Colton Baby Rescue. Marie Ferrarella

timer barely finished sounding off before he poured the incredibly thick, sludge-like liquid into his mug. Holding the mug with two hands like a child who had just learned how to drink out of a cup for the first time, Carson quickly consumed the product of his efforts. He drank nonstop until he had managed to drain the mug of its very last drop.

      Putting the mug down, Carson sighed as he sat back in his chair. He could almost feel the coffee working its way through his veins, waking up every single blood vessel it passed through with a start.

      The fuzziness was definitely gone.

      Getting up to his feet, he looked in Justice’s direction. The German shepherd had inhaled every last bit of what he’d put into the dog’s dish. Carson credited the dog with having the same frame of mind that he did. Justice had needed something to jump-start his day.

      “Okay, give me five minutes to shower and change so we can hit the road and get started,” he told his furry partner.

      As if concurring with what Carson had just said, Justice barked.

      Once.

      True to his word, Carson was in and out of the shower in less time than it took to think about it. Going to his closet, he found Justice lying on the bedroom floor, waiting for him.

      “Don’t start nagging me,” he told the dog. “I’m almost ready.” When the dog barked at him a couple of times in response, Carson said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t shave.” As if in acknowledgement, he ran his hand over what was now beyond a dark five-o’clock shadow. It could have doubled as the inside of an abyss at midnight. “I’ll do it tomorrow. There’s nobody I’m trying to impress anyway,” he added, pulling on a pair of jeans, followed by his boots.

      He paired the jeans with a black pullover then put on his go-to navy sports jacket. As a detective, he was supposed to make an effort to dress in more subdued, businesslike attire. This was his effort, he thought drolly.

      Adjusting his weapon in its holster, he said, “Okay, Justice, let’s roll.”

      * * *

      He stopped by the precinct first to see if any headway had been made in the investigation into his brother’s murder. Specifically, if there had been any sightings of Demi Colton overnight.

      There hadn’t been.

      When he walked into the squad room, he found that Finn was in the process of handing out the names of people he wanted interviewed in connection with Bo’s murder. Names from the list he had compiled for the chief, Carson thought.

      “Just in time,” Finn said when he saw Carson coming in. “I was beginning to think that maybe you’d decided to take a couple of days off like I suggested.”

      The chief knew him better than that, Carson thought. “Not until we catch Demi.”

      When he saw the chief shifting, as if he was uncomfortable, it made him wonder what was up.

      “Yeah, well, on the outside chance that it turns out Demi didn’t kill Bo, we do need to look into other possibilities. Like whether there might be anyone else out there with a grudge against your brother strong enough to want to kill him.”

      The way he saw it, even thought he had compiled the list for Finn, shifting attention away from Demi would be a waste of time and manpower.

      “Bo didn’t write anyone else’s name in his own blood,” Carson pointed out in a steely voice. “He wrote Demi’s.”

      Finn threw another theory out there. “Maybe there was something else he was trying to tell us other than the name of his killer.”

      Carson frowned. Finn was stonewalling. Everyone knew that things between the Colton and Gage families weren’t exactly warm and toasty. There was a feud between the two families that went back a long ways, and it flared up often.

      Was that why Finn seemed so intent on running down so-called “other” leads rather than going after a member of his own extended family? Finn was a good police chief, but his behavior seemed very suspicious to Carson.

      “I know what you’re thinking,” Finn said in response to the look he saw descending over Carson’s face. “You think I’m trying to protect Demi. I’m not. I’m the police chief of this county. I don’t put family above the law. Hell, you were there. I roused my own family out of bed to conduct a search for Demi.

      “But I’m not about to bend over backward and behave like someone’s puppet just to prove to everyone that I won’t let my sense of family get in the way of my doing my job. However, just because half the force is out for blood, doesn’t mean I’m going to put blinders on and pretend there might not be anyone else out there who stood to gain something from your brother’s death.”

      “Like what?” Carson wanted to know.

      “Well, we won’t know unless we look into it, will we?” Finn answered. “Now, aside from all those girlfriends your brother was always accumulating before he got engaged to Hayley, he was married once before, wasn’t he?”

      Carson nodded. “Yeah, to Darby Gage,” he told the chief, adding, “They’ve been divorced for over two years.”

      “Which one of them asked for the divorce?” Finn wanted to know.

      He didn’t have to try to remember in order to answer. “Darby did.”

      Finn was all ears. “Why?”

      A half, rather mirthless smile curved Carson’s mouth. Just because he wanted to find Bo’s killer didn’t mean that he had approved of his brother’s fast-and-loose lifestyle.

      “Seems that Darby didn’t care for the fact that Bo couldn’t stop seeing other women even though they were married.” He knew how that had to sound to Finn. “I’m not making any excuses for Bo,” Carson told the chief. “He was an alley cat. Always had been. And personally, in the end, I think that Darby was glad to be rid of him.”

      “Maybe she decided she wanted to be really rid of him,” Finn countered. “In any case, I want you to go talk to the ex-wife. Find out if she has an alibi for the time your brother was murdered.”

      He should have seen that coming. “Okay, will do,” Carson told him. “You heard the man, Justice,” he said to the dog. “Let’s go.”

      * * *

      Since her divorce from Bo Gage two years ago, Darby Gage had been forced to stitch together a number of part-time jobs just to make ends meet.

      Carson found her at the diner where she worked the morning shift as a waitress.

      It might have been his imagination, but his ex-sister-in-law seemed to tense up when she saw him coming into the diner.

      Putting on a cheerful face, Darby walked up to him with a menu and said, “Take a seat, Detective Gage. We’ve still got a few empty tables to choose from.”

      Carson picked a table that was off to one side. Parking Justice there, he sat down.

      “What can I get you?” Darby asked.

      He could see that the cheerfulness was forced. It probably unnerved her to see him here, he guessed. “Answers,” he told his ex-sister-in-law.

      Her blue eyes swept over him. In his estimation, she looked nervous. She gave up all pretense of cheerfulness. “Is this about Bo?”

      His eyes never left her face. His gut told him that she didn’t have anything to do with Bo’s murder, but he was here so he might as well do his job.

      “Yes.”

      Darby sighed as she shook her head. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

      “Let me be the judge of that,” Carson told her.

      He’d found that saying something like that took the reins away from the person he was interviewing and put them back into his hands.