Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

The Rafe she’d known would be.

“Grant had some shady dealings,” Lavinia said. “Started out to feed my habit. I got addicted to pain pills when I had my back surgery and just couldn’t get off them. Too much pain, still,” she added.

While she felt deeply sorry for the woman, a familiar feeling of excitement started to settle over Kerry. The cop’s instinct that told her she was about to get her missing piece. Someone out to screw you didn’t generally stand around and talk about their medical history.

Not with that genuine tone and unmistakable sorrow in eyes that were watery and looking straight at you.

“He was trying to break free,” she said. “I’d been approved for a new surgery, but had to be clean to qualify for it. I’m supposed to be heading into a clinic next week. Grant was up on the mountain, getting rid of any evidence that could link him to what was going on up there. He was intending to tell them that he was quitting, that he wouldn’t be following any more illegal orders, the night he was killed. He was going to put in for a leave from the forest service, too, so he could be in Tucson with me.” Lips that hadn’t been steady to begin with started to shake.

“Do you know what was going on up there?” Kerry asked. She had to stick to business. To help people by getting scum off their streets—and mountains. “Or who your husband worked for?”

Lavinia nodded, glanced behind her at the door, and around her, too. “Odin Rogers,” she said, and everything inside Kerry went on alert.

She’d known. She’d been right.

But that meant Rogers wasn’t just a two-bit slime that she suspected anymore. He was a real danger to Mountain Valley. A murderous threat.

“His real business is stockpiling weapons, but he runs drugs from across the border, too,” Lavinia continued, her voice low, but her tone intense. “I wasn’t going to say nothing, especially after Grant was killed, but he’s watching me. Rogers and his goons. Everywhere I go, even outside my house, they’re watching me.”

Did that mean they were outside Kerry’s home? Ready to strike?

“The only way I got away from them this time was by meeting my sister at the grocery, changing clothes with her and taking her car,” she said. “She and her husband drove down from Phoenix to help me. She had another change of clothes for herself, not the ones she walked in with, and she put those on, with a hat, and her husband pulled up to the curb and she got in and they left. They called me when they were back out on the road, and waited to make sure I got away without being followed.”

“Where are they now?”

“In nearby Mountain Valley, waiting to hear from me,” Lavinia said. “But I’m not calling them. I’m not going to put them in any real danger. I just had to be able to get to you without Odin’s people knowing, so you have a chance to do something about Odin and when my sister came up with the plan, I figured it would work without them getting hurt. I wanted to see you in person, wanted you to look me in the eye and know I’m telling the truth. Grant deserves that.”

The woman was smart. Conscientious. Kerry wondered who she’d been, what she’d done, before a back injury had changed the course of her life.

Obviously she’d been someone who’d inspired Grant Alvin’s love and loyalty. Kerry hadn’t much liked the man, but she now knew why he’d wanted her and Rafe off the mountain.

“Do you have any idea where on the mountain they’re holding their stash?” she asked next, already planning the phone calls she was about to make.

First and foremost, to get Lavinia Alvin into protective custody. The rest had waited two years. It could hold on a few more hours.

“I just know it’s in an old mine,” she said. “It used to be a working mine, a hundred years ago. It’s near the middle of the mountain, away from the road, because Grant had to cover the area on foot. His job was to keep hikers and people like you away from it, and to run lookout when merchandise was going in or out. When they’re moving guns, they use off-road vehicles to get them most of the way and then have to break them out of containers and carry them the rest of the way.

“Grant had to spend the night there once...he got caught up on the mountain when a monsoon hit. He said you go downhill to get in it, and then there’s a flat area where the guns and drugs are stored. He slept down there with the guns. I thought they’d killed him then...” She shivered, and Kerry offered her a seat in the living room. Said she’d get her a sweater.

“A hoodie would be good, if you have one,” the older woman said, and when Kerry grabbed one out of the closet just beyond them, Lavinia was still standing right there by the door.

At some point Odin’s thugs were going to realize that Lavinia had slipped their watch. It would take some time. They’d have to look down every aisle in the grocery store first. But they’d get there.

And when they did...

“I have to go,” Lavinia blurted. “They’re going to figure out I’m gone and I don’t want them to know I came here. They’ll know they’ve been found out...”

“You can’t go out there!” With a hand on the woman’s shoulder, Kerry tried again to get her into the living room. “I’m going to make a phone call and get you into a safe house. Outside of Mustang Valley. I can ask the DA to provide police protection at all times, night and day, until we bring this guy in. But as a cop, I can tell you, you’ll probably have it anyway. We need to stop this guy and we’ll protect you on our own dime if that’s what we need to do. No one else is going to die...”

She wanted Rafe out of there, too. Being on Odin Rogers’s radar was like an infectious, terminal disease. No way could she bear the thought of it bringing Rafe down, too...

She let go of Lavinia to reach for her phone, and the other woman jerked at the front door. “Nowhere is safe for me,” she said, and ran out.

Kerry turned to go after her but only got one step toward the door before two gunshots rang out, one after the other.

* * *

“Kerry!” Heart in his throat, Rafe ran from around the corner to see Kerry alive and running out the front door. Following her, he stopped himself fro