Colton 911: Baby's Bodyguard. Lisa Childs

      And Connor.

      He awoke with a cry of protest. Apparently he’d preferred Forrest Colton holding him over his mother holding him. But then he had to be frustrated with her; she hadn’t managed to comfort him last night, hadn’t managed to make him feel better, like her mother had always made her feel better.

      Even when Mama had been so very sick, she’d offered solace to Rae, had held her and soothed all of her fears. She missed her mom every day. And she needed her now more than she ever had.

      Because Rae was scared...and not just of the killer on the loose. She was scared that she may have taken on more than she could handle alone.

      * * *

       She was alone.

      He had watched the house all day, had watched the police collect their evidence, had watched Rae Lemmon leave and then return later, after the police had already gone for the day. So she was the only one near the house now.

      She and her baby.

      He waited outside, watching the house until all of the lights flickered off inside, leaving it dark. Then he moved away from the tree against which he’d been leaning, and he headed toward the house.

      Beside the sidewalk leading up to the porch, a big iron pot overflowed with red geraniums that matched the flowers overflowing the window boxes of the little white ranch house. He bent over, tipped the pot and fumbled beneath it.

      Then a grin curved his lips, and his fingers closed around a key and tugged it free from beneath the pot. A magnet glued to the key had kept it stuck to the bottom. With the key in hand, he climbed the short steps up to the porch. As he moved across it to the front door, boards creaked beneath his weight. He unlocked the door, and it creaked as he opened it.

      He tensed, waiting for lights to flash on inside, but everything remained dark and quiet.

      The house was small, just two bedrooms off the living room, with a bathroom in between them. The door to the first bedroom was mostly closed, so he walked past it and the bathroom to the second bedroom. Moonlight streaming through the window reflected off the glow-in-the-dark stars painted on the ceiling. That light shone down on the face of the baby sleeping in the crib.

      He crossed the room to the crib and stared down at the sleeping child. Something twisted in his chest, and he sucked in a breath.

      He hated to do this.

      But he had no choice.

      Not anymore.

      His hand shaking, he pulled a switchblade from his pocket and popped out the blade. Then he leaned over the railing of the crib, with the knife in his hand extended toward the sleeping child...

       Chapter 4

      Chief Archer Thompson was in over his head. He knew it. That was why he’d hired the detective from Austin—Forrest Colton. He hadn’t done that just because Hurricane Brooke had stretched the department so thin that it was nearly transparent. He’d hired Forrest because Archer was too close to one of the murder victims.

      His hand shook as he reached for the picture on the bookshelf in his home study. Emmeline at sixteen. So beautiful...

      So sweet.

      The first body Hurricane Brooke had uncovered was his sister’s. Missing for all of those years...

      Was it the same situation with the body that Forrest had found out at the Lemmon house? Had her family been wondering for decades where she was?

      And what about the woman in the parking lot?

      She hadn’t been dead long, but somebody was probably already missing her, wondering where she was, if she’d been hurt and stranded in the hurricane.

      He didn’t need the coroner’s report to know that she’d been murdered like the others. Elliot Corgan was dead now, so he couldn’t have hurt her.

      And he claimed he hadn’t hurt Emmeline.

      But if not him, who? Who else would want to harm the sweet young woman his sister had been?

      Yeah, he was in too deep—too emotionally invested in finding the killer. Forrest Colton wasn’t. He would be able to examine everything with objectivity. He wouldn’t have had all of the success he’d had solving those cold cases in Austin if he got too involved. So nothing and nobody should be able to distract Forrest from finding this killer.

      * * *

      He was distracted, so distracted with thoughts of Rae Lemmon and her sweet baby. Despite her insistence that she didn’t need any protection, Forrest should have insisted on leaving an officer at her house. He could have convinced her that it was protocol—to protect the crime scene.

      But it wasn’t the crime scene he was worried about.

      Her house was so far from town, so far from any other homestead. While some of his family’s ranch touched her property, the closest other dwelling belonged to the Corgans. And one of them had been a serial killer. How the hell had Elliot Corgan’s family kept the fact that he was a murderer out of the press for so many years?

      Judicial order?

      They must have paid the judge for that order. Had they paid for anything else in town? For someone else to start up the murders to try to make Elliot Corgan look innocent?

      His blood chilled as the thought occurred to him. But why bother now after another Corgan had already been arrested? James Corgan had tried to kill his ex-wife, Maggie Reeves-Corgan, and Forrest’s brother Jonah, who was now Maggie’s fiancé. Fortunately James hadn’t been as successful at committing murders as his great-uncle had.

      Those old case files sat atop Forrest’s desk, the top folders nearly sliding off the mound of records and onto the floor of his cubicle area of the Whisperwood Police Department. He’d looked through everything in those case files and was as convinced as the jury had been that Elliot had been responsible for all of those murders.

      But one.

      There had been one victim all those years ago that had been strangled but hadn’t had a scarf stuffed in her mouth like the others. She’d also been the only one of those bodies that had been mummified.

      Like the chief’s sister...

      Like the body found in Rae’s backyard...

      No. Even back then, before Elliot had been arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison, there had been two killers. Were there two killers now? Or had that one just started up again?

      Had his first recent murder been Elliot’s? After Jonah and Maggie had interviewed the serial killer in prison, he had supposedly committed suicide, but Jonah had had his doubts. And knowing serial killers as well he did, so did Forrest. Had this killer somehow gotten to Elliot to prevent the inmate from revealing his identity?

      And if this killer could get to someone in a maximum-security prison, he could certainly get to someone who lived in a little ranch house outside town.

      Forrest shivered despite the fact that the air conditioner barely worked in the big open area that was divided only by the short cubicle walls. Out of all of the cubicles, his was the only one currently occupied. The officers on duty had gone out on patrol hours ago. Except for the 911 area and the front desk, the building was pretty much deserted.

      He needed to head home or his parents would worry. Despite all of the years he’d been gone or maybe because of them, his parents worried about him like he was a teenager staying out past curfew. Not that he ever stayed out late. It wasn’t as if he had anyplace—but work—to go. And maybe that was why they worried.

      He touched his bad leg, which was stiff from all of the time he’d been sitting at his desk. They were probably worried that he was going to get hurt again—like he’d been hurt before.