Wed To The Witness

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Jackson thought about the impersonal air kiss and polite “how are you?” he’d received when his mother arrived at Hacienda de Alegria for his sister’s wedding. That had been the first time he’d seen her in nearly a year. He didn’t see a point in stopping by her office for another token kiss and disinterested greeting.

“I’ll take the jet, Uncle Joe. Thanks.”

“No need to thank me, son. We’re family. Family sticks together.”

“Yeah.” Jackson rubbed at the muscles knotted in the back of his neck while his gaze drifted to one of the bookshelves where picture frames and books vied for space. A woman with a wavy mane of chestnut hair and dimples smiled out from a pewter frame. Emily Blair Colton, the youngest of Joe and Meredith’s daughters, adopted as a toddler, had disappeared months ago in what had initially been thought of as a kidnapping. After receiving a ransom note, Joe had paid a heart-stopping amount of money for Emily’s return. Days later, Joe had informed the family that he’d heard from a trusted source that his adopted daughter had fled Prosperino after an intruder tried to kill her. All Joe would tell anyone was that Emily was safe. If he knew her whereabouts, he wasn’t saying. The FBI was still trying to get a lead on the person who had sent the fake ransom note and collected the money.

“Uncle Joe, I’m sorry to bring my problems to your doorstep,” Jackson said quietly. “You’ve got enough to worry about with someone taking potshots at you and all that’s happened to Emily.”

“I’d have been hurt and insulted if you hadn’t brought your problems to me.” Joe ran a hand through his thick hair. “I want Emily home. More important, I want her safe.”

“We all want that.”

“Everyone, except the person who tried to kill her.”

“True.”

Joe plucked a brass paperweight shaped like an oil rig off his desk blotter. “Emmett Fallon gave this to me when the first wildcat well we dug in Wyoming came in,” he said, hefting the paperweight in his palm. “Back then, I was young, headstrong and arrogant enough to think nothing bad could happen to myself and the people I cared about.” Sighing, Joe resettled the paperweight on the blotter. “These past ten years, life has proved me wrong.”

The look of genuine sorrow in his uncle’s face prompted Jackson to veer the subject in a different direction. “Speaking of Emmett, I ran into a woman tonight who works for his son, Blake, at Hopechest Ranch.”

“Who?”

“Cheyenne James.”

“River’s little sister,” Joe said, his face instantly brightening. “I used to pick her up from the reservation and bring her to stay here on the weekends. She was so shy, she barely spoke to me. Would hardly even look at me. Years went by and I didn’t see her. When she walked up to me at my birthday party and introduced herself, you could have knocked me over with a fingertip. She’s a beautiful woman. Took my breath away just looking at her.”

“Yes,” Jackson agreed quietly.

Joe stared down into his drink, his brow furrowing. “Later at the party, I saw the two of you talking. I remember thinking I wasn’t surprised, seeing as how you’d never been one to bypass a gorgeous woman. That wasn’t too long before all hell broke loose.” Joe’s gaze rose slowly to meet Jackson’s. “Is Cheyenne the one who saw you a couple of feet from where the person who shot at me stood?”

“Yes. Although I doubt she’s aware of the suspect’s location.”

“Did you tell her the police questioned you?”

“No.” Jackson raised a shoulder. “Maybe I will.”

Joe’s mouth curved. “So, you plan to see her again?”

“We’re having breakfast the day after tomorrow.”

“Can’t say that surprises me. Like I said, I’ve never known you to let a beautiful woman get away.”

He’d let Cheyenne get away once, Jackson acknowledged silently. Then spent months with thoughts of her chasing through his brain. No other woman had ever had that effect on him, ever captured his thoughts for so long. Maybe that was why—until his sister’s wedding—he’d made only one short visit to Prosperino. Maybe somewhere in his subconscious he’d known if he had stayed in Prosperino for any length of time, he would seek out Cheyenne. And maybe, just maybe, he harbored a small lick of fear that she was the one woman he couldn’t walk away from unscathed.

So, he’d avoided her. Successfully. Until tonight when he walked out of a dark movie theater and found her in the lobby. It was as if she’d been waiting for him. Just him.

Dammit, he could still taste her. And he wanted to taste her again. Soon.

Jackson let out a long breath. What in the hell was he going to do about Cheyenne James?

Patsy had watched the climactic end of Joe, Jr. and Teddy’s war game, then kept a sharp eye on both boys while they brushed their teeth. After that, she’d herded them into their separate bedrooms in the north wing and kissed them good-night, leaving them both with a prediction of dire consequences if they didn’t stay in bed this time.

Now, an hour later, dressed in a robe of shimmering white silk, she stood in her dark bedroom before the expansive wall of windows that faced the sea. The moon was full and high, cutting a swath of light across the black water.

“What do you mean you’re going underground?” Patsy hissed into the cell phone she’d crammed between her shoulder and cheek. She wasn’t concerned over the prospect of Joe walking in during her phone call. He hadn’t stepped foot into her bedroom in years. “I’m paying you to kill Emily Colton, not lay low while she disappears again,” she added.

“Look, the sheriff in this fleabag town—Atkins is his name—has his men working overtime trying to find the bitch’s attacker,” Silas Pike answered. “I show my face in Keyhole, Wyoming, I’m dead meat.”

“What you are is incompetent. I hired you to kill Emily in her bed, in this house. You screwed that up and let her get away. Then, you chased her across the country for heaven knows how many months. By some miracle of God you stumble on her whereabouts, attack her, yet still can’t manage to kill her. Now, you expect me to continue to pay you while you hole up somewhere for who knows how long?”

“Ain’t gonna be that long,” Pike countered. “Just long enough for that sheriff to figure some dude just passing through town is who jumped her. Once that happens, I’ll go back for her.”

“And fumble things again.”

“And kill the bitch. You don’t want to pay me to lay low for a while then finish her off, just say the word and I’ll go home. Makes no never mind to me.”

Patsy closed her eyes, blocking out the moonlight that shimmered on the dark water.

Dammit, was she the only person who could do anything right?

Silas Pike couldn’t kill Emily, the private investigator she’d hired to track down her twin sister Meredith had run into a dead end, and the other investigator hadn’t been able to locate her sweet baby, Jewel. No, Patsy corrected herself. Not a baby. Jewel was a grown woman now. It had been so long, she thought. So many years since she’d held her darling daughter.

“You still there?”

Pike’s voice set Patsy’s teeth on edge. Joe Colton had her on such a tight budget she couldn’t afford to hire anyone else to find Emily. She didn’t have time to hire anyone else. It was as if a force had been set in motion that she couldn’t control. She could feel all of her carefully laid plans coming apart, slowly, thread by thread, yet she couldn’t seem to pull them all back into place.

“I’m still here.” She kept her voice calm and even. “I’ll wire you more money in the morning. I warn you, Pike, I’m tired of paying for nothing. I want results, positive results. Soon,” she added, then clicked off the phone and dropped it on the French directoire reading table that sat to one side of the windows.

All of her senses screamed it was a matter of time before the police closed in on her. Meredith was her sister, her twin. If she’d died years ago a homeless vagrant like the P.I. had tried to convince her, Patsy would feel it. Bitter regret flooded over her. If only she had gone through with her initial plan and killed Meredith on that long-ago day when she’d run her sister’s car off the road and assumed her identity. If only seeing the mirror image of herself after so long hadn’t stirred some emotion deep inside her.

Instead, when Meredith came to and Patsy realized a blow to her head during the accident had left her with amnesia, she’d dumped her twin on the grounds of the clinic where Patsy had finished the twenty-five year sentence she’d served for murder. Where the hell had Meredith gone after she’d left the clinic? Patsy wondered for the thousandth time. And how long would it be before Emily, who had been in the car with Meredith on that fateful day remembered what she’d witnessed?

Emily had been a child then. Now, she was a woman whose nightmares about seeing her “two mommies” right after the accident had intensified over the years. Months ago, Patsy had heard Emily sobbing for her real mother during a nightmare. Patsy had jolted into action, knowing it was inevitable Emily would soon realize the truth of what she’d seen.

And eventually share that truth with the police. As far as Patsy was concerned, that nightmare had sealed Emily’s fate.

Patsy dragged in a shaky breath. All Thad Law had to do to discover her deception was run her fingerprints. He would then know she wasn’t Meredith, but the twin sister who’d served time for murdering the man who’d fathered—and sold—their daughter, Jewel. And that, for the past ten years, Patsy Portman had deceived the entire Colton clan.

Patsy suspected the clout carried by the Colton name was why Law had yet to request her fingerprints. He had to know she wouldn’t have consented willingly to being fingerprinted. And it was doubtful any judge in the state would force her to do so. Still, Law wasn’t the type of cop who gave up.

With unsteady hands, she snatched the gold pill case off the table beside her, popped open the lid and scooped up two Valium. She lifted a crystal tumbler full of vodka, and washed down the Valium with one deep swallow. She’d been a fool for not killing both Meredith and Emily that day, Patsy chided herself viciously, slamming the pill case back on the table. If she had, maybe she wouldn’t now feel the sickening sensation that they were both getting closer. So close she could almost feel them breathing down her neck.

More money, she thought, fighting back a wave of panic. She needed more money in case she had to leave Prosperino in a hurry. She couldn’t support Joe, Jr. and Teddy by herself.

Her eyes narrowed as her thoughts focused on Jackson Colton. He’d been so damn cool and forthright when he’d confronted her about blackmailing his father. Even as Jackson assured her he would go to the police if her extortion didn’t end, she had seen a flash of regret in his eyes. It was as if he couldn’t believe his Aunt Meredith had stooped so low.

Meredith, who had refused to cover for her own sister when Patsy had killed Jewel’s father in a fit of rage. Meredith, who’d been too good to lie to the cops. Instead, she’d let her twin rot in prison for twenty-five years.

Patsy wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging the silk robe closer to her flesh. She would show Jackson Colton just how low she could stoop when she went after what was owed her. His father, Graham, had sniffed around her for years trying to bed her before she’d given him what he wanted. Now she intended to see that he continued to pay her the money he’d agreed to.

She had no doubt that, with his son cooling his heels in prison, Graham would continue making the payments she’d demanded. He would most likely do anything to keep her from telling Joe that his brother had sired Teddy. After all, the two million Graham had agreed to pay for her silence was peanuts compared to what he would lose if Joe wrote him out of his will.

“Evidence,” she said, her voice a whisper on the still, night air. The evidence she’d already collected and sent anonymously to Thad Law had clearly caused Jackson some bad moments this afternoon.

She intended to cause him a lot more.

Gone momentarily was the feeling of impending doom that had dogged her for months. Having a good, solid plan—along with the Valium and alcohol that had just begun creeping into her system—calmed her nerves.

She smiled as she pictured the scene earlier in the study when Joe stabbed the air with his finger while he pronounced, “Like the gun the bastard used to take those shots at me. Find that, and you’ve got some real proof.”

“No problem,” Patsy murmured.

She had the proof. It was a matter of time before she could deliver it to the police.

Then she would have Jackson out of her way and his father’s money would start flowing back in.

Four

The May morning was bright and clear, with the hills sporting color so bold and vivid that Cheyenne had shoved on her sunglasses the instant she walked out of her house. Now she stood in the center of the small archery range near a rushing stream that cut a jagged path across Hopechest Ranch.

“Stance is everything,” she reminded the tall skinny-as-a-rail teenager standing a yard away. At her side was a high table fashioned out of native stone on which she’d laid the bows and the quiver filled with arrows that she’d picked up from the counseling center on her way to the range.

“Yeah, stance.” Johnny Collins gave her an intense look across his shoulder. Repositioning his right foot a half inch, he raised a bow formed out of a curve of polished hickory. Dressed in faded jeans, a white T-shirt and ball cap swiveled backward to keep his dark shaggy hair out of his eyes, Johnny was beginning his second month of lessons.