Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

“I was compared to a cartoon character. Richie Rich,” he said with a shrug and a poor attempt at a grin. “But I already planned on hiring a private security detail...”

“Right, because the Coltons have the funds to do such things. I should have already thought of that. I’m glad.”

He saw her swallow heavily between her first and second sentence and noted the brief lack of professionalism in the way she gestured wildly with her hands, as well as the hint of bitterness that came and went from her expression.

He chose to pass them by.

“So you’ll let me help?”

“No.” She turned back to the table filled with details of her investigation. “Whoever killed my brother, and the ranger, is worried about what I might know. And, now you, too, clearly. The deeper I delve, the more worried he’s going to get.”

“Can’t get any worse for me than it already is,” he told her, walking around to face her across the table. “He won’t have any way of knowing whether you update me or not. Or whether or not I’m going to hire a private detective to see what he can sniff out. I’m already in, Kerry.”

Her glance wasn’t as discouraging as it had been. He got that she didn’t want him in danger. He got even more that, after the night they’d spent, she had to push him away. Hard.

He didn’t get why he couldn’t just step back and let it happen.

But he knew for certain that he was in as deep as it got.

And staying in.

At least until they caught her brother’s killer.

* * *

After Rafe left, Kerry mentally reviewed the evidence. Three days after Payne Colton got shot, a ranger was killed and her life was threatened. These three felonies—along with the murder of Bowie Robertson’s bodyguard and the attempted murders of Robertson and Rafe’s sister—were more crimes than their little town with its few officers and detectives usually saw in a year. And that didn’t include the attempts on Bowie Robertson’s life over the previous weeks.

She’d been looking into Tyler’s death for the whole two years, but the day that Rafe Colton got involved, someone died and she and Rafe were targeted.

And that came right after an attempt on his adoptive father’s life.

Was she losing perspective by thinking that the two incidents could be related?

Tyler had grown up on Payne’s property. Was the killer someone who either worked for Colton Oil or Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch? Was Payne’s shooter the same person? Someone Tyler might have known as “Big B”?

She didn’t think so. The attempt on Payne’s life had come right after the family had made the shocking discovery that Ace Colton had been switched at birth. That he wasn’t a Colton at all. Right after he’d been fired as CEO of the family’s multibillion-dollar company.

The kind of trouble Tyler had been in was nowhere near the same league.

And the danger she and Rafe were in wasn’t, either.

Which was why she didn’t answer his call later that morning, only listening to his voice mail because it could have something to do with his father’s case.

His father. Maybe if she thought of Payne that way often enough, her adjustment to the present would be easier.

He’d just been calling to check in. Asked her to call him back.

She didn’t.

Instead she did her job, going with Dane to have a talk with Odin Rogers at his residence. The vest and pocket watch might have looked good on the supposed drug dealer if his paunch didn’t strain buttons and the chain of the watch wasn’t stretched to capacity across his girth. The man really should be in the hair gel business, given how much slime he had pasting long strands of what hair he had left over bald patches. When they asked him about any business he might have in the mountains, if he was ever up Mustang Mountain Drive, asked him about people he knew, he was as innocently ignorant as always to their faces. So she asked him about sources for his wealth. He hadn’t had a job in the valley for as long as she could remember.

He claimed to be independently wealthy from investments he’d made with an inheritance he’d received from a life insurance policy when his father died.

Right. If life insurance came in the guise of inherited contracts in the illegal weapons trade or drug business. As close to the southern border as they were, such goings-on were not merely suspicions, but a known way of life.

Catching them, proving things, was another story. Just when they’d think they were onto something a deal would be made to catch a bigger fish. But not this time.

Kerry wasn’t into fishing for size. She wanted the man stopped and brought to justice.