Colton's Killer Pursuit

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  But those tears... They spoke straight to her heart.

  “He means something to you.”

  Clarke. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know. It would just piss Gram off. And they’d still end up talking about him.

  “He doesn’t need or want me.” And, “He’s a womanizer just like Fritz was.”

  “How do you know? You judging him by that loser?”

  It wasn’t nice to speak about the dead that way, but she kept the observation to herself. “He told me he wasn’t interested in commitment.”

  Gram’s gaze sharpened. “Did Fritz ever tell you he liked women? That he wouldn’t be faithful to you?”

  “Of course not.” She’d never have married him if he had.

  “Then I’d say this Colton guy is already one notch better. A guy who’s going to be honest about the women he’s with is going to be honest to the woman he’s with.”

  She nodded. No argument forthcoming. She didn’t doubt Clarke’s honesty. It was his desire to not commit that was the problem for her. “It’s a moot point, Gram. He doesn’t want me.” As much as her grandmother would find that one hard to believe...

  “You hear me asking about what he wants?”

  She frowned. And remembered what her grandmother had said earlier. She went for the people who wanted her. But...

  “You’re a strong, capable, beautiful giving soul, Everleigh.” Everleigh? That was a new one. But no matter what big-gun names Gram pulled out, she wasn’t going to be able to convince her that she and Clarke Colton wanted the same things in life. Maybe he’d want a second night with her. She could see him being talked into that, after the passion they’d just shared. But then still done.

  “And you’re just plain sweet,” Gram added after a minute, studying her as she spoke. Gram could give her that eye all she wanted. Everleigh knew what she knew.

  “You know how honey attracts bees?”

  Of course she did, but...

  She loved the people who wanted her. Gram’s words. Or a version thereof. Bees loved honey. But if you got close to them, they’d sting you. Gram didn’t care whether or not Clarke wanted her...

  Shock burst through her. Everleigh sat up straight, staring at her grandmother. “I give my trust to the bees that use me for their own nourishment, rather than...”

  She cared for those who needed her. Who wanted her. She’d never allowed herself to go out and find the one she loved, the one she needed, the one she wanted.

  She’d been sunk the minute Fritz Emerson had walked into her life. But he was gone. She’d been given a new ship, a new chance.

  “He doesn’t want a partner,” she said aloud.

  “Maybe not. That’s life sometimes, too. But if you don’t reach for what you want, you’ll never get it. And if you keep spending all of you on those who use you up, rather than letting your heart soar, you’re never going to find the happiness you deserve.”

  And there it was, the sorrow in her grandmother’s eyes. Because her baby girl wasn’t happy, and Hannah McPherson knew it.

  Everleigh stood up. “Gram, would you mind if I call a cab?” She couldn’t wait for her parents. Couldn’t deal with them at the moment. Their time would come. Because love was love, even when the people holding it failed. Her parents loved her. Fritz hadn’t. He’d loved what she did for him. He’d loved that he could always count on her to be there when he needed her. But he hadn’t loved her.

  Maybe no man ever would.

  What mattered was that she was going to let her heart soar. That was the only way to reach joy.

  Or to find a dream again.

  Fritz wasn’t going to win.

  Her heart was.

  Chapter 21

  Clarke Colton was not a crying man. Didn’t happen. Wasn’t going to. But he came closer than he was ever going to permit again as he quit procrastinating and turned down his street an hour after he’d left the prison. He’d taken the long way home. Via a town in the opposite direction and then the backroads. Eagerly taking on unplowed country stretches, sliding on the ice and pulling out of the slide like he’d done in the school parking lot when he’d been sixteen.

  The first time, he’d been in his father’s fancy car.

  He’d made it home without anyone the wiser. And grinning from ear to ear.

  Most of his life had been that way. Taking the road less followed.

  Doing what felt right, not what he’d been told was right.

  And now, apparently, he had to grow up. Forty years old and he had to do what didn’t feel right, but what he knew was right. He had to go home, get Everleigh’s bag, take it to her place and never see her again.

  Or he could propose to her, bring her home, have the best few months of his life until the newness wore off, and real life set in, and he’d make a case a priority, miss her birthday dinner, forget to buy a Christmas gift or take out the trash, and things would slowly erode and she’d end up getting hurt.

  They’d split. He’d go off and find some other woman. She’d run into them downtown and he’d have to live the rest of his life with the image of hurt in those honest and expressive hazel eyes.

  He pulled into the drive of the condo garage. Pulled out the card he had to use to get through the electronic security. The one he normally carried on his windshield was in the garage with the rest of his vehicle while it was having a bullet hole removed from it.

  Card in hand, he pulled up to the eye of the device, the bar rose and his phone rang. It was Melissa, telling him that everyone was getting together at police headquarters and asking him to join them.

  There would be pizza.

  And no parents.

  Pulling into the garage, he squealed his tires on the smooth cement and pulled right back out again. Anything was better than getting Everleigh’s suitcase out of his life forever. Even a Sunday afternoon gathering of his siblings and cousins.

  They’d congregated in the largest conference room. A place where DAs and lawyers met. Where the chief of police sometimes had discussions with politicians. Even in their not-so-huge city.

  And it wasn’t all of the Coltons in the GGPD. Just the ones involved with the Emerson and Bowe cases. Bryce, the FBI agent; Jillian, a crime-scene investigator; Troy and his sister Desiree, the part-time sketch artist, as well as their half sisters Annalise, a K-9 trainer, and cousin Grace; Melissa, of course; and Travis, their younger brother. As the CEO of a plastics company, Travis had nothing whatsoever to do with the GGPD, but had probably seen all of their cars and stopped in anyway.

  Everyone was talking at once, as they did, standing around eating pizza, one or two leaning against the long table. For the first time in a while, the mood was a little less somber. “Granny” had been freed. Hopefully that would quiet some of the town’s complaints against the GGPD—at least for the moment. It wouldn’t last. Clarke knew it and was certain the rest of his family did, too. They had a killer on the loose. And a rogue forensic scientist missing.

  But they were Coltons. They hung together. And took the good when it came.

  “Hey, everyone,” Travis called out. “I have an announcement to make!” Younger than Clarke by six years, Travis was as tall and muscular as his older brother. The kid was a bit of a maverick, making his own path rather than following their father in his business or the rest of the family into the justice and protection fields. Which made Clarke a bit fonder of him than some of the others.

  He loved them all, of course. But hanging with Travis was more fun. “I’m happy to announce that Colton Plastics has hired a new co-CEO...” Travis paused, looking around as though making sure he had everyone’s attention. “Her name is Tatiana Davison and...”

  “What?” Melissa stepped forward, pushing past her family to get face-to-face with their little brother.

  “What the hell?” Clarke said at the same time, adv
ancing with equal tenacity.

  “Are you nuts?” someone called out. Bryce, Clarke thought. He couldn’t be sure. Nor did he pay much attention to the rest of the voices chiming in behind him.

  “You can’t hire her, bro,” Clarke said, while Melissa turned red in the face. There were protocols. Things she could and couldn’t do. Like giving out information that had to do with an ongoing investigation.

  “Too late. I already hired her,” Travis said, his blue-eyed gaze seeming more annoyed than anything else. “She’s highly qualified, too, and she’s in Paris at the moment.” Travis looked between him and Melissa in confusion, backing up a step, as though they were seriously crowding his space.

  “Her father’s a killer,” Clarke said, his tone low, but deadly serious. “We’ve all been looking for her. She’s going to be brought in for questioning...”

  And could, for all anyone knew, be involved. With harboring a criminal, if nothing else.

  “A... What are you talking about?” Travis wasn’t annoyed now. Shocked, if anything. But he definitely wasn’t happy. “He was cleared of that thing months ago.”

  “There’s been another murder in the park,” Clarke said while the room filled with stark silence behind him. “Same MO. And definitive evidence that proves Len Davison was the killer. Randall Bowe destroyed the evidence that would have put him away last time, but it’s a solid this time. I’m sorry, Trav, but it’s seriously not good.”

  “And we seriously need to keep this in this room for now,” Melissa said. “We can’t let the press get a hold of this if we can help it. We’ve got to get this guy before he kills again.”

  All gazes were glued to their chief, including Clarke’s, and while she might still be his irritating little sister, he was proud of her.

  And told her so an hour later, after everyone else had filed out to head wherever they were going to spend their Sunday evenings.

  “I’m proud of you, too, Clarke,” she said. “I look up to you far more than I think you know.” She coughed before continuing. “How’s Everleigh?” Maybe he’d known she would ask. Maybe that was why he’d hung around.

  “Good, I guess. Your text came through about Larissa when we were still at the prison. She left with her parents.”

  She was picking up pizza leftovers. Throwing away the trash. Grabbed a paper towel, wetted it and came back to the table.

  “When are you going to see her again?”

  “I’m not.”

  She nodded. Kept wiping. He hated it when she did that. Refused to react to him. To give him the piece of her mind he knew she had waiting there to dish out.

  And then she did. “You’re scared,” she said, moving farther down the table, which pissed him off, too.

  “You’re right,” he told her, straightening his shoulders. “Scared of hurting her.”

  Melissa stopped wiping, stood up straight, in uniform. If she wasn’t his little sister, he might have been intimidated at the look she gave him. “Why on earth would you think you’d hurt her?”

  It wasn’t at all what he’d expected to hear.

  “I’m not the settling-down type.”

  “You’re here, in the town where you grew up, with a successful career, a vital and present part of the family, here for any of us, no matter what... How much more settled can you get?”

  She was his sister. But she’d asked. “I haven’t done well recently with women.”

  “Aubrey’s issues weren’t your fault.”

  He knew that. But still felt responsible. “She’s only one in a long line, as you well know. I’ve never wanted to commit to anyone.”

  “Because you hadn’t met the right one yet.”

  “I doubt that... Why?”

  “You’re a special guy who needs a very special woman. One who can hold his heart in her hands without trying to tame it. With that kind of woman around, why would a guy ever want another?”

  Her words struck him harder than a bullet from her gun would have done. His little sister knew him pretty well, it seemed.

  He had an untamed heart. Not a fickle one. He did what he felt was right, not what he was told was right. And he needed a woman who could live with that. Who could be happy living with that. Who’d want to live with that.

  His wandering from woman to woman had nothing to do with an inability to be faithful. He just hadn’t met the person who filled his heart to the brim...until now, that was.

  “She won’t care if I forget to buy a Christmas present,” he said aloud.

  “Probably not. She doesn’t seem the type to pay much attention to the small stuff.”

  “Or the big stuff, either,” he said. But that wasn’t right, either. She paid attention to all of it. But she dealt with it. And moved forward on the course she’d chosen. She didn’t sweat the small stuff. And she remained true through the tough days.

  Kind of like him.

  “Everleigh seems to accept people for who they are,” Melissa said softly. “Genuinely accept them. I’d say a guy lucky enough to get her attention, to have a chance to win her love, would be a damn fool if he didn’t at least try...”

  He heard the words, but Melissa was talking to his back.

  He was a risk taker, and falling in love was the biggest risk he’d ever take.

  He had to get home. He was going to deliver the suitcase to Everleigh, as he’d told her he’d do.

  And somehow, he had to figure out how to find the one thing he’d never looked for before.

  The way into a woman’s heart.

  * * *

  Everleigh’s bag wasn’t at her house. She’d taken a cab home. Talked to the neighbor behind her who’d come over to ask about all of the police cars at her house earlier in the day and about her grandmother. Apparently, Gram’s release from prison had been filmed by someone in the crowd and put up on social media, making quite the local stir.

  The woman offered to get Forester for her, but Everleigh had heard the hesitancy in her voice. “You want to keep him?” she asked the older woman, who already had two other cats.

  “He does play nice with my girls,” she said. “And he sits in my chair with me at night.”

  The cat rarely came out from under the bed when Everleigh was around. He’d been Fritz’s pet, really. And Fritz coming home to work every day—his apartment had been little more than a hotel room—made sense now that he’d left the cat. And maybe Everleigh’s heart hadn’t been engaged enough to the pet Fritz had brought home without even including her in the acquisition. She just hadn’t known that. And maybe Fritz had never really intended to leave. He’d come home every day to work. And he’d left his cat.

  So, Forester was out of her life. Her house was no longer a crime scene. She didn’t want to stay there, though. Wasn’t even sure she was going to keep much of the furniture. Other than her personal things, she was thinking she didn’t want anything from her life with Fritz. Who wanted reminders of being half-alive?

  She also still didn’t want to head back over to her parents’ side of town. She needed time to figure herself out, her next steps, before they started grilling her.

  Or trying to take over.

  A hotel was the best option.

  But her bag wasn’t there. How did she go to a hotel without her toiletries?

  She could buy more...but... Clarke had said he’d have the bag delivered, and she wasn’t rich until Tuesday. Buying more of what she already had was wasteful.

  Besides...what if he brought the bag over himself? Since he hadn’t gotten it over there while the police were still in residence, even if he didn’t bring it himself, she really needed to be there to get it. Either that or have it left out on the front porch in the cold.

  So, maybe she hoped he’d bring it. It had to be that way. She didn’t want to go to him. Look like she was chasing after him. He’d said “on
e and done.” And she wouldn’t make him feel as Aubrey had. She’d rather keep him for a friend than lose him forever.

  Darkness had fallen. She’d had no dinner. Didn’t want to cook ever again in the kitchen where she’d been so unhappy as a wife.

  Why hadn’t she seen? Known she was settling?

  What difference would it have made if she had, though?

  Once the question was asked, she had to sit with it. In the living room. In the dark. With a glass of wine. She’d have left Fritz if she’d known he was cheating on her.

  She needed what she had to give. The loyalty. The fidelity. And the ability to hang around through the rest of what life had to throw at you.

  The knowledge sat well with her.

  She liked that about herself.

  She liked the wine, too. And poured herself a second glass.

  * * *

  He may or may not have found what he was looking for.

  A way into a woman’s heart.

  He’d been on it for a couple of hours. Had a buddy who, while he’d been rolling with Clarke’s wild ideas since the fourth grade, now probably wondered if Clarke had finally gone off his rocker.

  Didn’t much matter to Clarke one way or the other what his buddy thought.

  What was done was done.

  He wasn’t sorry.

  Not about what he’d done.

  He was feeling a bit bad that he’d taken so long to get Everleigh’s suitcase back to her place. Most particularly when he pulled his rental car into her drive and saw her own parked there, outside the garage. She’d been home long enough to move her car.

  There were no lights on.

  And at seven o’clock, there was no way she’d be in bed.

  Heart racing double time, he had his gun out of its holster and was running for the front door. If something had happened... Larissa had told someone about the life insurance...