Her Colton P.i.. Amelia Autin

and believing the story they tell—no matter what that story is. No matter if the story seems incredible on the face of it.”

      Holly buried her face in her hands as emotion welled up in her. For months she’d had no one she could confide in about her suspicions. No one she could share her worry with. She hadn’t even told Peg. And this man, this stranger, was telling her she’d been right all along.

      When she finally raised her face to his, her eyes were dry. She wasn’t going to cry about this, not now. She’d cried enough tears over the McCays, almost as many tears as she’d cried over Grant’s death. Her lips tightened. “That means I’m doing the right thing taking the boys and leaving town.”

      Chris shook his head. “I didn’t tell them I located you. And I won’t.”

      “But don’t you see? Even if you don’t tell them where I am, if they hired you they know I’m in this area. And the next PI they hire might not... What I mean is, not everyone will suspect their motives. Not everyone will believe the truth.”

      Chris stared thoughtfully, then nodded. “You’re right. But I can’t let you run away again. Not knowing what I know. I’d never be able to forgive myself if...” He seemed to reach a decision. “I think the best thing would be for you and your boys to check out of this rooming house...but stay where I can keep an eye on you until we can set a trap for the McCays.”

      Holly shook her head vehemently. “I can’t do that to you and your wife—put you in danger that way.”

      All expression was wiped from Chris’s face in a heartbeat. “My wife is dead.”

      She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered eventually. “I didn’t know. You said Peg’s your sister-in-law, and since you and she don’t have the same name, I assumed...” Her words trailed off miserably.

      “Peg never mentioned her younger sister, Laura?” Holly shook her head again. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Chris said. “Peg and Laura were particularly close. She took Laura’s death hard.” He didn’t say it, but Holly could see Peg wasn’t the only one who’d taken Laura’s death hard. But that closed-off expression also told her this wasn’t a topic of conversation Chris wanted to pursue.

      Is that why Peg bonded with me so quickly? Holly wondered abstractedly. Because she saw in me the little sister she’d lost?

      “So you’re not putting my wife in danger,” Chris said, drawing her attention back to the here and now. “Most of my family is in some kind of law enforcement, too, and I can recruit them to help me set a trap for the McCays. Of course, everyone’s focused on capturing the Alphabet Killer right now, so the McCays aren’t going to be a top priority. Especially since there’s no concrete evidence against them. In the meantime, though, I want you and your boys in safekeeping.”

      “Ian and Jamie aren’t in danger,” she was quick to point out. “Just me.”

      “Are you so sure?” Chris’s eyes in that moment were the hardest, coldest blue eyes she’d ever seen. “If the McCays are willing to kill you to gain custody, who’s to say they wouldn’t eventually arrange ‘accidents’ for the boys, too, once they had them in their control?”

      “Their own grandchildren? I can’t believe—”

      Chris cut her off. “Believe it. Once you’ve taken the first life, the next one is easier to justify in your mind. And the next.” A bark of humorless laughter escaped him. “I should know. My father is Matthew Colton.”

      Holly’s brows drew together in a frown. “I don’t think I—”

      “Mathew Colton, the original bull’s-eye serial killer. He was infamous in his day. The Alphabet Killer is a copycat of sorts, marking her victims the way he did.” His face hardened into a grim mask. “My father killed ten people twenty years ago. Including his last victim—my mother.”

       Chapter 3

      “Oh, my God!”

      Shock was obvious on Holly’s face, followed quickly by the emotion Chris hated the most—pity. He’d had a bellyful of pity in his life—from the time he was eleven and became a quasi-orphan, right up through Laura’s death almost two years ago. He didn’t want pity and he didn’t need it.

      “My father killed nine men who reminded him of his hated brother, Big J Colton,” he said brusquely, “before he killed my mother...whose only crime was that she loved him. So don’t tell me the McCays couldn’t possibly kill their innocent grandchildren.”

      “I...won’t.” The fear in Holly’s eyes surprised Chris, because it wasn’t fear of him. It wasn’t even fear for herself as a target of the McCays. No, the fear was for her children. Then her face changed, and the fear morphed into fierce determination to protect her children at all costs, no matter what. If Chris had needed one more bit of proof Holly McCay was a good mother, he’d just received it.

      “They’re not getting anywhere near Ian and Jamie,” Holly stated unequivocally. “What do you want me to do?”

      He glanced away and thought for a moment, then nodded to himself. His eyes met Holly’s. “I’ve got a house on the outskirts of Granite Gulch. No one lives there, but Peg looks after it for me, so it’s not...abandoned.” A wave of pain went through him and his right eye twitched as he remembered this was Laura’s dream house, the one he’d built for her right before she died. The house she’d never had a chance to live in. The house he couldn’t bear to occupy after her death. “It stands all by itself on several acres, and it’s up on a ridge—you can easily spot someone coming almost a mile away. I can’t think of a safer place for you and the boys to hide out.”

      “Just us?”

      “And me. Until we can set a trap for the McCays, I don’t want you out of my sight if I can help it.”

      “What about your job? You can’t just—”

      Chris’s jaw set tightly. “I run my own business. I haven’t taken a day off since Laura’s funeral, so I think I can manage this. Besides, I do a lot of my work over the phone or on the computer. I can work from the office in the house. We designed the house—” ...with that in mind, he started to say, but his throat closed before he could get the words out.

      Holly didn’t respond at first, just assessed him with an enigmatic expression on her face. The silence stretched from ten seconds to twenty, to thirty. Nearly a minute had passed before she said, “Okay. I appreciate the offer. And I’ll accept it on my children’s behalf. If it was just me...that would be a different story, but it’s not.”

      * * *

      A half hour later everything Holly and the twins had with them was loaded into her SUV, with the exception of the two fold-a-cribs she’d bought when she moved to Rosewood. Chris stashed those in the back of his truck, and Holly realized if she’d taken Ian and Jamie and run, she would have had to leave the twins’ cribs behind—they just wouldn’t fit.

      “I’ll follow you to Peg’s,” Chris said as he raised the hatch and clicked it firmly closed. “But first, we’d better stop in town and get some groceries. The utilities at the house are on—so we’ll have water and electricity—but there’s no food.”

      Holly nodded. “Sounds good.”

      “And while I’m at it, I’d better stop off and pack a suitcase, and pick up my laptop from my apartment. I live above the Double G Cakes and Pies.”

      “Oh, I love that place!” she exclaimed. “Mia—the woman who runs it—she always gives Ian and Jamie special cookies she makes just for them.”

      Chris smiled. “Sounds like Mia. She and my sister Annabel are best friends—they were foster sisters together.” His smile faded, replaced by the