he no longer wanted to talk to his cousin—the police chief. Blake didn’t want to step into that police department where she and their daughter were.
He just wanted to be alone. He wanted to think and process and deal with all the emotions gripping him. The anger, the shock, the fear...
His daughter had witnessed a crime of some sort, and from the way both she and her mother had acted, they were definitely frightened.
Could they be in danger? Could he lose his child just as he had finally discovered her existence?
* * *
“He’s back?” Fenwick Colton already knew that his son had returned to Red Ridge. The concierge at the Colton Plaza Hotel had confirmed that Blake had checked into a suite on the twenty-first floor a couple of days ago. But Fenwick hadn’t seen him. And he sure as hell hadn’t heard from him.
Patience, Fenwick’s daughter and Blake’s half sister, nodded in reply, but she had to understand what he was really asking. Why hadn’t Blake come to see him?
The boy was Fenwick’s only son. They should have been close. Fenwick had had primary custody of him, since a hyper boy had been more than his jet-setting mother had wanted to handle. But the kid had always acted like he couldn’t stand to be near him. And as if to prove it, he’d spent the past five years living in other countries. Maybe that was just because he was like his mother, though.
“Why is he back?” Fenwick asked his daughter.
Patience lowered her head slightly, and her dark bangs shielded her dark eyes. She was staring down at her desk in her office at the Red Ridge K9 training center. If he wanted to talk to his daughter, he usually had to come to the training center, where she worked as a veterinarian. It was the same with Bea; he would have had to go to the bridal shop to see her. At least Gemma visited him, but it was usually to ask for money.
He ran his hands over his tailored suit, plucking a strand of dog hair from the expensive fabric. Then he touched his hair, making sure the blond piece hadn’t slipped. As mayor of Red Ridge, he had to make sure he always looked good. “You called him,” he surmised.
“I had to,” she said, and her voice was sharp with resentment. Patience didn’t understand business like Layla did. Like Blake did...
“He’s not going to help,” Fenwick said. It wasn’t a question. He knew that with just as much certainty as he knew that Blake had returned to Red Ridge.
Patience looked up from her desk now. “He might. He will,” she persisted, but she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than she was him. “Why else did he come home?”
That was what worried Fenwick. If Blake hadn’t come back to help his family, then he probably had another reason—a personal reason—for returning to Red Ridge.
“You shouldn’t have called him,” Fenwick admonished her.
“He’s your son,” she said. “My brother. He deserved to hear what’s going on with the family from one of us.”
Fenwick suspected the media had probably beaten Patience to the punch, though. Coltons were news. And a Colton scandal was even bigger news.
Damn his reprobate cousin Rusty and his equally disreputable kids for causing such a scandal. But it went beyond a scandal. Rusty’s daughter Demi was a murderer. Evidence and witnesses proved—to him, at least—that she was the psycho killing grooms-to-be because she’d been dumped by her own one-week fiancé. Of course a Colton being a killer wasn’t news. Other Colton family members—very distant family members out of state—had committed murder, as well.
Fenwick didn’t know what he might be forced to do if Layla wasn’t able to carry out their plan of marrying to save the company. This damn Groom Killer nonsense was threatening their livelihood. But now that might not be all that was threatened.
“You shouldn’t have called him,” Fenwick repeated, “because you might have put him in danger.”
Patience’s dark eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“This maniac,” Fenwick said, “is killing grooms. Men.” He was a little scared for himself—not that he had any intention of getting married again. Three times was more than enough. And he had more fun dating than he’d ever had being married.
“Blake isn’t engaged,” Patience said. “He’s not marrying anyone. He didn’t even have a serious girlfriend when he did live at home. So I doubt there’s anyone in Red Ridge he would be tempted to propose to.”
Fenwick wished he could trust that. “Couples are afraid to go public. Engagements have been canceled. Everyone is afraid of the Groom Killer. But that hasn’t stopped anyone from coupling up in private.”
He could think of at least six new couples in Red Ridge—some damn unlikely couples.
“And you know your brother,” Fenwick continued. “If anyone tells that stubborn kid not to do something, he’s twice as determined to do it.”
Like build his own damn company. Fenwick had told the boy not to do it, that he didn’t have what it took. Hell, he’d been fresh out of graduate school with his MBA and had no real business experience when he’d begun his “start-up.” But Blake had had to go out and prove him wrong.
He was so damn stubborn it would be just like him to try to prove Fenwick wrong now about getting engaged. But then he wouldn’t be risking just some money.
He would be risking his life.
Juliette sat on one of the chairs in the row outside the chief’s office. She’d given her report and she had helped Pandora give hers as well as a description of the shooter to Detective Carson Gage who would be working the murder case.
The last thing the Red Ridge Police Department could handle right now was another murder investigation. They were already spread so thin with the Groom Killer murders and the suspected criminal activities of the Larson twins. Did the RRPD have enough resources left to protect Pandora? That was what Juliette wanted to know, what she waited outside the chief’s office to discuss with him.
But of course, Finn Colton was busy. So busy that she had to wait. The receptionist was busy, as well, taking one call after another. Usually they would have had time to talk while Juliette waited to see the chief. She would have asked Lorelei about her teenage kids, and Lorelei would have asked about Pandora.
Elle was with Pandora, coloring pictures in the conference room and trying to get her to eat the pizza she’d ordered for them. Elle was a good friend.
The only person Juliette had told about that night nearly five years ago. The night she’d felt like Cinderella being invited to the ball.
The invitation she’d received had come in the form of a tip from a hotel guest. Juliette had been cleaning the woman’s room all week. She’d sought Juliette out a couple of times for more towels, to restock the minibar, and she’d talked to her like Juliette was a person and not just a maid. The woman had compelled Juliette to confide in her about working two jobs to pay off her late mother’s medical bills and
