Her Colton P.i.. Amelia Autin

prove it.”

      “I know. I wasn’t really worried, but...fear isn’t always logical. It was just there in the back of my mind, you know? And the newspaper reported that the woman who’s suspected of being the Alphabet Killer—I forget her name—”

      “Regina Willard.”

      “Right. She once stayed at the Rosewood Rooming House, same as me.”

      “I know.” Chris suddenly thought of something. “Before I forget, I wanted to tell you there’s no internet service here at the house yet. And no cable. Water, gas, electricity and phone—yeah. I couldn’t turn the water off—unless I wanted to let the landscaping shrivel up and die. Not to mention Peg needs water when she comes out here to take care of the place. And electricity and phone service are necessary for the alarm system. But no cable or internet landline. I called to get them turned on when we were at Peg’s, but it’ll be a few days.”

      “That’s okay,” Holly informed him. “I haven’t watched TV since I left Clear Lake City. And I only browse the internet at the library anyway, so it’s not a hardship to do without. But what about you?”

      “I can survive without cable for a few days. And I’ve got mobile internet access for my laptop and smartphone—I need it for my PI business. So, I’m good.”

      Ian and Jamie both squirmed to get free at that moment, and Chris said, “Better get them their baths. Go on,” he insisted. “It won’t take me more than a few minutes to clean up in here. Then I have some work to catch up on. I’ll be in the office.”

      * * *

      A half hour later Holly ruefully fished her dark pixie-cut wig out of the tub in the master bathroom, where Ian had dunked it after he tugged it off her head. She rolled the wig in a towel to dry it as much as she could, then hung it on a hook over the shower. “Laugh,” she told Ian in a mock-threatening tone as she lifted him out of the tub and wrapped his wriggling body in a towel. “You just wait until you grow up. I’m going to take delight in embarrassing you by telling your friends all the things you did to me.

      “No, Jamie, we don’t eat soap,” she said, changing subjects, quickly removing the bar of soap from his vicinity. She scooped him out of the tub and wrapped him in a towel, too. She played peekaboo with both boys and their towels for a couple of minutes, then gathered them close as intense motherly love for her babies washed through her. “You’re little monsters—you know that—but I love you madly,” she told them. “And I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world.”

      Clean, Ian and Jamie looked like little angels, their golden curls fluffed into tiny halos. Holly brushed their barely damp hair, ruthlessly suppressing the curls, before using the brush on her own head when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She wasn’t vain about her appearance—well, not much—but she didn’t want anyone seeing her with her hair a flattened mess. She refused to acknowledge who she meant by “anyone,” but in the back of her mind lurked the memory of her dream that afternoon. The dream, and the kiss. Not to mention her erotic reaction to it.

      Holly let the twins run naked into the bedroom, dabbing futilely at the large, damp patch on her pale blue T-shirt where Jamie had—deliberately, she was sure—splashed her with soapy bathwater. Then she followed her sons into the other room.

      She dressed them in the pull-ups they still wore at night because they weren’t quite potty trained yet, then in their nightclothes. “Come on,” she told them, taking their hands in hers. “Let’s go say good-night to Mr. Colton. Pretend you’re really as angelic as you look so he won’t mind sharing a house with us.”

      * * *

      Chris leaned back in his leather desk chair and absently fondled Wally’s head as the dog lay quietly beside him. “Look at this, boy,” he murmured. “You think...?” This was a news article on his laptop’s computer screen—a story about the daring capture of a fugitive on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. A dangerous man who was an alleged associate of a drug lord who’d been dead for six years—Desmond Carlton. The name Carlton was enough like Colton for the story to have caught Chris’s eye, and he shook his head at a vague memory. Then he picked up his smartphone and hit speed dial.

      “Hi, Chris,” Annabel said when she answered. “What’s up?”

      “Carlton,” he said abruptly. “Wasn’t that the last name of Josie’s foster parents?”

      “Um...I think so. Yes, it was. Why?”

      “I was just reading something on Yahoo News about a man who ran with Desmond Carlton six years ago.”

      “The guy who was on the Ten Most Wanted list? The one the FBI just captured?”

      “Yeah, him.”

      “Why is that important? Other than someone else will be promoted to the list tomorrow, now that he’s in prison where he belongs, the creep.”

      “I don’t know,” Chris said slowly. “But as I was reading the story the name Carlton rang a bell. That, and the fact that Desmond Carlton has been dead for six years. Six years, Bella. Think about it.”

      “You don’t mean... Josie? It’s got to be a coincidence.”

      “I don’t like coincidences. And I don’t trust them. Especially two coincidences together.” He thought a minute. “Do me a favor, will you? Find out what prison this guy is in. I might want to have a little chat with him.”

      Annabel’s soft drawl took on a hard edge. “You don’t want to ask Trevor? He’s FBI. He could probably get in to see this perp whether or not he wants visitors.” When Chris didn’t respond, his sister said, “Are you still holding a grudge against Trevor? I thought you agreed it wasn’t fair to him.”

      “Trevor’s got enough on his plate right now,” he pointed out, “what with trying to find Regina Willard. Especially now that she just added number eight to her victim list—the pressure to catch her has got to be intense.”

      “It’s not just the FBI, you know,” Annabel said drily. “The Granite Gulch Police Department is involved in this case, too.”

      Chris winced. His sister didn’t say it, but it had been Annabel’s solid police work that had identified Regina Willard as the Alphabet Killer. The woman hadn’t been caught yet, though not for lack of trying on Annabel’s part.

      But the real reason Chris didn’t want to ask for Trevor’s help wasn’t that his older brother was too busy—that had just been an excuse. Chris was still holding a grudge...but he wasn’t going to admit it to Annabel. Okay, it was an old wound from his childhood that he should have gotten over long since—he knew that. The adult in him knew that. And yeah, it wasn’t fair to Trevor—Annabel was right about that. And true, he and Trevor had finally reconnected years back...mostly.

      But deep inside him resided that eleven-year-old boy who’d idolized his older brother, who’d felt betrayed when the family was split up and Trevor made no attempt to maintain the connection with him when they all went into foster care. Yeah, they’d seen each other a few times a year at the home of Josie’s foster parents—court-mandated visits—but that wasn’t the same thing at all. Chris had pretended it hadn’t hurt...but it had. Badly. He was still trying to excise the scar tissue that had left on his psyche, but he wasn’t there yet.

      Then there was the whole Josie thing. When Trevor turned eighteen, he’d tried to get custody of Josie...or at least that was the story. But how hard had he tried, really? Chris didn’t know, and the uncertainty of that ate at him. Josie would have been only seven back then. She’d turned Chris’s offer down when he turned eighteen, but by that time it was already too late—she’d been ten, and had spent seven years with the Carltons. Maybe it was unreasonable, but Chris laid the blame for losing Josie squarely on Trevor’s shoulders.

      “But you’re right,” Annabel said, breaking into his thoughts. “Trevor’s got enough to worry about. I’ll see what I can find out.”