Her Colton P.I.

by Amelia Autin

  Holly’s mouth twitched into a faint smile. “Let me guess—you already suggested this to Peg, right?” Chris had the grace to look abashed, and she chuckled. “Why am I not surprised?”

  The independent woman in Holly knew she should be insulted, the same way she’d been insulted yesterday when she’d told Chris she didn’t need a babysitter. Nevertheless there was something appealing about Chris’s protectiveness that spoke to a more primitive aspect of her nature. Grant had never been protective of her—not that way. They’d grown up together, so he knew Holly could take care of herself. Still...she couldn’t really fault Chris for wanting to make sure she and the boys were safe in his absence. Especially since he’d told her, No one is dying on my watch ever again...

  She needed to ask Chris what he meant by that statement. Based on what Annabel had recounted about Laura, she had a pretty good idea it had something to do with his dead wife...and their unborn child.

  But before she could ask him, Chris rose and put his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. “I’ll load the cribs and high chairs in the back of my truck. You’d better pack enough clothes and things for the twins to last a week. And maybe their favorite books and toys. Susan and Bobby have plenty, but those little bunnies the boys sleep with? Don’t want to leave them behind.” Then he was gone.

  * * *

  Matthew Colton looked smaller than Chris remembered. Only to be expected, he thought after the first shock of seeing his father sitting at the table, behind the glass separating the prisoners from the visitors. Chris had been eleven back then—nearly twenty years had passed. And his father was sick...dying. Which would account for his frail appearance that made him seem...a pathetic old man. He murdered your mother, Chris had to remind himself, steeling against the sudden wave of good memories. Not to mention all the others he killed.

  And yet...there were a lot of worse fathers than Matthew Colton had been. How to reconcile the two pictures of Matthew? Remember the bad times, he told himself. Remember Ethan finding Mama’s body with the bull’s-eye on her forehead. Remember your family being torn apart. Remember Bouncer being sent to the pound. That’s all on him. That’s all Matthew’s doing.

  Chris sat at the table across from his father, removed his Stetson and placed it on the table in front of him, then ran a hand through his hair, which the Stetson had flattened. Then and only then did he pick up the phone. He had no idea what he would say, but Matthew spoke first.

  “You look like your mother.” If Matthew had stabbed him, Chris couldn’t have been more surprised, but Matthew wasn’t done. “Not your coloring, of course. Saralee’s hair was long and dark, not blond.” There was a wistful intonation to his words. “But you and Annabel look like her in every other way.”

  Chris cleared his throat against the wave of emotion that rose in him. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Everyone who remembers her says we look like Mama.” He’d thought he could do this, but now that he was here... “So you wanted to see each of us. And you bribed us here by promising a clue to where Mama’s buried. Piss-poor clues, but then you knew that, didn’t you?” Matthew’s eyes turned crafty, and Chris nodded. “Okay, I’m here. You’ve got your pound of flesh from me. So what’s my clue?”

  “No ‘Hello, Daddy’? No ‘How are you doing, Daddy’? Just ‘What’s my clue?’”

  Chris drew a deep breath and held it, holding his anger in at the same time. “What do you want from me?” When Matthew didn’t respond, Chris reluctantly asked, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m dying.” The bald statement stood there while neither man spoke.

  After a long, long time, Chris said the only thing that came to him. “I know.”

  Again there was silence between them, silence that was eventually broken by Matthew. “Twenty years, I’ve been locked away in this cage. Near twenty years, and the only one of you children to come see me was Trevor...and only because it was his job.”

  “What did you expect?” Chris couldn’t keep the bitter edge out of his words. “You really think any of us wanted to see you ever again?”

  “Don’t you sass me, boy,” Matthew retorted with a spurt of anger, his free hand forming a fist. “I can still tan your hide, and don’t you forget it!”

  All at once Chris was eleven again, facing his father over a broken window caused by an errant baseball Annabel had thrown. Matthew yanking his belt out of its loops and fiercely demanding of his children, Who did it? Who threw that ball?

  Chris had stepped forward immediately. Matthew wouldn’t have hesitated to use the belt on eleven-year-old Annabel, and Chris was too protective of her—of all the younger children—to let her take the imminent whipping. But Annabel had piped up bravely, I did it, Daddy. So Matthew had whipped them both—Annabel for breaking the window, Chris for lying. For trying to take the blame, for trying to shield Annabel from Matthew’s wrath.

  Chris and Annabel had hidden out in their secret hideaway afterward, lying on their stomachs in the shade of a catalpa tree so as not to further exacerbate the wounds on their smarting bottoms. Annabel trying so hard to be as tough as Chris, fighting back tears. But Chris hadn’t cried. Not then...and not at their mother’s memorial service a few months later. He hadn’t cried until Bouncer...

  Then Chris’s mind jumped to Laura’s funeral, and he realized he hadn’t cried then, either. He hadn’t cried at the loss of the two most important women in his life. But he’d cried over Bouncer. He’d never thought about it before, but now he realized maybe the reason he hadn’t cried for his mother and his wife was because some things went too deep for tears. Heart wounds, both of them. And one of them had been caused by the man sitting across from him.

  “Whatever happened to your dog, boy?” Matthew asked abruptly. “Whatever happened to that golden retriever I gave you when you were six?”

  Cold anger shook Chris. “He’s dead.”

  “Well, hell, boy, ’course he is.” Matthew smirked. “Dogs don’t live as long as humans. I just wondered how he died, that’s all.”

  Suddenly it was all too much for Chris. Suddenly the years rolled back, and he wanted to wipe that smirk off Matthew’s face. Not just for Bouncer, euthanized despite Chris’s tearful pleas to his foster parents, but for his mother, too. And for his brothers and sisters, orphaned yet not orphaned. Fighting the stigma of being Matthew Colton’s child—a serial killer’s child—to this day. He gripped the phone in a death grip and rasped, “Tell me where Mama’s body is buried, Daddy. I’m begging you, damn it! Tell me!”

  Chapter 11

  The crafty expression returned to Matthew’s face, and he shook his head. “Can’t do that, boy. You get your one clue, just like the others.” He waited for Chris to say something, but when Chris didn’t speak, he offered, “Biff.”

  “Biff? That’s it? Biff?”

  Matthew nodded, a secretive smile forming. As if he knew what Chris was thinking. As if he knew that if Chris could have reached through the glass he would have put his hands around his father’s throat and—

  No! A tiny corner of Chris’s brain forced him back to sanity. You are not a killer, he reminded himself, the words becoming his mantra. You are not a killer. He’s your father, but you are not him. And you are not a killer.

  He settled his Stetson on his head, shielding his eyes from Matthew’s searching gaze. “You are an evil man,” Chris told his father evenly through the phone. “And yes, your blood flows through our veins. But Mama’s blood flows through our veins, too. You killed her, but you can’t kill her spirit—we’re her legacy. She lives on in us.”

  He put the phone down and stood. Matthew was speaking—his lips were moving—but Chris didn’t want to hear anything more his father had to say. He turned and walked toward the door...to freedom. Freedom his father would never know until the disease ravaging his body claimed him, and he left the prison in a hearse.
/>   Chris would never return. Would never look on his father’s face ever again, not even at his funeral...which Chris would not attend. But this visit had been necessary after all, and not just to receive his clue that was no more help than the clues the others had received. No, this visit brought closure. Chris hadn’t realized he needed it, but now he finally acknowledged that the father he’d once known no longer existed. The stern father who—despite that sternness—had loved his wife and children had been a different man. This man—Matthew Colton, wife murderer and serial killer—wasn’t the father of Chris’s memory. Something had changed him. Twisted him. He was beyond the reach of even his children’s pleading.

  And knowing that, the shackles binding Chris to the past were finally broken. I’m his son, he acknowledged once again. But I am not him.

  * * *

  On the way back to town Chris passed the entrance to his brother Ethan’s ranch. A sudden impulse to talk with Ethan made him brake sharply and swerve into the turn without signaling, earning him an angry honk from the truck behind him.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, glancing at his rearview mirror even though he knew the other driver couldn’t hear him.

  It wasn’t just letting Ethan know the clue their father had given him that had made Chris turn, but also the desire to share that he finally understood Ethan’s complete rejection of Matthew all these years. Ethan had been only seven to Chris’s eleven when their father had murdered their mother—he didn’t have the memories Chris had of the good times with their father. But that was all gone now, erased by the knowledge that the father he remembered and the man dying in prison were two different people.

  Chris pulled up in front of the ranch house, parked and got out, leaving his hat on the seat and not bothering to lock his truck. Ethan’s probably out on the ranch somewhere, but Lizzie can tell me where he is. His boots thudded as he mounted the wooden stairs and crossed the front porch, thinking about the last time he’d been out here. Ethan’s ranch—Ethan and Lizzie’s ranch, he reminded himself with a smile—had quickly become the Colton family gathering place. And soon there’d be another celebration, when Lizzie gave birth.

  His smile faded as the never-to-be-forgotten sadness came to the fore. The loss of his own baby when Laura died wasn’t the constant heartache it had been at first, but the pain would never go away completely. His baby would have been the first Colton of the next generation, not Ethan’s. But that wasn’t Ethan or Lizzie’s fault. And he would love their baby the way he loved Susan and Bobby. The way he loved Ian and Jamie.

  He stood stock-still for a moment. The way he loved Ian and Jamie?

  You do, his shocked mind acknowledged. You love them as if you were their fath—

  He chopped that thought off before he could finish it. “Don’t go there,” he muttered. “Don’t.”

  He forced himself to move, to knock on the screen door. The front door was open, so he called through the screen, “Lizzie? Lizzie? It’s Chris.”

  The only answer he got—a long, low moan—scared the hell out of him. “Lizzie!” He grabbed the handle on the screen door and pulled, but the latch was on and the door refused to budge. Another moan, and this time Chris wrenched at the screen door with all his might. With a creaking sound, the old wood gave way, the latch pulled free and Chris was inside. “Lizzie?” His gaze encompassed the neat living room, but he saw nothing, so he moved down the hallway, bellowing, “Lizzie, where the hell are you?”

  “Kitchen— Ohhh!”

  He found Lizzie there, her face drenched in sweat. She was bent over the back of a chair, gripping it tightly as the labor pain ebbed. His eyes took in everything, including the way her clothes were sopping wet and the panting sounds she was making as she breathed.

  “Crap!” He lifted his sister-in-law gently into his arms and headed for the front door. Hospital, his frantic mind told him. “How far apart?”

  “I...I couldn’t time them,” she gasped, “so I don’t know. Four minutes maybe?”

  “Your water broke already, so this didn’t just start a few minutes ago. Where the hell’s Ethan?” He was already outside, maneuvering his way to his F-150 as fast as he could.

  “He went into town. I didn’t tell him... I’ve had false labor pains twice before and...and I didn’t want to worry him again.”

  “Where’s Joyce?” he asked, referring to the wife of Ethan’s foreman, Bill Peabody.

  “Joyce and Bill went to visit their kids. I never expected...”

  He listened to her explanation with only half his attention. The rest was laser-focused on what he had to do. “Open the door, Lizzie,” he told her when they reached the passenger side, and when she did, he kicked it wide-open with one booted foot. He placed her as carefully as he could on the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt around her, but when he went to close the door, she grabbed his arm.

  “My things. Suitcase by the front door. Please!”

  “Okay,” he told her. “I’ll get them. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Lizzie choked on a laugh. “Don’t worry. Just hurry.”

  He found the suitcase right where she’d said it would be, then raced out, pulling the front door closed behind him. He wedged the suitcase behind his seat, sat down and belted himself in. As the engine roared to life he said, “Did you call Ethan?”

  “I called him earlier, but...my water hadn’t broken yet. He said he was on his way to get me.”

  Chris floored it, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. The truck jounced and jolted until he got to the main road, and the minute he turned Lizzie clutched her stomach and started moaning again. “Crap!” he said again, glancing at his watch, then gave her his right hand, steering with the left. “Hold tight on to me,” he said. “Scream if you want to—don’t hold back. And aren’t you supposed to be panting like a dog? Isn’t that supposed to help?”

  Between moans Lizzie laughed again the way he’d intended her to, but she didn’t say anything, just gripped his hand in a death grip that—holy crap!—hurt.

  When she finally let go, Chris surreptitiously wiggled his fingers to see if any bones were broken. When he figured they were still intact, he hit the Bluetooth button on his steering wheel as they barreled down the county highway.

  He waded through the interminable questions the disembodied recorded voice asked him until he finally heard Ethan on the other end. “Ethan, it’s Chris,” he said, cutting his brother off. “I’ve got Lizzie and we’re heading to the hospital.” He darted a look at the clock on the dashboard. “I figure five to six minutes, tops.” It would take longer...if he wasn’t going ninety miles an hour. “Meet us there.”

  “Got it,” Ethan replied. “Turning around now. Lizzie? Can you hear me?”

  Chris glanced at Lizzie, then pointed to the speaker above his head. “Talk loud,” he advised.

  Lizzie laughed again. “I can hear you, Ethan,” she shouted.

  “Lizzie, honey, you hang in there, okay? I’ll be with you before you know it.”

  “Okay.”

  “And, Lizzie?” The hesitation, Chris knew, was because he could hear every word Ethan said to her. “I love you, honey. You and the baby are the best things that ever happened to me, and I—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Chris interrupted. “You love her, you need her, you can’t live without her. Forget that crap and drive!”

  He hit the disconnect button and glanced over at his sister-in-law, who was sitting there with tears in her eyes. “Now, don’t you start,” he told her in bracing tones.

  “I love you, Chris,” she blurted out as the tears overflowed. “I’m so lucky to have you as a brother-in-law.” Then she caught her breath as another labor pain snared her in its grasp, and Chris could actually see the ripples go through her.

  “Crap!” he said again and depressed the pedal until the speedom
eter hovered around a hundred. He offered Lizzie his right hand again, mentally girding himself against the pain he knew was forthcoming, but also knowing that whatever pain Lizzie inflicted on him was nothing compared to what she was going through. “Hold on tight.”

  * * *

  Two hours later Chris was still in the hospital waiting room. Ethan had met them at Emergency and had lifted his pregnant wife out of Chris’s truck even more gently than Chris had placed her in it. Chris had parked in the visitor’s lot, retrieved Ethan’s truck from where he’d left it half on the driveway and half on the sidewalk—smooth talking a policeman out of a ticket in the process—then headed for the Emergency entrance with Lizzie’s suitcase in hand. He’d turned the suitcase over to the admitting clerk and had followed her instructions on finding the waiting room. Where he’d waited. And waited.

  He’d called Peg and told her what was happening, asking her to pass along the news to Holly and explain why he was delayed getting back. Then he’d called Annabel and Sam, who were on duty and couldn’t talk for long. But they’d both spared him a moment to say Jim Murray had approved them working with Chris and Holly on setting the trap for the McCays.

  Chris had forgotten about that. Well, not exactly forgotten, but Lizzie’s crisis had driven everything else out of his head in the heat of the moment. He’d quickly called Ridge and Trevor after that, but both calls had gone right to voice mail. He’d left a message, though, both about Lizzie and the clue he’d obtained during his trip to the prison today—Biff. Then he’d turned his mind to the problem of how best to set a trap for the McCays.

  Lost in thought, he didn’t see Ethan walk into the waiting room. Not until his brother stood right in front of him did Chris realize he was there. Ethan looked wiped out. Pale beneath his tan. But happy. Ecstatically happy, and relieved.

  Chris stood up. “Lizzie okay?” Ethan swallowed hard, as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t. Then he nodded, and Chris asked, “And the baby? Everything okay there?”