The Colton Ransom (8 page)

“Is she hurt?” he asked when Trevor made no answer. “Tell me, Trev,” he insisted, then repeated, “Is my mother hurt?”

Trevor took off his Stetson. It was a sign of respect, and a chill ran across Dylan’s heart. Why did Trevor think a sign of respect was necessary?

“Dylan,” Trevor began haltingly, “there’s no right way to say this.”

He didn’t care about a “right way”; he just wanted to know what was causing all this drama. “Just spit it out, damn it!”

So Trevor did. Unconsciously squaring his shoulders like a bodyguard going into the fray for someone he considered more than a client, he said, “Your mother was murdered.”

Dylan didn’t remember sitting down, but he knew he must have because suddenly, not just Trevor but Gabby as well was taller than he was.

A numbness had slid over him, but even now, it was beginning to ebb away as a really sick feeling in the pit of his stomach came to take its place. Dylan had always thought he could take anything.

He was wrong.

“Murd—?” Even uttering just a sliver of the word almost choked him. “Who’d want to kill my mother?” Dylan demanded in a completely stunned voice. “There’s got to be some kind of a mistake,” he cried, praying he was right. “She’s just a governess, for heaven’s sake. She doesn’t have any money, any—”

“She died trying to save Avery from being kidnapped,” Gabby told him, unable to watch Dylan struggling to deny what he was hearing any longer.

Dylan looked at her, the expression on his face a mask of confusion. “Avery?” He said the name as if he’d never heard it before. He had, but shock was making him draw a blank. And then he suddenly remembered. “Your daughter?” he asked, looking at Trevor. “Why would anyone want to kidnap your daughter?”

“They wouldn’t,” Trevor told him grimly. “Whoever kidnapped Avery thought they were kidnapping the old man’s granddaughter.”

“Cheyenne,” Gabby interjected.

Dylan still tried to wade through his confusion and shock. The Colton woman was talking about two entirely different wings of the house. Avery belonged with the maids and the wranglers, while Cheyenne had a silver spoon in her mouth as well as one in her chubby little hand. She slept in the main section of the house.

“Why would they have gotten the two mixed up?” he asked, then looked at Gabby, his voice almost pleading with her to tell him it was all a big mistake. “My mother’s really...gone?”

Gabby pressed her lips together as a sob suddenly threatened to emerge. She nodded, struggling to maintain control over her emotions.

“If it helps any,” she said in almost a whisper, “your mother died a hero.”

Dylan stared at the opposite wall, not seeing anything.

“It doesn’t,” he answered. “Not really.” He knew it should, but it didn’t. All he could think of was that someone had killed his mother. And that she was gone before he could say goodbye.

That hurt almost worst of all.

For several long moments, Dylan was afraid that he was going to break down right then and there.

Trevor placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder, a silent gesture of comfort and mute communication. “Hey, man, I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Trevor told the governess’s son.

“Yeah,” Dylan heard someone with his voice reply. “I know.” His desire for revenge, for vengeance spiked, speeding through him like lightning. Then he looked up at Trevor. “They know who did it?”

“Not yet,” Trevor answered, then added, “But when I find out and get hold of him, he’s going to be sorry that he was ever born.”

It took a minute for Dylan to assimilate the information and what it meant. He raised his eyes to Trevor’s. “Then your daughter is still...?” His voice trailed off.

“Missing,” Trevor supplied as he nodded somberly. “Yeah, she is.”

Chapter 7

D
ylan followed them back to Dead River Ranch in his own car. With the horrific tragedy of his mother’s murder so vividly fresh in his mind, the man told them that there was no way he could remain at the rodeo, at least not right now. He knew he wouldn’t be able to give the animals he planned to work with today even half his attention, much less what was actually required in order to achieve any sort of hoped-for success. Gabby completely understood and had offered to drive with him, but Dylan had said he wanted to be alone.

As he and Trevor, driving Gabby back in his truck, approached the house, it was evident that the police were still on the premises, along with the county M.E. The latter’s black van was conspicuously parked beside the chief’s service vehicle.

“Wonder if Drucker found something,” Gabby said, breaking the silence that had accompanied them back from the rodeo. Trevor had not said a single word, and just this once, Gabby decided that maybe it was best to leave it that way, since everything she said to the man seemed to irritate him to a greater or lesser degree.

It was as if her innocent question had tripped some sort of a wire. Trevor’s frown instantly deepened as he told her, “One way or the other, I want a list of names of all the so-called troubled teens you’ve been talking to about this fool center of yours—and I want their parents’ names as well.”

She debated holding her tongue and just letting his order and his tone slide, but she came to the quick conclusion that holding her peace with this man did no good, and the emotional turmoil he was going through notwithstanding, she wasn’t about to just let him belittle what she was trying to achieve.

“Look,” she began slowly, “I know that you’re hurting—”

“Hurting?” Trevor echoed incredulously, all but spitting the word out. “Let’s get something straight here,” he continued gruffly. “I’m not ‘hurting’—I’m damn angry and really worried, to boot. If it wasn’t for you putting my kid into your fancy nursery—”

Gabby had always prided herself on being even-tempered and levelheaded, but he was shouting at her and his anger sparked her own. “It wasn’t ‘your kid’ a few hours ago. A few hours ago all you could think of was palming her off on someone else. Permanently,” she reminded him. “Now, I’m very sorry that Avery was taken, and I swear that I’ll do whatever it takes to find her and get her back, but all I’m guilty of is trying to be nice to her—nicer than her father was to her,” she pointed out.

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Gabby felt remorseful and not because Trevor was glaring at her. This was an awful situation, and maybe
he
wasn’t smart enough to be aware that he was dealing with it by lashing out, but she should have been. The teens she worked with had the exact same problem, pretending they were emotionally remote and removed from the hurtful situations they encountered and had to deal with every day of their lives.

Taking a breath, Gabby owned up to what she’d just done and said what had to be said.

“I’m sorry.”

The expression on Trevor’s face was extremely dark. “For messing up?”

She raised her head, refusing to be intimidated by the man she was with. “For yelling at you. Just because you’re yelling at me doesn’t mean I should be yelling back.”

It was as if she’d just rubbed salt into his wounds. “I’m not yelling—”

“Okay,” she allowed gamely, “how about ‘expressing yourself loudly’? And if that
is
the case, I think you should know that I’m not deaf and you can lower your voice.” She pressed her lips together, searching for a way to get through to him and still hang on to her patience. “We’ll get her back,” she told him, her voice softening so that she could sound more reassuring.

Her tone seemed to make no difference.

Trevor wasn’t nearly as sure as she appeared to be, even though he didn’t want to think of all the things that could befall the tiny girl who had no one else to be in her corner except for him.

“I’m not the cockeyed optimist that you are.”

She resented the condescending tone and the label he’d just slapped on her, but she refrained from saying as much. Instead, she pointed out the obvious problem with the point of view he’d taken.

“Living without hope is very draining, not to mention daunting,” she told him needlessly. “You need to hang on to something.”

“What I need to do,” he told her, finally getting out of his truck, “is to interrogate all those young punks you told about the bleeding-heart shelter you’re building for them.”

There is no arguing with him,
she thought, getting out of the passenger side of the truck. She slammed the door hard, trying to leach out the bulk of her frustration that way.

It worked, but only to a small degree.

So did trying to reason with herself about Trevor’s bombastic reaction to her attempt to talk to him. It was nothing personal, she tried to convince herself. It was just his way of reacting to a dire situation in lieu of showing that, at the moment, he was being eaten up by concern and worry.

In his place, Gabby thought, she’d probably react the same way—except that she would have done a lot less yelling.

Rather than offer any words of protest or try to convince him that the kids she wanted to bring onto the ranch had redeeming qualities she wanted to expand on, she just quietly told him what he wanted to hear: “I’ll get you that list.”

“Thanks,” Trevor bit off without sparing her so much as a backward glance. Instead, he picked up speed and strode over to the front entrance of the house.

The scene inside had calmed down a little in some respects. Some of the household staff had dispersed, although the main housekeeper and several of what she considered to be her key staff members were still sitting in the family room, either waiting for further instructions from the police chief or, most likely, just seeing how this whole investigation into the murder and subsequent kidnapping would play itself out for the time being.

One look at Drucker’s face as they walked in told Trevor that no progress had been made and no suspect as of yet had been found. If anything, only a few minor eliminations had occurred.

Nonetheless, Trevor crossed directly to the chief. “Any word from the kidnappers?”

Drucker shook his head. “Except for that note they left pinned to the pillow, no—sorry.”

Trevor then turned toward Jethro, who was now seated in what was thought to be his favorite chair in the family room. The old man looked somewhat uncomfortable in addition to his pale coloring, but that, Trevor surmised, was more a function of the chair the man was sitting in than in what was going on with this investigation.

As for his pale coloring, that had been apparent for a while now, Trevor realized. The man had been spending a good deal of time indoors lately. Not that it mattered right now one way or another.

“When the call does come in,” the chief was saying to the hard-nosed patriarch, “I think that you should be the one to answer the phone—”

“Why?” Jethro asked sharply, interrupting the chief’s instructions.

Because it was Jethro Colton, Drucker knew that he had to put up with the rude behavior. No one flourished in Dead River if they locked horns with the old man. So the police chief did his best to answer as if they were just involved in a casual conversation rather than something that could very well affect a little girl’s life.

“Because the kidnappers will want to talk to the head of the household since they think they have your granddaughter,” the chief carefully enunciated, taking care not to say anything to offend the man.

If possible, Jethro’s scowl grew even deeper. “But they
don’t
have my granddaughter,” the man said with an incredibly icy finality that Gabby found herself instantly disliking.

The point wasn’t whether or not they had Cheyenne; the point was that they had a three-month-old infant that they
thought
was his granddaughter. An infant who needed rescuing.

“Well, they don’t know that,” Drucker reminded the scowling patriarch of the Colton family. “So when they ask for a ransom—”

Again, Jethro interrupted, this time with an even more detached voice than he’d used previously. “They can ask all they want—I’m not giving them one thin dime and I’m telling them so.”

“Dad!” Gabby cried, horrified. It was one thing to speculate that he wouldn’t offer a ransom; it was another to actually
hear
him say as much. “You can’t say that to the kidnappers.”

Jethro turned to glare at his youngest child. He hated being opposed, especially in front of others. He especially hated being opposed by one of his family. This was common knowledge.

“The hell I can’t,” he barked. “They’re calling to get money for the kid they took, and it’s not my granddaughter so it doesn’t concern me. Case closed!”

“It is
not
case closed,” she argued heatedly. How could the father she loved be so horribly unfeeling? “It’s not your granddaughter, but it’s still an innocent infant.”

Jethro shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling like so many loose bones. “Lots of kids get snatched every day of the week.” He pinned her with a look that’d had strong men quaking in their boots. “You sayin’ you expect me to buy them all back?” he demanded, his voice thundering.

“We’re not talking about ‘lots of kids,’” Gabby pointed out, her heart all but freezing in her chest at this display of indifference from her father. “We’re talking about a single, specific infant who belongs to one of our own,” she stressed.

Jethro’s small eyes grew even smaller as he glared at his youngest child who dared to challenge him this way. “Are you feeble-minded, girl?” he demanded. “These people aren’t ‘one of our own,’” he insisted. “They’re the hired help and they know that. I’m their boss, not their parent. If they do a good job, I pay them for it. If they don’t, they’re fired. It’s just that simple, just that cut-and-dried,” he informed her.

Gabby was acutely aware of the way the remaining staff was looking at one another and could almost hear their thoughts. This was building a great deal of ill will and animosity with the people who were such an integral part of their everyday lives.

She fervently wished she and her father were having this discussion in private, but it was too late for that. Still, she tried to maneuver him somewhere where she could speak to him without having every word overheard. This situation was already bad enough without adding hard feelings to it—not to mention that she wasn’t about to see anything happen to Avery because her father wouldn’t come up with the ransom money.

“Dad, could I talk to you in private, please?” she requested, nodding over toward a more isolated section of the foyer.

But Jethro remained sitting exactly where he was and gave no indication that he was about to budge so much as an inch. “Out here or somewhere ‘private,’” he told her in a no-nonsense voice, “my answer’s gonna be the same. I’m not paying any ransom.”

For a split second, Gabby’s eyes darted over toward Trevor. She ached for what he had to be going through right now, what he had to be feeling and thinking at this very moment after hearing her father flatly refusing to step up.

Her father undoubtedly thought that since they were in the midst of the staff this way, that she would just back off. And maybe she would have—if it hadn’t involved the life of a child.

Drawing her shoulders back as if bracing herself against a physical confrontation, Gabby informed her father, “Okay, you don’t have to touch a dime of your money. I’ll use mine—”

Temper flashed in Jethro’s eyes. “No, you won’t,” he told her.

Ordinarily, she would have listened and that would have been the end of it—but not this time. “It’s my money and I can do whatever I want with it.”

“Correction, it’s not your money until your thirtieth birthday,” he reminded her coldly. “Until then, I have control over it and you’re not touching any of it without my say-so, girl.” His tone left absolutely no room for argument on her part.

But Gabby was completely incensed at her father’s callousness and lack of empathy. It made her wonder if he would have been willing to part with any money if it
had
been Cheyenne who’d been kidnapped.

“You can’t do that,” she cried.

Veins were beginning to pop out along his neck and throat. Had he been a dragon, she had no doubt he would have easily been breathing fire by now. It wasn’t easy holding her ground, but she did.

“Don’t you be telling me what I can and can’t do,” Jethro shouted at her. “Just who the hell do you think you’re dealing with here, girl?”

“A heartless shell of a man,” Gabby shouted back before she could think it through and attempt to stop herself.

At that point, clutching on to the armrests, her father pushed himself up from his chair, his complexion a bright, angry red. He suddenly appeared exceedingly frail to her.

“Now you listen to me—” he began, shouting over what she was saying.

Gabby started to out-shout him when her father suddenly made a strange, unintelligible sound, and then, with an utterly surprised and bewildered look on his face, he suddenly clutched at his chest.

The next moment, he went down in a crumpled heap just as his eyes rolled back in his head.

One spasmodic, jerky motion that involved his entire body and then he went entirely still. Jethro was unconscious.

The chief, who had just moved to position himself between the two participants of the shouting match that was going on, was closest to Jethro. Consequently, the law-enforcement officer made an attempt to grab the senior Colton before Jethro hit the floor.

But the chief missed. The man muttered a few choice words under his breath as he saw Jethro make contact with the tile.

Standing on the sidelines and looking on, Trevor was convinced it was all an act on his boss’s part to shift attention from the argument over money as well as terminate it. A side effect of this would be garnering sympathy for himself as well.

But a closer look at the man on the floor told Trevor that this wasn’t an act. Colton was out, cold.