Covert Alliance (30 page)

In time, he’d dealt with everything from employee disputes, to embezzlement and to the ever challenging matter of internet security. He liked to feel that he did this all well. Eventually, he had his proof of that. People had begun to seek him out, to trust him to handle things fairly. To treat him with respect.

But that had all changed in the last month.

He was back to square one.

Lower
than square one. Because now he couldn’t help feeling that some of the employees were looking at him and wondering if he was somehow involved in his stepfather’s disappearance.

He supposed in a way it made sense because, in reality, he was guilty of doing the very same thing each and every time he and his family gathered around the dining room table for a meal.

To the outside world, the various Colton siblings, as well as the woman who called herself their mother, did what they could to present a united front, to
appear
to have one another’s backs. Privately, it was another story. It seemed as if they had always been at odds with one another, breaking up into smaller factions.

While Zane was always close to his younger sister, Marceline, she and Eldridge’s oldest son, Fowler, used to go out of their way to make the three youngest Coltons, Thomas, Piper and Reid, miserable. And then there were times that the others would all gang up on Piper, a maid’s daughter, who had been adopted by Eldridge and Whitney when her mother died.

As for himself, Zane had done his best to remain out of it all, focusing instead on just proving himself to the one man who mattered.

And now he was probably included in the mix of suspects, Zane couldn’t help thinking. In these cases, the family was always the first to be suspected.

He stared at the blank screen on the computer monitor on his desk, his thoughts going in a dozen directions at once.

So far, no one had accused him of anything outright, but he had an uneasy feeling it was probably just a matter of time before that happened. Being the outsider was never something shaken off completely. The only way he could make sure he wasn’t ever accused of such a heinous crime was to find Eldridge himself.

He had a far bigger stake in this than Sheriff Watkins did. After all, for him it was personal.

It wasn’t for Watkins.

But how the hell did he go about finding his missing stepfather?

Zane felt as if he was going around in circles again, the way he had been ever since this whole thing had started.

If his father was dead, why hadn’t whoever was responsible for this just killed him on the spot? Why take him and
then
kill him? It didn’t make any actual sense.

And if his stepfather had been kidnapped for the usual reasons, where was the ransom note?

If he’d been taken for some other reason, as leverage or to be exchanged for something or someone, where was
that
call?

This whole thing wasn’t adding up, Zane thought, frustrated. It was as if Eldridge had been taken for no reason.

He got up and began pacing around his desk, exasperation and impatience growing by the moment, feeling red-hot and ready to explode.

Zane struggled to hold on to his temper.

Giving in and taking it out on the first thing handy wasn’t going to get him any closer to finding the only father he had ever known.

The best thing he could do for Eldridge—other than finding him, Zane thought ruefully—was to keep the company going in the man’s absence. The company meant
everything
to the patriarch. This way, when he did come back, the company would be running smoothly instead of having devolved into a state of chaos.

Zane had been doing just that for the last month—keeping his end of the company going—but it was becoming harder and harder rather than easier.

With a sigh, he planted himself back behind his desk. He needed to get something productive done.

Distracted as he reviewed which department needed his attention the most this morning, he thought he heard a noise, but discounted it—

Until it came again.

It took him a moment to realize someone was knocking on the door. Bracing his palms against the edge of his desk, Zane took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He couldn’t be seen losing his grip in front of the employees. Aside from something like that not inspiring confidence, it might very well be the thing which caused the better people around him to either look for another job—or circle his position like sharks, waiting for him to mess up.

Sorry, not about to do that. Not today
, Zane promised. “Come in,” he called out.

The door opened and Mirabella took a couple of steps across the office’s threshold. One hand on the doorknob, she had her back up against the door. To Zane it looked as if she was trying to shrink or even disappear into the woodwork.

For just a split second, he found himself wondering about her, wondering what could cause a rather stunning woman like Mirabella to behave as if she was attempting to avoid the attention of the immediate world. Any other time or place, he would have taken an interest in the young woman, perhaps asked her a few detailed questions in order to get to the bottom of her unusual behavior.

But this wasn’t any other time. It was
this
time, a time of impending crisis if his stepfather wasn’t found. For the umpteenth time, he made a solemn promise to himself to
find
the man.

Failure was not an option.

“Sheriff Watkins is here to see you, Mr. Colton,” Mirabella informed him.

Instantly alert, Zane half rose behind his desk. “Send him in, Mirabella,” he instructed.

The sheriff, a well-built, imposing man in his early fifties, took his time walking in. His gray eyes scanned the room, missing nothing. Polite, soft-spoken, he was nonetheless not a person to be trifled with.

A show of respect had Troy Watkins carrying his well-worn Stetson in his hand rather than wearing it. There were surprisingly few traces of gray in his dark hair, given the nature of his work combined with his age.

The expression on his sun-wrinkled face was stern, but then he’d never been known for smiling much. This morning was apparently no exception.

“Take a seat, Sheriff,” Zane invited, gesturing toward the chair closest to his desk.

Watkins did so, but he looked as if he wasn’t comfortable about it. Nor did he look as if he was comfortable in his present surroundings. He was a man most at ease when he was moving about in wide-open spaces. In his eyes, crowded cities were just necessary evils to be endured, not something to aspire to.

“What brings you here, Sheriff?” Zane asked, then immediately attached another, far more anxious question to the first one. “Did you find my father?”

“You mean your stepdaddy,” Watkins corrected. “Gotta be accurate at all times, you know. If a man can’t be accurate when it comes to the little details, it means that man’s going to be careless when it comes to the big things.”

He really wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. What he wanted were answers. But snapping the sheriff’s head off wouldn’t get him anywhere. Zane tamped down his impatience and rephrased his question.

“Did you find my
step
father, Sheriff?”

“No,” Watkins answered. He ran his fingers along the inside of his hat, turning the Stetson around in a slow circle. He raised his gray eyes to meet Zane’s dark ones. “But I did find something interesting.”

Copyright © 2016 by Harlequin Books S.A.

ISBN-13: 9781488005114

Covert Alliance

Copyright © 2016 by Linda O. Johnston

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