Deadly Colton Search (The Coltons 0f Mustang Valley Book 10) Read online

  Selina had hired him to prove that Ace Colton had shot his father, former oil exec Payne Colton, in cold blood. While it was a handy story and one that had kept Mustang Valley talking since the January shooting, something didn’t fully play for Nikolas. Even if it had played for the local press like a well-tuned piano. The golden boy. The powerful father. And a family name that had plenty of notoriety. Hell, a distant cousin of Payne’s had served as president.

  Nikolas suspected the recent escapades of the Arizona branch weren’t finding too much favor with such illustrious relatives, no matter how distant, but they didn’t call certain branches of families black sheep for nothing.

  Even now, Payne remained in a coma over at Mustang Valley General Hospital, the victim of a gunshot wound late one night in his office at Colton Oil. A situation that had kept the local press busy for nearly nine months and that ebbed and flowed in and out of the national news, as well. While they might no longer be husband and wife, Selina was still a bigwig at Colton Oil. And while it wasn’t a secret she carried no soft feelings for Old Man Colton, she was also clearly not interested in losing her cash cow.

  Despite the cynicism, Nikolas had played various angles in his mind. Was it so hard to believe she wanted to do right by him as well as the company? Or that she wanted a guilty man caught, especially if the whispers were true and it was Payne’s oldest son, Ace, who had done the deed?

  Maybe yes, maybe no.

  Nikolas kept his ear to the ground and he knew there was more going on than even what Selina had briefed him on. The entire town had discovered over the past few months that Ace Colton wasn’t actually Payne’s son. Selina had confirmed that by showing him the result of a DNA test. The Mustang Valley rumor mill was working overtime, fixated on the notion that Ace had been switched at birth. If it was true, it gave Ace a possible motive for murdering the man who wasn’t really his father, after having been ousted as the CEO of Colton Oil when it was proven that he wasn’t really a Colton.

  Add on the fact that Selina’s desire to find Payne’s shooter didn’t seem fully altruistic—especially since she already had a candidate in mind—and Nikolas knew to watch his back. He might not have a particularly large reserve of restraint in the face of a beautiful woman seeking his professional help but he did have standards. Which meant he needed to stay focused and keep his nose clean.

  And do whatever he could to determine who had put Payne Colton in his or her crosshairs.

  In the meantime, he’d given Selina his agreement to work the case. The long-term success of Colton Oil depended on happy stockholders and a healthy leadership. If Payne didn’t recover and the investment community caught wind of so much drama at the top, the stock prices would fall and all the Mustang Valley Coltons would suffer. As PR director for Colton Oil, Selina had the job of making sure that wind never swirled above a whisper. And Payne’s daughter Marlowe, the current CEO, had managed to keep a firm finger in the dam, despite her own danger earlier in the year and the arrival of her new baby.

  Even with the effort, there were cracks.

  And it was his job to find answers before they split wide open.

  * * *

  Nova walked through the main downtown thoroughfare of Mustang Valley and thought longingly of the breakfast bar she’d buried in her purse. She’d been trying to ration the food she had left, and the two boxes of breakfast bars she’d stumbled upon in a buy-one-get-one deal at a convenience store just over the line into Arizona had been too good to pass up. But she was always hungry now and the baby had her burning food like crazy. She was worried whatever passed as strawberry filling wasn’t the healthiest approach to eating during pregnancy, but hadn’t figured out any other choice.

  She took some solace that it hadn’t been like this the whole time. After the whole debacle in Ferdy’s office, she’d run from New York, doing little more than grabbing a suitcase full of stuff from her apartment before she took off. Her mother’s occasional notes of wisdom had come surprisingly handy and Nova was suddenly grateful she’d paid attention.

  Her entire life her mother had always kept cash in the house. “Enough to pay a month’s worth of bills” had always been the ever-eccentric Allegra Ellis’s motto. Nova had often thought it an odd juxtaposition to a woman who’d willingly spend the same amount on a wild bender of a shopping trip, but some things stuck and she’d done her best to maintain that stash since going out on her own. It was only after she’d needed to go off the grid that she’d come to recognize the wisdom in her mother’s teaching.

  Between the five thousand she’d squirreled away and the odd jobs she’d taken at diners across the country, she’d gotten by. The diner owners she’d worked for hadn’t cared that she was pregnant, only that she could work, and they’d been more than willing to feed her three square meals from the kitchen.

  She’d been more diligent then, eating a proper balance of protein and fruit, keeping away from anything unhealthy and taking vitamins. Her first few weeks on the road she’d fallen love with the sticky buns on the counter in one of the diners where she’d worked and had quickly realized that there was no way she could fuel her growing baby on just sugar and carbs. So since then, she’d adhered to a strong eating regimen and even found ways to conserve gas in her car while walking around whatever town she’d worked in, getting some solid exercise in the process.

  Even as kind as most everyone had been at all her stops along the way, she’d refused to stay anywhere for too long. The cell phone she’d stuffed in her bag had remained resolutely off and she’d finally given in and spent the money to get a burner phone in Iowa so she’d have some link to help if she needed it. Luckily, she hadn’t needed it. Nor had she seen any sign of Ferdy or his colleagues, even as she’d kept careful watch every one of the one hundred and fifty days since she’d run.

  Throughout that time, she’d questioned her initial panic. Would Ferdy really hurt her? Especially once he knew about the baby? Sure, he’d seemed different after that first date, a bit more hot-tempered and emotional than she’d expected. But wasn’t that life? He had a big job and that meant big problems.

  She’d nearly convinced herself to turn back about two weeks in, but something had ultimately held her back. That discussion of shipments and problems at the port sticking in her mind on an endless loop.

  Ferdinand Adler was a real estate developer. Not a drug dealer. And yet...that exchange she’d overheard through the door suggested he was exactly that. Could she really expose her child to that?

  So she’d stayed on the run. After a circuitous path out of New York, she’d headed straight for Tennessee before heading back north to Michigan, steadily weaving south and west from there. Somewhere deep inside of her, she’d known where she’d end up. The idea had nagged at her since her mother had shared the news of her real father’s identity so many months ago.

  But the search for Ace Colton—and her belief in his ability to help her—had grown deeper and more intense as she checked one state after another off her list.

  She needed his help and she had to believe that he’d give it. And once safe, secure in the knowledge her child would be protected, she had to find a way to get word back to the authorities in New York.

  Because there was no way Ferdy Adler was a good guy.

  She’d finally given in and done an internet search at one of the towns she’d passed through. She’d noticed signs for the local library and had gone in to use the public computer terminals, curious to see if she’d find anything to help her understand the real personality of the man she’d believed herself in love with.

  The man who had fathered her child.

  What she’d found was full of suspicion and innuendo and a few all-out accusations, and it all reinforced the suspected drug dealer angle. Several articles had comment sections underneath and the anonymous notes were not favorable. One mentioned he was “a real leg breaker,” and another had flat
out accused him of putting “laced dope” on the streets.

  God, how could she have been so stupid?

  Like, bone-deep stupid with a side of flighty airhead on the side. She knew better than to give her heart that easily. After all, what had she really known about Ferdinand Adler? Other than the good conversation they’d had on that very first date, his behavior after had been modestly kind at best. But oh boy, had he hooked her good.

  She’d had a lot of time to think over the past months and one thing had become embarrassingly clear: Ferdy had played her like a fiddle. He’d somehow keyed into her deepest needs and desires on that very first date and had pushed and played every button she had from that moment on. Which didn’t excuse her role in any of it, but it had given her a sense of how she’d found herself in such a raging mess.

  And how she needed to protect herself—and her child—moving forward.

  Although she hated coming to town feeling like she had her cup in hand, the idea to find her father had been a persistent flame since her mother had first told her of Ace Colton and their brief teenage love affair. The research she’d done on the man had turned up more than a few surprises, especially the notion that the man was suspected of trying to murder his own father and was recently ousted as the CEO of Colton Oil. There was also a blog post she’d read that gleefully shared “all the Mustang Valley gossip” and said that the man wasn’t even actually a Colton.

  Was it possible?

  Could the man whose blood flowed in her veins be that cold? That devoid of feeling or decency? And not at all the man her mother had told her about?

  Even as she asked herself the question, images of the attractive, warm-eyed man she’d seen in photos didn’t match the bill. Neither did the few memories her mother had shared with her.

  Allegra Ellis and Ace Colton might have had an unintended consequence of their teenage romance while both on family vacations at a resort up in Montana, but from all her mother said he was a good person, even then. She’d spoken of his talk of his family and the warmth with which he spoke of his siblings, Ainsley and Grayson, his adoptive brother, Rafe, and his half siblings, Marlowe, Callum and Asher.

  In her own way, Allegra had made it all sound so magical, and it was only as her story went on and on that she shared what Ace had told her on their last night together. While he hoped for a bond with his family, there were cracks in their relationships. His father’s multiple marriages and the sheer number of siblings weren’t quite as problem-free as it seemed. Yes, he loved them, but things weren’t quite as easy as he’d made it all out to be.

  And then he’d told Allegra the biggest secret of all. That he had a girlfriend back home. One he was likely being groomed to marry.

  Although she was well past childhood, Nova had listened to her mother’s story with a mix of shock and envy and, at the evidence of Ace’s youthful choices, sadness. How much time had been lost?

  And what would her life have been like if he and her mother hadn’t been inexperienced teenagers?

  Questions that had no bearing on her current reality.

  Allegra had talked of other things, as well, all more evidence that the fleeting days she’d spent with Ace had meant so much to her. Ace’s future at Colton Oil and his love for the family home in Mustang Valley, Arizona: Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch. Allegra had smiled as she’d spoken of it, her desire to have had a chance to see it—the “Triple R,” she’d said with a smile—had been clear.

  Nova shook her head, willing those memories to offer more clues about her father than the latest shocking headline in the Mustang Valley paper. Ace Colton had to be a good man.

  She was betting her future on it.

  Which, she well knew, flew totally in the face of the harsh lessons that had come from her relationship with Ferdy.

  Her gaze caught on a wooden bench on the main thoroughfare through Mustang Valley and the image of that breakfast bar shimmered in her mind’s eye once more. She was hungry and it was important to keep up her strength. And despite thinking of it all through her drive out to Arizona, she was no closer to understanding how to approach her real father.

  Hey Dad, I’m here. The kid you never knew you had. Pregnant and alone and on the run from a possible criminal. Aren’t you happy to meet me?

  Shaking off the grim thoughts, she dug out that breakfast bar and opened it up, forcing herself to take small bites instead of devouring it in four like she really wanted to. It was all she had for a while and she’d better make it last. Plus, hadn’t she read somewhere that eating slowly made you feel more full?

  Doubting that was at all possible, she took a small bite anyway and chewed, thinking about the tiny human she carried inside.

  She was going to be someone’s mother.

  In her more vulnerable moments the idea was scary beyond measure. In her quieter ones, like now, she considered what it all meant. Yes, she would be totally responsible for a defenseless human, but she’d also have a beautiful child to raise and watch him or her grow up.

  Pride swelled within her at the thought and she laid a protective hand over her stomach. She could do this. If the past five months had taught her anything, it was that.

  She was capable and not nearly as helpless as she’d allowed herself to believe in those alone and adrift days after her mother had died. And she refused to ever be that vulnerable again. She had two capable hands and wasn’t afraid of work. Somehow she’d find a way.

  If she found it with the support of her birth father, then she’d be thankful and grateful. And if he didn’t want her and the baby in his life, she’d still be thankful and grateful she’d found out, and move them both on.

  “Nothing but upside,” she whispered down at her stomach. “Because we’ll have each other.”

  The baby gave a swift kick, as if in agreement. Which was silly—it was most likely due to the sugar content in all that strawberry filling that had hit the baby’s bloodstream—but Nova could allow herself the quiet moment to believe it was agreement, anyway.

  A soft breeze whipped up, swirling the ends of her hair in the warm spring sun and Nova’s gaze caught on a building across the street.

  Nikolas Slater, Private Investigator.

  Nova considered the sign and the tagline beneath his name—Results. Period.—and wondered if this Mr. Slater might be able to help her. She had no money and no earthly idea if this man would even listen to her, but it couldn’t hurt to talk to him. Who knew, he might take some pity on her and at least answer a few questions for free.

  Maybe?

  Besides, if he was a resident of Mustang Valley he might at least know about the town grapevine and any news traveling on it about her father.

  The idea took shape and form, the breakfast bar forgotten in her hand.

  Did she dare?

  It was a leap to let someone in but this PI might be the answer to her prayers. At the very least he might have some pull in getting her an introduction to her father or a few answers to all the questions that had dogged her since she’d left New York.

  The baby kicked again and, once more, Nova thought her little partner in crime was agreeing with her.

  What was the harm in trying?

  When that tiny kick came once again, Nova made her decision. Taking the last bite of the breakfast bar, she stood and dropped the wrapper in the trash.

  And headed determinedly in the direction of Nikolas Slater, Private Investigator.

  * * *

  Nikolas rubbed his stomach and ignored the heavy growl, promising himself he’d get some lunch after he finished running a few more names through his database. He was on a roll, and while he’d like nothing more than a steak sandwich from his favorite sub shop, he wanted to get a handle on the Colton project.

  He’d already spent an hour hunting through the endless layers of information on the internet, surprised at how many articles h
ad been written on Ace, his family and their elite position in Mustang Valley. The oldest child of Payne Colton, CEO of Colton Oil, and his first wife, Ace had been groomed to ascend to his father’s place from an early age.

  Although Selina had been cagey in what she shared, it hadn’t taken much to put two and two together throughout the course of their conversation. She claimed her sole concern was catching Payne’s attempted killer so that Colton Oil could continue to thrive.

  She’d even—tearfully—suggested Ace had snapped and gone after “poor Payne.”

  What would it do to a man, if he’d believed he’d lost all that? All that position and prestige? And how much worse would it be if that loss also blended with the pain of discovering you weren’t who you believed you were?

  Nikolas imagined it, his own privileged upbringing winging through his mind. Only unlike Ace Colton, Nikolas hadn’t run around with a whole pack of siblings. His mother, Clara Rivera Slater, had loved his father to distraction, but Guy Slater’s playboy ways hadn’t abated with marriage. He’d be a loving husband and father for a period of time, then something—or someone—shiny would catch his eye and he’d become aloof and distant again. Nikolas had spent his youth living the cycle, watching his mother’s happiness when his father was around and attentive, and then sad and lonely when he was all wrapped up elsewhere.

  Whether by circumstance or a sadly determined effort, his mother hadn’t ever had another child and Nikolas had found himself adrift five years ago when she’d died.

  He loved her and had spent his life wanting to protect her. Wanted to prove to her that there was someone in her life she could depend on.

  But it was five years later and no amount of money could fix that loss, or how it had put his entire life into perspective. A good living made life comfortable, but it didn’t make life happy. And since his father’s ongoing attitude once his dependable, loving wife had passed was that women only wanted you for your money, Nikolas had done his level best to focus on his job and off anything that carried an air of permanence.