Colton's Secret Investigation

Daria pointed to the gray scribble. “Are those the mountains?”

“Yes,” Sam said, clearly excited that she’d realized this.

“You’re not used to those, are you?”

“No. Just buildings.”

“Well, you did a good job showing them. And let’s see here…” She pointed at the brown creature. “Let me guess. A dog?”

Sam was practically dancing. “Yes! Like the one I want. We watched a movie about a dog.”

Stefan looked at the picture again. Okay, mountains he could buy. And the dog. The person…it definitely wasn’t completely a stick figure—the person was a long oval with stick arms and legs. And short, straight lines of dark hair applied to the slightly crooked head, almost like a cap.

Hair that resembled, in a five-year-old way, Daria’s.

“Well, I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “It should be on display at home.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked.

“It means put up where everyone can see it.”

“Oh.”

Sam cast a doubtful eye at Stefan. That doubt stabbed at him, and it was an effort to say casually, “I think the refrigerator is the requisite location? We’ll have to pick up some magnets while we’re shopping this afternoon.”

“Shopping?” Sam asked.

“To find you some new bedroom furniture, remember?”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Really? All of us? Today?”

“Right now, if you’re ready.”

Sam let out an excited yelp. He was even more animated when Daria suggested a local burger joint, and it was a toss-up over whether he talked or ate more. She was so good for him.

And stop thinking she’s good for you, too.

And then Stefan found himself somewhere he’d never expected to be—a kids’ furnishings store at the south end of the shopping district downtown. They had sections labeled with signs overhead, divided by age, and they headed toward the 5–7 sign.

“Look at everything first,” Daria suggested, and Sam nodded eagerly.

The boy darted from piece to piece, first piqued by the bed designed like a race car, then to one painted like an Old West stagecoach. He reached out to touch a comforter printed with famous movie characters, then stood looking up in awe at a wall painted like space, with stars and planets over a bed that looked like a spaceship.

“I had no idea,” Stefan muttered.

Daria smiled. “I think it’s all about feeding their imagination.”

“Kind of feels like I’m trying to buy his affection.”

“No,” she said quickly. “You’re just showing him he has a place in your home. That you’re willing to make changes for him. He’s a smart kid—it won’t take long before he realizes that also means he has a place in your heart.”

He stared at her. “How did you get so wise?”

“Comes with age,” she said. “You’ll catch up.”

“You make it sound like you’re ancient.” He wasn’t sure why this bothered him, but it did.

“When I graduated high school, you were ten.”

He winced. When she put it that way… “That’s different. The maturity difference is bigger then.”

She moved then, because Sam had rounded a corner and they couldn’t see him. It seemed instinctive to her, and he wondered if it was something in the female DNA. Which brought back to mind what he’d learned from the trace she’d asked him to run on her own DNA. It had explained a lot about her, from her light brown skin to her determination.

“Ah. Here we go.” She gestured toward some shelves of bedding. “I’ll bet if you dug around in there a bit, you could find some stuff from that video game he loves.”

“That might work,” he said. He glanced past a couple standing behind Daria, who were discussing when and where to meet up later, and saw a display that looked like it had potential. He had to dig a bit, but he found a bedcover that had the characters he recognized. “We’ve gone from sleeping with the fishes to sleeping with zombies,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Same effect,” Daria retorted. “Come on, Sam’s over here, and I think he may have found the perfect bed for this.”

He glanced that direction and saw his son sitting on a twin bed. It wasn’t, Stefan saw to his relief, one of the elaborate things he’d likely have to spend days putting together. It was a bit high, but not so high it made him nervous the boy would fall out and get hurt. There were two steps attached to one end, and the entire thing was painted to look like it was built of stone.

“It’s the castle!” Sam was so excited Stefan couldn’t help smiling. “From my game!”

“So it is,” Stefan said. Then he tossed what he’d found to his son. “Which means this should go with it.”

Sam’s eyes widened as he recognized his zombies. “Wow!”

“And look who’s in the middle,” Daria urged. “In the picture on the other side.”

The boy turned the plastic-wrapped cover over. “It’s the dragon!” He could hardly contain himself now.

“So is this it? What you want?” Stefan asked. “No changing your mind later,” he added.

“Well, maybe when he’s twenty,” Daria said teasingly. The boy laughed, as if the idea of being that old was ludicrous.

Twenty. For a moment Stefan just stared at his son, tried to picture him at that age. You’re still surprised by him at five. Twenty’s beyond your imagination.

Sam shifted his gaze. Gave his father a look that seemed equal parts hope and doubt. “Did you mean it? I can have this in that room?”

That room. Not my room. Daria had been right.

“It’s your room now, Sam,” he said quietly. “So yes, you can have this in your room.”

After a moment, when Sam didn’t speak, Daria said, “I’m sure your room would have been ready if your dad had known sooner you were coming.” She gave Sam a wide-eyed look. “But who knows what he would have picked out? Maybe something really babyish, because he remembers when you were a baby.”

Sam looked horrified. “No! I want this.”

They ended up buying the bed, a shelf that could be hung off the end to make a night table, a small dresser and a couple of pictures for the walls. And, when Daria pointed out—tactfully—that as tall as Sam was for his age, he couldn’t reach clothes hanging in the closet, they added a clever setup that hung a lower pole from the upper one, right at Sam’s height.

Stefan managed not to wince when the clerk rang up the total. But Sam was quite disappointed when he realized they couldn’t take it all with them, and that the furniture and some of the other items would have to be delivered in a few days.

“It won’t all fit in the car, plus we have to get the other stuff out of there,” Stefan explained, “so there’s room for your stuff.”

“Oh,” the boy said. Then, warily again, “Are you mad?”

Stefan blinked. “About what, son?”

“Your stuff.”

For a moment Stefan couldn’t think of what to say. So he tried to imagine what Daria would say. And running on that impulse, he reached out and ran a hand over the boy’s soft, short curls. “You’re worth a lot more to me than any amount of stuff.”

Sam stared at him as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. They were on their way back to the car when Daria’s phone rang. She answered as Stefan got Sam in and situated in the booster seat. The boy didn’t like it, and Stefan understood; he was tall enough it seemed extraneous. But it was the law, and so into the booster seat he went.

“That was Fiona,” Daria said as she got in and fastened her own belt. “She suggested this Saturday for the playdate. They’ve got a covered patio with heaters, so the boys can have lunch outside and if the weather holds play on the fort, as they call it.”

Stefan turned to look at her. “Just like that?”

“Fiona,” Daria said, “is the mother every kid wishes they could have. He’ll have fun and be safe. Can’t ask for much more than that.”

“No,” Stefan said gruffly. “I…thank you.”

“Thank her. All I did was facilitate.”

“Still…if not for you…” He drew in a breath. “If not for you, a lot of things.”

And suddenly it was there, in the car with them, the memory of last night and that hug of thanks that had become an entirely different kind of embrace. And he knew, by the way she averted her eyes and became suddenly busy adjusting her purse, that she felt it, too.

Where that left them, he had no idea.

Chapter 7

“We should probably explain to Sam what’s going on, don’t you think?” she said as they drove.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Something in the way he said it told her his mind had gone exactly where hers had gone—to last night. But that way lay nothing but trouble, and so she quickly turned to Sam and explained about her friend and the invitation.

Sam took the prospect of this new venture Saturday well, even with a little excitement, although he seemed more enthused about his new bed.

It was a few minutes later when Daria said, with no particular intonation, “We’re not too far from Max Hollick’s place.” Stefan gave her a sideways look, and she shrugged. “Just saying. It’s early yet.”

“You’re determined to get me into this, aren’t you?”

The corners of his mouth were twitching, and she knew he wasn’t upset.

“Not like you’ll go home with one,” she pointed out. “As I said, they’re all spoken for already.”

“Safe enough, I guess. Unless somebody starts nagging.”

“Make it incentive. For good behavior, I mean.”

Stefan surrendered with good grace and made the turn she pointed out.

“Where are we going?” Sam asked.

Daria turned in her seat to look back at the boy. “Do you remember how you felt when you first got here? Like your world had been turned upside down?”

Sam frowned, clearly wondering what this had to do with his question. “Yeah,” he said hesitantly, and Daria hoped the hesitation wasn’t because he still felt that way.

“Well, sometimes when—” she chose the easier word for the five-year-old to understand “—soldiers come home from where there’s been fighting, they feel the same way. Like they don’t know how to fit in back home anymore. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yeah,” the boy repeated, more certainly this time.

“Well, I met someone a while ago who helps them with that, in the coolest way.”

“How?” Sam was clearly intrigued now.

“He finds dogs who have no one to love them, and he matches them up with the soldiers who need them.”

“Dogs?” Sam’s eyes had gone wide.

“Yep,” she said cheerfully. “So the dogs get a home and somebody to love them, and the soldiers get a best friend who will always understand when they’re not feeling quite right. Isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah.” With enthusiasm now, until the boy added sadly, “My mom hates dogs.”

“No surprise there,” Stefan muttered.

She wondered if Stefan realized his son was testing these particular waters. She went on rather briskly, “Anyway, that’s where we’re going. To where Mr. Hollick keeps the dogs for the soldiers. He’s not there right now, but someone will be.”

Sam’s eyes went saucer big this time. “Really?”

“They all belong to someone else already,” she said carefully, “but it would still be fun to meet them, wouldn’t it?”

That Sam could hardly sit still after this gave them the answer to that question. And when they arrived at their destination, and were greeted by an excited cacophony of happy barking, she thought Sam just might lift off, he was so excited.

The fact that within minutes of their arrival Sam was giggling, surrounded by a pack of clearly delighted, gamboling dogs of varying sizes and breed combinations, proved her right better than anything else could have.

The woman who’d greeted them, a grandmotherly sort who said she had become a volunteer at K-9 Cadets after one of Max’s dogs had saved her son’s life, had been quite happy to oblige when Daria explained.

“It’s great for the dogs to encounter all sorts of people, like they will once they’re paired with their veteran. It’s a wonderful thing Max is doing here.”

“Absolutely,” Stefan said, but his eyes were on his son, whose joyous laughter as he played with the animals was something Daria was guessing he hadn’t heard much of.

When he finally turned to look at her, he caught her watching him. “Convinced?” she asked hastily.

His mouth quirked. “Maybe. Still doesn’t give my house any more room for a dog.”

“Details,” she said rather airily, then added with a grin, “Of course, details never matter to the person who doesn’t have to handle them.”

When they got home and Stefan told Sam to look at his room and decide where he wanted his new bed, the boy scampered off happily, looking for the first time like a normal five-year-old.

“Thank you,” Stefan said to Daria again as she prepared to leave. He wanted—oh, how he wanted—to hug her again, but he didn’t dare. “I really haven’t been thinking in his terms, and I should have been.”

“Oh, yes,” she answered lightly. “Here, on two days’ notice, for the first time in your life, instantly start thinking like a five-year-old.”

“You’re cutting me a lot of slack,” he said, but he couldn’t help smiling.

“Somebody has to, since you’re certainly not,” she returned, smiling back in a way that made him want to hug her even more.

But she left, and he felt a little adrift without her quick, easy and wise support. And when she texted him a couple of hours later, asking if he could take a call, he immediately dialed her cell.

“How’s it going with Sam?” was the first thing she asked.

“Better. You really nailed it.”

“I’m glad. But listen, I had a thought. About the case.”

He was surprised at himself, and the fact that he felt almost disappointed that she hadn’t just reached out because she wanted to talk to him.

Business. Colleagues. Serial killer. Hello, Roberts, get with the program.

“Shoot,” he said.

“Remember that couple in the furniture store, behind us when Sam was sitting on the bed?”

His brow furrowed. What that had to do with anything escaped him. But he said, “I remember.”

“Were you close enough to hear what they were saying?”

“Yeah. They were talking about where to meet up later, after they—” It hit him. “You think Bianca met Blue Eyes before she went upstairs?”

“It’s a thought. If she did, then kept her…assigned date, but after he passed out went back downstairs…”

“To wherever they planned to meet up,” he finished.

“It’s a thought.”

“Indeed it is.” He let out a breath. “And a better one than we’ve had yet.”

“It also means we need more lobby and bar video, from earlier in the evening.”

Which meant more hours spent searching that video. Hours spent alone with Daria.

And somehow he didn’t mind.

“Another day of this and I’m throwing away my cell phone, my tablet and my laptop,” Daria muttered, hitting the pause button on the video. “If I never have to stare at another screen again, it would be fine with me.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of taking mine back to Illinois and throwing it in Lake Michigan,” Stefan said, sounding as weary of this as she felt. “Along with every other screen within reach.”

She leaned back in her chair. They had been working backward a half hour at a time from the moment they already knew Bianca had come downstairs for the last time. The security video ran at fifteen frames per second, but they were watching at one-third speed, so an hour took them three times that. Add in that they had to do it twice, once for the lobby video and once for the bar video, and they had only managed to get through two hours of frame-by-frame scrutiny.

Daria’s eyes were burning. Stefan was rubbing at his as well, so she guessed they must feel the same. He got up, stretched. Daria tried not to watch, but it was hard to take her eyes off the sheer muscled beauty of him. He moved like…she tried to think of an analogy and couldn’t. He was simply, purely male, on such an elemental level it was impossible to ignore. Although when he started to pace to the office door, images of a restless, prowling big cat came to mind.

Then he stopped, apparently to look out the single window that gave them a view out into the rest of the building. But he didn’t speak, and so she broke the silence.

“There must be something we can do that doesn’t involve—” she waved vaguely toward the flat screen “—that.”

Stefan went very still. Then he turned his head to look at her, and for just an instant she saw something in his eyes that reminded her once again of that embrace. Not that she needed reminding; it was never far from her mind. Which was ridiculous, really. It wasn’t like they’d shared some long, passionate kiss or something.

And that had been a very poor choice of comparison, she told herself as she had to fight down a jolt of heat at just the thought. She’d simply been closed up in this room alone with him for too long. It was making her mind go crazy places. That was all it was.

“I’m going up to The Lodge,” she said abruptly. “I want to see where the places not covered by the cameras are again.”

She wasn’t sure what she expected to find—they already knew where the few places were—but maybe something would occur to her if she looked again. And if not, at least they would have a break in the eye-straining monotony of going over and over slo-mo video for hours.

“All right,” Stefan agreed easily enough, so easily she wondered if he wanted to get out of these close quarters, too. “But,” he added, “you might want to be aware that it’s snowing.”

“What?” she said, startled. He gestured at the door, and she jumped up and went over to look through the window. Sure enough, the white stuff was coming down outside. Rather steadily.

The cold white stuff. Her spoiled California bones shivered.

“They didn’t predict this,” she said, a bit crankily.

“What a shock. A wrong weather prediction.”

Her gaze snapped to his face. He was grinning at her, the smart aleck. She wanted to be mad, but she simply couldn’t be in the face of that heart-melting grin. She threw up her hands and laughed instead.

“All right, you found me out, I’m a true cold-weather wuss.”

“You’ve been here how long now?”

“Four years,” she said with a grimace. “And my blood shows no signs of thickening up, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

“I wasn’t going to hint, I was going to come right out and say it.”

She turned and gave him a mock glare. “Didn’t you say your parents moved to Florida?”

“Only three years ago, and after spending their whole lives in Illinois,” he pointed out. “And,” he added, “Mom says sometimes she misses it. The seasons, I mean.”

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