Deadly Colton Search (The Coltons 0f Mustang Valley Book 10)

by Addison Fox

  * * *

  Adam Kirk fumbled with the strip of fabric at his neck. It was one of the things he hadn’t yet found the solution to, the intricate motions of knotting a tie at his throat one-handed, and with his nondominant hand. But he would. Someday.

  His cell phone chirped a reminder that he was supposed to leave in ten minutes. With a sigh he surrendered. He pulled off the blue tie and held it in front of him, following his sister Natalie’s suggestion that he simply tie it before he put it on. He managed it there, where he could use both hands. He slipped the noose—his father’s word for it—over his head, under the collar of the crisp white shirt, and by pressing the tail end against his chest with his right hand, tightened it neatly with the other.

  “You don’t have to go, you know.”

  He glanced at the mirror, saw his sister’s face from where she was standing in the doorway of his room. Nat’s brow was furrowed with worry. She’d grown up well. She would never make a mess of her life the way he had.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered quietly.

  “From what you’ve told me of him, he wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “It’s not his expectations I’m dealing with.”

  Nat sighed. “You’ve got an outsize sense of responsibility, bro.”

  He felt the knot in his gut that had been there since he’d gotten up at 4:00 a.m. tighten another notch. “I am responsible.”

  “Stop it. You are not.”

  He didn’t answer. There was nothing more to say. He knew what he knew. And the simple fact was that a good, good man, and a good cop, was dead because of him. That five years had passed didn’t change that.

  “Please be careful, Adam. It’s such a long drive.”

  “Mmm.”

  “You’ll be back tomorrow, right? Before the snow hits?”

  She sounded anxious. He knew it was because the snow that was forecast for the Palouse would likely dump on the Cascade Mountains—which he had to traverse—first.

  “Should be,” he said.

  “If it’s too bad—”

  “Nat, stop.” He turned to look at her. “I love you, but stop.”

  He pulled on his heavy jacket in deference to the temperature, which at this hour sat a good five degrees below freezing. If he was lucky, he’d be there before eleven. He had an appointment tomorrow morning, then he’d hit the road back, hopefully beating the near-blizzard they were predicting.

  “I started your truck.” He turned to look at her, surprised. She only shrugged. “It’ll be all nice and warm. And I packed you a lunch. Coffee’s in the thermos.”

  For a moment he just stared at the young woman who had once been that little girl who had tagged after him like one of the ranch dogs. Then he hugged her, rather fiercely.

  “Hey. I’m the big brother, I’m supposed to look out for you.”

  “You always have. I’m just paying a little back.” She pulled back slightly and looked up at him. “Will you do one thing for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “Promise me you’ll think—at least think—about making this the last time?”

  He actually had thought of it. Five years seemed...significant somehow. But when did responsibility like this—and guilt—ever end?

  You know when. Never.

  He kissed her forehead, and headed out into the cold.

  And he didn’t make that promise.

  * * *

  The bright winter sun arrowed down from the mountains and through the trees. It was incredibly quiet, as it seemed it should be here in this place. Quinn Foxworth looked out across the sea of green, the tidy, regimented lines of markers. He’d been in places like this too often. And he hated it every time. Even before he’d been old enough to understand what death and forever really meant, he’d hated it.

  “I love you for this, you know. That you remember, and honor.”

  Hayley’s voice was gentle, her hand soft around his. As always, his heart sped up at the sound of her voice, at her touch. He wondered if he could find the words to tell her how much stronger she made him. How much her quiet understanding meant to him. He would try, later. But right now he’d spotted the small figure huddled by a gravestone halfway down the row.

  “She’s here.”

  “Do you want some time alone with her?”

  He looked at his wife. Smiled at her. “She’ll want to see you as much as me.”

  “I doubt that, but thank you. Still, I think I’ll hold back a little. Give you a moment. Here, take these.” She handed him the bouquet of flowers she’d made him stop to pick up on their way here.

  Quinn nodded, and gave her hand a squeeze. Then he walked toward the grave and the young woman beside it. She’d obviously been there awhile. From what he knew of this yearly ritual, probably since before the sun rose, never mind the cold. It was warmer now, at least in the sunlight, and she’d shed the heavy coat that now lay beside her on the blanket she was sitting on.

  She didn’t seem to notice him as he approached, and he was unsurprised to see the dampness on her cheeks. He knew as well as anyone that grief like this never went away, it only changed.

  “Doesn’t seem possible it’s been five years, does it?” he said softly.

  Amanda’s head snapped around, and when she saw him she leaped to her feet. “Quinn!”

  She ran to him and enveloped him in a hug. He hugged her back. “I won’t ask how you are today, because I can guess.”

  She looked up at him. “I know you can. But I’m okay the rest of the time, truly. It’s just today that’s so hard.”

  He nodded. “I know. It always will be, to some extent. But your work’s going well.”

  She had become what she called a victim advocate shortly after her father’s death. She had told Quinn about her choice that first year, when they had happened to meet here on this same day. “I felt so helpless, and I had so much help from Dad’s friends, and you, making decisions, thinking clearly for me when I couldn’t. I can’t imagine how anyone without that kind of support system survives something like this. So I want to be that system, for people who don’t have anyone else.”

  That had been enough for him to contact Charlie and suggest the Foxworth Foundation help out.

  “It is,” she answered now. “Thanks to Foxworth and Dad’s insurance. You may get to stop supporting us someday.”

  “We’ll support you as long as necessary, and probably after that, too,” Quinn said. “Not sorry you turned down that lucrative job offer?”

  Amanda smiled. “No. Working for the city council would have been close to my worst nightmare, although it was nice of Ms. Harris to offer.” She looked up at him intently. “What about you? You’re all right? No...lingering aftereffects?”

  “I’m fine.” It was true; he felt nothing more than an occasional tightness from the bullet he’d taken in the moment before he’d grabbed her dying father’s sidearm and taken down the man who’d come out of the shadows and shot them both. Well, and some extreme pleasure when Hayley lingered over the scar above his hip before she journeyed farther south...

  She looked around, saying, “Is Hayley with you?” and snapping him out of that pleasant reverie. And then she spotted his wife several yards away and waved at her. “She’s so sweet. No wonder you’re crazy about her.”

  “That I am,” Quinn said with a grin, still feeling the heat his last thought had brought on.

  Hayley nodded to Amanda, and began to slowly walk toward them as Quinn bent to place the spray of flowers beside the headstone.

  “She looks as happy as she did at the wedding,” Amanda said. “And so do you.”

  “I am. And I hope she is.”

  “Thank you both for coming,” Amanda said. “It means so much to me.”

  “Five years felt like it should be marked, somehow,” Quinn said.

&n
bsp; “I—”

  She stopped abruptly, and Quinn saw her looking past him. Instinctively, he turned. Spotted the man approaching them from the east.

  “Adam,” he said softly. “He must have felt the same way.”

  “I do not care what Adam Kirk feels, about anything, ever,” Amanda said tightly. “And I’ll be leaving now.”

  Quinn’s head snapped back around. There had been nothing short of venom in her voice. It was so unlike her he frowned.

  “You still blame him?” he asked.

  She frowned. “Of course I do. It was his fault. He could have stopped it, and he didn’t.”

  “Amanda, he couldn’t—”

  “My father died because he was sloppy. Because he made an assumption. He admits it himself.” Her voice rose slightly. “And I hate him.”

  “Believe me,” came a low voice from behind them, “I know. And you’re not alone.”

  Quinn turned again, and this time Adam Kirk was close enough for him to see his eyes. And there was a look in them he recognized all too well. They used to call it battlefield guilt.

  Survivor’s guilt.

  Copyright © 2020 by Janice Davis Smith

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Deception by Kat Martin.

  The Deception

  by Kat Martin

  Chapter 1

  Dallas, Texas

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Gallagher. I know this is terribly difficult, but unless there’s someone else who can make a positive identification—”

  Kate shook her head. “No. There’s no one else.”

  “All right then, if you will please follow me.” The medical examiner, Dr. Jerome Maxwell, a man in his fifties, had thick black hair finely threaded with gray. He started down the hall, but Kate stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Are you...are you completely sure it’s my sister?” She smoothed a hand nervously over the skirt of her navy blue suit. “The victim is definitely Christina Gallagher?”

  “There was a fingerprint match to your missing sister. I’m sorry,” he repeated. “We’ll still need your confirmation.”

  Kate’s stomach rolled. Her legs felt weak as she followed Dr. Maxwell down a narrow, seemingly endless hallway in the Dallas County morgue. The echo of her high heels on the stark gray linoleum floor sent a sweep of nausea through her.

  The doctor paused outside a half-glass door. “As I said before, this is going to be difficult. Are you sure there isn’t someone you can call, someone else who could make the identification?”

  Kate’s throat tightened. “My father’s remarried and living in New York. He hasn’t seen Chrissy in years.” Frank Gallagher hadn’t seen either of his daughters since he and his wife had divorced.

  “And your mother?” the doctor asked kindly.

  “She died of a heart attack a year after Chrissy ran away.” For Madeleine Gallagher, losing both her husband and her daughter had simply been too much.

  The doctor straightened his square black glasses. “Are you ready?”

  “I’ll never be ready to see my sister’s murdered body, Dr. Maxwell. But I’m all Chrissy has, so let’s get it over with.”

  The doctor opened the door, and they walked out of a hallway that seemed overly warm into a room that was icy cold. A shiver rushed over Kate’s skin, and her heart beat faster. As Dr. Maxwell moved toward a rollout table in front of a wall of cold-storage boxes, Kate could see the outline of a body beneath the stark white sheet.

  Emotion tightened her chest. This was her baby sister, only sixteen the last time Kate had seen her two years ago, before she had run away.

  The doctor nodded to a female assistant in a white lab coat standing next to the table, and the woman pulled back the sheet.

  “Oh, my God.” The bile rose in Kate’s throat. She swayed, and the doctor caught her arm to steady her.

  “Is this your sister, Christina Gallagher?”

  The body on the table in no way resembled the beautiful young girl who had been her little sister. At only eighteen, this young woman was gaunt, her cheeks hollow, her skin chaffed and sallow and clinging to her bones. Her closed eyes were dark and sunken. Bruises covered her face, shoulders and chest, all Kate could see of the body.

  Tears welled and slipped down her cheeks. “It’s her.” It wasn’t Chrissy in any way Kate remembered her, and yet there was no doubt she was the thin, brutalized, lifeless form lying on the stainless-steel table.

  The doctor nodded at the assistant, who drew the sheet back over Chrissy’s face. Dr. Maxwell kept a firm grip on Kate’s arm as he turned her toward the door and guided her out of the room, back into the hallway. Her legs were shaking, her throat too tight to speak.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the doctor said, finally letting her go.

  “Thank...thank you.”

  “We have your contact information. You’ll be notified when the body has been released.”

  She swallowed, wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Do you...do the police have any leads on the killer?”

  “I’m sure they’re working hard to find whoever was involved.”

  Kate nodded. Without saying more, she started back down the hallway. The doctor didn’t follow and she was glad. There was nothing left to say, nothing more he could do.

  Tears blurred her vision and her head swam as she walked out into the sunlight and crossed the parking lot to her car. She wouldn’t be returning to her office today. She needed time to deal with her crushing emotions, the sense of loss and pain. The terrible sense of failure.

  She needed time to grieve.

  Kate slid in behind the wheel and shoved her key into the ignition. Fresh pain struck so hard she couldn’t breathe. Instead of starting the engine, Kate put her head down on the steering wheel and started to weep.

  Copyright © 2019 by Kat Martin

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  ISBN: 9781488064043

  Deadly Colton Search

  Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Addison Fox for her contribution to The Coltons of Mustang Valley miniseries.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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