Читать книгу: «The Coltons of Shadow Creek»

Chapter 1

The vision that walked toward his open office door differed mightily from the broke college student he’d last seen a few years ago. Jeremy Kincaid forgot all about the exciting new investment opportunity in a high-tech night vision equipment start-up. Adeline Winters seemed to float with each smooth, graceful stride. She could just as easily be on a catwalk as in his reception area.

Her endlessly long legs made the light gray trousers wave as she moved. The open lapels of her knee-length black trench coat offered glimpses of slender hips beneath the fitted hem of a gray button-up vest. Modest cleavage peeked out from above a soft, silky yellow shirt, very business-like. Thick, shoulder-length blond hair fanned out. He drank in the sight of her. By the time she stopped at his office door, her porcelain skin and naturally pink lips arrested him next, and then her keen, light blue eyes snapped him out of his trance.

He stood, feeling as though he might have to control his drool. Clearing his throat, he got a hold of himself and stepped away from his chair. Did she have the same reaction to seeing him again? She held a leather padfolio in one arm. Her gaze took in his form as he came around the desk, but he couldn’t be sure the same electric sexual awareness afflicted her.

“Ms. Winters. Thank you for coming.” He shook her soft hand.

“Adeline. Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Jeremy.” He smiled as he looked down at her attire. “College seems to have agreed with you.”

A slight answering smile curved her perfect lips. “My business is growing. Maybe after this meeting, it will grow even more.”

She’d turned her criminal justice degree into her own private investigation agency. When he’d learned that, the wheels in his head had started spinning. Not only did he admire anyone with the know-how and courage to blaze their own path—he’d built his own business on the same steam—he could use her expertise.

Putting the padfolio down on one of two plush brown leather chairs facing his big, cherrywood desk, she removed her coat and draped it over the arm. She had a gun holster and an ammo pouch fastened to her belt. While he wondered about that, she looked up at his thirty-six-by-forty-eight black-and-white picture of the moon, half in sunlight and half in shadow.

“That was taken by an imaging satellite,” he explained. “The founder of a start-up I invested in sent it to me.”

She looked over the rest of his office. A whiteboard covered one wall and pictures of ranch land accented a conference table. A credenza took up the space behind his desk.

After taking those in, she returned her attention to him. “You like ranching and stargazing?”

“Ranching is in the family. Not me. I’m a businessman.” He looked over the photos. “I like investing in technological concepts, seeing entrepreneurs take an idea and turn it into a success. I built my first company from nothing and started investing after I sold it.”

“To the moon and back.” She smiled wider than before. “I knew you invested but I didn’t know you sold your first company. Tess never mentioned that.” She wandered to the whiteboard where he kept a list of tasks and an unclassified flowchart of a new night vision scope for a military rifle.

“I didn’t have much money. I had my engineering degree and a partner with an innovative idea to make a garage door opener that could read license plates. Kind of like electronic toll optics.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know some people who have one of those.” She turned to face him. “Fascinating.”

“My partner bought my share of the company. That’s what I used to build this.” He opened his arms.

She met his eyes with softening warmth. He hadn’t known her long before his wife had died. He and Tess had chosen her from a donor pool.

He suspected she was thinking of that time along similar lines, perhaps how she didn’t really know him, either.

Tess had been so excited with the prospect of having a baby. He had been thrilled to make her that happy. The sting of loss caught him as it often did. He still could not let her go.

Lingering too long on the sparkle in her glowing eyes, he gestured to the chairs. “Please, have a seat.”

He stepped back and then around to his chair behind the desk. She adjusted herself until she found a comfortable position, crossing her sexy legs and leaning back to patiently await his purpose in inviting her to his office.

“Is there a reason you’re armed?” he asked. The college student he once knew wouldn’t have packed heat.

“Only when I work cases that make me nervous.”

“Hopefully that doesn’t mean me.” He kept his tone light. If she had any idea why he’d asked her to meet, she’d have a good reason to be armed.

A brief breath left her, seeming to stem partly from a response to his lightness and partly from patient tolerance. “No. A mother hired me to track down a drug dealer her son has gotten mixed up with.”

“Ah.” He leaned back with his fingers to his jaw. “You do target practice?”

“I wouldn’t have a gun if I didn’t. I assure you, I’m legal and qualified.”

“I wasn’t questioning your experience as an investigator.” He knew nothing about her experience. Her website had glowing reviews from clients, and everything about her presented professionalism. He’d take a chance on her, which was better than he’d get from the local sheriff’s department. Other than Knox Colton, he didn’t trust anyone.

“Why did you ask me here, Mr. Kincaid?”

“Jeremy. I want to talk to you about Tess.”

Adeline’s gaze faltered with the mention of Tess, making him wonder if that part of her past bothered her, being an egg donor and surrogate to fund her college tuition, giving up her baby.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been two years,” she said.

“Yes. The first year was pretty hard on me and Jamie.” He’d spent the next year trying to get deputies to look into the car accident that had killed her. That had proved futile.

Her eyes lifted and he saw the hungry need for more information about the boy. Jeremy couldn’t deny her link to him, and Jamie had influenced his decision to call her.

“He’s doing much better now. He misses his mother, but he’s adjusting,” Jeremy said.

Adeline only met his eyes, seeming to be caught in ponderous thought.

“He looks like you.” Jeremy didn’t know why he’d said that. After Jamie had been born he’d focused on thinking of him as his and Tess’s baby. But it had been difficult not to make the comparison. “He’s got blond hair and blue eyes.” He breathed a laugh and pointed to his dark, short cropped hair and brown eyes. Tess had dark hair and gray eyes.

Adeline made no comment and lowered her gaze. Talking about Jamie must make her uncomfortable.

He used to tell himself that Jamie’s bright blue eyes resembled Tess’s. Jamie had a lot of his own features, but the blond hair and blue eyes were always Adeline’s. He’d often felt he had to convince himself that Jamie was his and Tess’s and not his and Adeline’s.

“Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have been so impulsive,” Adeline said at last. “Being an egg donor and surrogate for Tess.” She shook her head. “I wanted and needed to finish college, but...wow.”

Jeremy wasn’t sure what she meant by “wow.” “You regret it?” She’d given him and Tess a priceless gift. Why would she be anything but proud?

“No, not regret. I know how much Tess wanted a baby. I saw that when I met her. And the money did get me through college. It was worth it just for those two things.”

He heard the but she didn’t say. Giving up a baby would be hard but she’d gotten past that...hadn’t she?

Tess had lost her ability to have children due to polyps in her uterus. When she had found out, she had been devastated.

Catapulted back in time, he remembered certain key things about the in vitro fertilization process. Using his sperm and Adeline’s egg and implanting the fertilized embryo into Adeline, her growing stomach through the pregnancy, and then giving birth to Jamie—to all accounts, his son with Tess. He’d tried to experience it all with Tess, but there had been moments when he felt connected to Adeline in an intimate way only a man and woman who produced a life could understand. That’s why he’d kept his distance from Adeline as much as possible. Adeline had spent most of her time with Tess when visiting them during her pregnancy. Thankfully he’d had work to fall back on.

“Why don’t we talk about the reason you asked me here?” Adeline said.

“Of course.” They’d ventured a little too far into the past. He sat forward and placed his hands on the desk. “There is no easing into what I have to say. So I’ll just say it.” He watched anticipation brighten her eyes. “I think Tess was murdered.”

Adeline’s head moved back in unexpected surprise. “Murdered? She drove into a pole.”

She hadn’t injected herself into his and Tess’s lives after giving birth, but she had attended the funeral. She had also done her research before meeting him. He liked that. “Yes, and her blood alcohol level was high. But a few months ago I spoke with a local who said he saw Tess having lunch with a man the day of her accident. She left upset over whatever the two discussed. Her death always bothered me but I didn’t start thinking there might be more going on than a simple accident until then. What if she had relations with people I didn’t know about? Why did she meet this stranger and what made her upset? It’s too much of a coincidence that she died the same day.”

“Who is the man?”

“The local didn’t know. I tried to get the sheriff’s office to look into it but they haven’t. I get a brush-off every time I go there.” Renowned local criminal Livia Colton had her tentacles buried deep into the department in Shadow Creek, Texas. Jeremy knew her through his ties with other Coltons. He wouldn’t put it past Livia having something to do with the lackadaisical mindset of the sheriff’s department.

“I don’t see how Tess’s lunch could have anything to do with her accident. She may have been upset and that may have contributed, but...murder?”

Adeline clearly thought he was taking a leap. Jeremy expected her to be analytical.

“Even in prison Livia still had contact with a few of her followers. Someone I know heard one of them talking at a cocktail party, saying how she’d love to see Tess suffer somehow. ‘Like some kind of terrible accident, something to mess up her perfect, fortuitous life so she can see how the rest of the world lives,’ she said. Livia did not like Tess. She hated her youth and goodness.”

“Why do you think she had motive to kill? And from prison? Tess was young and beautiful and she married you. Maybe Livia was just jealous.”

Jealousy was enough. She didn’t know Livia well enough if she didn’t agree. “I know there has to be more and I don’t have much to go on right now, but Livia is capable of paying lackeys to do her dirty work. She could have paid someone in the sheriff’s department to cover it up. She’s a sociopath. Matthew Colton was her brother, remember, and a serial killer. Even he feared her. She worked in the highest ranks of an organized crime group, trafficked drugs—and people. She’s been convicted of murder before, so why not do it again if it made her feel better or gave her some kind of gain?”

“I agree she’s capable, I just need more of a motive.”

“I agree with that, too. That’s why I called you. I want you to find out, either way. Was Tess murdered and if so, did Livia do it? Tess’s accident report said her car swerved off the road and there were no skid marks before she hit the pole.”

“She was drunk.”

“Something Livia would capitalize on.”

Adeline seemed to ponder that awhile. “Who is she to you?”

“Livia? Wrecker of my friends’ lives.” He knew several of the Colton clan. “Destroyer of a community I love. And someone who I know for a fact hated my wife—for whatever reason.”

“You talk as though you know she’s still alive.”

“I believe she is.”

Again, she fell quiet and considered him. “Livia is dead, Jeremy.”

“Livia has escaped capture before. She was on the run for months until she was found hiding in her La Bonne Vie estate. Her kids all thought she would finally go back to jail when the vehicle crashed and went into the river. Her body was never recovered.”

“The SUV was swept downstream during a heavy storm. She’s probably buried in mud somewhere.”

He enjoyed visualizing Livia dead under several feet of gooey mud. “Right where she belongs.” Was there a more fitting demise? “Ever since Tess’s accident, I’ve had a feeling she shouldn’t have died, that the accident seemed too staged, that she wouldn’t have driven into a pole. Livia never liked her. Now I find out Tess met with a man she never told me about. I just need answers. I need someone I can trust to look into it, to make sure she wasn’t murdered.”

Her expression eased of skepticism. “All right. I can do that.” She picked up the padfolio and opened it. “What’s the local’s name? I’ll start there.”

He sat back. “Good. Why don’t you pack some things and stay at my house until this is over?”

She looked up from the padfolio. “Excuse me?”

“If Livia is involved, this could put you in danger. Besides, when you aren’t busy investigating, I thought you could help me with Jamie. Spend some time with him. I had to let his nanny go for stealing some of Tess’s jewelry. Emily Stanton seemed like a nice woman, but I had her pegged all wrong.”

“I’m not... I’m a private investigator, not a nanny.”

He suspected she might react this way. She hadn’t seen Jamie in a long time. As his biological mother, she would have to have some kind of feelings on the matter, wouldn’t she? While he didn’t want to push too hard, concern for her safety was his primary motive. If Livia was involved, he needed to know Adeline and Jamie were safe and the only way to do that was to have her close to him.

“I’ll pay you,” he said. “In addition to your investigation fee.”

She looked down with a befuddled grunt.

“Jamie would love to meet you.” His son had gone too long without a mother figure around.

She looked up with only her eyes and he saw her reluctance. Is that the reason she stayed away after giving Jamie to him and Tess? Was it too painful to be with Jamie and know the boy didn’t belong to her? He’d often wondered. Not that he would have wanted her to be a permanent fixture. That might have been awkward, but a friendly visit every now and then would have been just fine.

“Please.” He had to convince her. “You’re the only person who’s capable of helping me. I don’t trust anyone else.”

After several seconds she closed her padfolio. “I’ll think about it.”

“Then come over for dinner tonight. We can talk about strategy going forward. I’ll give you the name of the local then.”

She half smiled, wry. “Are you bribing me?”

He answered her smile with a grin. “Just giving you a little incentive.” If he was honest, he’d have just said yes.

* * *

Jeremy’s handsome grin stayed with Adeline long after she left his office. Dark stubble had begun to make its presence known and matched the black color of his hair and arches of his eyebrows. His playful but determined brown eyes and the deeper crease on the right side of his mouth haunted her thoughts most. Sitting in her four-door Audi A3 with the headlights off in case Jeremy watched for her, she gripped the steering wheel and looked at his house. She hadn’t driven up to the gated entry yet, just parked on the street to be sure of whether to do so.

She could see his house through a stone pillar and iron fence, a veritable mansion by her standards. She had a nice house but it wasn’t big, just a fixed-up older colonial with two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. She could get lost in Jeremy’s house. On a huge plot of land where the nearest neighbor was a tee shot away, the modern English country manor had no front yard. Exterior light lit the impressive home. She pictured a carriage rolling to a stop before the arched front entrance, over square stone slabs that extended right up to the house with some kind of ground cover growing in the spaces between. Four symmetrical casement windows lined the first and second levels on each side of the door. This part of the house was made of varying earth-toned sedimentary stone blocks that gave it a rough texture. Three attic windows jutted out from a dark slate roof. The front of the house stood out from a recessed back portion made of much smoother, monotone stone.

Was she really going to do this?

Reaching over to her laptop case, she unzipped a pouch along the outer side. Pulling out the last photo Tess had sent her of Jamie, she stared at his one-year-old face. At the time, she’d thought sending the surrogate and egg donor a picture of her son odd. Why had Tess done it? Her note had said something to the effect of, “Thought you’d want to see what an angel we have, thanks to you.” She’d been tempted many times to reach out to Jeremy just so she could see her son again, but doing so would only make her want more. Had Tess sent the photo as a warning not to try to come see her baby? The original photo showed all three of them, Jeremy and Tess smiling, Jamie in Tess’s arms. Tess hadn’t struck her as that type of person, and she had to admit her reluctance to see Jamie had been the only thing that had kept her away—nothing Tess had done either intentionally or unintentionally.

Now here she was, parked outside Jeremy’s house, knowing full well that she’d go inside and not leave, help him investigate Tess’s accident while they both watched over Jamie. The drug dealer she’d investigated had been arrested just this afternoon, so she had no other cases. That had only given her another reason to come here.

Putting the photo back into the pouch, she was about to drive to the gated entry and onto the stone slabs when she noticed a car across the street. It hadn’t been there when she’d pulled up. In fact, it must have just pulled up. The headlights went out and no one left the vehicle.

Adeline stayed in her car and watched.

A few minutes later, a man got out and walked toward Jeremy’s property.

Removing her pistol, Adeline loaded it and got out of her car. The man disappeared into the darkness along the fence lining Jeremy’s property.

Adeline ran after him. Seeing him clear the fence, she did the same. On the other side, she saw the man go into a cluster of trees between Jeremy’s house and the one next door. At the trees, she hid behind a trunk and spotted the man continuing along the same line. He reached the backyard and stopped. Looking at the house where light shone from an upper level window. Jamie’s room?

“Hey, you!” Adeline raised her weapon. “Don’t move!” She stepped out from the tree and walked toward the man.

He ducked into the trees and ran.

She ran into the trees after him, hoping to cut him off. She heard him crashing through the trees, breaking branches and shuffling leaves. When he stopped, so did she, taking cover behind a tree. Peering out, she searched the wooded area. She heard water flowing through a small stream. Jeremy lived on a large parcel of land in a wooded area of Shadow Creek. She moved forward slowly, listening and looking for a sign of the man.

At the stream, she stopped. Downstream she saw several boulders rose above the surface of the water. He could have crossed there. She ran to the spot and hopped rocks to the other side. Lighting her flashlight, she searched the ground until she found a fresh footprint. Following them until they reached the fence. Climbing over, she ran back to her car. Before she reached the road, she heard the revving engine of a vehicle driving away. Just as she made it to the street, she saw the car that had parked across the street racing away in the other direction, too far to get a plate number.

Why had that man been here? What would he have done if she hadn’t interfered? Hurt Jamie? Motherly instinct she could never shed after giving birth raced through her.

Putting her gun back in its holster, she went to her car and drove through the open gate and parked on the stone slabs near the front door. No question about staying with them now...

She took her luggage and laptop case to his door, ringing the bell. Jeremy answered and then smiled when he saw her luggage. He’d removed his suit jacket and tie, the top three buttons of his blue dress shirt undone to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of his chest. He looked stunning in a suit. She’d always thought so, but he wore more relaxed just as well.

“I just chased a man through the trees.” She stepped inside as his pleased look faded; she took in the curving staircase to one side of the wide and high entry and the formal living room to the other. She could see a little of the grand family room through one archway and a dining room through the other. A huge, colorful abstract painting hung on the wall across from the front door, a light shining on it, and a console table beneath with a vase full of fresh flowers and a stack of books about art.

“You what?”

“Yeah.” She walked toward the family room, nervous over seeing Jamie again. “He got away before I could find out who he was.” But she would.

“And you went after him yourself?”

His house wasn’t anything she didn’t expect from someone with his kind of money. Functional leather furniture and a few tables were well placed with dashes of color. A large, round hanging light broke up the cavernous space and floor-to-ceiling windows would allow ample light in the morning. A table lined most of the back of the couch that separated this room from the magazine-worthy open kitchen with stainless steel appliances, white cabinets and marble countertops. The kitchen island sat six. Clean. Tidy. No clutter. She liked it.

She completed her circle. “Should I have rung your bell first?”

“Very funny.”

She told him what happened, how she had seen the man and followed until he had raced away.

“Someone must have started watching me. Maybe after discovering I hired you.”

That could be true. Seeing his house for the first time had diverted her attention—that, and nervousness over seeing Jamie.

“Nice place,” she said, more as a conversational statement, unable to ward off the impending moment when she’d meet Jamie, see him for the first time in two years.

“Thanks.”

His delayed response made her aware that he noticed her discomfort.

“Daddy?”

With a sharp pang bursting in her core, Adeline looked up at the railing of the loft and saw a three-year-old boy clutching one of the spindles. He wore jeans and a superhero T-shirt.

Her chest froze. She struggled to breathe, or maybe her body had automatically made her conscious of the fact that she had to take deeper breaths and the reaction might be obvious to the astute observer. She didn’t care. She gobbled up the sight of the little boy, his full head of ruffled blond hair that reminded her of painful combings after a shower, his light blue eyes shaped like Jeremy’s but the exact color of hers. So much more, intangible and strumming a lovely tune in her.

“Who’s that?” Jamie pointed to Adeline.

She sensed his curiosity and it warmed her. Was he curious because she was a woman? He was too young when Tess died. Did he remember her at all? She doubted he remembered enough to make a significant conscious impact. He had to have dealt with some subliminal effects. Instinctually he’d feel the loss.

“Hey, buddy, this is Adeline.”

Jamie eyed Adeline and then turned to his father. “Can I have ice cream?”

“Sure, come on down.”

Adeline wondered if he said yes just to get the boy to come down and greet her. Her heart drummed anxiously until she put herself in check. She was there to help with a case, not take over the role of Jamie’s mother. She stood stiffly as he came down the stairs and emerged through the front entry. His little steps carried him toward her and he stared in shy absorption.

“I don’t bring women here much,” Jeremy said. “I haven’t dated or anything.”

After he lost his wife, Adeline could well understand. She wouldn’t think too long on why he hadn’t seen any women.

“I’m a bit younger than his grandparents,” she said.

“You’re not my grandma,” Jamie said, all in fun. He went to the freezer.

Jeremy got a bowl and went about the task of scooping a small amount of ice cream while Adeline took advantage of the time to just stare at her son.

Tess had been Jamie’s mother, but he was her son. She’d felt proud and sometimes sad because she wasn’t part of his life. She didn’t like thinking of Jamie as Tess’s son. She couldn’t quite let go of the fact that she’d had a son and he was being raised by his father and another woman. Tess hadn’t been able to have children of her own because of undiagnosed endometriosis. Adeline should be completely happy that she’d given the woman such a gift, not envious or regretful. Why did those thoughts plague her so much? She hadn’t been at a point in her life to care for a child. She had college ahead of her. She’d made the right decision, despite the occasional doubt that seized her.