Colton Under Fire Read online

  Nope. Not even then. He was a small-town cop living a small-town life. The girl he remembered wouldn’t ever see any appeal in that.

  Sloane had run off to the bright lights of the big city as soon as she could after high school and college. Married a rich, high-powered lawyer, and became a renowned defense attorney herself. She obviously wanted excitement out of life. Challenge. She didn’t want anything to do with sleepy Roaring Springs or the people in it.

  He swore under his breath. Who knew that, after all this time, he could still carry a hotly lit torch for a girl he’d grown up with? He had to find a way to douse it and get on with his life.

  Liam checked in on the prisoner on the second floor, still sleeping off his alcohol binge, before heading out to his truck. It dawned on him he didn’t know where Sloane lived. He could call Fox—Strike that. No Coltons. He called the police station to run her address.

  Her house was only a few blocks from where he’d grown up. And where he lived now. He’d renovated and then moved into the apartment over the garage of his parents’ home last year after his father died.

  It was hell on his social life to be that guy who, in his early thirties, lived at home with his mom. But her health was frail and she needed help. He’d been a late-in-life only child, and there was no one else for his mother to lean on.

  Sloane’s street was quiet. Bucolic. Lined with trees and upscale craftsman bungalows vying to be the most authentically restored. It was well after midnight, and only sporadic imitation gas porch lights cast any glow into the dark shadows wreathing the street.

  Huh. He wouldn’t have pegged her for the type to live in a cozy neighborhood like this. What was up with that?

  He pulled his truck into Sloane’s driveway and was just reaching for the door handle when he spied something slipping around the back corner of her house.

  Whatever it was looked too big for a dog or a coyote. Frowning, he climbed out of his truck and crunched up the gravel drive. He moved cautiously toward the bushes, giving a wild animal plenty of time to get away. No sense startling a bear or cougar. He turned on the flashlight function of his smartphone and shone it at the holly bush. No eyes glowed back at him. But jumbled shoe prints leaped into view in the snow. What the—?

  He raced around the corner of the house, following the boot prints through the ankle-deep snow in Sloane’s backyard and into the green belt behind her house. The prints led down a hill to an asphalt bike path that the snow had melted off of in the past few days. The asphalt was dry and gray and gave no clue as to which direction the person had gone. He listened carefully and heard no running footsteps.

  His money was on the guy having had a bicycle parked back here. Jerk was long gone by now.

  An intruder, maybe? Burglar? Peeping Tom? Or maybe he was thinking too much like a cop. It could’ve just been some neighborhood kid sneaking home through her yard.

  Except it was too cold and too late on a school night for kids to be out fooling around. In full detective mode, he snapped photos of the footprints and called in the incident, putting it into the official police record. It was going to cause some extra paperwork for him, but whatever. Sloane might be in danger.

  Before he unlocked her front door, he inspected the lock and jamb for signs of any attempt at forced entry. Nope, no scratches. Although that was a pitiful excuse for a lock. Just the original brass knob’s lock protected her house. She needed a decent dead bolt at a minimum. Even an amateur thief could pick the existing lock in a matter of seconds.

  Frowning, he opened the door and stepped in.

  The living room was thin on furniture with only some bean bag chairs, a big recliner and a flat screen TV hanging on the wall.

  The place had clearly undergone one of those open concept remodels recently that knocked out most of the walls. The living room flowed into a dining room taken up with toddler toys and no furniture and on back into a gourmet kitchen.

  He headed down the hallway, and the first room he came upon was Chloe’s, a princess paradise. A low bed was tucked inside a fairy castle, and a night-light cast firework patterns on the ceiling. He backed out of the room, feeling oversize and alien surrounded by so much...sparkle.

  A hallway bathroom was unremarkable and he left that quickly. A utility closet held a furnace, and the door at the end of the hall revealed a bedroom much more his speed. Four-poster bed. No-frills navy comforter. A handmade-looking oak dresser and chest of drawers were crowded with framed pictures of Chloe, but other than those, the room was devoid of decoration—or any personality.

  Odd. Was Sloane still unpacking, or was she that shut down emotionally?

  He opened the first of two interior doors in Sloane’s bedroom and found an elegant, but sterile, bathroom. It was pretty but didn’t feel lived in.

  Where was the real Sloane Colton hiding in this house? He hadn’t found her yet.

  The second door revealed a spacious walk-in closet the size of a small bedroom. A riot of color and texture assaulted his eyes as he turned on the light. Ahh. Here she was. The fiery Sloane he remembered so clearly.

  He looked for something to put her clothes in and spied a duffel bag stuffed on a high shelf. He reached up, needing his full six-foot height to grab it. He turned his head to the side as he reached for the back of the shelf and happened to glance out into her bedroom. Which was probably why he spotted the tiny hole in the wall, hidden high in a shadowed corner of the room, tucked beneath the beautiful, dark oak crown molding.

  Maybe if he hadn’t already been suspicious of an intruder, he would’ve ignored the hole. But as it was, he took the duffel and moved over to the chest of drawers underneath the hole, and then took a quick peek. A tiny glass circle filled the small opening.

  Alarm exploded in his gut and fury threatened to overcome reason.

  For all the world, that looked like a surveillance camera.

  Stop. Breathe. Think. It wasn’t necessarily what it looked like.

  Maybe Sloane had some sort of high-tech security system installed in her house.

  Or was that camera something more sinister?

  Surely, he was being paranoid. After all, he was bored to death being a police detective in a quiet little town where the occasional bicycle theft was about as exciting as police work got.

  Until that murder last month out at the Crooked C ranch, of course. A high-end call girl who’d been seen up at the resort had been killed by a client. Initially, there were two possible suspects—Wyatt Colton as well as European millionaire George Stratton, who’d brought the girl in from Vegas. But upon further investigation, the sheriff’s department figured out that a disturbed man who’d later killed himself had done the deed.

  Liam forced himself not to look up at the camera lens as he randomly opened drawers in search of clothes for Sloane. His mind raced as he found socks, T-shirts and sweaters.

  Why would anybody covertly surveil a young mother in Roaring Springs? Who had Sloane made an enemy of? A criminal she’d been involved with in her work? The ex-husband? Either way, a random stranger going to all the trouble to set up surveillance on her was not likely.

  He retreated to the closet, where he spied jeans and sweatshirts folded on shelves and grabbed one of each.

  He moved to the shoe rack and was bemused to discover that it rotated. How many pairs of shoes did one woman need, anyway?

  He grabbed a pair of gym shoes made of a knit fabric that looked comfortable and headed for her bathroom. There had better not be a camera in there, or there would be hell to pay. He took a surreptitious look at each of the corners and spied nothing but paint. Then he did a thorough search of the walls as well to assure himself there were no hidden surveillance devices in the vicinity.

  Not a sicko Peeping Tom, then. Which left something—or someone—more sinister behind that camera in her bedroom. He swore under his breath and grabbed a toothbr
ush and tube of toothpaste out of the cup by her sink.

  Taking a moment to look at the duffel bag, he forced himself to think about what he’d forgotten to pack for her.

  Goop. Fox always used to complain that Sloane was a world-class goop collector and hogged the bathroom they’d shared to smear it all over herself.

  Liam warily eyed the neat rows of bottles and tubes on the counter.

  Did Sloane even wear makeup? He honestly didn’t remember. He’d been so shocked by the girl he’d had a giant crush on all through high school slamming into him out of the blue at the hospital that he hadn’t registered any of the details he usually would as an observant detective.

  What was he missing?

  Of course. Underwear.

  His gut jumped a little at the idea of handling Sloane Colton’s unmentionables. Which was absurd. He was a decent-looking man in his thirties and had been around plenty of lingerie, and the women in it. But his very first fantasies of a skimpily clad female, all the way back in junior high, had involved Sloane Colton. He’d never admitted it to Fox and had pretended to have a crush on another girl. But it had been Sloane he’d dreamed of and woke up in hot sweats over.

  He went to the dresser in her bedroom and opened a long, shallow drawer.

  He inhaled sharply as a spill of brightly colored lace assaulted his eyes. Prim and proper Sloane Colton wore this sexy stuff? Wow. Uh, good to know. Of course, he was never going to look at her again without imagining which jewel-toned ensemble of silk and lace she had on under her clothes.

  Swearing under his breath, he grabbed the first pair of skimpy bikinis and bra that matched—a scarlet ensemble with pert little bows strategically placed. Dammit, that was not sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  He left the bedroom light on and headed back to the living area. Under the guise of poking around in the toy box for a stuffed animal to take to Chloe, he inspected the walls.

  There. Over the front door. Tucked high in the corner under the crown molding. Another tiny, circular hole. From that vantage point, a surveillance camera would have a view of the entire living-dining-kitchen area.

  Sonofa—

  He ducked into Chloe’s bedroom and grabbed the well-worn stuffed elephant off her bed. A telltale circular shadow lurked in the far corner of Chloe’s bedroom as well. Now, why would a bad guy watch a toddler? The ex-husband climbed to the top of Liam’s suspect list for being the creepo stalker.

  He forced himself to keep his rampant cop suspicions in check. After all, he still wasn’t positive Sloane was being watched nefariously. She could have hired a security company to monitor her, or perhaps there was some other legitimate reason for the cameras being there. But his gut was dead certain the explanation wasn’t so innocent. Which was weird. He was usually the soul of logic, relying completely on facts and careful analysis. Intuitions were for amateurs. Real detectives used their minds to uncover the truth.

  Assuming Sloane herself wasn’t the source of the cameras, she faced a choice. Rip the cameras out of her walls and have a security firm sweep her house for any more surveillance devices. Or, she could let the cameras ride, pretend she didn’t know they existed, and let him investigate who was behind the surveillance without tipping off the perpetrator.

  Fury bubbled up in his gut. When he caught whoever was behind the surveillance, he was going to—

  Slow down, there, buddy. He was going to hand the bastard over to the district attorney with an ironclad file of evidence so the perpetrator got put away for a good long time. He was a law enforcement professional and didn’t indulge in gratuitous violence, no matter how angry he might be.

  Still. This case was personal. Sloane was his best friend’s little sister. They’d grown up together, for crying out loud.

  On his way out, Liam left on lights and turned on the TV. He doubted whoever had been lurking behind her house would come back tonight, but on the off chance that the guy was a burglar, Liam might as well make the house look occupied.

  He didn’t recall seeing Sloane carry a coat in the hospital, so he stopped at the cast iron coat tree just inside the front door. He grabbed a neon-pink ski jacket, pink mittens and a matching hat with a jaunty pompom. There. That should keep her warm.

  He might not have noticed whether she had makeup on or not, but he’d noticed that she’d been wearing flannel pajamas without much on underneath when she’d banged into him at the hospital. Her body had been soft in all the right places with more curves than he remembered from back in the day, although she was still not much bigger than a whisper.

  Of course, he’d put on about forty pounds of muscle when he took up lacrosse in college. It was the universe’s karmic joke that he finally became a buff athlete type after having to go all the way through high school as a beanpole.

  He took a hard look up and down the street as he pulled out of the driveway but didn’t spot any movement. He made a mental note to ask police cruisers to roll past her house for the next few weeks.

  * * *

  When he got back to the hospital, he headed for the nurses’ station outside Chloe’s room to drop off the duffel. As he turned to leave, Sloane stepped out into the hallway.

  “What are you doing awake?” he asked, startled.

  “You obviously aren’t a parent, or you wouldn’t have to ask. I’m too worried about Chloe to sleep.”

  A nurse piped up from behind him, “That and we’re going in and out of Chloe’s room every ten minutes to check her temperature, and naturally mommy wants to know how it’s doing every time we take it.”

  “How is it doing?” Liam echoed.

  Sloane glanced over her shoulder toward her daughter. “High but steady at 104 degrees. They’ve wrapped her head in refrigerated blankets to cool her down.”

  That didn’t sound good. But he wasn’t about to voice the concern aloud. Sloane already had dark shadows under her eyes and looked on the verge of losing control. As much as he wanted to ask about the cameras in her house, that could wait until tomorrow.

  “You should sleep,” he suggested.

  “Not happening.”

  “Maybe you should take a walk, then,” the nurse suggested. “Movement helps burn stress. Your boyfriend brought you clothes, too.”

  Liam opened his mouth to correct her, but Sloane beat him to it. “I’m single. He’s—”

  He glanced at her, one eyebrow cocked with interest to see just how she classified him.

  “—an old family friend.”

  He could live with that. Although handfuls of sexy red lace and her chest mashed against his flashed through his head.

  Get a grip, man. She’s your best friend’s little sister. How much more cliché could that be? The friend code was clear on the subject: sisters were strictly off-limits. Of course, Liam didn’t have any siblings, so he’d had nothing to worry about over the years. But Fox had always been fiercely protective of his sister. It probably hadn’t helped matters that Fox and Sloane had lost their parents in a car accident when they were little kids. Had their aunt, Mara Colton, and her husband, Russ, not taken them in, they’d have been alone in the world.

  “Would you like to finish our hospital tour from earlier?” he offered.

  Sloane frowned. “It’s 2:00 a.m. Surely you’d rather be home in bed.”

  Yeah. With her—

  Strike that. Old. Family. Friend. He added for good measure, Worried mom with sick kid.

  “I’m not tired. Do you want to get dressed or go for a walk like that?”

  She glanced down at her flannel pajamas. “What? Don’t you like my granny jammies?”

  He grinned. “My grandmother had much less frumpy taste than that.”

  Sloane stuck her tongue out at him briefly and then whirled and disappeared into Chloe’s room. She still moved like a gazelle, quick and graceful. He watched her through the window u
ntil she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door.

  He was not thinking about that sassy red underwear. Nope. It would not look smoking hot against her pale skin and dark brown hair. Nothing to imagine there. Move along, you old horndog.

  He turned to the nurse. “How sick is Sloane’s daughter?”

  “I’m not authorized to release any information to a non-family member—”

  “I’m asking as a police officer. I have some news to share with the mother that may be upsetting. If the child is gravely ill, I can hold off telling it for a while.”

  The nurse met his gaze candidly and said grimly, “Hold off.”

  His stomach dropped with a sickening thud.

  “How bad is it?” he murmured low.

  “Children’s Hospital in Denver has treated a dozen kids with this virus. Two of them didn’t make it.”

  His jaw sagged. “As in they died?”

  The nurse nodded soberly.

  He whirled and stared through the window at the toddler curled up in the stainless steel crib. He hadn’t been in touch with Sloane since high school, but it didn’t take more than two seconds of being in the same room with her to see that she adored her daughter. If anything happened to Chloe, it would kill Sloane.

  The nurse added, “It gets worse before it gets better. And she’s a very young child. This little girl’s got a fight ahead of her. Several dozen children have died around the country from it.”

  Sweet baby Jesus.

  Sloane stepped out into the hallway, fully dressed, and smiled hopefully at him. Undoubtedly she didn’t know how bad Chloe’s illness was, or she wouldn’t be able to smile at all. His belly felt like glass that had been hit by a stone and shattered into a million razor-sharp shards.

  It was hard as hell to do, but he forced a fake smile for Sloane’s sake and held out his forearm gallantly. “Shall we take a stroll along the promenade, madam?”

  “You really don’t have to do this, Liam.”