Colton Christmas Protector

“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.”

Penelope scowled her disagreement. “He’s hardly going to just stand aside and let us search his office—especially if he has something to hide.”

“So we don’t ask.” He jammed a hand in his pocket and shifted his weight uncomfortably. He was crossing a line, and he knew it. They’d have to tread carefully.

Her expression was incredulous. “You want to break into his office and steal his files?”

“I doubt he’d keep the incriminating stuff at his office where his staff could come across it. We’ll start at his house. Your old home.” She opened her mouth as if to argue, and he added quickly, “If we are freely admitted to the house, then it’s not breaking and entering. If we only snoop around and don’t take anything, it’s not stealing.”

“I don’t know.” She bit her bottom lip and rubbed her hands on her pants. “You’re playing rather fast and loose with the definition of legal, Colton.”

He flashed her a wry grin. “Hey, that’s what my family does best.”

* * *

They’d laid out a plan and were in Reid’s truck ten minutes later.

“You’ve been to my father’s house before, right?” she asked in a tone that said she knew he had.

Reid dipped his head once in reply.

“Then you don’t need my directions?”

He lifted a corner of his mouth. “No. But thanks.” He pulled away from the curb and drove toward the highway that would take them out of the Dallas city limits and toward the affluent area where Hugh Barrington lived.

A stilted silence filled the cab of his truck, but Reid resisted the urge to turn on the radio. If Pen decided she did want to talk, he didn’t want anything to interfere with an open communication between them.

In fact, he really ought to be the one to broach the topic of what happened to Andrew. She should know why he’d started his investigation of his partner and his theories about what really happened that fateful date last year. He might not get another chance like this one to explain his side of events to her.

Penelope’s body language didn’t invite conversation, however. She sat as far away from him as her seat belt would allow, and with her body stiff, she kept her head turned toward the passenger window.

He cleared his throat and started, “Pen, about what hap—”

“We need to be through with this junket by three p.m.” She cut him off so deliberately and sent him such a quelling glare, her intention was obvious. “That’s when I have to pick up Nicholas at the church.”

He held her stare for a moment, waffling between pushing his agenda and letting her have her way. Since they still had the task of searching her father’s home office and anywhere else in the house she thought might prove worthy of attention, he backed off. For now.

“Three p.m. Got it.” He glanced at the digits glowing from the dashboard. 11:14. That left plenty of time to conduct a search, keep Pen with him long enough to have the conversation he wanted to have and still get her to the church to pick up her kid.

His heart drubbed a slow, heavy beat. He rather hoped he had an excuse to go with her to pick up Nicholas. He was curious to see how big Andrew’s son was now and reconnect with the boy. Not that he expected the kid to remember him. Nicholas was still a baby last time Reid had seen him.

“Nicholas must be talking pretty well by now. Does he—”

“Why are you turning here?” Another quick change of subject and determined look. “The turnoff to my dad’s street isn’t for another mile.”

“Fewer traffic lights this way.”

She shrugged and turned back to the window.

“So, Nicholas...” This time he let his words trail off, allowing her to fill in the blank. Or not.

“Is none of your business.”

He frowned and scoffed a laugh. “Ouch.”

She drew a breath and faced him with narrowed eyes and a dented brow. “This is not a social outing. You lost the right to personal information and any relationship with my son when you killed my husband.” He opened his mouth to defend himself, but she raised a silencing hand. “Correction. You lost that right when you accused Andrew of being corrupt. Of stealing drugs from the evidence room or whatever cockamamy bull you dreamed up!”

“It wasn’t bull. At least I had good reason to believe what I said at the time.” Reid braked for a stop sign at a busy intersection and had to give his attention to traffic. Once he’d pulled onto the crossroad, he shook his head and gave Pen a pleading look. “Listen, this is a conversation we need to have. But we’re almost to your father’s place. Can we put a pin in it and—”

“It’s the next turn on the right. Where the brick entry gate is,” she said unnecessarily, but again effectively cutting him off.

He sighed and let the matter drop. For now.

Because they were at Hugh Barrington’s estate, he would need to stay on his toes and not raise any red flags as to why he was there with Hugh’s estranged daughter.

Reid pulled in the long driveway to the redbrick mansion, and when he would have parked on the section that circled near the front door, she directed him to the back. At his querying look, she offered, “I’d rather not call attention to the fact that we’re here.”

From the front, everything about the Barrington estate was symmetrical, formal and unimaginative. The house was little more than a large brick box with an equal number of windows on either side of the main ground-level entrance. Boxy shrubs framed the entry, and black shutters were the only relief to the three-story brick edifice.

Reid glanced around the backyard. The swimming pool was still crystal clear and free of leaves despite the December chill. He knew the detached four-car garage contained at least one antique Rolls-Royce—a status symbol Hugh liked to show off at high-society events. But Reid was unfamiliar with the cottage sitting behind the main house. In all the years Hugh Barrington had been Eldridge’s lawyer, Reid had only been to this house a few times, and then always through the front door for dinner parties that kept him in the formal guest areas. As he studied the smaller house, deciding if it was a pool house or something else, one of the venetian blinds swayed and a shadow crossed the window.