Colton's Texas Stakeout. C.J. Miller
“Yes, boss,” she said with a smile.
Jesse would leave it at that. He’d adjust the schedule going forward and keep Grace safe. Grace seemed to be unaware that Tom, his foreman, had a soft spot for Grace, and the other guys looked to Tom for guidance. Tom would be fine with whatever Grace did, and the other guys would follow his lead.
As Jesse walked back to the barn, he thought again of the brunette police officer. He didn’t have a good reason to see her again. But maybe he’d go into town to buy a few fencing pliers to replace ones that had broken. If his path crossed with the police officer, it would be well worth the trip.
* * *
“Tough break in Rosewood,” Luis said, adjusting the air-conditioning in the car. It was eighty-three degrees, and it felt hotter inside the vehicle.
Annabel set her iced coffee in the cruiser’s cup holder. “Yeah.” She didn’t want to talk about it. Annabel had agreed to read the letters sent from Regina to Matthew, less as a police officer and more as a relation to Matthew Colton.
Though the police had been too late to catch Regina Willard, her room in Rosewood had convinced them that they had the right person. The walls in Regina’s room had been covered in the alphabet, written in red permanent marker, a bull’s-eye drawn beside each letter and newspaper articles of the victims posted on the walls. Hundreds of clippings, obsessive and disturbing. Regina used the same red marker and the bull’s-eye on the foreheads of her victims after she killed them. “Regina’s in the wind.”
“We’ll get another break,” Luis said.
Regina was no longer writing to Matthew Colton in prison. They had the letters and not much else. The FBI might find something in her room or perhaps they’d receive a tip on their hotline, but the more time that passed, the colder the trail grew. “Hopefully soon.”
“What letter is she up to? G?” Luis asked.
“G,” Annabel confirmed. The Alphabet Killer, while adopting some of Matthew Colton’s rituals, had added some of her own. She was killing women of a certain profile—long, dark hair, twenty to thirty-five years old—in letter order based on her victims’ first names. The police hadn’t caught the pattern until the killer’s third victim, Celia Robison, had been killed on her wedding day. She’d had a bull’s-eye center dot slightly off center to the left drawn on her forehead. Celia had been Sam’s fiancée, and her death had brought the serial killer case even closer to home. So close, in fact, the FBI previously suspected Annabel’s long-lost sister, Josie, of being the Alphabet Killer. Annabel was relieved the FBI had turned their attention away from Josie. No matter what rumors swirled about Josie, Annabel wouldn’t believe her missing sister was a killer.
They had their father’s blood in them, undeniably, but each of Matthew Colton’s children had chosen honorable and respectable jobs on the right side of the law. Though she couldn’t know for sure, Annabel believed the same was true of Josie.
The car radio beeped. Annabel answered and waited for the message and code and tried not to let disappointment nip at her. They had to investigate a missing cat. Again. Annabel hid her annoyance and ignored Luis’s grimace. He was an experienced cop, and before being paired with her, he’d worked much more interesting cases.
After Annabel acknowledged the code and location, Luis made a U-turn in the direction of the house with the missing cat. “You realize this is the same dingbat who lost her cat last week?” Luis asked.
“I realize it,” Annabel said.
“Cat’s probably hiding in her house again,” Luis said. The last time Mrs. Granger had called them to help find her cat, Cubbles had been sleeping in a windowsill.
“She called us. We need to take it seriously,” Annabel said.
“Fine, but I’m not turning on the lights and sirens for this,” Luis said.
“I agree. But we will check the windowsill first,” Annabel said.
This was a familiar discussion between them. Luis had much less patience for calls he considered a waste of police resources. Some of the calls seemed silly, but she was eager to prove herself. They had to respond to calls—even the ones that were a waste of her time. If she could get the chief and Sam to see her as more than a rookie in need of protecting, she might prove to them she was capable of actual police work.
Ethan and Lizzie had invited the Colton siblings to their ranch house for dinner. Annabel didn’t know how Lizzie was managing to cook dinner for so many people when she was due to have her baby soon. Most days after work, Annabel was so tired she heated dinner in the microwave and had a glass of wine.
Ethan and Lizzie were jazzed about their baby. It was almost hard to watch. They were in love, and after what they had been through, they deserved every moment of happiness they’d found together.
Of course, not all of the Colton siblings would be in attendance. Josie wanted nothing to do with her biological family. Despite Trevor’s FBI resources, Sam’s detective skills and Chris’s PI abilities, they hadn’t been able to locate her.
Annabel wondered what they had done, or hadn’t done, to make Josie hate them. Lizzie had been in foster care with Josie, and she didn’t recall Josie speaking angrily about her siblings. Annabel worried Josie had gotten herself into trouble, perhaps drug use or hanging with the wrong crowd. Given how the Colton siblings had grown up, the statistics weren’t in their favor for them becoming successful and productive members of society. She and her brothers had worked hard in their careers, and Annabel believed her brothers carried the same burden of their father’s crimes with them. Annabel thought Josie had risen above the past, but in dark moments of doubt, concerns plucked at her.
Annabel parked outside the ranch house. She was pleased to see her twin’s white pickup truck in front of the house. Annabel could confide in Chris, and he didn’t seem to resent her new career as a police officer as much as her other siblings. Whether it was because she and Chris had their twin connection or because they’d become and stayed close in high school, he listened to her. She could tell him anything.
Last year when Annabel had graduated from the police academy at the top of her class, she had thought her brothers would see her desire to be a police officer, and one day a detective, wasn’t a whim or an act of defiance against them.
Only Sam had been present at her graduation, and that was because most of the current members of the GGPD attended the ceremony. Her brothers’ absences had hurt her more than she’d ever said. They rarely asked her about her job, nor did they acknowledge her professional accomplishments. Annabel tried to remain calm about it and pretend she didn’t care. Their family was facing enough problems, and her brothers wouldn’t take kindly to criticism.
Taking a deep breath and focusing on the reason she was there, to see her family and discuss the clues Matthew Colton had provided them, Annabel rang the doorbell.
Sam answered, beer in hand, and he greeted her with a hug. At least when they were at family gatherings, he didn’t act like her superior. He was a detective, and she, six years older, was a rookie cop. His frostiness at work was his way of keeping her away from dangerous cases, as if that would keep her safe. Random, bad things happened all the time, even to cops who were assigned missing-cat reports.
She lived with that knowledge and had since the day her mother had been murdered. Annabel’s soul wasn’t at ease, knowing something terrible could happen to someone she loved with no warning. It was a brutal lesson she had learned from her father.
Sam escorted her inside. Lizzie had a fresh pie cooling on the counter and dinner was set in serving dishes on the table. How did she do it? Annabel didn’t own serving dishes, period, much less matching ones.
Annabel pointed to the pie. “If your pie goes missing, I can help you find it. I have some experience with that.” The words left