Summer gnawed her bottom lip as she meditated on the disturbing story Nolan laid out. “Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that she couldn’t prove rape.” She made finger quotes for emphasis. “No bruises, no incriminating posed pictures...”
“Hmph,” he grunted as he pulled out his phone and dialed a preprogrammed number. “Hi, Stu, it’s Nolan Colton.” He turned to her and mouthed, My lawyer.
I’ll be in the back, she mouthed back as she aimed a thumb to the kitchenette attached to her office.
Nolan nodded, then said into his phone, “I’ve been thinking...why didn’t Charlotte allege rape? Why not go for the whole shebang instead of limiting her accusations to—”
Summer closed the door to the kitchenette, leaving Nolan to talk with his lawyer in private. She shivered despite the bright October sun that streamed through the window and warmed the room. Nolan was in serious hot water. Cases like his were notoriously he said versus she said. But Charlotte had planted a camera. That spoke to premeditation. Or...could her lawyer spin it that she felt threatened, and the camera was a safeguard? But Nolan said she invited him to her room. Why do that if she felt threatened? But again, the invite to her room was a he said/she said issue, too.
Summer opened her mini fridge and took out a bottle of water. Yossi had followed her into the kitchenette and rubbed against her shins as he meowed for a snack. She squatted to pat his head and stroke his back. Typically Yossi helped calm her and center her after a troubling incident or when she was plagued with worry over a case. Though he rewarded her with a rumbling purr, today her cat couldn’t quiet her spinning thoughts and the squeeze of anxiety in her gut.
Nolan finished his conversation with his lawyer and opened the connecting door to her office. He filled the doorway, an imposing presence, and her pulse hiked. For the briefest moment, she thought, What if he did what Charlotte said?
He held her gaze, and as if he read her thoughts, he said, “For the record, I know how my defense sounds. I know that a lot of women have legitimate cases of being assaulted and manhandled and intimidated. It makes me physically ill to think of anything like that happening to a woman I care about. My mom, my sister...” He paused, his hard gaze softening. “Or you.”
Summer caught her breath.
He took a slow step closer, then another. “Men who take advantage of women that way are vile. There is no excuse for assaulting a woman. None. And I fully understand how, in light of recent movements on social media and in Hollywood, my defending myself sounds tone-deaf. But it’s a two-way street, Summer. Women can take advantage of men, too.”
The air she’d been holding stuttered from her. “I know that. And for the record, I believe you.”
His face scrunched as if in pain, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Thank you. That means—” when his voice cracked, he swiped a hand down his face and exhaled “—a lot to me.”
Hard bands clamped around her heart, shooting pain to her core. She’d never seen Nolan so emotional before. She’d rarely seen any man look ready to crumble the way Nolan did in that moment.
Stepping around Yossi, who still wound around her ankles, she rushed to her childhood friend and wrapped him in a hug. “Oh, Nolan. You’re gonna survive this. You’ll prove your case and get your job back. Have faith.”
He raised one wide palm to her back for a brief hug before pulling away. Clearing his throat, he pinched the bridge of his nose and gave his head a little shake. “I appreciate your support. Stuart thinks he can find enough holes in her story to give me a fighting chance. He’s working every angle. Told me not to worry.”
She chuckled without mirth. “Yeah, right.”
He took a step back and waved a hand toward the office. “So...where were we on your case?”
Summer got Nolan a bottle of water, poured dry kibble in Yossi’s bowl and returned to her desk. Nolan angled the wooden chair in front of her desk and took a seat. When Yossi snubbed her lunch offering and followed her back to the office, Nolan reached down to pat her spoiled cat.
Battling down the lingering emotion clogging her throat, Summer tried to refocus her thoughts. She had a murder to solve.
“Well,” she said and folded her arms on the file folders in front of her, “we’d need to find the guys Patrice befriended at the community college. We can start by calling the registrar and asking for a copy of her class schedule.”
“Good idea.”
“And if the Mummy Killer case or anything that’s happened with your cousins is relevant to this case, I don’t want to wait until tomorrow to talk to your cousins. If they have pertinent info about Patrice’s case, then I’d like to hear what they have to say today. I figure we’ll start with Dallas. With two newborns to care for, I doubt he and Avery will be at the barbecue.”
“You’re probably right. After everything that happened to Avery and Dallas last month, Forrest did say the new parents are sticking close to home for now.” Yossi jumped in his lap and butted Nolan’s chin with his head. Nolan grinned and obliged the feline with a scratch behind the ear. “Truth be told, I haven’t seen Dallas since I got to town, and I have my own questions for my cousin.”
“Then it’s settled.” She pulled out her phone and tapped at the screen. “I’ll text Avery and see when might be the best time to come.”
Nolan gave her nod and slow grin. “You’re in charge.”
While she waited for Avery to reply, she got up and added canned food, Yossi’s favorite, to his bowl. He trotted over and began munching away. Summer stroked his back. “You watch the office while I’m gone, big boy. Okay?”
Her phone dinged, and she checked the reply from Avery.
You’re welcome to come any time! It’s not like I can go anywhere with two newborns who want to eat every two hours. LOL
She read the text to Nolan, adding, “What do you say? No time like the present.”
Nolan stood and waved a hand toward the door. “After you, boss.”
* * *
They arrived at Avery’s house thirty minutes later after stopping at the Bluebell Diner to pick a casserole from the to-go freezer. When Dallas answered the door, Avery’s black toy poodle danced around his feet yipping at their visitors. “Lulu, hush.”
Summer handed him the pan. “Chicken supreme casserole. Avery told me the other day you were swimming in lasagna and were ready for something else.”
Dallas gave her a wide grin. “Yes! Thank you. Come on in. Avery and the babies are in there.” He hitched his head toward the living room.
“Ooh, let me at ’em! Auntie Summer’s here!” Summer said as she headed into the next room.
Nolan shook Dallas’s free hand. “Big D now stands for Daddy. Congrats, cuz.”
The former Army sergeant’s face lit like a happy jack-o’-lantern. “Best job I’ve ever had.” He glanced toward the room where Summer had disappeared. “So you and Summer reconnected. That’s great!” Lifting an eyebrow, he jabbed Nolan with his elbow. “So what’s the story? You and she—?” He waggled his eyebrow suggestively.
Nolan scowled at his cousin. “Don’t get any ideas. We’re friends. Period. And we’re looking into Patrice Eccleston’s murder together, so any info you can share on that front is welcome.”
Dallas’s expression sobered. “Absolutely. Avery and I were investigating that before the twins came. Any help I can offer is yours.” He paused, blinking tiredly. “I mean...so long as I can find someone to come stay with Avery. It’s too soon to leave her alone with two babies.”
Nolan nodded, reading more behind his cousin’s reluctance to leave his fiancée than the newborns. Dallas had lost his first wife in a tragedy that had scarred him deeply, and from what Nolan had heard from the family, Avery’s delivery of the twins had been touch and go for a while. “For now, information is what we need, thanks. I wouldn’t think of tearing you away from diaper duty.”
Nolan slapped his cousin on the back and turned to head into the front room. The sight that greeted him caught him off guard, and he pulled up short.
Summer, dewy-eyed and glowing with tender affection, held one of the babies and was cooing and nuzzling the newborn. His heart throbbed a couple slow, heavy beats, making his head feel light. He experienced an odd sort of déjà vu, which made no sense because he hadn’t seen Summer in years. Yet she looked so natural holding the baby, so damn happy, that he had to take a minute and stare, to absorb the moment and process it.
Beautiful. His childhood friend was utterly beautiful and glowing. From the roots of his hair to his toenails, Nolan was filled with an urgency to find a way to make Summer that happy all the time. He yearned to have her look at him with that shiny-eyed joy and rapt attention. With a love that radiated from every pore.
“Hey, FBI guy, I got one here for you, too.”
Avery’s voice broke the spell that had mesmerized him, and he forced a smile of greeting to his face. What the hell had just come over him? Was he seriously having crazy flashes about Summer? Hadn’t he just hours ago sworn to himself and stipulated to her that their relationship had to remain platonic? So where were these starry-eyed fairy-tale thoughts coming from? He exhaled and swiped a hand down his face, centering himself before entering the living room, where Avery and Summer were holding the two-week-old twins.
The new mother raised the bundle in her arms, offering for Nolan to hold her infant son. “I told Ezekiel his very important cousin Nolan was coming over, and he can’t wait to meet you.”
He waved her off. “I, uh...don’t know anything about holding babies.”
Avery chuckled. “Dallas was nervous at first, too. But it’s really simple. You bend your arms to create a nest shape, then just snuggle him against your chest. Just remember to support his head for him.”
“Go on, Bullfrog. He doesn’t bite,” Summer said, chuckling at him.
Avery sputtered a laugh. “Bullfrog?”
“That’s the nickname I gave him when we were kids,” Summer said with a sparkle of mischief in her gaze.
Nolan groaned, pleading with his eyes. “Don’t...”
But she did.
“We were having this bonfire one night. I think it was the Fourth of July, and Nolan and his cousins had been drinking lots of soda at dinner.” Summer’s grin grew broader as she recounted the tale. “And boys being boys, they decided to have a burping contest.”
Dallas returned from the kitchen at that moment. “Who burped? My boy?”
“No, you did, apparently. Along with your cousin here.” Avery patted the couch beside her, inviting Dallas to sit next to her.
Nolan pulled a face. “Summer is determined to embarrass me in front of your fiancée.”
Dallas smirked. “Please continue, Summer.”
“Well... Nolan won the contest hands down when he let loose with a belch that was so loud and so deep I told him he sounded like a bullfrog.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that. Good times!” Dallas said, chuckling.
Avery laughed so hard that she woke the baby in her arms.
“And the name stuck.” Summer settled back in her seat, clearly proud of herself.
“Seeing as she was my shadow that summer and half my size, I took to calling her Tadpole in return,” Nolan said, finishing the story.
“Bullfrog and Tadpole, together again. Sounds like a children’s book,” Avery quipped.
Nolan studied Summer, her face lit with mirth and a wisp of dark blond hair curling in to tickle her full lips. Nothing about his male impulses at that moment was appropriate for a child’s story. Before anything in his expression could give away the errant direction of his thoughts, he faced his several-times-removed cousin and cleared his throat. “The purpose of our visit is actually to get info from you about a case Summer’s working on.”
“Partly. The main purpose of our trip is to love on these sweet babies and see how my bestie is doing,” Summer corrected.
An odd sensation poked him in the gut when she called Avery her bestie. My God, Colton, you’re a thirty-year-old man, not a jealous little boy. Why should you care whom she calls her best friend? But that tiny suggestion that they weren’t as close, didn’t still have the tight relationship they’d once enjoyed did bother him. He’d tried to stay in touch with Summer over the years. He thought of her often, and when their letter writing dwindled and he’d lost track of her, he’d mourned the loss. Summer had always made him happy in ways no woman he’d dated nor any male friend had. That friendship, that sense of...what? Completion? Complement? Comfort? Whatever it was...had returned instantly when she’d hugged him so enthusiastically in the Lone Star Pharma parking lot.
“But while we are here,” she said, narrowing a speculative look on the new parents, “we’d also like to hear anything you can tell us about Patrice Eccleston’s murder.” She scrunched her face in distaste. “Oh, man, how I hate to even bring up such a vile topic around these sweet, innocent ears.” She raised the infant in her arms and pressed tiny kisses on the baby’s tiny seashell ears.
Dallas and Avery exchanged a look—his concerned, hers stricken.
“What?” Nolan said, wagging a finger between them. “Why the look?”
“Your investigation just cuts close to the bone. We were interviewing a suspect a couple weeks ago with Forrest and Rae—Forrest’s new fiancée,” Dallas said, clarifying for his cousin as he took a seat next to Avery.
“Yeah, I’m staying at the ranch. I’ve met her.”
Dallas nodded. “Right. Well, the suspect died quite suddenly and suspiciously while we were there for the interview.”
“It was pretty horrifying,” Avery said, her complexion piqued just from the memory.
“I can imagine!” Summer furrowed her brow and shot her friend a commiserating frown. Then tilting her head, she asked, “Are you referring to Horace Corgan? The man responsible for the Mummy Murders?”
Dallas nodded. “The same. Before he died, he confessed to killing the women who were found mummified, but he adamantly denied killing Patrice.”
“According to what her father told me about the condition of her body when she was discovered, Patrice wasn’t mummified like the others,” Summer said. “So that rather supports the case that Patrice’s killer was someone else, and Corgan was telling the truth.”
Nolan made a mental note to finish reviewing Summer’s notes from her first meeting with Atticus Eccleston when they got back to her office so he was up to speed on the key information about Patrice’s remains.
“Seems that way,” Avery said, shifting baby Zeke onto her shoulder when he started to fuss. “He went into rather disturbing detail about his appetite for young beauties and how he mummified them to, quote, ‘preserve their beauty.’” Avery gave a shudder, her cheeks paling further.
Dallas slid a hand to Avery’s knee and squeezed, and she responded with a shaky smile.
“For Corgan to have gone into such detail, to have confessed to his evil deeds and then flatly deny responsibility for Patrice’s murder...” Summer chewed her bottom lip, a thought line creasing her forehead. “Did he give any indication he knew who was responsible?”
Dragging a hand along his unshaven jaw, Dallas nodded. “Maybe. When he was gasping, taking his last breaths, he said, ‘Melody.’ I’ve been wanting to investigate who or what he meant by that, but—” he stroked a crooked finger along Zeke’s cheek and tugged up the corner of his mouth “—I’ve been a little preoccupied.”
Summer grinned at Avery and Dallas. “I’d say so.”
A niggling se
nsation stirred in Nolan’s chest as he watched his cousin and Avery coo over Zeke. Dallas was so obviously over the moon in his new role as father. The pride and sheer bliss shone through the fatigue in his eyes. Nolan took a moment to consider what it would be like to be in Dallas’s shoes. To suddenly discover he was a father. To settle down and start a family. To set aside his career, walk away from the danger of going undercover in homegrown terrorist cells, give up the constant travel and unknowns connected to his job in order to take care of a family.
His gaze moved to Summer, as if by their own volition. Which was crazy because, well...she was Summer. And he’d laid out very specific parameters for their collaboration.
After the debacle with Charlotte—
An icy feeling sank into his bones.
“You said Corgan died suddenly while you were there to interview him. How’d he die? What happened?” Summer’s questions jerked Nolan from his disconcerting line of thought. He shook off the sidetrack in order to focus on the matter at hand. He would be no help to Summer if he allowed the mess with Charlotte to continue to distract him.
Avery drew a tremulous breath and rasped, “Corgan was murdered.”
Chapter 6
“What!” Summer sat straighter, and her jaw slackened.
Dallas gripped his fiancée’s arm gently, soothing her with the caress of his thumb. “Avery?”
Closing her eyes, Avery inhaled deeply. “I’m okay.”
Turning back to Nolan and Summer, Dallas explained. “When we arrived at Horace Corgan’s place, he was already in bad shape. He was in the late stages of lung cancer and had an oxygen tube in his nose. At one point, after he denied any responsibility for Patrice’s death, Rae, Forrest, Avery and I stepped out of his room to confer. While we were out his oxygen tube was removed, and he started coughing badly. We rushed in to check on him. He was struggling to get air, coughing up blood, his color indicative that he was suffocating without the tube.”
“Dear God! How awful!” Summer said, dividing a horrified glance between her friends. “Who could have done that? With you right there? I don’t understand...”
Colton 911--Deadly Texas Reunion Page 7