The Colton Ransom. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ the little girl. What he’d been struggling with these past two weeks was not that he didn’t want her but that he realized this tiny little human being was going to wind up changing the whole world as he knew it.

      But now, if the chief’s prediction was right, Avery might never get that chance to change his whole world. Never get the chance to grow up, to experience her first kiss, her first love. Never be any of the things that she was meant to be.

      Not unless he found a way to rescue her.

      “You’re wrong,” Gabby repeated with feeling, catching Trevor’s eye. “My father won’t withhold the ransom money.”

      Right then, they heard the sound of cars—a large number of cars—approaching the house.

      The chief went to the window and looked out. “Looks like we’re about to find out which one of us is right about your daddy, little lady,” he said to Gabby. “You two keep on taking pictures of anything that looks out of order—and don’t touch the body,” he emphasized, instructing the two officers to continue with their work. “That’s for the medical examiner to do.”

      With that, he left the room, moving at a slightly faster pace than he normally assumed. Watching the man brought the term slow but steady to mind.

      Drucker got down to the bottom of the stairs just as the front door opened and the various members of the Colton family, as well as their staff, began to fill up the vast foyer.

      Seeing the police chief among them created confusion, and a cacophony of voices mingled together, each asking questions.

      It was Mathilda Perkins, the head housekeeper, who had been the first to notice Drucker. Mathilda had been running the main house as well as the staff for as long as anyone could remember, and her sharp eyes took possession of any room she entered.

      She missed nothing.

      “What are you doing here, Chief?” she asked, suspicion entering her voice. “Thought you might have been at the rodeo. Riders were in top form—” She stopped abruptly at the sight of the chief’s grim expression. “Is something wrong?” The last vestiges of cheerfulness had left her voice, and she sounded far more somber—and somewhat apprehensive as she waited for a response to her question.

      “’Fraid so,” the chief began.

      Jethro Colton pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Well, out with it, man,” he ordered gruffly. “Don’t play out the suspense, trying to make yourself look like some sort of metropolitan supersleuth. You’re a small-town, plodding tin star. Now, what the hell is going on?” he demanded coldly. “Some of us are tired and not interested in cheap drama.”

      It was Trevor, rather than the chief, who answered Jethro’s insensitive question. During his law-enforcement career, both in Cheyenne and on the ranch, he had never learned how to deftly soften a blow or say something other than just shooting straight from the hip. He followed his instincts now.

      “It’s Faye, Mr. Colton.”

      Jethro’s eyes squinted, all but boring into his security head’s very countenance. “Faye? What about her?” He looked around. “Where is she, anyway? I told her she could ride in my car to and from the rodeo, but right in the middle, she starts to worry about ‘her babies,’” he jeered, the term referring to both his granddaughter and to Trevor’s daughter. “Next thing I know, she’s taking off. So she did come back,” he concluded, appearing somewhat disgruntled. He wasn’t a man who took being disregarded lightly.

      “Yes, sir, she did come back,” Trevor replied, so much emotion warring within him that he sounded all but paralyzed inside a monotone prison as he answered, “She’s been murdered.”

      “She’s been what?” Jethro shouted angrily, as if someone on his staff had acted independently, indifferent to his edicts. His voice grew in volume as he demanded, “What the hell are you talking about?”

      At the same time Mathilda shrieked, “Oh, my God, no!” Her knees apparently buckled and she fell to the floor, sobbing and rocking to and fro.

      Cries of horror and disbelief echoed throughout the foyer as the rest of the people who had just come in tried to assimilate the information that one of their own had been killed.

      A flood of questions all but bounced off the very walls as well as the people within them.

      “Who did it?”

      “Why would anyone kill Faye?”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Dead? Really dead?”

      “Oh, God. Are we all in danger?”

      Others, severely numbed by the news, said nothing, only listened, waiting either to be convinced or given details. Or, better yet, for someone to tell them they were dreaming.

      No one could believe that she was really dead. They had just seen her early this morning, talking and as full of life as ever.

      “Why would someone kill her?” Catherine, one of Gabby’s two older sisters, asked, her voice shaky as she asked the question.

      “Apparently she was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the chief said, speaking up. His authoritative tone indicated that he had the floor now. “Looks like she tried to stop the kidnapping.”

      “What kidnapping?” someone from the staff cried.

      “There’s been a kidnapping?” Jethro’s question sounded more like an accusation that the chief had been withholding information from him.

      Amanda all but went into shock. She covered her mouth with her hands to hold back the guttural cry that was clawing at her throat, seeking release.

      “Oh, my God, my baby,” she cried, her eyes darting toward Gabby. She’d gone to the rodeo only because she trusted Gabby implicitly and Gabby was supposed to be babysitting.

      But then she realized that her sister was holding a baby. That was her baby. Then what was the chief talking about?

      Rushing over to take her baby from Gabby, Amanda scooped the infant into her arms, holding on to her as tightly as she dared. The sudden, terrified ache in her heart abated.

      “No,” the chief said. “As you can see, your little lady wasn’t the victim. She stayed nice and safe and sound.” For emphasis he needlessly gestured toward Gabby just as Amanda took hold of her little girl.

      It took Amanda more than a few seconds to reconcile the alternative waves of terror and exhilaration going through her, neutralizing the effects. All that mattered, she told herself, taking a deep breath and drawing in the baby’s sweet all-but-newborn scent, was that Cheyenne was safe.

      “If these murderers didn’t get Cheyenne, who were they after?” Catherine asked.

      “Oh, don’t fool yourselves—they were after your baby, all right, Ms. Amanda. But what they got was Avery Garth—his baby,” the chief concluded, pointing a finger at Trevor.

      Amanda, who was still holding her daughter as if she never intended on letting the little girl go, struggled to establish a sense of peace.

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