The Colton Ransom (13 page)

“Why? Don’t you trust me?” Pete accused hotly, like someone who anticipated being betrayed—if he hadn’t been already.

“It’s called verifying your story,” she explained. “We’d have to check it out even if you were the governor of the state.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Pete protested angrily, no doubt feeling singled out.

“Yes,” Gabby contradicted him firmly, “we would. The law doesn’t let us take anyone’s word for anything without getting some kind of proof.”

Pete’s scowl was nearly as black as Trevor’s could be. “The law stinks,” he declared.

“Sometimes it does,” Gabby allowed. Then, to balance it out just as the scales of justice balanced things, she said, “Other times, it protects you.”

Pete blew out an impatient breath. It was evident that he was one angry young man. But it was equally as evident that he didn’t want to go to jail for something he didn’t do if there was any way to prevent that from happening.

“She’s got a husband,” he said unexpectedly.

“You’re talking about your alibi?” Trevor asked the teenager.

Scowling at him, Pete nodded.

Gabby placed her hand on his wrist to get his attention.

She was doing it to create a bond, Trevor thought. Grudgingly, he gave her points for her efforts. She knew how to play this.

“We won’t talk to her in front of him.” This time, it was Trevor who spoke instead of Gabby. The promise carried more weight, coming from him.

Pete slanted a malevolent look in his direction. But a string of choice words did
not
follow. Pete was a foot soldier who wanted to be saved. So, having really no choice, he gave up the name of the woman he’d been seeing behind her husband’s back. “It’s Paula Baker.”

She’d dealt with Paula once or twice, Gabby recalled. And, if she recalled correctly, Paula had a much-older husband. It wasn’t an excuse, but it was a reason, she mused.

“Thank you. We’ll be as discreet as possible,” Gabby promised the teenager.

Confusion slipped over his handsome features. “What does that mean?”

“That means her husband isn’t going to come and plaster your hide from here to the border,” Trevor told him bluntly. “We’ll make sure he’s not around when we question her.”

The wary look on the teenager’s face did not abate, but he nodded and muttered a less-than-enthusiastic “Okay” by way of a parting comment.

* * *

An hour later, a very reluctant Paula Baker verified Pete Simpson’s alibi in a voice that was hardly above a whisper despite the fact that her husband was in town, buying feed for their horses.

Thanking the nervous-looking twentysomething blonde, Gabby and Trevor took their leave.

“Well, that’s the last of the people on the list,” Gabby said needlessly as she walked back with Trevor to his truck. She could almost
feel
the minutes ticking away, but she gave no indication of her growing unease. Instead, she asked mildly, “What’s next?”

“Next we talk to your father’s ex-wife,” Trevor told her.

She’d been thinking about that, about the possibility that either Darla or her offspring were involved. “My sister said that Darla was at the rodeo.” She’d forgotten about that earlier.

“Doesn’t mean she couldn’t have slipped away at some point and gone back to the ranch—or hired someone else to kidnap your niece.”

“No,” Gabby readily agreed. “It doesn’t.” She didn’t want him thinking she was protecting the woman in any way. Who knew, maybe they would get lucky after all. “Okay, let’s go talk to her.”

“Don’t forget her two brats,” he reminded her. As far as he was concerned, they were all equally suspect.

Gabby laughed. As if she ever could. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Why does your father let them stay at the ranch?” Trevor asked as he turned the truck around to head toward Dead River.

That was a question they’d all asked themselves. “Personally, I think she has something on him, something that she threatens to expose if he doesn’t let her go on living there in the style she’s grown accustomed to.” She followed that thought to its logical conclusion. “You know, if that’s the case, Darla really wouldn’t need to kidnap Cheyenne. She’d just use whatever it is that she’s holding over Dad’s head to make him give her more money or whatever it is that she was after.”

That was true enough. “That still doesn’t mean she can’t get greedier,” Trevor added.

“You do have a point,” Gabby conceded.

“I usually do,” he told her.

Silently, Gabby agreed. No use giving the man a swelled head, she reasoned with a smile.

Her smile did not go unnoticed. Trevor could feel his stomach muscles contracting, even as he tried to ignore the woman in the truck’s cab and the eroding effect she had on his defenses. It was beginning to feel like a losing battle.

Chapter 12

“H
ow dare you,” Darla railed when Trevor began to question her. The almost anorexic-looking woman looked as if she wanted to rake her long, scarlet-tipped fingernails down his face. “How dare you suggest that I had
anything
to do with killing that poor woman, Faith—”

“Faye,” Gabby corrected tersely. Leave it to Darla not to even know the name of a woman who was far more of a fixture in the Colton household than she ever was. “Her name was Faye.”

Darla’s eyes narrowed and a scowl turned her attractive, carefully made-up face into a mask of hatred that sent the lesser household staff cowering as they hurried away.

“Her name was mud as far as I was concerned. That woman was always looking down her nose at me, like that nothing of a nanny thought she was better than I was,” Darla fumed angrily, pacing around the sitting room of her living quarters at the far side of the mansion. There was no mistaking the fact that she resented being questioned about something so trivial as the murder of a lowly staff member.

Trevor’s intense, dark blue eyes pinned her in place. Gabby was confident that had Darla had a lesser inflated sense of self, she would have been squirming beneath his scrutiny. “You realize that so far, you’re painting yourself into a corner, don’t you?” Trevor pointed out, his voice a harsh whisper.

If anything, Darla’s haughty tone increased, reinforced by defensiveness. “I hated her guts and I’m not shedding any tears that she’s dead—
but I didn’t murder the woman,
” she declared, enunciating every syllable carefully, as if she were dealing with someone with a limited IQ. “I was at the rodeo. Hundreds of people saw me,” she maintained with confidence.

Her father’s latest ex was either innocent or exceedingly brazen, Gabby thought. At the moment, she wasn’t quite sure which it was.

“That’s because you were throwing yourself at that bronco buster,” Tawny taunted her mother. Physically, the young woman was almost a carbon copy of her mother, albeit younger, a fact that both amused and annoyed Darla, depending on the situation.

“I was flirting with Travis—” Darla’s lofty tone was tinged with annoyance—it was obvious that she didn’t care to be judged, least of all by her own offspring “—not ‘throwing myself’ at him. If you had any successful relationships of your own, you would have known the difference.”

Tawny frowned. “Oh, and what kind of ‘successful relationships’ have you had, Mother dear?” Tawny sneered at her mother.

Trevor got in between the two women. “Okay, ladies, sheathe those claws of yours, please. I don’t need to witness a cat fight.” He turned toward Darla. “These ‘hundreds’ of people who saw you, did you get
any
of their names?”

Her smile turned wicked. “I’ve got Travis,” she volunteered triumphantly.

Travis was a common enough name in this area. “What’s his last name?” Trevor asked, taking out a well-worn, tiny notebook. He turned to an empty page, then looked at her, waiting.

“Well, you’ve got me there,” Darla confessed with a dismissive laugh that clearly said her word for it should have been enough for him. “But he told me he was riding tomorrow, so you can catch him then.”

“I can be her alibi,” Tawny volunteered. “And she can be mine,” she added, pleased with herself that she had brilliantly thwarted any need to question her regarding the murder of the woman she disliked simply because she disliked everyone within the Colton household she believed regarded her as an outsider. “We were together most of the time,” she added.

Given a choice, Trevor wouldn’t have believed either one of the women, but the law didn’t work that way, allowing him to pick what he wanted to believe and turn down what he didn’t. Until proven otherwise, he had to believe that mother and daughter were out in plain sight. Of course, that didn’t automatically mean that they hadn’t prevailed on someone else to kidnap what they believed to be the infant heiress.

However, if they, or anyone else connected to the Colton household,
were
involved in the homicide and abduction, then perforce they knew they had the wrong baby. That would explain why there still had been no ransom demand—and could also mean that his daughter was already a casualty—or would be one very soon.

He couldn’t allow himself to think about that. Gabby was right. To believe that would be to invite total paralysis to set in. He’d be no good to Avery or to himself that way.

Trevor cleared his throat. “How about Trip?” he wanted to know.

“What about him?” Darla asked suspiciously.

His patience clearly on the wane, Trevor asked, “What’s his alibi?”

“Why, he was with us the entire time, of course,” Darla informed him. Her implication was that he had to be a mental midget to think otherwise. “That boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Flies, no,
Gabby thought.
But people, well, that’s another story.
As far as she was concerned, her former stepbrother had a mean streak to go along with his all-consuming laziness. Trip was actively working at not being employed in any capacity. So far, he’d been successful in his efforts.

Thinking along the same lines brought Trevor to the logical question of where did Trip get his money? The so-called allowance Jethro grudgingly gave the woman he had married in haste only went so far. A kidnapping plot didn’t seem all that far-fetched for someone who seemed to be allergic to work, yet had expensive tastes.

Trevor was fairly certain that “Mama” was only indulgent to a minor degree—as long as it didn’t cut into her own funds, funds she’d made clear more than once did
not
begin to cover what Darla felt constituted her basic needs.

“The entire time?” Gabby echoed, the expression on her face challenging the other woman’s assertion.

Darla’s eyes narrowed in response to what she obviously felt was her ex-stepdaughter’s hostile, probing question. “That’s what I said.”

“Even the time you were flirting with the bronco buster?” Gabby pressed.

Rather than answer, Darla resorted to what she perceived was a threat. “Am I going to have to have my lawyer speak to you on my behalf?” She directed the question to Trevor, deliberately ignoring her former stepdaughter.

If it was meant to snub her, Gabby took no notice—or offense. “You have a divorce lawyer, Darla,” Gabby pointedly reminded the woman. “He doesn’t handle criminal cases.”

“Then you
are
actually accusing me of having something to do with that horrible business?” she demanded, her amber eyes sweeping from Gabby to Trevor.

“No one’s accusing anyone of anything—yet,” Gabby couldn’t resist saying, realizing that she was cutting in on Trevor’s territory but unable to stop herself. Darla literally made her angry enough to see red at times. In the best of times, she didn’t get along with the woman—and these were not the best of times. “But if either of you—or Trip—heard or saw anything that could help recover the missing baby, it might go a long way in smoothing out possible future—let’s say
problems,
” she added euphemistically.

“You mean like a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Tawny suggested.

“Something like that,” Gabby agreed vaguely. If life was like a Monopoly game, she added silently—which it wasn’t.

Tawny paused, as though rolling something over in her mind. Then she announced, “I saw Duke Johnson talking to someone on his phone and then he just up and left real quick-like. He looked pretty tense. Does that count?” the young woman asked.

“What time was this?” Trevor asked pointedly, deliberately not answering Tawny’s question.

“About noon,” the young woman estimated after another lengthy pause. “I remember because it was just before the bronco buster Mother’s been hanging all over went to compete.”

That was within the window of time when Avery had gone missing, Trevor thought. There was, however, just one little thing that was wrong with this scenario. “We already talked to Duke yesterday and he’d got someone to verify his alibi. When he took off like that, he told us he was going to meet up with one of the maids, Clara Peterson.”

Tawny appeared completely unfazed and shrugged one indifferent shoulder. “Well, that’s the only thing I noticed that looked odd. Duke had this look on his face that said he was afraid of something, and if you ask me, it had nothing to do with Clara. That woman’s about as scary as a church mouse.”

They’d already checked with Clara, and she had backed up Duke’s claim that he was with her during the time that Faye was murdered and Avery was kidnapped. The maid had appeared a little nervous at the time, but that could easily be attributed to her reaction—along with everyone else’s—to Faye’s murder and to being a momentary suspect.

“We could always check her out again,” Gabby suggested to Trevor once they left Darla and her daughter’s quarters.

“Probably a waste of time,” he speculated, dismissing the idea.

But Gabby wasn’t so quick to do the same. “What does your gut tell you?” she asked. When he looked at her quizzically, she elaborated her choice of words. “You were a cop in Cheyenne. Cops are supposed to develop a kind of sixth sense about things after they’ve been on the job awhile.”

That, he’d always felt, was based on part fact, part myth. At least in his case. “Right now, my gut and I aren’t on speaking terms,” he told her.

That was because he was blocking it, she surmised. Concern about his daughter’s fate was undoubtedly getting in the way of the way he normally conducted his investigations. It was understandable since he had such a vested, personal interest in the ultimate outcome of this scenario.

“Maybe you should try listening a little harder,” Gabby suggested.

His normal reaction to that kind of input would have been to become defensive, but he knew that she was only trying to help.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Johnson again,” he allowed. “Although this could just be something that your stepsister made up to throw attention and suspicion off her mother and the rest of her family.”

“There is that,” Gabby willingly agreed. “And just for the record,” she went on to correct him, “Tawny is my
ex
-stepsister.”

“Yeah, I know.” He was quite clear on the family dynamics—and also on the fact that the family proper—meaning her two sisters and Gabby—had absolutely no use for the scheming woman and her like-minded adult children.

“Sorry.” He saw the surprised look that came over her features. “What?”

She was genuinely surprised—and pleased. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize before.”

“Maybe I’ve never been wrong before,” he pointed out drolly.

She laughed and shook her head. “Being wrong and knowing it would make you human—and we all know you’re superhuman. What was I thinking?”

“My guess is that you weren’t thinking,” he deadpanned, then grew serious. “Listen, I’m going to go talk to Duke again, just to be sure.”

She read her own interpretation to what was implied between the lines. “I get the feeling that I’m being ‘uninvited’ to the party.”

“No need for both of us to go. I figure you’d want to go to the hospital and look in on your father, see how he’s doing.” He refrained from saying anything specific, such as whether or not the old man was still in a coma or if he was deteriorating.

A shaft of guilt swooped through her. She had got so caught up in the investigation and trying to locate Avery, as well as Faye’s killer, she had almost forgotten that her father wasn’t home but still in the hospital. God willing, he was conscious, but neither one of her sisters had called to say that he’d taken a turn for the better. Had it been for the worse, she knew her sisters. As long as their father wasn’t on the cusp of having his health take a nosedive, they wouldn’t call to tell her to come. They felt she worried too much as it was.

“Good idea,” she agreed. She needed to see for herself how her father was doing and to corner a doctor about his prognosis—if that was possible. “We’ll hook up again in a couple of hours,” she told Trevor—then suddenly realized that she’d slipped and used a phrase that implied a great deal more than just meeting up with the man again. She struggled not to turn red. “I mean—”

He pretended not to hear her attempt at backtracking, just as he pretended not to know what the phrase she’d unintentionally used meant.

Ignoring the rather cute, endearing hue that was struggling to take over her face was a bit more difficult. Not that he liked seeing her uncomfortable, but the fact that something so negligible could embarrass her to this extent struck him as rather innocent and sweet. Women like that—he’d believed up until yesterday—didn’t exist anymore.

Again he caught himself thinking that Gabby was rather unique as well as sensually attractive.

“I’ll see you later,” he agreed, his tone leaving no room for any further verbal exchange.

He didn’t have time for the thoughts that kept trying to break in, thoughts that took Gabby’s misspoken words and elaborated on them, creating images of what an actual “hookup” with her would have involved.

Hookups
by definition implied casual encounters, and he was getting the very distinct feeling that there was
nothing
casual about that sort of an encounter if it occurred with Gabby. He’d initially labeled her a bleeding-heart airhead, but he was willing—at least privately—to admit that he’d misjudged her. She didn’t possess a bleeding heart, she had a big heart and she was most definitely
not
an airhead. Contrarily, she had a good head on her shoulders.

She was most definitely not the type to engage in casual or whimsical sex. He rather liked that. When she played, he had the feeling it was for keeps. But, whether he liked that or not, whether he admired that or not, she deserved someone who felt the same way, who could commit to her. A man who wasn’t damaged goods and didn’t come with a truckload of baggage.

You’ve got no time for this, remember?
he reminded himself. His daughter needed him and she needed him to be clear thinking.

There’d be time for the rest of it—if there
was
a rest of it, Trevor promised himself, after he brought Avery home.