Colton's Killer Pursuit

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  And in spite of her reaction, so did his penis.

  “Actions are much more believable than words,” he told her. “No matter how good the story is, if we don’t touch, or if you stiffen when we do, this whole thing is going to fail.”

  “Point taken,” she said, sliding an arm around his waist, sending him into an immediate image of her pressing him up against the elevator wall and having her way with him.

  It was then that he knew she wasn’t the one he needed to worry about. Nor was her family.

  He was the one who was failing in the acting department, failing to appear like he didn’t have feelings for Everleigh. But he’d die before he failed to keep her safe.

  * * *

  Coming from Clarke’s condo and knowing what she did about his family, Everleigh found herself embarrassed as they pulled up in front of her parents’ clean, but clearly aged-and-not-in-a-good-way home in a neighborhood of older, not-updated homes with small yards filled with snow that covered the cracked sidewalks. Shivering, she didn’t know what Clarke was seeing, but her gaze went straight to the broken shutter, top left. It had been that way her whole life. Used to be how she’d pick her house out from down the street of identical-looking skinny shotgun-style homes that lined the block.

  The piece of black metal blurred as tears filled her eyes. This place looked like home, but it didn’t feel that way to her. That porch...the outside lights that gleamed from both sides of the door to welcome guests... None of it glowed with love anymore.

  They’d come early purposely, before the other guests arrived, so that she could get through the initial moments of seeing her parents for the first time since she was arrested without an audience. But when she saw the front door open, framing her mother and father—and also her aunt and a couple of other bodies she couldn’t see well enough to identify—her heart sank.

  “Do they know you’re bringing a guest?” Clarke asked from beside her. His calm tone, as though they were discussing how they wanted their burgers cooked, seemed to lighten the tension in her chest a small bit. Allowing a bit more freedom in her lungs.

  “Yeah. I told Mom that we’re seeing each other and asked if I could bring you along. That’s the way it’s done here,” she added. “You ask...”

  “What would you have done if she’d said no?”

  She glanced at him, feeling the early evening’s chill in the air as he turned off the car. “She’d never say no,” she told him. “Any friend I ever wanted to bring home was welcome.”

  As an only child, she’d been well loved. Or so she’d thought.

  But then, she’d thought she’d been loved and honored as a wife, too...

  Given the onlookers’ presence, he told her to wait for him to come around to get her. Giving him the appearance of being the perfect gentleman to his date. She figured he’d really issued the order more as a bodyguard than a lover. Either way, she was happy to comply.

  She wanted him there. And wanted the evening over. They had to get on with it.

  Everleigh knew why Clarke’s arm was around her waist as they traipsed through the snow up the covered walkway and to the porch. But her body melting into him wasn’t just because of the show they were putting on. For those few seconds, right or wrong, she leaned on his solid warmth.

  She was potentially walking into the presence of someone who wanted her dead.

  “Baby girl!” Amie McPherson came bursting out the door, medical boot and all, as soon as they reached the porch, pulling her close for one of her tightest hugs. Embraces that Everleigh used to soak up. That used to make her feel loved.

  The effusiveness seemed over-the-top after her mother had sold her up the river to the police when they’d come calling, saying she must be a murderer. Maybe the hug was for the benefit of the audience standing behind them.

  Everleigh pulled away quickly. “You don’t have a coat on, Mom,” she said, using the cold as an excuse as she reached for Clarke’s hand and took a step toward the door and all of the people waiting there. She moved past them. Or rather, kept moving and they got out of the way. It was either that or have her bump into them. She wasn’t going to break into tears in front of everyone, and that left her with no choice but to stand on her anger for the moment. Her aunt was just inside the door and stepped back as her parents did, forcing the other few people there—some close neighbors, explaining a lack of cars outside—to step back as well, and she pulled Clarke inside.

  “This is Clarke Colton,” she said. “And, yes, he’s brother to the chief of police, but he’s not a cop. He’s here as my date and I would appreciate it if you’d treat him accordingly. He’s not working, he doesn’t answer for what his sister or the rest of the department does, and I want him to be able to get to know my family and friends the way I do.”

  There. She hadn’t planned the speech. Or any greeting. She’d been dreading seeing her mother more than anything.

  Her father stepped forward, his pants and plaid flannel shirt looking like his best, as he gave her a hug. “Good to have you home, Missy,” Andrew McPherson said, using his nickname for her. Warming her heart for a brief second.

  Until she remembered that he hadn’t stood up for her, either. He hadn’t blamed her. Had tried to come to her defense in terms of never having really liked Fritz or the way he’d treated her.

  But...after being presented with DNA evidence, he’d believed her capable of taking a life.

  She just couldn’t wrap her mind around that. Yeah, it looked like the evidence proved her guilt, but faith was believing without, or in spite of, proof.

  Neither of her parents had faith in her.

  And someone still wanted her dead.

  While she grappled with an overwhelming sense of grief, Clarke stepped forward, still holding her hand, but greeting the others, shaking their hands...starting with her dad first and then her mother.

  The doorbell rang a minute or two later, and Amie herded everyone to the back through the entryway to the living room and then on to the kitchen. Guests could mingle in the two rooms, able to access the bathroom off the kitchen, for the remainder of the night. The bedrooms upstairs were off-limits.

  It was the way things were done.

  The way they’d always been done in the world in which she’d grown up.

  It just didn’t feel like her world anymore.

  And she most definitely didn’t feel safe there.

  Chapter 11

  Clarke didn’t want to let go of Everleigh. He wanted to hold her. To keep a hand on her back.

  He just plain wanted to touch her.

  To protect her, but also because he liked the way contact with her made him feel. Too much.

  For that last reason, he distanced himself from her as soon as they got into the living room. He stayed close—no one was going to get a chance to hurt her—but he was never going to be a clingy man. Not even if hell froze over and he fell in love and got married someday.

  The likelihood of that had never even crossed his mind before. So why in the hell was it doing so standing in the McPhersons’ somewhat dingy, but clean and uncluttered living room? Picturing a Christmas tree in front of the large window and a little girl in flannel pj’s with sassy blond hair, eyes all aglow as she stared at the packages beneath the colorfully lit tree.

  Shaking his head, he took inventory of the people at the party. They were pouring in by the threes and fours. All ages. Genders. All seeming to know each other well. Several pretty young women who could have attracted Fritz’s attention.

  “Everleigh tells me you’re the one who got her out of prison.” An older man in a flannel shirt and jeans held up by suspenders took a step closer to Clarke, beer in hand, as he spoke.

  “I helped find the discrepancy in the evidence,” he said. “But only because I’d already been talking to her and knew what to look for,” he added, wishing he had a
beer to sip as well to ease the tension. There was plenty to go around, stacked up on a portable bar in the corner, but he didn’t drink on the job.

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad she had you for a friend,” the man continued. Never told Clarke his name, but this man was already acting as though they were best buds. “Our Everleigh, she’s always been a sweetie, too quiet and kind for her own good around here, I used to think. Way too good a girl for that slick bub she married,” the bald man continued. “Her folks, they went on and on about him and how he moved Everleigh uptown, but I knew he was no good.”

  “How’d you know that?” Clarke asked in his role of investigator. He hoped. Waiting for the answer with an interest that seemed to border on personal.

  “I saw him over in Ann Arbor once, walking with a beauty ten years younger than him, even after he married Everleigh. But I knew for sure last year when my girl came home and told me he was screwin’ around with the cousin of a friend of hers. The cousin was visiting, went to his health club, and the two of them hit it off. From what I heard, they were a thing for a while after the cousin left to go home to Grand Rapids. He used to travel up to see her.”

  “And you didn’t think to let Everleigh know?” The indignant question came out when he should have been asking the woman’s name.

  “Wasn’t my business,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t see it myself...and for all I know, she knew what he was up to. Some women turn a blind eye to a husband’s philandering...”

  Not happily. Not that Clarke had ever heard. “You got the girl’s name?” he asked. “Just in case someone else mentions her to Everleigh...”

  “Nah. Annabelle, I think. But... Wait. Yeah, it was Annabelle Belinski. I remember because I had a friend named Belinski years ago. Used to go up to the UP hunting together.”

  UP. The upper peninsula of Michigan. Rugged territory. And highly popular with outdoors people, too. Clarke immediately started talking about a snowmobile trip he and his brothers had taken in the northern country years ago, how they’d almost lost toes to frostbite, crashed into snowbanks and generally had the time of their lives.

  Annabelle Belinski. The name would go in the notebook tucked into his coat pocket as soon as he had the ability to put it there without being seen.

  * * *

  “I swear to God, baby, I never thought you were a murderer. Never believed you could have killed anyone, let alone your own husband. But they were shoving scientific DNA proof under our noses, like I was supposed to explain how it could be there and you not be guilty, and I didn’t know how.” Amie’s hazel eyes, so much like Everleigh’s own, were moist as she held her daughter captive in a corner of the living room, her whispers filled with intensity. “Then that day they came to the house after the kidnapping that was supposed to free you... I said I didn’t recognize your grandmother. I didn’t want them to find that baby until they’d taken another look at your case. I didn’t know how else I could help.”

  Everleigh didn’t respond. Wanted to look away but just couldn’t quite get there. Her mother was her mother. She’d birthed her. Raised her. Everleigh couldn’t help what she believed, either, and at the moment, she didn’t know if she believed her mother. It hadn’t just been the words Amie had said back then about DNA evidence convincing her of her daughter’s guilt—but in the actions. In the two months she’d been in jail, her mother hadn’t visited. She’d been in the courtroom for her trial, but she hadn’t been at the prison gate the day she’d been released.

  Supposedly she’d been busy with a protest to have Gram, her mother-in-law, released from jail.

  And Everleigh never should have lingered near the corner by the piano. She’d been watching people come in. Wondering as each face came through the door if that person could be the one who’d tried to kill her. As though she’d get some vibe when she saw them face-to-face.

  She’d gravitated toward the corner to cover her back. Ironically, she was finding a semblance of safety in the spot that had been designated for her time-outs when she got in trouble as a little kid.

  “I didn’t stand up for you the day Gram took the baby because they’d been looking at me for kidnapping.” Amie leaned in closer, her whispers grew more strident, and all Everleigh wanted to do was scoot between her mother and the old piano she’d taken lessons on so many years ago and break free into the room where thirty or more people were lingering.

  “The only motive was forcing them to take another look at the case, and if I believed you did it, why would I steal a child to get them to look again?” She was talking now, as opposed to sounding rasping in a raised whisper, as the noise in the room increased with more people arriving. Everleigh hadn’t made it out to the kitchen yet. Hadn’t had dinner.

  Didn’t really want any. The imploring look in Amie’s gaze grabbed at her. Like a suffocating claw. And in grief, too.

  Her mother was trying to comfort her, to show her love, but all Everleigh could see was that her mother had been reluctant to believe the DNA evidence could be wrong.

  Where had Amie been during the two months Everleigh had been sitting in jail? Maybe not totally believing her daughter was a murderer, but she hadn’t stood up for her, either. Hadn’t supported her as Gram had.

  She knew where her dad had been. Futzing around the house now that he was retired from the factory, and on his regular stool at the pub on the corner. Drinking his beer.

  “I love you, Everleigh. You’re my life...”

  She nodded, needing to get away so bad she was ready to push her mother aside but for the chance that the woman would draw her into another hug.

  And for the fact that she didn’t want to hurt her mom. She still loved her. And knew her mother loved her, too. It had never been about the love.

  Glancing up, she saw Clarke just off to her mother’s left. Clara, the lady who lived across the street, was talking to him, but one glance from Everleigh and he was close enough to Amie to reach beyond her for Everleigh’s hand, pulling her out slowly, causing Amie to naturally step aside.

  “Clara tells me you used to take ballet lessons at the local family center,” he said, and then included Amie in his glance. “Is that true?”

  As Amie smiled at the two of them, regaling Clarke with the story about Everleigh being the only one in her four-year-old class who’d remembered the whole dance routine during her first recital, he leaned in and kissed Everleigh on the cheek.

  It meant nothing, she knew.

  But standing there, clutching his hand like the lifeline he’d just offered her, availing herself of the breather from the emotional distress her parents’ defection had caused, she could have sworn his affection was real. That he’d saved her because he cared for her, not because he was working.

  Which scared the crap out of her.

  She couldn’t even tell when someone was being honest anymore.

  Had she ever been able to do so?

  How was she ever going to trust herself to know?

  Clarke didn’t provide any answers. How could he? But when he slid his arm around her and walked her over to say hello to Clara, she allowed herself the distraction being close to him offered.

  Even if it was the wrong thing to do.

  * * *

  He could feel her fear. Clarke might not have known Everleigh for long, but after spending two full days in her company, in very trying circumstances, he’d learned enough to know that she was struggling.

  She smiled as she introduced him. Was great at parrying congratulations on her release and bringing the conversation away from herself and to her grandmother’s plight, wanting everyone to continue to support her gram in any way they could. To write letters to the GGPD. He could have told her that wouldn’t do any good but didn’t.

  She asked after ongoing situations in neighbors’ lives, chatted with her aunt, talked to her dad about having visited his mother the day before, urging h
im to go himself.

  And a good bit of the while, she was clutching Clarke’s hand, as though she’d fall down if she let go.

  While her gaze darted around the room.

  She’d even jerked against him a time or two when the front door opened, signaling another new arrival.

  When they made it to the kitchen and she moved around the spread of food there, she seemed to relax some. He stood by her as she put veggies on a plate, and then he leaned in, nuzzling her neck, to whisper, “You’re doing great.”

  He knew he’d never forget her grateful smile. He just knew it.

  And as they found a hallway wall to lean against while they ate, he was able to ask, “Have you noticed anything about anyone? Got any sense that anyone is treating you differently?”

  She shook her head. “I’m getting obsessed, wondering if that person is here,” she said. “Maybe this wasn’t the right answer. Maybe whoever is after me isn’t even here. Isn’t someone close to me after all.”

  Thinking of Annabelle Belinski, he shrugged. “That’s certainly possible,” he agreed. “I need to move around a bit more. Talk to some people without you right next to me so I can casually start a conversation about Fritz and maybe find out who he’d been seeing. People would figure me for being curious, wouldn’t find it odd, me asking about your ex, but with you standing right there...”

  She nodded. Threw the paper plate into the trash with the rest of her dinner. And walked off without another word.

  He watched her going, feeling a bit too much like the lovesick pup he was pretending to be.

  * * *

  Had she piled it on too thick? Or somehow given him some vibe that she was leaning on him more than she should have been? Reddening at the idea that Clarke Colton had had to tell her to give him some space, Everleigh entered the living room with trepidation, determination and a strong desire to get out of her parents’ home, their neighborhood, and just keep going.