odin Rogers, Tyler’s death, or Grant Alvin’s, either.”

  “Unless he was purposely waiting for me,” he said. “You were warned to back off or Richie Rich was next,” he reminded her. It didn’t make sense that the night’s incident had anything to do with Payne. Killing Rafe would make little difference to Colton Oil.

  “It’s possible that he didn’t miss when he shot that gun tonight,” he continued, liking where his thoughts were taking him because they were less life threatening. “He could have fired at my tailgate on purpose. Maybe the whole thing was a warning. Like the rock through your window, and the rock that hit you yesterday. He could have killed you, but he didn’t. Are we really going to believe he just has that bad an aim?”

  “We don’t know that it’s the same man.” She was looking at him. Straight at him. Something she hadn’t done all night.

  His mood lightened considerably.

  “My instincts tell me it was.” For what that was worth. If they’d been talking money, he’d put his wealth on those instincts, but thugs? “We figured we don’t know yet, what they don’t want us to know. So they only want us to stay off the mountain. Maybe tonight he was just giving me payback for attacking him yesterday. For getting the better of him. Some kind of revenge. Letting me know who’s in charge. Scaring me off.”

  Kerry nodded. “Kind of makes sense,” she said, and he felt like he’d just been awarded an A in class.

 
“What are you working on?” she asked then, still looking at him while she talked. It was as though a switch had been turned on within her. Like she’d just noticed that he was there.

  He didn’t want to piss her off, and knew that hiring his own private investigator to look into the case she was working on might just do that. It would point out the differences in their worlds, if nothing else.

  But he’d known that when he’d made the decision to call Jason. And had done so with the intention of letting her know what he found out.

  “Odin Rogers’s financials,” he told her.

  She blinked. Frowned. “I’m sorry, what?”

  God, she was beautiful. Just grab-your-gut gorgeous.

  “I hired someone to look into his financials,” he said, meeting her gaze because it was what he did with her. “Someone who might look at things that won’t be admissible in court, certainly not without a warrant, but who might be able to give us insights that we wouldn’t be able to get any other way.”

  She nodded. Then got up and came around the table. “So what did he find?” she asked, standing right beside him, warm and... There.

  “Enough to know that you were right to suspect that he’s hiding something,” he told her. And then, showing her different accounts, and trails that led from one to another, opening several screens at once, he finally summarized with, “There’s enough here to show us that something fishy is going on, but nothing that tells us exactly what that is. I follow all of these numbers, deposits mostly, but withdrawals, too, and match them to various other accounts to see how he’s moving money around, but end up at a couple of offshore accounts that lead nowhere. There’s nothing that shows where the money goes from there. But it’s also not sitting there.”

  “These are all his accounts?” she asked.

  “That’s not entirely clear, either. I have account numbers, not ownership papers. I can see that some are companies—I suspect probably shell companies—but this is definitely not interest payments, which show up at the same time every month, nor is it return on investment, based on amounts of withdrawals and deposits, and the number of them. There are mostly transfers, not withdrawals. He’s using a network set up by someone with intimate knowledge of the world’s financial systems. And a highly trained technical person, as well.” He was trying to keep it simple, but nothing about what he was looking at was simple. Which didn’t set well with him. “I don’t think Odin Rogers is this smart,” he said.

  He didn’t know the guy, but from what Kerry had told him, and what Jason had found thus far...

  “I don’t think he is, either,” she said. “He’s a two-bit slime that would be pushing drugs on a street corner if he lived in a big city,” she said. “But I do think he’s in charge around here. I’ve never thought he was a criminal mastermind. Just that he somehow owns a business that traffics for them. He’s a middleman. They’re a dime a dozen to the guys at the top. But in their areas, they are the top.”

  “I wish I could give you more,” he said, turning to look up at her and finding her breasts about two inches from his nose.

  He knew their scent. Their shape and softness. Their taste.

  “But it would take a skilled hacker to get any further. Someone trained to do illegal things.”

  He would not break his word to her. He would not ask for sex.

  But if she offered?

  No. That answer was clear. And solid.

  Because Kerry had told him that while she might not be strong enough to resist him, she’d hate herself later for not doing so.

  She needed him to have her back. Had given him a chance to be her best friend again, for a moment.

  He would die before he messed that up.

  * * *

  She was never going to look at T-shirts and flannel pants in the same way again. She’d see them on a store display and immediately think of Rafe’s solid, muscular thighs. And the apex of them. It was like she was obsessed.

  Taking a break from the dining room and his overwhelmingly alive presence she made a stop in her private bathroom and then changed into a T-shirt and pair of jeans. More comfortable. Not the sweats and bra-less-ness she’d have chosen were she home alone.

  She debated taking her hair down, but she never did that when she was working. It got in the way, hanging over her shoulder, lying around on the computer keys and papers in front of her.

  But Rafe liked it down. He’d told her so the other night. In the bed that was only feet away from where she stood. The last time they’d been together as kids, the day they’d shared their first kiss, she’d been complaining about her hair. She’d had a big knot at the base of her neck; getting out the tangles had practically made her cry. She’d told him she wanted to chop it all off.

  He’d said he’d love her the same either way, and she’d pressed him for his personal opinion.

  “Never cut it.” She remembered his words so clearly. And the next ones, too. “It’s kind of like silk and when I touch it, I...feel...things.”

  He’d been so young. And heartbreakingly honest.

  She pulled out the band holding her hair back. Glanced in the mirror. Met her own expression, and put the band back in.

  The past was past.

  And maybe it was time to cut her hair.

  “I was sorry to hear about your dad,” Rafe said, the conversation out of the blue, as she walked back into the dining room.

  She’d spent the last several minutes living in the past. How did he know that? He couldn’t possibly know that. Which meant he was there, too.

  Was she wrong to deny what was so clearly calling out to both of them?

  But to what end?

  Yeah, they’d been kids. First loves were potent. And it hadn’t ended of their own accord. Not really. But it hadn’t been strong enough to bring Rafe back to her once they were adults.

  She kept getting stuck there.

  And every instinct she had told her it was for good reason.

  “I was in grad school,” he said when she crossed over to her chair and sat back down. “I would have been back for his funeral, but...”

  “There was no reason for a Colton heir to attend a ranch hand’s funeral,” she said, and was surprised at the lack of bitterness in her tone. Maybe this time with him, as hard as it was, loving him but not able to open her heart and live the love, really was helping her put the past to rest. To get over the pain and move on.

  He eyed her for a moment, and she could tell the exact second he let whatever he’d been feeling go. He pointed to some printed copies of aerial photos of Mustang Mountain. “I was just thinking...there are mines in these mountains,” he said. “We’ve got abandoned mineshafts all over the desert. There was an item recently in the news about that cross-country runner who fell in one...”

  And her father had fallen to his death in one. Of course, he’d been drunk and out at night, but...

  Rafe wasn’t focusing on their danger at the moment...

  “You think the weapons, or drugs, or whatever we aren’t meant to find are in one of these,” she said.

  “I’m saying it’s something we haven’t considered. Maybe they’re using more than one. There were hundreds of guys out here in the gold rush days, covering these mountains and the desert. Think about it...we’re looking for caves, aboveground structures, because there’s no digging going on, no indication of fresh ground breaking, but what if the opening is overgrown with tall, dense vegetation? What if Odin just happened to be messing around up there when he was just a two-bit punk, not a rich two-bit punk, and he stumbled upon one of these shafts, and what if he grew a business from there?”

  Or someone else did. She was shaking in her seat. Literally. Staring wide-eyed at Rafe.

  “That’s it!” she said. And then, “Oh my God, Rafe! That’s it!” She was so excited she didn’t know what to do with hers
elf. Two years of trying to figure out what she was missing and there it was. She’d been looking in the wrong place. Proof of Odin Rogers’s wrongdoing wasn’t on the mountain; it was in it!

  * * *

  Half expecting Kerry to launch herself across the table to hug him, Rafe watched the expressions cross her face and knew that in all his travels he’d never seen art as exquisite as her face in those seconds. Sappy, maybe. Also true.

  And he’d provided the current supplies to the artist. There was something so humbling, and so powerful in that, a sense of success he’d never known. All the numbers he’d crunched, the investments he’d spearheaded, the deals he’d closed, and nothing had felt as great as helping Kerry reach her goal.

  Not that he didn’t love his work—he most definitely did. He thoroughly enjoyed fine art, too. Still, it was eye-opening to find that there were things in life he’d yet to experience. New opportunities to be had, rather than just enjoying more of the same.

  She was busy riffling through Mustang Mountain photos, both aerial and otherwise, and marking the spots they were familiar with. The mesa from which Tyler had gone to his death. And the one from which the ranger had, per the autopsy, been pushed. The lay-by where she’d been hit, and the mesa above it where he’d taken the goon down.

  Temporarily.

  She marked the trail she’d climbed to get to where she’d been hurt. The place where the old black car had been parked.

  “We can cross-reference this with what claims records exist from back then,” she said. “I know there were a lot of squatters, and chances are Odin’s using a mine that doesn’t have an official claim on it so it’s not known to anyone, which makes it more valuable to whoever he moves goods for...”