Colton Christmas Protector Read online

  “For you? Always. Is everything all right?” His baritone voice was like a rich dark-chocolate liqueur, sweet and sultry with just a little bite. Sneakily intoxicating.

  “I’m fine,” she said automatically, hearing the defensive edge in her voice.

  “Okaaay,” he drawled. His tone told her he’d heard her snappishness, too. “So then this is a social call?”

  “No. I—I just have a question for you.”

  His grunt sounded disappointed. “Ask away.”

  “Did Andrew mention anything to you about a file he was keeping on my father?” A brief silence answered her. “Reid? Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I... Andrew was keeping a file on Hugh Barrington?”

  Now it was her turn to grunt. “Hugh Barrington is my father. Yes,” she said sarcastically, as if her tongue had a mind of its own. Stop it! No reason to be so snarly. “Shall I take your surprise as a no? That he didn’t tell you about his suspicions?”

  He was silent a beat. “What sort of suspicions?”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. Tension coiled behind her eyes, and her temples gave an achy throb. “I don’t know for certain. I only just found the file and haven’t read it in depth but—”

  “Where was this file? What does it say?”

  “He’d hidden it in his office, and—wait. Just answer my question. Did he ever mention suspecting my father of any wrongdoing? Did you know he was keeping a file on him?”

  “No,” Reid said flatly. “Now answer my question. What is in this file?”

  “I told you I haven’t read it carefully. It may be nothing. I just... It surprised me and...” Damn it! What had she done? Had she stirred up trouble over nothing? “Oh, never mind. Forget I said anything.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “Reid, no. I shouldn’t have called you. Can we please just forget—”

  “If Andrew was keeping a secret file on Hugh, he had a good reason.”

  She agreed. Andrew had been a good cop, and he wouldn’t have undertaken something as serious as an investigation of her father without cause. But Reid’s concurrence settled the issue. She should have been relieved to have been vindicated, but Reid’s assessment left a hollow pit in her stomach. The truth hit her like a rock to her skull. Andrew believed her father was corrupt.

  Cold, snobbish and unloving toward her—she knew already, but...corrupt?

  She muttered an unladylike curse as a tremble started at her core.

  “I want to see that file. Your father has far too much influence and knowledge of my family’s business for me to ignore any suspicions Andrew had.”

  She rolled her eyes. How typical of Coltons to think first of how any revelation affected them. Their bottom line. Their secrets. Their precious reputation. “Oh, of course! The Colton family must be protected from scandal at all costs!”

  “Really?” Reid said dryly. “Is that what you think?”

  She didn’t reply. The file sat on the desk before her, mocking her. She could almost hear the alarm bells, the blaring computer voice. “Danger, Will Robinson!” She knew with a certainty that whatever Andrew suspected her father was guilty of was enough to rock her sheltered life. She did not want to expose the skeletons in Hugh Barrington’s closet. And yet...

  “Pen, the last thing I want to do is cause you any more pain,” Reid said, bringing her attention back to the phone call. “But if Andrew was working on something...” He paused. “I need to see that file. I can be there in ten minutes.”

  She stiffened her spine and blinked rapidly. “Come here? But—”

  When she’d called Reid, she hadn’t considered the idea that he’d want to review the documents. That she’d have to see him.

  “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  Yes! her head screamed, while she stammered, “Uh, I... No. But...”

  “All right. Good. Ten minutes, then.” Reid hung up before she could think of an out.

  * * *

  Reid pulled his truck to the curb in front of his late ex-partner’s ranch-style house and huffed out a breath. In months gone by, he’d parked in this same spot and headed into Andrew’s modest but comfortable home to spend hours watching football, or discussing cases, or sharing meals with the family. Andrew had joked that because Reid was a bachelor, Penelope seemed to think that meant he always needed a home-cooked meal. Forget the fact that he lived at the family ranch where Bettina Morely, the Colton’s full-time cook, was at his beck and call and elaborate dinners were prepared most evenings for him and the rest of the Colton clan.

  But Pen was something of a mother hen, even before she had Nicholas, and loved nothing more than to have people gathered around her table for a big dinner. Her nurturing extended to animals, as well, and the Clarks always seemed to have at least one foster dog and a few stray cats they were caring for in addition to their own elderly beagle, Allie.

  Reid had always suspected her love of such domestic events as family dinners and cookouts on football afternoons stemmed from a lack of such familial events as a child. Penelope’s father, Hugh Barrington, had never struck Reid as the home-and-hearth type, and on his few visits to the Barrington estate through the years, Reid had found the mansion cold, more of a showcase than an inviting home. Not the kind of place he thought Pen would have felt comfortable or warmly loved. Especially after her mother died when Pen was a young teenager.

  Andrew’s few comments on the matter had confirmed as much. Pen had shaken the metaphorical dust of the Barrington estate from her sandals as soon as she could. Nor was there any love lost between Penelope and her father.

  Was that the reason behind this mysterious file Pen had found? Andrew’s attempt to keep tabs on the man who’d been such a disappointment to his wife? Or was Andrew onto something more?

  Reid climbed from his truck and walked up the front sidewalk, admitting to himself he had a few nerves about this meeting. He hadn’t seen or heard from Pen since Andrew’s funeral, even though she’d crossed his mind many times in the intervening months.

  The front door opened before he could ring the doorbell, and he met Penelope’s stormy expression. “Hey, Pen. How are—”

  “Don’t ‘Hey, Pen’ me.” She braced her hands on her hips, lips taut in classic ticked-off-woman mode. “Just because I called to ask you a question doesn’t mean you can invite yourself over or think I’ve forgotten or forgiven what you did.”

  Reid drew a slow breath and released it. He’d had to deal with plenty of bad moods in his life, from his own pissy and entitled family members to suspects high on any range of chemicals. He raised a conciliatory hand. “But you did call, and the best way for me to make sense of the file and why Andrew may have kept it, and hidden it, is for me to take a look at it.”

  He hoped once she’d had a chance to voice her spleen, they could set the ill will aside long enough to get to the bottom of this mysterious file on Hugh Barrington. She held his stare for several silent seconds, returning his petitioning look with unmoved hostility. Not that he expected anything else.

  Reid was too realistic to fool himself into believing he could magically change her opinion of him. Not in one day. Maybe not even if given weeks to plead his case and counter the false information and supposition fed to her by the police department and media following Andrew’s death. True—he had been overheard in a loud altercation with Andrew the day his partner died. And he had administered the injection that proved fatal to Andrew. But there was so much more to the story...

  Then her expression seemed to crack. Her pert nose flared, and her sculpted eyebrows dipped as if she were fighting tears. Her chin wobbled and she turned her face away just as moisture sparkled in her hazel eyes. That brief flash of vulnerability and grief sucker punched Reid in the gut. He was prepared to deal with her anger, but a widow’s multilayered emoti
onal quagmire was beyond his skill set. Especially the fragile emotions of a woman he cared about.

  Without comment, she spun on her heel and marched into the house, leaving him to follow. He caught the door before it closed and stepped out of the chill December air. The house looked much the way he remembered it, but different, too. Instead of Andrew’s sports magazines and accent pieces reflecting Penelope’s feminine taste, the living room was littered with toddler toys and piles of tiny-sized laundry featuring dogs, giraffes and trains in primary colors.

  Penelope had disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms, and Reid considered whether he should follow or wait there. Playing it safe—he didn’t want to cause more strife than his presence already did—he took a seat on the couch next to the folded clothes.

  When Pen returned with a fat manila folder in her hand, he stood again and held out his hand for the file. “Is Nicholas asleep?”

  She shrugged and replied curtly, “Don’t know. He’s not here.” She jabbed the folder toward him, scowling.

  Taking the file, Reid frowned his confusion. “Where is he?”

  “Mother’s Day Out.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Come again?”

  She rolled her eyes as she sat, smoothing the seat of her yoga pants with her hand as if they were fine linen pants. She perched on the edge of the nearest wingback chair, sitting primly, with her back straight and her ankles crossed, as if she were at etiquette class instead of in her own home. Apparently the social training from her youth kicked in when she was stressed. Or else she was purposely refusing to let herself relax around Reid, a choice wholly contradictory to her yoga pants, oversize sweatshirt, sock feet and sloppy ponytail. “He’s at Mother’s Day Out, a program the Methodist church down the road offers three times a week,” she explained. “They watch young children from ten o’clock to three so that mothers can run errands or do...whatever. I needed time without Nicholas clinging to my leg to get Andrew’s office sorted out.”

  Reid balanced the folder on his lap. “Oh.” He nodded as he opened the folder cover. “Okay.”

  As he glanced over the top sheet in the file, he realized another oddity. No dog had barked when he came in, and no beagle was sniffing around him asking for a head scratch even now. He glanced toward Pen. “And where’s Allie?”

  A shadow crossed her face and he regretted the question instantly. After all, the dog had been quite old and suffering from arthritis when he’d last visited the Clarks’ house eighteen-plus months ago.

  “Never mind. I can guess,” he hurried to say as her eyes brightened with tears. He made no comment on the fact that there didn’t seem to be foster animals around at present. Clearly that was a scab that needed to be left alone.

  Schooling her face, she shifted on the seat and flicked a hand toward the file. “So...what do you think?”

  Returning to his reading, he gave her a wry grin. “I think I’m still on the first page and need a minute to see what’s here.”

  She rubbed her forehead and snorted. “Sorry. Of course. I’m just...”

  “Antsy. I understand.” Reid dropped his gaze to the first document again and tried to focus his attention on what he was reading—which was difficult with Pen watching him. For the next several minutes, he paged through the folder. He gave each document a cursory look at first, then went back to study the information more closely once he had an impression of what Andrew might have been trying to establish with his file. Finally a pattern emerged, though Andrew had marked spots with sticky notes where there were gaps in the data.

  Reid drew a slow, deep breath, clenching his teeth in anger and disgust as he lifted his gaze to Penelope.

  “Well?” she asked, perched on the edge of her seat. “What do you make of it?”

  “I think what we have here—” he held up the file and tapped it with his index finger “—is not enough to make a case.”

  “But?” She turned up both palms. “You see something incriminating there. Don’t you? I can see it in your face.”

  “If these records are real, not fabricated, then yes. They point to a long history of theft and deceit. There are two sets of records for every client, including my family. I see evidence of overbilling, falsified records, probable tax evasion—”

  “Now, wait just a minute!” Penelope shot to her feet and glared at him, hands balled at her sides.

  Reid set the file aside, prepared to defend his conclusions. He’d known she wouldn’t like what he had to say—implicating her father in felony crimes—but she’d asked his honest opinion and—

  “What do you mean, ‘if these records are real’? You think Andrew made up those documents? Some of what’s there is on my father’s official office stationery! If you think I’m going to let you use this as an excuse to deride Andrew—”

  “Penelope.”

  “—and throw more mud on his good name—”

  “Penelope!” Reid stood and moved around the coffee table toward her.

  “—then you can get the hell out of my house, right now! I only asked your opinion because—”

  “Pen!” He had to raise his volume to match hers, but he kept his tone nonconfrontational.

  Taking her by the shoulders, he gave her a quick, interrupting shake. Beneath his hands, Pen felt fragile. Her willowy limbs were surprisingly thin under his large hands, and he felt the tremor that raced through her. “Time out!”

  She blinked at him, her expression wounded, offended, then shrugged roughly from his grasp. “That’s what you said. ‘If these records are real, not fabricated.’ As if you think Andrew was trying to frame my father for something!”

  “Yes. If. I said all that about fabrication as a qualifier of my assessment, not as an accusation against Andrew.” He stepped back and wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans. “The fact of the matter is, I believe Andrew was onto something. I think...” He hesitated, not wanting to set her off again and not finding any way to soften the blow for her. He respected Pen too much to sugarcoat what he suspected. “Pen, it looks like your father was stealing from his clients. Is stealing from his clients. He’s hiding income from the government. Falsifying records. God knows what else, but...”

  He stopped as she sank slowly back onto her chair, her eyes wide and her mouth slack with shock. “You really think my father is doing all this? What I mean is, you think he knows about it? Couldn’t it be someone who works for him? Or...” She let her voice trail off, as if she knew the truth without him answering.

  He said nothing, taking his seat again and giving her a moment to process the stunning bomb he’d dropped. He knew well enough that Pen had never had a good relationship with her father, but learning Hugh was likely guilty of criminal activity was another matter.

  “So...now what?” She sounded as stunned as she looked, her voice an almost breathless whisper. “What do I do...” she motioned weakly toward the papers in his lap “...with those files? What do you think Andrew planned to do with them?”

  “Andrew was a good cop. He wouldn’t have sat on incriminating evidence like this long. Chances are he was waiting for the case to come together to spare you the strain of a drawn-out investigation.” Noticing her befuddled look, he asked, “What?”

  “So now you think Andrew is a good cop?”

  He clenched his teeth, measuring his words. “Pen, I’ve always thought he was good at his job.”

  Her mouth pinched, and one thin eyebrow lifted in skepticism. “That didn’t stop you from trying to sully his name before he died.”

  He exhaled slowly, struggling to keep his frustration in check. “I wasn’t trying to sully his name. I was trying to intervene, bring him to his senses, before he sullied it!”

  “Fine way of showing—”

  “Pen, stop!” He raised both hands, palms toward her. His voice was louder than he’
d intended. “This is a conversation for later. I will explain to you everything that happened eighteen months ago, if you’re willing to listen.”

  She firmed her mouth and folded her arms over her chest. Classic body language saying she was closing herself off to what he was saying. He knew better than to press on with the topic if she wasn’t ready to hear him out.

  “Later...” He tapped his finger on the files. “We need to address this, right now.”

  He didn’t tell her this insight into Barrington cast a new light on issues involving his father’s disappearance. Hugh Barrington had been very vocal of late, claiming to have seen Eldridge being kidnapped, claiming a burned body must be the missing Colton patriarch—which it wasn’t. And, not the least of which, pushing forward a reading of Eldridge’s will, in which Hugh Barrington was named the heir of a controlling interest in Colton Inc. As a detective with the Dallas PD, Reid had learned not to believe in coincidence. If it looked like a dirty rat, smelled like a dirty rat and squeaked like a dirty rat, he didn’t need an exterminator to tell him he was dealing with a dirty rat.

  If Hugh Barrington was as corrupt as Andrew’s files seemed to indicate, Reid had to wonder what role the family’s lawyer may have played in his father’s disappearance. Had Eldridge gotten wind of his lawyer’s disloyalty and theft? Had the senior Colton threatened to expose Hugh?

  Or, Reid thought with a twist of dread in his gut, had Eldridge been mixed up in his lawyer’s illegal practices and crossed the wrong person?

  She glared at him silently, stubbornly, for several moments, and he used the time to formulate a plan.

  “Are you with me on this, Pen? For Andrew’s sake? Because I’m going to need your help if we’re going to get the proof we need to either finish building this case or disprove it.”

  She blinked slowly, turning her gaze away. “How?”

  Gathering together the papers he’d spread out on the floor to review, he tapped the stack into order and stood. “We need to look at your father’s personal files. We need to see what’s saved on his computer, what’s locked in his safe.”