Colton Nursery Hideout Read online

  “Sounds good to me,” she said and then opened her folder and balanced it on her crossed legs.

  He rubbed the back of his neck as he struggled for the right words. “But before we move on to other subjects, there’s a personal matter we need to discuss.”

  Tatiana shot a glance at the closed door, the foot of her crossed leg bouncing and causing her notebook to wobble. “Can that wait? We have more important things to discuss this morning.”

  “Unfortunately, it can’t. Look, I tried to bring it up when we spoke while you were still overseas, but you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “It was a bad time then, and it’s an even worse time now.” She tapped the book in her lap several times with her pen but didn’t look up from it. “We need to stick to issues involving only Colton Plastics so that we’ll have time at the end of the meeting to discuss another topic.”

  “This is about CP.” At least part of it was. Travis shifted in his executive chair where he usually felt cool and in control. Neither of those words had applied to him from the moment he’d met Tatiana Davison. “Have you seen the Grave Gulch Gazette?”

  Her head lifted at that.

  “Not yet. As I mentioned, I only arrived Saturday night. Then I spent yesterday in bed, recovering from, well, jet lag.” She stopped herself, her brows pinched together, and then shook her head. “Why? What did I miss?”

  “It has to do with your father.”

  Tatiana blew out a breath. “I thought we’d dealt with this during our meetings in January. I said I’d had no contact with my father since his release, and I don’t know where he is now. I was open about my personal life, which should have been off-limits during an interview, by the way. But I understood that the negative publicity could affect the company.

  “When will the local paper stop reporting on the murder of that guy? What was his name?” She scanned the stack on his desk as though checking for a copy of the newspaper.

  “Vincent Gully,” he supplied. He didn’t call her on his suspicion that she already knew the answer. No one would forget the name of a victim her father was accused of shooting at point-blank range.

  “Oh. Right.” She looked up from his desk. “Anyway, the charges against my dad were dropped clear back in December, after their supposed evidence went missing.”

  “From what I heard, it had help in disappearing.” He swallowed, realizing he’d said too much. Just because his PI brother, Clarke, had shared too many details about the investigation of alleged evidence tampering by Randall Bowe, the police department’s forensic scientist, didn’t mean Travis should share that privileged information further.

  “Haven’t you heard about the new allegations?” he asked, hoping she would key in on that information instead of that other juicy detail.

  The dread in her eyes and her slack jaw suggested she hadn’t heard.

  “You know of more?” she said finally.

  “There’s been another murder in Grave Gulch Park. It looked just like the first one. Police believe they’re chasing a serial killer, and DNA evidence at the crime scene connected it to one suspect.” He glanced down at his hands and had to force himself to look up again. “That suspect is Len Davison.”

  “My dad? A serial killer?”

  Her skin was so pallid now that he was tempted to hit his office speakerphone button to ask Jan to bring a paper bag for Tatiana to breathe in. Why was he suddenly feeling protective of her?

  “Nothing is proven yet,” he found himself saying, though he’d just told her about the compelling evidence.

  She wasn’t listening, anyway, as she planted her elbows on her thighs and leaned forward, lowering her head in her cupped hands. “No. That’s impossible. He wouldn’t.”

  Her last word struck him as odd. Shouldn’t she have said couldn’t? But she was in shock. She wasn’t choosing her words carefully.

  “You okay?” Travis couldn’t help himself. He rounded his desk and slid into the chair next to hers. Despite his determination never to touch her again beyond a professional handshake, he leaned forward and reached for her hands.

  She jerked them back, crossing her arms as she straightened in the seat. Then she met his gaze. “I’m fine.”

  He almost believed her. Tatiana Davison might have been petite enough that she barely reached his shoulder, even in heels, but she was no damsel in distress. He needed to remember that. She was a highly qualified plastics engineer, one whose work had impressed him so much that he’d personally recruited her to take the vacant position at Colton Plastics.

  “I’m sorry to be the one to give you the news. I was sure you would have heard already. Didn’t anyone with the Grave Gulch Police Department get in touch with you?”

  She lowered her arms to her lap. “I had a few messages from them on my cell while I was still overseas, but I didn’t return the calls.”

  “Why not?”

  “I figured they were just following up on the first case. I’d spoken to them before, so I didn’t call back. Since the charges were dropped, I expected them to eventually go away and leave me alone.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.” She also might have been dealing with the implications of her father’s arrest by hiding from it. Was that why she’d gone to Paris in the first place? “But, unfortunately, the police aren’t going away.”

  “I get that.”

  Tatiana stared out his second-floor office window, with a similar view of the snow-covered courtyard that she would have seen from her own office. She squinted as she turned back to him.

  “All that new information was in the local newspaper?”

  “Only part of it.”

  “Then how do you know so much?” She nodded as if answering her own question. “Right. You said that the Colton family is like a law enforcement convention. Siblings. Cousins. Everyone except you.”

  “I also said I was the maverick,” he blurted and then shook his head. He’d shared too many details with her that night, stories of how he’d never fit with his family—with anyone, really. Intimacies that went far beyond just sharing a bed for one night. “Never said police work wasn’t an honorable trade. Just not for me.

  “Anyway, when I announced at a police department pizza party I’d crashed that our board had hired you as my new co-CEO, my sister, Melissa, and brother, Clarke, nearly pounced on me from across the room. Remember, she’s the Grave Gulch chief of police, and he’s a PI who works with the department.”

  “That must have been quite a scene.” She settled back in the chair, but her foot rocked again. “Well, what did they say?”

  “No specifics beyond what I’ve told you. In fact, in her position, Melissa can’t really discuss active investigations, but Clarke isn’t as bound by those rules. He let me know that she believes her department is dealing with a serial killer. Also, Davison—” he paused, clearing his throat, before continuing “—I mean, your father has disappeared again. They want to talk to you as soon as possible. They think you can help them find him.”

  “Haven’t I done enough for them?” She reached for the clip holding back her hair, causing more of the strands to fall loose. “You know, by spitting in that tube and registering with that genealogy website.”

  “I’m sure that helped.”

  She puffed up her cheeks and exhaled slowly. “I was hoping to learn more about my ancestors. Not send my own dad to prison.”

  “None of this is your fault.” Again, the words came automatically, and, again, he regretted them.

  “Doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  He agreed with her on that one. He would have told her that Davison’s actions alone would be what put him behind bars, but she didn’t seem ready to hear that.

  Tatiana tapped her bent forefinger to her lips, appearing deep in thought. She was taking the news better than he would have expected, but then, his b
oard had hired her because she was a proven problem solver. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she was freaking out less than the average person. After all, this wasn’t the first time her father had been accused of murder.

  “So, you’re bringing this up now because you’re looking for a plan to help Colton Plastics minimize the publicity nightmare. You know, the one that will result from having a co-CEO who’s the daughter of a potential serial killer.”

  “It sounds awful when you put it that way.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Or is the board asking me to resign for the company’s sake before I even start to make an impact?”

  “No. That’s not what I’m asking.”

  “Well, you should be. Colton Plastics is still a relatively new company. As CEO—well, co-CEO now—you are responsible to our shareholders. A scandal this big could put the whole company at risk.”

  She was right. This mess made the fact that they’d slept together seem as insignificant as one of the bullet points on the list he could see on her notebook. Yet he shook his head again.

  “No. That’s not what I’m asking,” he repeated.

  Tatiana’s shoulders relaxed with her sigh. “That’s good. Because I need this job. Now more than ever.”

  Again, her words made sense. Potential employers who did an internet search on her would inquire about the public role she might play in her father’s defense. Of course, they would. He had. The label serial killer would only make that worse. Human resources managers would have to balance her job skills against the negative publicity she would bring to their companies. Many—most—would swipe left before she ever made it to an interview.

  “Did you give your brother and sister my start date here?”

  Travis blinked. He’d been heading off on a what-if tangent while Tatiana had stayed focused on the current mess.

  “I did.” Just another on a list of things he regretted doing over the past few months.

  “Then we’d better hurry with this meeting. We don’t know when they’ll try to question me.”

  Travis had a good idea since his cousin, GGPD detective Troy Colton, had called to confirm that Tatiana had arrived as scheduled that morning. He should have mentioned it, but she was on a roll, jotting more notes on her pad. He’d already given her enough bad news. And he was a coward.

  “We need to prepare a statement,” she said. “Tragic personal matter. Please respect the privacy of all CP employees. Unaware of Davison’s whereabouts. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. All that nonsense.”

  “Are you?”

  “Do you mean am I innocent?”

  She shifted in her seat, and he did the same. They hadn’t even made it to the subject of their one-night stand yet. Could this morning get any worse?

  “No. I’m asking if you really are unaware of where he is or what he’s been doing.”

  “I told you in my job interview that I haven’t spoken with him,” she snapped and then shot a look out the window before facing him again. “Do you need me to swear it on the Colton Plastics employee handbook?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” He could have pointed out that not speaking to someone and not knowing where he might be hiding were different, but she was already agitated. Anyway, they still weren’t finished with their unusual first-day topics.

  She beat him to it.

  “Okay, then. Let’s get onto other matters. As we agreed, I will be interviewing admin candidates this week. Did we receive the prescreened list of applicants?”

  “Jan will supply you with that and your passwords following this meeting, but there is still that other personal matter—”

  “Can you please stop apologizing for that night?” She gripped the arms of her chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “There were two of us in that hotel suite. There was consent as well, if that’s what you’re worried about, even if the cabernet clouded our judgment. So, stop.”

  Only when Tatiana’s eyes widened did he realize that his jaw had dropped open. He closed his mouth.

  “Sorry. It’s just that, uh, with everything you just told me and, well, other things...”

  “I get it.” Okay, he’d overestimated how well she’d taken the news about her father, so he couldn’t fault her for overreacting. “For the record, I wasn’t planning to apologize. I wanted to set up some ground rules for, uh, our new working relationship.”

  “Oh. I see.” She lowered her gaze to her hands. “I’m sure we’re on the same page about that. A mistake. Won’t be repeated. Strictly professional from here on out. Only—”

  “So glad to hear you say that.” He rushed to end the awkwardness but then couldn’t stop babbling. “You should know, that’s not something I do—You probably won’t believe that. But I’ve never done anything—” He shook his head, giving up.

  “I would tell you to forget about it entirely.” She paused, clearing her throat. “But that won’t be possible now because, uh, the other matter I needed to discuss with you—”

  His office phone buzzed then, interrupting whatever she’d been about to say. He reached for the intercom button. “Yes, Jan. Is it something important? Because I asked for no calls.”

  “It’s important,” Jan said. “I have representatives from the local police and the FBI, requesting to speak with Miss Davison.”

  Travis shot a look at Tatiana, who was rocking in her seat.

  “Uh,” Jan began again. “One of them says you’re expecting him.”

  Chapter 2

  “You knew they were coming this morning?”

  Tatiana could only stare at Travis’s wide eyes and shiver as she slid forward on her chair. Her already queasy stomach did a full-out roll. The hits just kept coming today. First, the positive pregnancy test, and now her father had been accused of murder again? There had been no time to digest either of those bits of news, and now the authorities were there, too?

  “My cousin Troy told me this morning,” he said simply.

  “You could have warned me.”

  Serial killer. The words replayed again in her thoughts as they had since Travis had spoken them. Like headlines from a dozen news channels and newspapers at once. She wasn’t ready to talk to the police again. How was she supposed to answer questions without giving away suspicions she’d harbored since her father’s call after his release from jail? What kind of daughter was so quick to believe that claims about her own father were true? But how could she not believe them now? Her father had vanished from her life, and the man police and newspapers described didn’t sound like the man she remembered at all. As if it wasn’t enough that she was still mourning her mother’s death, now he was gone, too.

  “I hadn’t gotten that far.” He stood and shifted to face his office door.

  Tatiana frowned at him, though she’d already imagined the police descending on her at the office that day. Her head swam as she lifted from the chair, so she steadied herself by resting her hand on the desk as she scooted past the guest chairs to stand next to him.

  “Maybe you should sit.”

  Travis was watching her too closely, just as he had been since he’d delivered the news about the second murder. He’d guessed that she was not okay, though she’d tried to continue the meeting in a business-as-usual fashion. Nothing was usual about the events at Colton Plastics that day.

  “No. I’ve got this,” she said after a pause that had probably stretched too long.

  The police had her at a disadvantage. They’d been aware of the accusations against her dad for weeks. Not minutes, like her. No way she would meet them sitting down, even if she had to use the desk to stay upright.

  With a click, the door swung open. Jan admitted two men wearing suit jackets, one with a tie, one without. Tatiana recognized the more casual of the two by his short black hair, light brown skin and a scruff on his chin, bu
t she’d never met the clean-shaven guy with a light complexion and dark hair.

  “Miss Davison?”

  The first law enforcement agent stepped forward, but Travis surprised her by edging between them. Usually, she would have been furious that a man had even tried to defend her. She lived and worked in the engineering world, where she usually went toe to toe with a half dozen mansplainers before lunch, but right now she was grateful that someone at least had her back.

  “Please allow me to introduce Tatiana Davison, our new co-CEO at Colton Plastics.” He gestured to the man standing closest to them. “Tatiana, I’d like you to meet FBI special agent Bryce Colton. My cousin.”

  She nodded rather than to have to shake his hand.

  “And this is Detective Troy Colton, of the Grave Gulch PD. Also my cousin.”

  Troy extended his hand, but when she nodded again instead, he lowered it.

  “We’ve met,” she said.

  Travis looked back and forth between them. “Oh. Right. From the other interview.”

  “We were in the same class at Grave Gulch High, too,” she told him.

  Just the thought of that awkward first interview made her squirm. The first time her father was accused of murder. When she’d still been positive that her kind, loyal dad could never have committed such a crime.

  Troy dipped his head. “Good to see you again, Miss Davison.”

  “I wouldn’t call it good,” she tossed back before she could stop herself. She swallowed and then grasped onto something else Travis had said. “You’re all related?”

  “Cousins. From different branches of the family, though. Troy’s dad, Geoff Colton, and Bryce’s mom, Verity, are brother and sister to my father, Frank.” Travis glanced at the two men by turns, but he wasn’t smiling. “I tried to warn you about the family business.”

  “You weren’t kidding,” she said.

  Travis leaned closer to Troy and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I thought I asked you to wait for her to at least get settled in.”

  “Sorry, man, ” Troy said. “We’ve got a job to do. And Chief Colton wants results now.”