Colton's Twin Secrets

by Justine Davis

  “I knew somebody would be. Sorry you got the short straw.” Just because it was sometimes productive, nobody enjoyed feeling like a vulture clustered around the dead.

  “I volunteered. Figured it’d be easier on you if it was a friend.”

  He didn’t know what to say. All he could manage was “Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it.”

  “No prob. And you don’t know us.”

  He supposed Duke thought he might be unsettled enough not to have realized he, the known cop to just about anybody who might show up—Dominic’s rebel brother was well known by his colleagues—shouldn’t tip off that there were other cops present. Personally, Dante figured the bad guys knew it already, but they couldn’t know which people they were, so he only said, “Got it.”

  When the call was disconnected, he automatically checked his mirrors. Noted the attractive woman driving the luxury SUV behind him. Realized with a little jolt it was Gemma. Smothered his reaction; his life was complicated enough just now—he wasn’t about to spend any of his limited time and energy dwelling on the obvious, that she was a beautiful woman and he responded to that. And the even more obvious—that it would be utterly, totally insane to let his thoughts wander one more step down that path. She was Gemma Colton, for God’s sake.

  They arrived early, as planned, to give them some time to deal with the girls and for him to get Flash set up with water, although it wasn’t at all warm today. He left windows partway down anyway.

  Gemma parked beside him, and he went to the back of her SUV to get out the twin stroller. It occurred to him as he lifted it out that she had to be stronger than she looked; this thing wasn’t light, and even collapsed it was awkwardly bulky. But between them they got it done quickly and walked toward the chapel.

  They were met by a tall, soft-spoken man, and Dante wondered if he’d developed the low-key persona for his work as a funeral director or if he’d been born with it. He saw the man glance at the twins and quickly assured him they would not be dealing with wailing babies during the service. The man smiled serenely.

  “Whatever you wish,” he said.

  “We’d like to take them to the chapel,” Gemma said. “Is the photo up?”

  The man nodded. “It is. This way.”

  “Photo?” Dante asked her in a whisper as they followed his lead.

  “They have the service available, and I found a nice one in the girls’ baby book,” she said.

  He stared at her yet again. And had no idea what to say. “You think of everything” sounded far too cliché for what she’d done. In the end, “Thank you” was all he could get out. And her smile made it seem like almost enough.

  The funeral director left them alone in the chapel. Dante stared at the enlarged photograph that sat on an easel next to a spray of flowers. He’d never seen it before, but that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was how...happy his brother and sister-in-law looked, formally dressed and holding two tiny babies not even recognizable as the two here now, except for the point on Zita’s eyebrow.

  At the same moment, they both leaned down to pick up the girls, and Gemma’s head bumped his shoulder. He nearly jumped at the contact.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “You all right?” he said simultaneously. They both let out a low chuckle, muted by the intentional solemnity of this place.

  He picked up Zita, she Lucia, and they walked to the front of the chapel, to the picture. The girls both looked at it, but if it registered he couldn’t tell. He had no idea at what point babies recognized images as something familiar. But that wasn’t why they were here. They were here for that day when they might ask.

  If I live that long.

  It struck him anew. How could he do this? How did other people do it, have kids and still be a cop?

  “What a life they brought these two innocents into,” Gemma murmured, staring at the photograph.

  It hit him with a jolt that she was right. Again. Dominic and his wife had brought these two pure, innocent souls into their world—one full of petty crime and dodgy characters.

  “I wondered,” he said slowly, “when they were born, if he’d change. If he’d go legit, clean up his life.”

  “But he didn’t,” Gemma said quietly.

  “No.” He looked at Zita, who smiled that sweet baby smile and reached out as if to pat his cheek, although the gesture was a little short on coordination yet. He hugged her a little tighter. “And I don’t understand how he couldn’t.”

  “And that,” Gemma said, “is why you’ll probably be better for them, in the end.”

  His gaze went to her face. There was nothing but a quiet sincerity there. “I’ll settle for not being bad for them.”

  “Not a chance of that.”

  “I wish I was so sure.”

  She gave a shrug, as if the answer was obvious. “You’re a good and honorable man, Dante, and you’ll love them. That’s a lot more than some kids have.”

  For a long moment he just looked at her. His throat was a little tight at the unexpected praise. He was surprised at her words and wondered if she felt that way because her father had fallen short on all those fronts.

  “How did you get so wise?”

  “Given who my father is, you mean?” It was close enough to what he’d been thinking that he was sure he looked guilty. But she didn’t call him on it. “I had my brother and sisters. And,” she added with an arch look, “we had that really great nanny.”

  He couldn’t help smiling at that. “So that’s where you learned.”

  “Only when I was old enough to notice, since I was the youngest. But Mrs. Hicks is a wonderful person. I adored her and still do. I tell her if I ever have children, I’m luring her out of retirement.”

  Lucia started to squirm as he said, “If? I thought this whole thing was in preparation for that.”

  For an instant she looked startled. Almost as if she’d forgotten. It was a mere flash of expression, but Dante was almost sure he’d seen it. And then her cheeks pinked, and he was certain.

  “I think the girls have reached the end of their quiet capacity,” she said, rather briskly. “And people are arriving. I should take them outside while you...do what you have to.”

  It was time, he knew that, but he felt a powerful urge to postpone going inside the main room. But Zita was also getting restless now, and he knew Gemma was right.

  He gave the little one a kiss on the cheek and she giggled. Dante gave an exaggerated sigh as he settled her back in the stroller. “Story of my life. I kiss a girl and she laughs at me.”

  “A grown-up girl wouldn’t,” Gemma said.

  His gaze shot back to her face. There was still the slightest trace of pink in her cheeks, but he decided it had to be left over from before, not because they were talking about kissing.

  Him kissing, specifically.

  If this were some other situation, if she were someone else, he might have asked her if she was offering. But this was Gemma Colton, and he was a Mancuso. Besides, the girls needed her, so he’d best not send her running the first week.

  But she thought he was good, honorable. And that he’d have a line of potential dates if he went looking.

  And why the hell was he thinking about what she thought of him, personally? All that mattered was that she took good care of the girls, and so far, with a few inevitable stumbles, she’d done that. Surprisingly well.

  But then, she was full of surprises. So many that he knew the fault had to be in his assumptions.

  He’d vastly underestimated Gemma Colton. In more ways than one.

  He watched her wheel the stroller out carefully—she had to, it was wide and barely fit through some doors—and wished he could go, too. Nothing to do with Gemma, of course. Just that he’d much rather take a stroll through the admittedly beautiful garden outside than head into the main room here an
d spend an hour swimming with bottom-feeders. But he had no choice.

  Dante hadn’t been in the midst of so many lowlifes since the last time he’d had to go to interview someone at the state prison down in Springfield. He recognized several but saw no one RRPD was actively looking for. Nor did he see anyone he suspected of being connected to the Larsons; Dominic’s criminal world and theirs didn’t overlap much. And not, he was sure, because he’d once warned his brother to stay clear of them—Dom had scoffed at that—but because his brother had kept his own activities out of Red Ridge.

  He smothered the instinctive assessment. He’d been pulled off the Larson case. Not that that would have stopped him if he’d seen someone connected to the brothers, but he’d have some explaining to do.

  The service was short, because no one had much to say. Him most of all. But outside afterward, he was awash in a sea of curious—or suspicious—gazes. Some gave him words of condolence, while some who had apparently known Dom better expressed surprise that he was even there. Only one asked him if he was finally going to take up the family business. The guy got a cold stare in answer.

  He hated this. He’d often wished Dominic had lived somewhere else, where he didn’t have to face the knowledge of both their estrangement and his brother’s chosen life every day.

  And now he didn’t.

  Careful what you wish for.

  A deep, loud baying snapped him out of his thoughts. Something had set Flash off. He looked toward the SUV. Some people were walking by to their own cars, but no one was close enough to really disturb the dog. In fact, the only person at all close to the car wasn’t even looking at it—he was looking at the garden. Dante frowned. The man seemed not familiar, but as if he’d at least seen him before. Not just now, in the service, but somewhere else. But he was too far away for Dante to pin it down. He started that way.

  Flash was building momentum now, and heads were turning all around him. He wondered for a moment if any of these guys ever had nightmares of a bloodhound on their trail. Given their activities, he wouldn’t be surprised. No wonder they were starting to look uneasy at the sound. Dante locked gazes with Duke, who was still back near the chapel, for an instant. He gave the barest of shrugs to indicate he had no idea, and Duke went back to scanning the mourners.

  The man he’d noticed glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the SUV and Flash. Dante noted he had a bandage on his cheek and a black eye. Dante tried not to let that throw him off as the man began to walk quickly away. In that instant, at that distance, that angle, and with the sudden hurry...

  It clicked. Dante’s breath stopped. His pulse kicked up. It had only been a glimpse, just as it had been that day, but he knew. As Flash, who could scent on the air as well as the ground, had known. The dog never forgot, and he had had this scent in his nose before. And Dante knew where.

  The crash.

  This was the man who had fired those shots, resulting in Dom hitting that pole.

  This was the man who had killed his brother.

  Chapter 21

  It had taken Gemma a moment to realize what she was hearing. The sound sent a shiver up her spine, as if it were some primitive reaction she had no control over. All the cultural references ran through her head—the baying of hounds, a bloodhound on your trail... How very odd, she thought.

  She looked at the twins, who appeared to be on the verge of either laughing or crying at the sudden howls. In the hopes she could tip them into laughing, she laughed herself.

  “Isn’t that wonderful?” she cooed at them. “That’s your friend Flash. Who knew he could sound so...so impressive?”

  Zita, who had begun to squirm and look worried at the first howl, suddenly shifted to smiling. “Ah eh oh,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Gemma said, and happily Lucia seemed to find conversing with her twin in that long string of sounds more important than the louder noise coming from her canine friend.

  She looked up in time to see a man she’d noticed earlier outside the chapel, apparently watching, now walking quickly away. Then she saw Dante walking toward the SUV; obviously he’d heard Flash and was—

  He was running. After the man who had been watching the mourners. She’d assumed he was one of the officers Dante had told her would be there, but that was obviously wrong if Dante was chasing him.

  There was no chance he would catch up with him. Dante was obviously fast, but he was too far away. Even as she thought it, the man jumped into a car and sped off. Dante made a quick move with one hand and for a moment her breath caught; was he going to shoot at the guy?

  She breathed again when she realized what he’d pulled out was not a gun but his phone. He seemed to snap a photo of the fleeing car, then made a call as he turned to walk back. Flash’s howling had slowed, but the dog still didn’t sound happy. Then again, she wondered if the serious, sometimes mopey-looking dog was capable of sounding happy.

  Not that he’d had much to be happy about, she thought as she looked back at the girls. His life had been turned inside out just as Dante’s had. The only bright spot she could see was that the girls were too young to understand what had happened. They had to be confused, though, that their parents, those familiar faces, were gone. She’d done some research and found that at six months they would know those faces.

  “Let’s go see your uncle,” she said to them brightly and began to wheel the stroller that way. Dante had stopped at his vehicle to calm the dog, but he was headed toward them now. “Who was that?” she asked when he reached them.

  He hesitated, and she could see he was trying to decide what to say.

  “He was watching the people coming out of the chapel,” she said to explain her curiosity.

  He went still. “Did he see you?”

  She frowned. “I suppose. He was there the whole time I was sitting on the bench in the garden. I only really noticed because he had a black eye.”

  His voice was sharp now. “Did he ever approach you?”

  “No. He came from over there,” she said, pointing toward another small building where some people were gathered.

  “How was he looking at you? Like he wanted to hit on you?”

  “No. He barely glanced over.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I always know when a man is thinking about that.” She was rather irritated, and it showed in her voice.

  It was a moment before he said, sounding almost rueful, “I think you probably miss one or two here and there.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. He was watching the people coming out of my brother’s funeral?”

  She didn’t believe it was nothing, but something about the way he was firing questions—like a cop—bothered her enough to just answer.

  “Maybe he just wanted something else to think about, if he just came from another funeral.”

  “Or maybe he went to the wrong one,” Dante muttered, almost under his breath.

  He was making her really nervous now. “What is this about? Should I be worried?”

  “Only if you see that guy again,” he said flatly.

  He made a brief call. As he spoke quietly, she looked around at the few mourners who were left. Odd how ordinary they all looked, for the bunch of petty criminals Dante had said they were. The cops must still be among them, and she tried to guess who they were. The only one who looked like he fit the bill was the big, powerful-looking man with the unibrow. So that probably meant he was one of the cops, she thought wryly.

  Then, abruptly, Dante said, “Let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough of this place and these people.”

  She couldn’t blame him for that. Nor could she seem to quash the desire to soothe him somehow. When she looked at it all, she realized what a horrible week this had been for him. And he’d handled it with much more grace than a lot of men would have. Certainly mor
e than Dev would have.

  The traitorous thought formed in her mind before she even realized it. She tried to shove it away, but it rang with a truth she couldn’t deny. Dev would not handle this well. He didn’t handle anything that didn’t go his way very well.

  She thought about that all the way back home. And didn’t realize until they were almost there that that was how she was thinking of it—as home. She felt heat rise in her cheeks. Again. She’d blushed more in the last week than she had in years. Funny, Dev never flustered her like this.

  And there it was again, negativity about the man she loved and wanted to spend her life with. What was wrong with her?

  I think you probably miss one or two here and there.

  What had Dante been saying? That she had so many men panting after her—too often for her money, or a connection to her father—that she didn’t notice them all? Maybe that was true—she’d grown so used to that kind of attention she barely paid attention any longer.

  Or had he been saying she hadn’t noticed...him?

  She tried to laugh at the thought. She might not have known him long, but she knew he wasn’t the type. Odd, it had taken concrete knowledge of Dev’s wealth and position for her to be sure of that about him, but she’d only had to spend a week in Dante’s company to be utterly certain he had no interest in a connection to her father or her own wealth. In fact, she was reasonably certain it had been a drawback in his eyes, part of the reason he’d been doubtful about giving her the job in the first place.

  Which in turn was part of the reason she’d been so determined to prove him wrong. Which was odd in itself, since she usually didn’t trouble herself much about what people thought about her. She’d cared too much, once, had hated the way people made assumptions. Yes, she’d had a gilded upbringing, had had few worries in her life. But just because she’d had few cares didn’t mean she didn’t care.

  But what he’d said still niggled at her, especially because if she eliminated her father and her money, it would leave only that he was interested in her herself. And there was no way that should make her blush or her pulse pick up. She should be immune. She loved Dev, didn’t she?