Heard it Through the Grapevine (22 page)

“Shouldn’t she stay with me, Colt?” Deena asked.

“No,” he snapped. “Whoever did this probably already knows she wasn’t hurt. They might try again, and this time, I’d have you and Mike to worry about as well as Lainey.” He leaned over and pushed a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “She’s going with me,” he repeated.

Oh my God! You slept with him!
Tessa laughed out loud.
You little slut puppy!

Lainey met her dead sister’s eyes, expecting to see the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black look. Instead, Tessa had the biggest smile Lainey had ever seen on her face.

The nurse re-entered the room, her expression indicating she was still ticked Kate had overruled her. This time she refused to leave until she cleared the room so she could get Lainey ready for discharge.

Despite Lainey’s protests, the two older sisters agreed to meet at Colt’s in the morning to help her get bathed and dressed. Since Kate was in the middle of a long shift, she promised to meet them for lunch the next day. Some time during this exchange, Tessa had disappeared.

When the paperwork was finally completed, Lainey allowed Colt to grab hold of her good arm and lead her out the emergency room door. As he helped her into the front seat of his cruiser, his hand lingered on her arm for a few seconds before he walked around the car and slid in. During the fifteen minute ride to the ranch, neither spoke.

Lainey used the silence to ponder the last twenty-four hours. The day with Dan had been bittersweet, but knowing the pressure was off helped, and she’d nearly changed her mind at one point. When she’d kissed him goodbye at DFW, his eyes told her he would miss her, although they’d agreed to stay friends. Both knew the likelihood of that happening wasn’t good. There had been too much history.

Coming back to face an attempt on her life had been an eye-opener. Maybe Maddy was right about her getting out of Dodge, but where would she go? She was in no shape to ace a job interview, not with all the distractions she had going on. An alternative might be to check into a hotel until she figured out what she wanted to do with her life.

“We’re here,” Colt said, jolting her back to reality.

He helped her out of the car and into the house where he led her to the spare bedroom down the hall from the master.

“Want something to drink before you go to bed?” he asked. “A Coke or maybe a cup of coffee?”

She shook her head. “I’m wiped out. This pain pill is only making me more tired. I just want to cuddle under the covers and not think about anything.”

He looked into her eyes. “Me too.” He pulled back the covers. “Wait here.”

He returned with one of his sweatshirts. “That’s the best I can do until we can replace your clothes tomorrow.”

She took it from him. “This will feel good, Colt. I can’t seem to
stop my teeth from chattering.” She reached behind and tried
to pull the sling over her head.

“Let me help.”

She shivered as he made contact with the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

“Keep your arm tight against your body,” he instructed, throwing the sling on the bed.

For an instant their eyes met before he moved his hands to the top of her blouse and began to unbutton it. Her heart raced as she remembered the way he’d done that the night before.

When he slipped the blouse off her shoulders, his gaze dropped from her eyes to her shoulders to her breasts before he reached behind and unhooked her bra.

The smoldering flame she saw in his eyes startled her, but as quickly as it appeared, it was gone. Gently, he guided her injured arm into the sleeve of the sweatshirt. When he had it completely on, he pulled the sling over her head and adjusted her arm in it.

“Does that feel right?” His gaze was as soft as a caress.

“Colt,” she started.

He leaned in and silenced her with his lips, brushing against hers softly at first, then more demanding. When he withdrew, leaving her mouth burning for more, he reached for her waistband and unzipped her slacks.

This time his eyes stayed on hers. “I imagined the worst when I saw you walk up the steps and heard the explosion.”

A tear trickled down her cheek. “I know.” She reached over and ran her thumb across his lips. “But nothing happened. I’m okay.”

Without another word, he pushed her slacks down around her ankles and eased her onto the edge of the bed. Bending over, he untied her shoes and removed them, then pulled her slacks off before swinging her legs onto the bed.

“Get some sleep, Lainey. Tomorrow, we’ve got to figure out how to keep you safe.”

He turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone with an intense ache that had nothing to do with her shoulder.

You still love him, don’t you?

Lainey opened her eyes to see Tessa standing over her bed.

“It would never work. He only sees me as your little sister.”

Tessa laughed.
I guarantee that was no little sister kiss I just saw.

“I would always be thinking about the two of you together,” Lainey said with a sigh. “It would ruin it.”

Tessa pulled back the covers and slid in beside Lainey.
Move over. I have something to tell you.

twenty-three

I never had sex
with Colt.

“What?” Lainey turned sharply, paying the price when a searing pain shot up her arm to her neck. “You never slept with Colt?”

Who said anything about not sleeping with him?

“Quit playing games, Tessa. You can’t blurt out something like that, then act coy.”

We slept together, but we didn’t have sex.

Lainey tossed that around in her head. “You’re lying. How else could you have convinced Colt he was Gracie’s father?”

Tessa blew out a loud breath.
I’d been home from school about a month, and I hadn’t told anyone I’d flunked out. Mom didn’t even know. She thought I was exhausted from all the schoolwork and was just taking a long semester break.

“Did Colt know?”

Not at first. I only told him I wasn’t sure if I was going back.
Tessa rose up on one elbow and glanced toward Lainey.
Colt and I always had this great friendship. Hell, I’m the one who talked him into going out with Carrie in the first place.
She paused.
Anyway, I was pissed off at David for some stupid reason I can’t even remember, and Colt was not real happy about being stuck in Vineyard.

“I’ve heard this story before,” Lainey interrupted. “You both got drunk and ended up in bed.”

That’s right. We did. We thought it would be fun to drink our troubles away all night, so we emptied our pockets and came up with just enough for a bottle of cheap whiskey and one night at the Shady City.

Both of them jumped when Colt knocked lightly on the bedroom door. “Is everything okay in there?”

Lainey covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. He’d think she really
did have a head injury from the explosion or she was just plain loony if she told him she was talking to a ghost. “I’m fine, Colt. I’ll turn down the TV. Sorry to bother you.”

She turned to Tessa and both of them cracked up.

When she was sure Colt was back in his room, her gaze settled on her sister, her eyebrows raised in question. “So, I’m confused. Did you sleep with him or not?”

Technically, I did. We started drinking then decided to play Strip Poker. Remember how good I was at that?
When Lainey nodded, she continued.
I had him down to his skivvies in no time. Of course, he was so far gone by then, he fell asleep. That’s when I hatched the plan.

“What plan?”

I got naked and climbed in beside him. The next morning he was mortified when he thought we’d done the horizontal boogie. He kept saying David would kill him.

“Then you told him you were pregnant several weeks later,” Lainey said, shaking her head as she finished the story for her sister.

I’d already fessed up to Mom about school. I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in her face again if I told her I’d gotten pregnant by a guy I only knew as Bubba. Since I hadn’t seen David since the semester started in September, I knew I couldn’t pass him off as the father.

Lainey leaned back into the pillow. “Even for you, this is a new low, Tessa. Do you realize how your lie changed Colt’s life?” She didn’t wait for her sister to answer. “He went from dreaming about being a vet to giving up college altogether to be a husband and father. You already knew how he felt about staying in Vineyard.” She shook her head in disgust. “How could you do that to him?”

He’s not the victim you make him out to be, Lainey. He loves his job as sheriff, and he idolizes Gracie.

“That’s just great. You screw up his life, then justify it because he’s got Gracie. Well, guess what, Tessa? That’s not good enough. You have to tell him.”

I can’t do that. He’s the only person in this world who ever saw the good in me.

“That’s exactly my point. You owe him the truth now.” Lainey paused, thinking about Colt asleep in the next bedroom and the precious little girl whose life revolved around him.

No,
Tessa shouted.
I don’t want anyone to know.

“Then you shouldn’t have told me,” Lainey responded. “I would never be able to live with myself if I allowed him to go on believing there’s a chance he’s really Gracie’s father.”

Tessa laughed again
.
Good luck convincing him I told you about that night, Lainey. He’ll think you’ve been smoking some of that wacky tobaccy.

Lainey twisted to face her sister, but Tessa had already disappeared like she always did when the going got tough.

For a long time afterward, Lainey lay awake, rehashing her sister’s story. Tessa was right about one thing. Nobody would believe her except her other siblings, and they might already know the story.

She had to find a way to fix this before she left Vineyard. She owed it to Colt.

_____

“Are they all here?”

Danny nodded. “Even yours, like you instructed.”

Colt stared at the phone records of his employees. It would take most of the day to get through them by himself, but he couldn’t risk any of his men getting wind of what was going on. If there really was a bad cop out there—and he prayed to God he was wrong—he didn’t want to tip him off, not just yet.

“Go back to your desk and act normal, Danny. I’ll call you if I find anything.”

As soon as he was alone, Colt picked up the first record and scanned it. Other than calls to and from the station, Jeff Flanagan only used his cell phone to call his kids and occasionally, his mother. Like Colt, Jeff had been divorced several years, but unlike him, his wife had custody of his kids. Jeff only got them every other weekend.

Thank God he had Gracie.

At the thought of his daughter, a cold knot formed in Colt’s stomach. Ever since Tessa had implied he wasn’t her father, he’d been terrified someone would find out. Sooner or later, he’d have to deal with that, but for now, he pushed it to the back of his mind.

No matter what it took, he wouldn’t let anyone separate him and Gracie. Tessa’s death had been hard enough on the child. She couldn’t lose her father, too.

Colt grinned, remembering the way Gracie had become attached
to Lainey after the first day they’d spent together. She’d bolted right
past him this morning after his mother dropped her off and headed
straight for Lainey when she’d noticed the sling.

So much for him being the most important thing in his daughter’s life!

Thinking of Lainey brought another smile to his face. He’d all but guilted her into wearing the damn sling the first day after the explosion. He finally dropped the argument this morning, knowing she’d do what she wanted anyway, like always. As scary as the explosion had been, at least now she might leave the police work to him. But nearly getting killed was no guarantee, given the woman’s stubborn streak. It drove him up a wall.

As suspected, the fire was the result of a massive gas leak. Unfortunately, the fire marshal couldn’t say if it was deliberate or not. Colt didn’t need anyone to answer that. Dogs don’t lock themselves in the barn.

The dark spot on the door latch turned out to be dried blood. He’d meant to replace it several months ago because the edge had snapped in two. For once his procrastination might pay off if the DNA from the sample the CSI guys were able to lift pointed to the killer.

There was always the possibility Ted McDougal had scratched
himself when he tended to Colt’s horses, or quite possibly the blood
belonged to Gracie. Hoping whoever had sabotaged the guest
house
had left a little DNA on the latch was a long shot, but so far, he didn’t
have much else.

He picked up the next record on the stack, glancing out at the squad room as Landers looked up. Colt shook his head. If he found the prepaid phone number on any of the records, the plan was for Danny to run out to Shakerville with a picture to see if the owner could make a positive ID.

But an hour later, just when he’d started thinking the clerk had been mistaken about a Vineyard police officer buying the phone, he found it. The muscles in his neck which had finally started to relax tensed up again as he stared at the number on the record in his hand.

Eight different entries, all made after midnight over a period of two weeks.

His stomach churned, the contents threatening to come back up as he stared at possible proof of a bad cop in his own house. He reread the report, hoping he’d made a mistake, hoping it was as simple as the number being off a digit.

But it wasn’t.

Although Colt racked his brain to come up with a logical reason why one of his guys would be communicating with a possible killer on eight separate occasions, he came up short of any explanation.

A wave of apprehension swept through him as he walked to the cabinet and pulled a file. Staring at the picture of the man who’d been on the force longer than he had, he wondered what made a good cop go bad. Their lives were all about protecting. What could have happened for a man to turn rogue?

Even as the question formed in his brain, Colt already knew the answer.

The God Almighty dollar!

With a heavy heart, he dialed Danny’s cell phone. “Come to the office.”

When Danny walked in, his eyes were nearly as sorrowful as Colt
felt. “Who is it?”

“Romano,” Colt said, his voice resigned as he shoved the file across
his desk.

“Ohmygod! I had dinner with him and his family last weekend. Played basketball with him and his kid.”

Colt didn’t want to hear any of that. They had a job to do, friend
or no friend. “Run a copy of his picture and head out to Shakerville.”

Danny picked up the file. “I know it can’t be him, boss. There must be some other explanation.”

“The sooner you get there, the faster we’ll know for sure,” Colt said. “And run silent. We want as little attention as possible on this.”

For several minutes after Danny left, Colt scanned the remaining phone records to make sure he didn’t have a bigger problem than one cop on the take. Other than finding out Tom Rogers
probably had a girlfriend on the side, there was nothing. He glanced out the window to the squad room, wondering what other secrets he didn’t know about his men.

His eyes settled on Phil Romano’s empty desk. Earlier when Colt passed him on the way to the coffee pot, Phil mentioned he was working a drunk and disorderly from the night before. When Colt thought he looked a little peaked and asked if he felt all right, Phil said he hadn’t slept well. Something about greasy food from Ruby’s. Maybe he’d taken his suggestion and gone home to catch up since things were slow at the station.

Colt continued to stare out the window, hoping Phil had a believable explanation, that the man he considered a good friend hadn’t sunk so low he’d resorted to collusion or worse, accessory to murder. But his instincts told him that was not the way this would
turn out. He remembered Phil complaining just the other night about
how much it cost keeping three kids in clothes. How he never had enough money for anything lately and never got to see his kids because he worked so many extra hours.

The signs were all there, but Colt was not ready to jump to that conclusion. He owed his friend the benefit of the doubt.

The door to his office flew open, interrupting his thoughts as it banged against the wall. Maddy burst into the room, visibly upset, tears in her eyes.

“Roxy Moretti just called. Jerry’s dead.”

_____

Lieutenant Phil Romano sensed something was wrong the minute he walked past Danny Landers. The kid had scooped up the papers scattered across his desk and quickly pushed them under a stack of files. Despite his best efforts to get a look at what was so important, he wasn’t able to. He was contemplating how he could get Danny away from his desk when the younger cop’s cell phone rang. After only a minute or two, Danny gathered up the papers and headed to Colt’s office.

Is it possible they’re on to me?

His stomach felt like it was on fire, and he popped two antacids into his mouth.

No way could they have traced that phone back to him that quickly. When the man had called wanting an untraceable phone in a hurry, he’d made it a point to drive to the far side of Shakerville to find one. Even found an ID to use that seemed untraceable. When they’d discovered the number on Thornton’s phone, he still hadn’t panicked, since only the neighboring cities had been included in the search area.

Get a grip, man. The paranoia’s freaking you out.

How could they have discovered the convenience store over fifty miles away? Even if they did, there was no way the clerk could identify him. He’d worn his hoodie and his sunglasses and kept his face away from the security camera.

But his cop instincts were telling him otherwise, and he popped two more antacids into his mouth and quickly chewed them. He knew the sausage and gravy biscuits from yesterday would come back to haunt him. He’d been miserable half the night, and now the indigestion was back with a vengeance.

He watched anxiously through the slats in the blinds of Colt’s office, trying not to make it too obvious. When Danny emerged about fifteen minutes later carrying a folder, the fire in Phil’s stomach flamed again, burning all the way up his chest as he sucked in his breath.

Since Colt only kept employee files in his office, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they were getting too close for comfort. He had to find out exactly how close they were.

Watching Danny shut the door to the copy room set off more warning bells in Phil’s head and more heat in his gut, especially when the kid walked past his desk without making eye contact.

Danny was like a younger brother to him and always joked around. Plus nobody ever made their own copies. That’s what Maddy was for.