Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

Who, knowing Kerry, wouldn’t? She wasn’t the type to do something stupid like fall for someone so far out of her league.

And she lived and breathed police work.

She was married to her job.

“Are you listening to me?” Ace’s words stopped her racing thoughts. “I did not shoot my father. I don’t even own a gun.”

True about the gun. But the crime files were filled with murderers who didn’t own guns. At least not legally.

“He didn’t do it, Kerry.” Rafe chose one hell of a time to speak up. On Ace’s side, of course. “I know him. He can be a bit of an ass, but he’s not a killer. None of us are.”

The defense made her mad. Or hurt. She wasn’t sure which. She just knew that her response was reactionary even before it was out of her mouth.

“Yes, Ace, you are a suspect,” she said. Taking what power she could from both of them. “You were heard to say, and admitted in front of counsel and on tape, that you threatened Payne Colton shortly before he was shot, which is motive, and you have no alibi. I don’t have any hard evidence that will prove you did this—yet. I’m still waiting for some reports to come back. I’ve got other things I’m checking—tapes I’m looking at, people I’m talking to—and if Payne regains consciousness, he might remember something, too.”

“Let me tell you this,” Rafe said. “If Ace was supposedly in town and at the office, rather than at the ranch, someone would have seen it. Or it would have been on a surveillance camera.”

That was one of the things she was still checking. “Not necessarily,” she said. “He could have caught a ride into town in any number of ways, if he’d wanted to do so unseen. And most everybody in town knows where security cameras are positioned. He could have made sure he avoided them.”

It was one of the problems of small towns—people knowing who had security and who didn’t.

“But there was nothing on Colton Oil security footage showing him either entering or leaving the building.”

“It didn’t show anyone else entering the building, either,” she quickly pointed out.

“Give it up, Rafe,” Ace said with one last half sneer at her, and then turned to the man Kerry had just slept with. “But thanks for the vote of confidence. It means a lot.”

She had to stand there and watch as the older man gripped the back of Rafe’s shoulder and the two men clasped arms and embraced.

A brother thing.

Chapter 11

Rafe followed Kerry home and then, without even getting out of his truck, waved goodbye to her as she pulled into her garage.

Ace’s visit had upset her. He got that. Understood why. Empathized. And couldn’t change it.

The visit didn’t change his plan for the evening, nor the fact that he was going to do his best to make it hard for her to argue with him. Outside of Colton Oil business, he didn’t use his family’s weight to get what he wanted, but he was going to make an exception that night.

He was in and out of his house at the ranch in five minutes, getting together an overnight bag and clothes for work the next day, and was already headed back into town when he made his first phone call.

He’d used Jason Wendt as a PI once before, when Payne had first appointed Selina to the board. The others might have done their own checking into their father’s affairs, but Rafe had needed to make certain, from a purely Colton Oil financial security aspect, that the woman wasn’t bribing Payne.

Nothing else had ever made sense. The woman could barely tolerate any of Payne’s offspring, him included. She was rude and generally unpleasant to be around. And Payne let her live in a house on the property. Jason had found a few interesting skeletons in Selina’s closet, but nothing to do with Payne. Nothing to even hint at anything she might have over him.

He’d cringed a time or two, reading the details on Selina’s life—but he had been immensely impressed with Jason’s thoroughness.

“Rafe, good to hear from you.” The man picked up on the second ring.

He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. He needed the man on Odin Rogers, starting immediately, no cost spared. He wanted Jason to look as deep as one could look, go wherever he had to go, if necessary, hire whoever he needed to hire, and keep him posted with every update, or every twelve hours if there was nothing new.

He wasn’t even halfway into town when that call disconnected. And then he called Shelly Marston, the government attorney he’d once slept with after closing a drilling deal, only to find out later that she was married, to see if his call to her that morning had vetted anything on Grant Alvin.

She had nothing of use to give him and he hung up.

He chafed the rest of the way back to Kerry’s neighborhood, just needing to be there. To know that she was safe. She’d rejected her chief’s offer of another night of squad car protection outside her home. Whoever was out there wasn’t committing crimes in town. As long as she stayed home, she’d be okay.

What that told Rafe was that she didn’t yet know what they didn’t want her to know. And that whatever it was, was up on that mountain. She’d been warned, severely, twice now, to stay off that mountain.