Colton's Lethal Reunion

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  And his young mind had dismissed the event as unimportant.

  After Haley’s reaction just now, he realized the memory was not in her distant past and that at this moment it was very much present.

  Calling the police would make it more real? Uh, yeah. God, she’d probably spent much of the night wrestling with recollections that should have been buried beneath a tombstone nearly a quarter century ago.

  All of a sudden, the Peeping Tom no longer seemed like a minor nuisance that needed to be looked into. Suddenly he seemed like a major threat to Haley’s peace of mind. Problem was, Roger didn’t know what to do about it. Nor, likely, would the police.

  Conard City—in fact, the whole county—was by and large a peaceful place. Oh, yeah, they had their share of loonies and wackos, but overall it was still a place where people felt safe, let their children play outside and all the Norman Rockwell rest of it.

  Of course, some of that was illusion. Everyone knew it but clung to it anyway. So far, he didn’t think many had paid a high price for believing everything was okay around here. People might be irritated by the idea of a Peeping Tom, but they’d be equally certain they’d figure out who it was and, between a misdemeanor charge and public disapproval, he’d get back in line or leave town.

  But if the guy peeked in on kids...well, local ire might be explosive. It was something he’d seen early in life. The village would put up with the idiot because he was one of them. If the village idiot went beyond the pale, however, tolerance would evaporate.

  He was just putting together careful words to ask Haley if her reaction had to do with her kidnapping when a heavy knock sounded on the front door. Police, he thought with mild amusement, were never timid about pounding for attention.

  “That must be Kelly,” he said, rising. “Should I ask her in or just show her where the footprints are?”

  She tilted her head a little and smiled. “I’m not a hermit. I’d like to meet her. I just hope she doesn’t think I’m overreacting.”

  “There isn’t a soul around here who’d think anyone was overreacting to having someone peer into their bedroom window in the middle of the night. You can relax about that.”

  The front door wasn’t far away. A small foyer divided the ground floor of the house, a foyer he’d helped to refinish a few years back when Flora had remarked the wood wainscoting was looking rough. Dryness had begun to crack it, so he applied sandpaper and oil and made it look as good as new. His reward had been Flora’s delight. All he’d ever wanted, although she’d often drowned his bachelor self with all kinds of tasty casseroles because, according to her, cooking for one was a pain.

  It was a nice excuse.

  He opened the door and found Kelly Noveno there with Bugle, a Belgian Malinois. Bugle sat politely beside her, looking attentive. Kelly herself was a pleasant eyeful with dark hair and snapping dark eyes, but she was already claimed by Al Carstairs, the animal control officer. A guy could still look.

  Haley herself was a lovely woman. As a rule, he didn’t find blondes appealing, but Haley was different. And those blue eyes of hers looked like deep, still waters, even now. Under less stressful circumstances, she might have lit his fire.

  “Come on in, Kelly. Haley’s at the kitchen table and I don’t think she got much sleep.”

  “I heard that,” Haley called from the kitchen. “Caffeine helps. Want some, Deputy?”

  “Kelly, please. And I’d love some.” Once in the kitchen, she put Bugle at ease and invited Haley to pet him. “He’s a friendly guy, but don’t touch him without permission.”

  “I get that,” Haley answered with a smile. “I feel almost silly about this,” she remarked as she brought Kelly a mug of coffee and joined her and Roger at the table. Revealing more than she probably realized, she clutched her robe closer. Roger didn’t overlook it, though.

  “Silly?” Kelly repeated. “Some guy peers in your bedroom window in the middle of the night and you feel silly for telling the police about it? Gimme a break.”

  At that, Haley laughed, and Roger felt some relief. Whatever had been going on earlier, that remark about making this all real could wait for another time. A time when he felt he’d gleaned enough to know where it might be headed.

  Flora, he knew, would want him to look out for her granddaughter, but he at least had to have some idea what she needed. That meant getting to know her better.

  “Okay,” Kelly said, pulling out a notebook. “About what time did you see this guy?”

  Haley furrowed her brow. “I hate to say this, but I’m not exactly sure. The moon woke me up, coming through my window. It was so bright!”

  “Supermoon, at its closest point to earth.” Kelly nodded. “Okay, so the moon was still high enough to be visible over the rooftops of surrounding houses.” She tapped her pencil a few times. “Say sometime between two and three. At three, it would have been disappearing behind everything, including the mountains to the west. What exactly did you see?”

  “Nothing,” Haley said, flushing faintly. “The moonlight was coming from behind him and I couldn’t make out his features, just his shape.”

  “But he could probably see you,” Kelly said.

  Haley nodded slowly. “I’m pretty sure of that.”

  The image summoned to Roger’s mind made his stomach knot tightly. Some sleaze staring in the window with Haley sound asleep and fully illuminated by the moonlight.

  The picture might have been magical except for the circumstances. Instead it was creepy.

  “How long was he there?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m not certain. I mean, to me, it was as if he popped up, looked in, and then when I started to sit up, he just vanished. If he was there earlier, I don’t know.”

  Roger’s jaw tightened, his teeth clenched. “In other words, he might have been observing you for some time. No way to know.”

  Haley frowned faintly. “But then why would he just suddenly pop up?”

  Kelly spoke. “Good question. Let me go outside and survey the scene.” She looked at Roger. “Want to show me?”

  She thanked Haley for the coffee and Roger followed Kelly and the dog out the front door. “Why,” Kelly asked quietly, “would she think it was silly to call us about a Peeping Tom?”

  “I’m not sure,” Roger answered, although the truth felt as if it were sitting in his gut like a lead weight. He was convinced this had something to do with her kidnapping, but it wasn’t his place to speculate. He trusted Kelly, so that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he didn’t know for sure. To figure it out, he’d need more than a few old memories. And it still wouldn’t be his place to say. “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  They reached the spot beneath the window and Kelly studied the scuffed dirt. It was easy to tell that someone had stood there, but no print was really clear, Roger thought now.

  “Well, that’s not helpful,” Kelly remarked. “Okay, you go back inside with Haley. Bugle and I are about to take a walk and see what we can learn. Bugle, seek.”

  That dog, Roger had thought more than once, understood a great deal. Without further direction, Bugle sniffed around the scuffed area then headed toward the alley behind the house. Kelly followed.

  “I’ll let you both know if I find anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  Back inside, he found Haley still sitting at the table with cooling coffee in front of her. Except now she looked frozen, her gaze almost hollow, haunted.

  He was a man who liked to fix things, but this was something that didn’t appear to be easily fixable. Whatever was going on inside that woman was clearly above his pay grade. He sat again so that he’d be at her eye level, even though his whole body wanted action right now.

  “Kelly and Bugle are following a scent. She’ll let us know if she finds anything.”

  Haley gave
a brief, jerky nod.

  “Haley? Are you feeling ill? Do you want to go see a doctor?”

  In an instant her eyes lost the hollow look and began to spark blue fire. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m not sick. But some jerk woke me up last night and opened a box of memories I’d safely put away under lock and key for almost twenty-five years.”

  He hesitated, waiting, giving her a chance to continue. Then, wondering if he was prying, he asked the question boldly. “Your kidnapping?”

  “Yes.” She snapped the word.

  He nodded and leaned back, half deciding to just shut his mouth. She doubtless didn’t want to be poked and pried at. Remembering was probably bad enough. But people didn’t really forget things, no matter how deeply they buried them. What if she needed an ear right now?

  “I never heard much about it,” he said “I was too young, nobody said anything to me, and I just picked up that it had happened. But it was over quickly, right?”

  Something in her posture eased. Her face and tone quieted a bit. “That didn’t make it much better.”

  “I don’t imagine it would. I can’t conceive of anything more terrifying, no matter how long it lasted.”

  “It wasn’t just the terror,” she said slowly. Then she seemed to shake herself. “It’s in the past,” she said as if reminding herself.

  “Maybe not far enough in the past,” he remarked, keeping his tone pleasant. “You want more coffee? Are you ready to switch to Flora’s tea? Or how about a bottle of water?”

  She smiled faintly. “Determined to take care of me, huh?”

  “Not much I can do except play waiter and listen.” He shrugged. “You can also tell me to butt out. I’ve even been known to pay attention.”

  Now her smile widened and he was relieved to see that she seemed to be shaking off whatever nightmare had haunted her. “No need to butt out. You’ve been kind, but you must want to get to work.”

  Was that a dismissal? He decided not. “No rush. The nice thing about being my own boss is that if I need a few hours for something else, I can take them.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door and Kelly entered with Bugle. “Dead end,” she said. “Bugle tracked him to Ash Street and then the scent vanished. Guess he drives to his little trysts. Anyway, if Bugle smells him again anywhere, he’ll let me know. Listen, Haley, I’m going to file a report. If we’ve got a peeper, you might not be the last victim. These guys seem to like to bother more than one person.”

  “I hope he doesn’t bother me again. Thank you, Deputy.”

  “Kelly. Just Kelly. Come on, Bugle.”

  Then, in the subsequent silence, Roger took the bull by the horns. “So what did you mean when you said calling the police would make it real?”

  Copyright © 2020 by Susan Civil Brown

  ISBN-13: 9781488063886

  Colton’s Lethal Reunion

  Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Tara Taylor Quinn for her contribution to The Coltons of Mustang Valley miniseries.

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