The Colton Ransom

by Marie Ferrarella

  A born protector, Amanda put one arm comfortingly around her younger sister’s shoulders. The show of unity was clear. They might approach things differently, but at the bottom they were sisters—that meant being there for each other should the incident indicate the need.

  “Hang in there, honey,” Amanda told her, her words loud enough for the two under discussion to hear. “Those two aren’t worth getting yourself worked up over even for a minute.”

  “Maybe little Miss Goody Two-shoes would prefer to get herself worked up over a big, sweaty wrangler,” Tawny suggested, her implication abundantly clear. Her eyes washed over Trevor hungrily, with an air of entitlement that all but said that she should be the one receiving Trevor’s personal attention.

  “That’s just about enough out of everybody!” Drucker declared in a loud voice. It earned him glares from Darla and her duo as well as from Jethro himself.

  “How long you intend on standin’ there, playing big-city cop?” Jethro asked him. It was evident that he had lost his patience with this game and just wanted everyone to leave.

  “Just need to ask everyone their whereabouts from approximately— What time did you say you put the other infant in the wrong crib?” Drucker asked, turning to Gabby for his information.

  The other infant.

  Gabby chafed at the chief’s unspoken implication, that Avery was “the other infant,” as in expendable—as in easily replaced.

  Had that been the chief’s intention, or was it just a thoughtless oversight?

  “Eleven,” she replied.

  Drucker nodded, continuing. “Between eleven and— What time did you find the victim?” he asked.

  “Faye—her name was Faye,” Gabby stressed, her voice cracking. The way the chief was referring to the dead woman—a woman who had obviously lost her life trying to save an infant—made it sound so clinical, so impersonal. She wasn’t just some faceless stranger or some robot that had been brought down; she had been a flesh-and-blood person Gabby had known for a good portion of her life. A person who would be greatly missed.

  “No disrespect intended, little lady,” the chief said. “I know what her name was.” He paused for a moment, still waiting for his answer. “The time?” he prodded.

  She thought for only a moment. If she lived to be a hundred, she was never going to forget the sight of Faye lying there on the floor, her life having ebbed away from her as quickly as her blood did.

  “We found her at two,” she told Drucker.

  The use of the pronoun confused him. “You went up there together?” Drucker asked, looking from Gabby to the man who had called him to come to the ranch.

  “I was going up to check on Avery when I heard Ms. Colton scream,” Trevor recited dispassionately.

  “So you found her first?” Drucker asked, looking at Gabby.

  “Yes, I already told you that,” she insisted, trying very hard not to lose her temper. She didn’t care for what she took to be the chief’s patronizing tone.

  “Just establishing the timeline for everyone,” Drucker told her, looking around at the other people who filled the foyer and the living room. “Now then, I’ll need to know where all of you were at that time.”

  “Are you for real?” Jethro asked angrily. “We already told you—” he took a breath to center himself again and only half succeeded “—we were at the damn rodeo. You want me to paint you a picture?”

  “Verbal answers will do, Mr. Colton,” the chief replied, clearly struggling to remain polite.

  Jethro had only so much patience and it was long gone by now. He saw no need for extensive research.

  “The woman’s still going to be dead, no matter what conclusions your little investigation get you. Looks to me that she got killed getting in the way and the killer got the wrong baby, so there goes his profit margin.” The smile on his lips was a cold one. “So it seems like he’s already paying for his crime.”

  Trevor couldn’t see where his employer was going with this reasoning—other than making it rather clear that capturing the person responsible didn’t interest him. It had ceased to the second he realized that it wasn’t his granddaughter who had actually been kidnapped. Trevor had always known that the man was a coldhearted SOB, but the pay had been more than good, and he’d figured that he wasn’t a saint himself. However, this was a new low, even for Colton.

  “And what’s to keep him from coming back and kidnapping the right baby the next time?” Trevor asked.

  The question caused Jethro to bluster, but he had no answer to it. With a loud, exasperated sigh, he waved the chief on, a ruler giving a commoner permission to continue with his tiny, hopeless little task.

  “I also need to know if any of you gave a copy of the house keys to anyone.” When more than a few hands went up in response to the question, Drucker glanced over toward Trevor. “You feel like giving me a hand here, Garth?” And then, because he wasn’t completely devoid of compassion, he asked, “Or would you rather sit this one out because it’s your—”

  Drucker never got a chance to finish. Trevor pointed toward the group of people standing by the bay window, all of them too wound up to attempt to relax and try to pace themselves a little. “I’ll take this group—you take the others.”

  It was exactly what he’d been thinking. “Sounds like a plan,” Drucker agreed.

  Stepping up before the chief began talking to the first group, Gabby asked him, “What can I do?” She needed to find some way to help get Avery back. Only then would she be able to function like a person again. Until then, she was completely wrapped up in guilt and concern.

  Overhearing, Trevor spared her a withering look. “You can go sit over there,” he said, indicating a chair on the far side of the living room.

  She didn’t even have to look where he was pointing. She knew he wanted to banish her. She supposed she couldn’t exactly blame him.

  “But I want to help,” she insisted.

  Trevor had very little patience and none to spend on her. “Don’t you think that you’ve done enough?” he pointed out coldly.

  Before she could attempt to answer him, there was a hard knock at the front door.

  Because the doorknob gave under the pressure of his turning it, the man who had knocked pushed the door open slowly.

  The medical examiner, along with his youthful aide, who looked as though he were barely old enough to shave and had only just now mastered the ability to push a gurney before him without managing to bump up against the medical examiner’s back.

  “Someone said something about a body?” the M.E. asked cheerfully.

  This, Gabby thought, was going to be a very rough, long day.

  * * *

  Trevor curled his fingers into his hands, clenching them at his sides in sheer frustration.

  Two hours of questioning had yielded nothing.

  Like it or not, everyone seemed to have an alibi for the time frame that had seen Faye’s demise. They were all at the rodeo—or claimed to be.

  Several of the staff served as alibis for one another, but there were other alibis that still required verification, and that, Trevor knew, was going to require a bit of time—something that he felt they didn’t have and that they were steadily running out of in this case.

  Most kidnapping victims died within the first thirty-six hours.

  He had to find Avery!

  It was the one driving thought—the only thought—that seemed to give him the will to go on. He needed to for Avery’s sake.

  Having temporarily hit the wall at this point, he cast about for something that would recharge him before he returned to his search for Avery.

  Toward that end, he acknowledged another chore that had just been laid at his feet. One, he was aware, he could easily get out of if he wanted to. The chief had already told him that he was willing to be the bearer of the news.

  But shrugging off this particular duty was the coward’s way out, and painful or not, it was a responsibility Trevor felt he had a d
uty to shoulder. He was not, nor had he ever been, a man who passed the buck.

  Dylan Frick deserved to hear about his mother’s death from someone who cared about Faye.

  In a way, he supposed they were like brothers, he and Dylan. Not because of any bloodlines—Dylan was the governess’s son while he had been her ward, her foster son. But blood or not, he and Dylan had spent their adolescent years together, raised, cared for and looked after by the same woman, the one they both adored.

  Dylan needed to hear about her murder from someone who felt the event was more than just an antiseptic occurrence that had nothing to do with his actual life.

  Dylan, who some on the staff viewed and referred to as an animal whisperer, was currently working at the rodeo for some extra money. For the most part, though, he worked on the ranch, handling the horses and doing whatever needed being done.

  Turning his back on Gabby, Trevor strode out of the living room.

  The moment he did, Gabby immediately followed him. Since the area was still crowded with people, she only managed to catch up to him just at the front door.

  Trevor spared her a look that would have frosted most people’s toes. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked icily.

  He sounds so angry, she thought. Not that she blamed him, but she still wished he wouldn’t glare at her like that. She hadn’t put Avery in harm’s way on purpose. It was a horrible accident.

  “With you,” she answered.

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” he cried. “You’re staying here,” he ordered, waving his hand around the foyer, as if a little bit of magic was all that was needed to transform the situation.

  Stubbornly, Gabby held her ground, surprising Trevor even though he gave no indication. “You’re going to need help,” she insisted.

  Not if it meant taking help from her, he thought.

  “No, I am not,” he replied tersely, being just as stubborn as she was.

  She threw in her only card. “I’m willing to do anything you need me to.”

  He shook his head, a sliver of a smile rising to his lips despite the dire situation haunting him. “Do you have any idea what kind of a leading statement you just uttered?”

  She could feel heat climbing up her cheeks—God, but she really did hate being so fair.

  “I’m talking to you. I figure you’ll take it in the spirit it was said,” she told him. “No matter what you say, you’re a true gentleman.”

  Whether she meant that as a terrible future curse or a rare compliment, he didn’t know.

  Even though she shackled him with her innocence, he still frowned at her. “I’ve got to find my daughter. I don’t have time to babysit you.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to. I can be a help. I can,” she insisted when he looked at her unconvinced. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To the rodeo.”

  That didn’t make any sense. Unless... “You have a lead?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  “I’m going to see Dylan and tell him his mother’s dead,” he informed her. “That’s not a lead—that’s a death sentence for his soul. You still want to come along?” he asked mockingly. Trevor was rather certain that his self-appointed task would make her back off.

  Trevor was too direct and someone needed to soften the blow a little. Gabby figured she was elected. “Yes, I do,” she replied firmly, managing to take the man completely by surprise.

  Chapter 6

  Trevor looked at the tall, willowy redhead for a long moment, wondering what sort of angle the youngest of the Colton sisters was playing.

  But as one moment stretched into another, it began to dawn on him that Gabriella Colton wasn’t playing any angle. She really did just want to help. He supposed that it went hand in hand with her do-gooder attitude.

  Either that, or she thought that, somehow, coming along with him in order to tell Dylan what had happened to his mother would make her feel less guilty that Avery had been kidnapped.

  They both knew it wouldn’t.

  “This isn’t something you can just stick a Band-Aid on,” he told her grimly.

  The news was going to be hard enough to break—and hard enough to take. He doubted that Dylan was going to want an audience around when he found out about his mother’s murder, even if that audience had a familiar face.

  “I wasn’t planning to ‘stick a Band-Aid on it,’” she informed him. For a second, he saw sparks in her green eyes, but then after a moment they faded. If she experienced a flare of temper, she had it sufficiently under control. “I just thought he might want some sympathy, and frankly,” she told him honestly, “I’m not really sure that you’re capable of giving it to him right now.”

  Trevor scowled at her, thinking she was making a snide reference to his distant attitude. Where the hell did she get off, passing judgment on him like that? “And why’s that?” he asked.

  Did she have to spell it out for him—or was he just trying to rub her nose in it again? How many different ways could she tell him she was sorry? “Because you’re dealing with your own problem right now, with having your daughter kidnapped and trying to get her back.”

  “And just what’s in this for you?” Trevor pressed. “Dispense a little sympathy, feel good about yourself? Is that how it works?”

  Was this making him feel better? she couldn’t help wondering. Did he get some sort of relief by making her feel even guiltier than she already did? Did he actually need to hear her say how sorry she was and how bad she felt again?

  Okay, Gabby decided, so be it. “Right now, I feel very responsible for what’s happened to Avery, so no, this isn’t to make me feel good about myself. That’s not going to happen until we get Avery back and probably not even then. But I can certainly show a man who’s just lost his mother some compassion.”

  “And I can’t?” he asked darkly.

  They had come full circle. Gabby raised her head, refusing to look away. Refusing to show Trevor that he was unnerving her. “No offense, but no, you can’t.”

  He’d expected her to crumble under the weight of his anger—and his terror for the little baby he’d barely got to know. Trevor felt renewed respect. “I’m as compassionate as the next guy.”

  “Possibly,” Gabby allowed. “If the ‘next guy’ happens to be a robot.” When her assessment of the limitations of his compassion earned her a glare, she told the somber-faced head of security, “Sorry, but that’s how I see it. You’re a lot of things, Trevor Garth, and you have a great many things going for you, but you do not ooze compassion, no matter what you think to the contrary. If my being there can help Dylan cope with the news even a little bit better, then I’m going with you—and you really can’t stop me.”

  There was no room for argument on this with her. She obviously intended to remain firm.

  Trevor shrugged, not about to waste his time or his breath. She was, after all, one of the boss’s daughters. “Suit yourself,” he told her in a voice that couldn’t have sounded more disinterested.

  But silently, Trevor had to admit to himself that he really did like her spirit. That’s twice she’d gone up against him and defied his instructions. Twice they’d gone head to head and she hadn’t backed off. A woman like that bore watching—and from where he was standing, that wasn’t exactly a hardship to undertake.

  Focusing back on Dylan and the news he was bringing to the man, Trevor quickened his pace to his truck. He wanted to get this over with even as he was dreading the actual interaction.

  * * *

  The relatively short trip from the ranch to the site of the rodeo was made that much longer by the silence within the hub of the truck. Silence that seemed to somehow elongate the miles and the time spent driving them. But finally, they arrived at the rodeo grounds.

  Without a show or any competition going on, the area appeared almost eerily deserted.

  “Where is everyone?” Gabby murmured, looking around.

  He could feel Gabby tensing up beside him in the 4x4. “Tol
d you not to come,” he said, interpreting her body language. The woman must be having second thoughts. And he couldn’t blame her one bit. He dreaded every bit of this investigation—and what they would find at the end.

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she informed him, dismissing his implication. What they were about to do had nothing to do with the way she felt. He had no way of knowing why she was reacting to her surroundings this way.

  He didn’t believe her, but out of curiosity to see just how far she was willing to go in order to sustain a lie, he asked, “Then what does?”

  Her answer wasn’t what he expected.

  “This rodeo.” With no people milling around, the rodeo was stripped down to its lowest level, like an aging, once beautiful prom queen whose makeup had faded and was badly in need of a touch-up. “I really hate rodeos.”

  Trevor laughed, thinking she was making some kind of a lame joke. When he realized she was serious, he looked at her skeptically. “That’s almost un-American.”

  It was her turn to shrug carelessly.

  He took it to mean that she wasn’t bothered by the label he’d temporarily affixed to her.

  “Why do you hate rodeos?” he asked.

  His tone demanded an answer and did not allow her to ignore the question. So she didn’t. It had happened five years ago, anyway—just before he came to be their head of security. “Because Kyle Buchanan, after stealing my heart, decided to leave me for the rodeo.”

  The confession, coming the way it did, caught him by surprise. “Kyle Buchanan,” he repeated, then guessed, “Your boyfriend?”

  She studied a black mark on his dashboard before answering. “My first.”

  Trevor snorted dismissively at the information. “Thought you’d have better taste than to get involved with some guy who didn’t have a brain.”

  It took Gabby a beat to realize just what her father’s head of security was saying to her. That in his own way, Trevor Garth was actually paying her a compliment. Still, she could feel herself growing defensive over his tone.

  “You don’t pick who you fall in love with,” she told him.