Colton Nursery Hideout

by Dana Nussio

  “Sure she is,” he said before he could stop himself.

  “How’s that?”

  She watched him the way she probably did suspects during questioning. Like they must have, he couldn’t help squirming, so he moved to the window before finally turning back to her.

  “She’s the ... Well, like a told you earlier, she’s the co-CEO at Colton Plastics.”

  Her expression told him that, like earlier, she didn’t believe him. If she only knew. But, for once, Melissa didn’t call him on his bull.

  “I guess you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do. Now you need to get home. I bet you haven’t seen Antonio all day.”

  Bringing up his sister’s fiancé, Antonio Ruiz, was unfair, but he needed to convince her to leave so he could get back to Tatiana.

  “Guess I’ll call him to say good night.” At the door, she turned around once more. “If your co-CEO tries to hide her father, I will arrest her, even if I have to do it in your home.”

  “Noted.”

  “And if you help her do it, I’ll—”

  “I get it.”

  She lifted both hands in frustration, but finally she exited and closed the door behind her.

  Travis barely waited for the patrol car to pull from his drive before he rushed downstairs. He wasn’t sure what he would say when he reached Tatiana. Somehow, though, he had to convince her that despite his mistake in bringing in another Colton to harass her, his place was still where she needed to stay. What he couldn’t decide was whether it was for her and their child’s security—or his.

  Chapter 8

  The dog walker rounded the corner just as the last patrol car pulled away from the entrance to Grave Gulch Park. His yellow Labrador retriever trudged beside him, her fur nearly blending in with the snow. He’d done such a good job of disappearing into the night himself, with his dark hat, coat, and boots, that he’d risked their lives every time they’d stepped off a curb around all the unobservant drivers.

  Why weren’t the police worried about those menaces to society, endangering the lives of innocent pedestrians and pets? But no. They were focused on following poor Tatiana, as if they expected her to flip on her own dad. The cops were sniffing along the wrong trail this time. He smiled into the darkness. Tatiana Davison was no more a snitch than anyone could call him innocent. Not after tonight.

  “She’s a good daughter, Polly. Just like you’re a good girl.”

  The dog sat on the sidewalk, which was a narrow trench between two snowdrifts, and stared up at him, whining.

  “Now don’t complain. How many times do you get a good long walk like this one? Anyway, you’ve got a fur coat, plus that sweater and boots. I’m the one who’s freezing.”

  He zipped his parka higher and tugged on the leash. After a little reluctance, the dog plodded forward again. She wasn’t as enthusiastic as she’d been two hours earlier when he’d driven her from his house on the unfortunate east side of Grave Gulch Boulevard to a spot near the park on the west side. But he never had to question Polly’s loyalty. Unlike so many others he knew.

  At the next corner, he stopped and glanced back at the park. It looked empty and forlorn now that the flashing lights from patrol cars and the ambulance, plus the crowd of nosy neighbors, were gone. He would still find crime-scene tape if he followed the bike trails into the park. It just wouldn’t be the same.

  The rush after firing his nine-millimeter semiautomatic and watching a dark hole bloom on his target’s chest had been so amazing that a weaker man would have squeezed the trigger a second time. Even with that silencer, that hadn’t been nearly as quiet as he’d hoped. Still, he was too disciplined to lose control like that. Though he’d found staging the body less, well, satisfying than taking the original shot, and quite messy, he’d carefully stuck to the plan. He’d arranged the guy’s arms over his abdomen and had taken only cash, though that wallet had contained a half dozen credit cards, one of them platinum.

  But an homage had to be perfect. A single gunshot wound to the chest. Hands folded just right. Only cash missing.

  Len Davison deserved to be honored, if for no other reason than he’d made headlines in the Grave Gulch Gazette with a name other than Colton. A serial killer right in his town? Davison would put Grave Gulch, Michigan, on the map. The shooter had been shocked by his good fortune, and that was before he’d learned that Davison’s beautiful daughter was returning to town and would be working at Colton Plastics.

  If that wasn’t kismet, he didn’t know what was.

  For weeks, he’d been planning tonight’s events to coincide with Tatiana’s arrival. No detail was too inconsequential if he hoped to impress Len Davison’s only child with this tribute to her dad. And it had played out perfectly. Even the victim had arrived in the park alone, saving him from the moral dilemma of having to separate a pet from its owner. That was the one thing about Davison’s work that hadn’t quite fit for him, leaving an animal stranded.

  What kind of deviant walked on a winter night without a dog, anyway? Well, he had earlier, out of necessity, but he couldn’t have created the scene accurately with Polly there. Also, he needed to protect his dog from seeing sights that might upset her.

  Tatiana would be so impressed with his efforts. She was a daddy’s girl, after all.

  “It’s as if you brought Tatiana to me as a gift,” he said to Len and to the darkness.

  When his dog whined again, he startled and glanced around to ensure he hadn’t been overheard. He would need to be more careful now that the police would be hunting for Davison in the area.

  “Okay, girl, let’s go home. We both deserve treats tonight.”

  Polly picked up on one of her familiar words as she danced around, pulling on the leash. He tugged it a little tighter and looked back at the park once more, farther away now and swallowed by winter and night.

  Even if his trigger finger didn’t tingle the way it had earlier, and his heart was no longer beating out a hard-rock drum solo, he was content as he returned to his SUV and opened the passenger door for Polly. If the pattern held, Len Davison would one day be immortalized in true-crime books alongside some of his other favorite serial killers. He couldn’t wait to add those volumes to his collection. Whenever he read them, he could relive that exhilarating moment when he’d watched that guy hit the snow, already spattered with his blood. Even better, Davison’s daughter would be cuddled up next to him while he read.

  * * *

  Tatiana stepped into the elevator at Colton Plastics two mornings later, grateful to have survived her first solo walk-through in the lab on the first floor. She hadn’t felt alone, however, when she could see and feel the gazes of so many employees on her, some blatantly gawking while others were more covert.

  She couldn’t blame them for their curiosity. Travis might have sneaked her into the building again that morning, using the same company van and procedures they’d employed since Monday night, but the rest of the staff had been forced to pass reporters shouting questions for two days. Didn’t the media think it was premature to ask them all what it was like to work with a serial killer’s daughter when she’d been there less than a week?

  As the elevator doors closed, Tatiana sighed. At least she would have a two-minute break from having to feel like a bug in an insect collection. How would she ever be an effective manager and earn the respect of the employees when she was already the focus of break-room gossip?

  The doors stopped and reversed course, as if someone had pushed the up arrow too soon.

  “Sorry about that,” Jan Kennedy said as she boarded the elevator. “But this thing takes forever to return if it reaches the third floor. By tomorrow, you’ll see why almost everyone takes the stairs most of the time.”

  “I’ll make sure to wear comfortable shoes.”

  “You’ll be glad you did.” Jan pointed to the low-heeled, sens
ible walkers she’d worn with her navy slacks and sweater.

  Tatiana glanced down at her own high-heeled boots below her long skirt. The footwear and probably most of the clothes that she and Travis had retrieved from her hotel made more sense in fashion-forward Paris than a small city in Michigan. She clearly had some shopping to do.

  “Have you made it through the pile of résumés on your desk?” Jan asked as she checked off items on her list. “Call me and I’ll schedule the interviews.”

  “I’ll finish those today. Travis is lucky to have you as an assistant.”

  The older woman smiled at that, deep dimples denting her cheeks. “I let him know that every chance I get.”

  “Well, good,” Tatiana said as the doors slid open. Jan looked up from the emails on her phone and started out the door. “Oh, Jan.” She waited for the other woman to turn back. “Sorry about Monday morning. It was an intense first day. At least yesterday was a little better.”

  “Don’t give it another thought. I imagine it was quite a surprise when the police arrived.”

  “And about the other thing later, sorry for that, too. Jet lag really got to me, so I wasn’t feeling great, and then the police showing up was so upsetting...” Tatiana paused, running out of excuses.

  Jan brushed her hand through the air as if to push Tatiana’s worries aside. “None of my business, but I hope you’re feeling better.”

  Though Tatiana suspected that Travis’s assistant knew more than she was letting on, she couldn’t help her momentary relief. Keeping her secret would be tough if she spent every morning in her office restroom getting an up-close view of the commode.

  “I do feel better.”

  “Good to hear.”

  After half a dozen crackers, anyway, Tatiana was confident that the breakfast Travis had insisted that she eat would stay down. Her lips lifted at the memory of the hot bowl of oatmeal, plate of fruit, and glass of milk that had been waiting for her when she made it upstairs that morning.

  How was she supposed to keep up her guard around him when he kept doing nice things like that? She wasn’t even holding a grudge over his misguided decision to set up a chat with his sister the other night. The least she could do was to be a little suspicious of his protectiveness over her, but the temptation to, just this once, let someone take care of her was too strong. Anyway, his attention was kind of sweet.

  Jan took off down the corridor at a good clip with Tatiana trailing behind her. They shifted to the side as they came upon three employees, too caught up in their own conversation to pay attention to hall traffic.

  “I’ve been on the phone with them all morning,” the pale woman with a short cap of red hair was telling them.

  The older man, a ring of salt-and-pepper hair topping his olive-hued face, stepped into Jan and Tatiana’s path without looking up from the tablet in his hand. “If we can’t get the plastic-injection-molding shop to put a rush on that repair—”

  The third employee, with an umber complexion and a clean-shaven head, reached out his arm like a toll-booth bar. “Watch out.”

  The three managed to stop without a collision, but Tatiana still pressed her back to the wall. They trampled each other’s apologies.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Jan said. “Have you met our new co-CEO, Tatiana Davison?”

  All three shook their heads. The odds were still fair that anyone they passed would require an introduction, even after two days. Jan gestured to the woman, then the older man and finally the younger one.

  “Meet Christa Zimmerman, Enzio DeLuca and Blake Foster. Three of our finest engineers.”

  “The backbone of the company, of course,” Tatiana said with a grin as she shook their hands. “But as an engineer myself, my opinion might be slanted in your favor.”

  She pretended not to notice when they sneaked glances at her while continuing the trip past the elevator toward the east stairway.

  “It’ll get easier,” Jan assured her as they stopped at Tatiana’s office.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Oh.” The assistant held up her index finger. “I’m supposed to let you know that sometime tomorrow, the guys from the IT department, either Lucas McAllister or Dylan Evans, will be doing some work with your computer.”

  “Is there a problem with it?”

  “No. They’re just updating your security. And don’t be surprised if you get another call from human resources. They’ll want to register you for some diversity and anti-harassment compliance training.”

  “Good to know. Hopefully, I can hire my AA this week, so you won’t have to split your time between Travis and me.”

  “I don’t mind. Makes him appreciate me more,” Jan said with a grin.

  Tatiana hurried into her office and sat behind her desk. Getting up to speed on her work was taking longer than she’d hoped, so she promised herself she would finish evaluating résumés before lunch. That while in her office she could avoid curious stares from the employees and glimpses of reporters were bonuses, as far as she was concerned.

  Unfortunately, the silence also gave her mind too much freedom to wander. Instead of the words on the pages citing candidates’ qualifications, she could only see that news broadcast from the other night. For just one moment, she’d believed that it had all been a bad dream. If her father couldn’t have committed one murder, then maybe he was innocent of the other two. Chief Colton had dashed that hope with talk of more DNA evidence. But then, Len Davison had done a fine job of crushing her belief in him when he’d phoned after his release from jail.

  I’m sorry, dumpling.

  The words replayed in her mind like a song on repeat. Those three words, the only ones he’d spoken before hanging up, hadn’t been part of an outright confession but enough to make a daughter question her own father and then despise herself for her disloyalty.

  I’m sorry, dumpling.

  Now the words covered her like a weighted blanket over her head, pressing her chin to her chest and suffocating her breath by breath. The body count had grown to three, murders connected through either participation or mimicry. Though she’d desperately wanted to hold on to her belief in her father’s innocence, her fingers were being pried away from that conviction, knuckle by knuckle.

  Tatiana shook her head and took several deep breaths, waiting for her stomach to settle. When it did, she set the résumés aside and opened her folio instead. She tapped her finger down each bullet point in her list from “meet each member of the engineering department” to “familiarize self with primary suppliers.” At the bottom, she’d added “buy sensible shoes” and the more cryptic “schedule checkup” to indicate the next day’s appointment with the obstetrician to confirm her pregnancy.

  More focused now but not yet ready to tackle evaluating potential employees again, she launched the email software on her laptop. How could she already have thirty unread messages, all marked “high priority?” She would work her way through those and then return to the résumés.

  She clicked on each of the first few messages. The ones Travis had promised to send, with internal documents on CP’s short-and long-term goals, would be helpful to her in flattening her learning curve. She was pleased to know that in addition to the ability to make a mean rigatoni dish and his skills in some more private areas, Travis Colton was good at his job. More than that, he seemed to respect her role there, treating her as a true equal, though she hadn’t had the chance to contribute yet.

  As she scanned the list, a message in the middle of her screen caught her attention. In the subject box, it said, “Welcome Tatiana Davison!” Since it was probably a new employee packet from HR, she nearly passed it for more critical messages, but the company title in the email address made her look twice.

  “‘Friends of Tatiana Davison?’ What’s that all about?”

  She hesitated a second before clicking the messag
e to open it. Her jaw dropped as she read.

  You belong with me. And since you’re Daddy’s Girl, I’ll make sure nothing changes.

  Her pulse thudding in her temples, Tatiana leaned forward in her office chair and stared at the mysterious words. Was this a joke? A prank on the new employee, who was such an easy target because of her father? But the chill scaling her spine in icy fingers told her there was neither a punch line nor rascals hiding in her office closet ready to shout “serial killer’s daughter” through the company hallways.

  “I ‘belong?’” she asked aloud. The choice of words was particularly cruel since she didn’t feel comfortable anywhere lately.

  Her hand hovered over the external mouse, her fingers trembling. Should she report the message to company security? The police? Was it even that serious? She twirled the arrow on the screen until it pointed to the trash can at the top of the page. She considered putting it there. No one would have to know about the note. And, if it had been a joke, she would get the last laugh.

  But as she shifted the mouse to the X to close the email, the message scrolled higher, showing another line farther down the page. One she’d missed.

  PS You look beautiful in that shade of blue.

  Slowly, Tatiana lowered her gaze to her blouse. Silk. Office-appropriate. Royal blue. Someone was watching her? She gasped. Her gaze darted to each corner of the office. She hadn’t noticed cameras before, but had she been looking closely enough? When she still didn’t see any, she rushed to one of the windows that looked down on the courtyard. Only two second-floor offices, hers and Travis’s, had that garden view. Still, the window-lined hallways would have made it possible for someone on the opposite side of the building to see her from several vantage points.

  She scanned the deserted hallway once more and then hurried back to her desk and grabbed her office phone. As she started to dial, her gaze lifted to the top of her laptop where the tiny circle of a built-in camera looked back at her. She slammed the lid shut and dialed an internal number without hesitation this time.