The Complete Colony Series. Lisa Jackson

end to end. Did he know something? Something he wasn’t telling? Or was there something else at work outside of this investigation?

      “Maybe your little ghost girlfriend just forgot about St. John,” Gretchen suggested, once again trying to bait him into an argument.

      “Maybe,” Mac said. This time he wasn’t going to bite.

      Six days later, Hudson lay on his back, staring up at the dark ceiling in his bedroom, one arm draped possessively around Becca’s hip as the curve of her spine nestled next to him, skin to skin. He’d spent the time almost exclusively with Becca. Sometimes they were at her condo, most of the time they were at his ranch. Last night she’d even brought her dog over so that she wouldn’t have to leave at the crack of dawn to let him out. Ringo was downstairs in his bed and, after hours of whining, had apparently decided to accept his fate that he wasn’t sleeping in the bedroom with Becca.

      All the feelings from high school that Hudson had done his damnedest to deny seemed to be back full force. He could scarcely stand to be away from her and, lucky for him, she seemed to feel exactly the same way.

      They hadn’t talked about Jessie. Or much about Glenn and/or the fire and his death. They hadn’t pursued further discussion of the nursery rhymes—like The Third said, let McNally figure out who sent them and why. Hudson really didn’t give a damn. He didn’t want to think about Jessie or Glenn or any part of their group dynamics—the secrets, the lies, the undercurrents. If Renee wanted to dig around and come up with a story, she could have at it. All he wanted to do was breathe in Becca’s scent, feel the silkiness of her skin, listen to her musical laughter.

      And make love.

      Over and over again.

      Now his hand caressed her smooth skin. They’d come together twice last night and it hadn’t felt like enough. He hadn’t been celibate the intervening years since his first relationship with Becca, but he hadn’t been actively looking for sex, romance, and female companionship, either.

      It was as if he’d been waiting.

      Maybe he had.

      The sun was just starting to rise, and for the first morning in God knew how long its rays, though coolly blue in the early dawn, were not slanting through a gray haze of rain. Hudson could see the dark outlines of clouds through the window, just beginning to be visible in the first light, but it appeared, at least for the moment, that precipitation had been suspended.

      Carefully, he climbed out of bed, pausing to take a look at the woman lying in the rumpled blankets. Her eyes were closed, lashes fanning her cheeks, her breathing even and restful. He felt like he knew everything about her, yet she was still full of mystery and complexities. It was intoxicating and vaguely dangerous. There was too much going on, too many unanswered questions to start a relationship. But he didn’t care.

      And Jessie Brentwood might have been pregnant at the time of her death, at the time she’d been killed.

      You might have been a father if something horrible hadn’t happened to her in that maze, in front of the Madonna statue.

      How his life would have changed. He wouldn’t be here at the ranch with Becca, that much was for sure. He probably would never have known how it felt to be touched by her or kissed by her. He would have been tangled with Jessie—wild, mysterious, and dangerous Jessie.

      But a kid—a kid who would now be nineteen. Hard to damned believe.

      Pulling on a pair of boxers and jeans, Hudson headed downstairs only to encounter Ringo, whose low growl indicated he wasn’t quite sure of both the new surroundings and the intentions of this stranger. Hudson half smiled as he made a pot of coffee. The sun was lifting higher, widening the arc of its rays, burnishing the outbuildings beyond the kitchen window. He knew Rodriguez would show up soon. Grandy’s replacement had been as reliable as promised, though Hudson would rather have his family’s longtime ranch foreman back.

      It was really too early to make phone calls, but Hudson unplugged his cell phone from his charger and pushed the speed button that accessed his sister’s number. Renee didn’t pick up and he decided not to leave a third message telling her to call him. She’d sounded better. He was being over-protective. And the phone call to her soon-to-be ex, Tim Trudeau, earlier in the week, hadn’t been a wise choice, either.

      Tim had acted as if he couldn’t be less interested in anything to do with Renee, saying only, “When you talk to her, tell her I’m putting the house on the market. Real estate agent’s coming by today and we’re coming up with a price. All I need is her signature.”

      Oh, yeah, pal. I’ll pass that along.

      Renee and Tim owned a house on the east side of the Willamette River, in an area known as Westmoreland. Hudson had steered clear of all the marital infighting that had broken out between them the last few years, but with Renee’s strange change of attitude lately, he’d felt the need for more information.

      His phone buzzed in his hand and to his complete surprise he saw the call was from Renee. He clicked on. “Finally,” he greeted her, stepping onto the outside porch in order not to wake Becca. “Where have you been?”

      “I told you I was going to the beach.”

      “Well, what the hell are you doing there? I’ve left messages.”

      “I’ve been really buried in my story.” Her voice came and went, as cell phone reception was spotty along the coast. But he could hear an element of excitement in her voice. Or was it fear?

      “The Jessie story?”

      “Do you ever think this is the end of the…” She disappeared for a sentence or two.

      “Renee? Can you hear me?”

      “…and people formed colonies along the cliffs that became towns, mostly. It’s like a history lesson. But very weird. I’ve been interviewing…”

      “Interviewing?” Hudson listened hard, but he heard only fuzz on the line. “Renee? Renee?”

      “…you there?”

      “Yes, yes, I’m here.”

      “Remember? Jessie…all about justice?…Now I know…”

      “Know what?”

      “…Jessie…I’ll talk to you when I…Be there soon, okay? On my way back. If you can hear me, good-bye! Love you!”

      “Renee!” Hudson heard the distinct sound of his phone disconnecting. He ended his call and made a sound of frustration. Well, at least she was coming back. He was determined to get to the bottom of what was driving her, be it a story or some inner worry or fear that she’d been reluctant to name so far.

      On bare feet he climbed back up the stairs to check on Becca. He peeked into the room and saw her eyes were open. A soft, sexy smile caressed her lips and she lifted her arms to him. Thoughts of Renee drifted away and he quickly stripped naked and came to bed once more.

      Renee tossed her cell phone into her purse as she drove north. The damned thing would be useless for a few more miles. There were stretches on the coast where there was poor service and then a place in the mountains where there was no connection at all. But she’d be home in a couple of hours.

      Good! She’d had it with the beach. Even the tidy little hotel where she’d rented a room in Pacific Beach, ten miles north of Deception Bay, had become tiresome. She hadn’t gone back to the cabin where she’d thought she’d seen a man with dead eyes outside the window, a place where she’d “misplaced” a butcher knife. No way. She wasn’t that secure. No, she’d rented a room at the hotel ten miles away, a place she could write her story and sleep in peace.

      Now she flexed her fingers on the steering wheel of her Camry, a hard smile crossing her face. She’d known something was wrong. Off. But she hadn’t known exactly what.

      Nor all of the implications.

      Now