Protecting Colton's Secret Daughters
Autore
Lisa Childs
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Chapter 1
Since the killings had begun, FBI special agent Cash Colton had spent more time at the Manhattan field office than he had anywhere else, so it felt strange to be outside now. Well, inside an SUV driving toward Coney Island, but it wasn’t the office or a crime scene, which was the only other place he’d been besides his office.
At least Coney Island wasn’t a crime scene yet. But after the text he’d received, the text that haunted him, Cash couldn’t help fearing that he might be heading to the site of another murder soon and not just because of the way the killer kept killing. That fear, because of that damned text, compelled him to make the trip to Coney Island to make sure she was okay.
Even before receiving that text, he’d been as determined as the rest of his special unit to catch the Landmark serial killer. The first victim, Mark Wheden, had been shot in Central Park, and found with a typed note stuffed in his pocket: Until the brilliant and beautiful Maeve O’Leary is freed, I will kill in her honor and name. M down, A up next.
Like this lunatic actually expected them to free a serial killer because of his threats? Then there would be two serial killers terrorizing New York—although Maeve hadn’t limited her killing to just the Empire State. She’d killed wherever and whomever she’d married. She’d also tried to kill a lover’s wife in order to inherit that woman’s fortune. Anything for money...
Insatiable greed was Maeve’s motive for murder.
Why was the Landmark Killer killing? What was his motive? Had Maeve somehow brainwashed him the way she had that poor psychiatrist? Like she had all her husbands?
But even she had to see that there was no way she was getting released; she was being held in custody without bail because of all the murders she’d committed and the likelihood she would flee.
That hadn’t stopped her admirer, though. The Landmark Killer’s second victim, Andrew Capowski, had been found on the Empire State Building observation deck with a typed note in his pocket that had read nearly the same as the first but the second line said: MA down, E up.
Not long after that, a man named Edward Pendleton was murdered after leaving the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The next attempt had been on Broadway, but that victim had fortunately survived. Unfortunately, since his assailant had worn a mask and a hoodie, he hadn’t been able to provide much more than a vague description. Male, maybe on the younger side...
The fact that the killer had been sending the Coltons personal texts told Cash and his team one thing: the killer was probably closer than they’d realized. Closer to them than they were to finding him.
He had to be stopped before anyone else died, and before anyone else was threatened. The way Valentina had been threatened...
Maybe she hadn’t been named specifically, but the threat had been implied in the text Cash had received; he was the latest one singled out on the FBI serial killer team. His twin had been the first to be taunted.
Who the hell was it? Was it someone close to them as they had come to suspect? Someone within the FBI or within the Ninety-Eighth Precinct that had worked to hunt down the Black Widow serial killer, Maeve O’Leary? Someone who’d come to admire her for some sick reason?
The note about Valentina had been a text sent to Cash’s phone after the first victim was shot on Broadway. No worries. Lots where that dippy actor came from. Tsk-tsk, Cash—murdered daddy and a sad ex-wife.
Instead of trying for another actor, the killer had claimed the life of an assistant theater director after that text. And what about Valentina?
Was she in danger? Had that text been meant as an actual threat or was it just a ploy to distract Cash from the case? While it likely was a ploy, Cash wasn’t immune to the text. It had worked. He was distracted. He couldn’t stop worrying about Valentina even though he’d told a friend at the local police precinct about the note and had asked Sergeant Dave Percell to watch out for her, to make sure that nobody was lurking around her, trying to hurt her.
Was she really sad?
Why?
She couldn’t still be unhappy about their divorce. More than three years had passed since Cash had set her free to have what she’d really wanted: a husband who wasn’t consumed with his work and most especially one who wanted children. More than anything else, more than him, Valentina had wanted a family.
Because Cash hadn’t been able to see how he could handle his career, marriage and fatherhood, he’d done what he’d thought would make Valentina the happiest. After she’d moved out to get some space from him, he’d filed for divorce. He’d wanted her to have the happiness she deserved. So why wasn’t she happy? Or was the texter lying about that?
He hadn’t lied about Cash’s murdered daddy. That had happened; a serial killer was responsible for Cash’s cop father losing his life.
And inadvertently responsible for Cash and all his siblings going into law enforcement.
So since he’d told the truth about that, he might have been right about Valentina as well. But how would the Landmark Killer know if Cash’s ex-wife was happy or sad unless he’d gotten close to her? Did he know her? Or had he been stalking her like he had the victims whose lives he’d taken?
Those worries kept Cash awake at night, kept him on edge. Even though his buddy Dave at the local precinct had promised to keep an eye on her, Cash had also called Valentina to let her know about that text. To make sure she was aware of the potential threat. She’d been short with him, as if he’d caught her at a bad time. And maybe he had...
And ever since he’d heard her voice, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind. Just as he’d never gotten Valentina Acosta completely out of his heart. Cash suspected that the Landmark Killer had known that when he’d sent Cash that text. He’d known how badly it would bother him, so somehow he knew Cash.
Maybe better than Cash knew himself, because in the past three years he hadn’t let himself admit how he felt about Valentina. He rarely let himself think about her at all. If not for that damn text...
And then that call he’d made to her, to the same cell number she’d always had. Brennan had offered to make the call for him, as if it was somehow his fault that Cash had received the text even though their entire unit was hunting this sick serial killer. But he’d sent Brennan the first text: Shouldn’t you be out looking for me skulking around Broadway theaters instead of shacking up with a murder suspect? I thought you Coltons didn’t like killers because of what happened to poor Daddy.
Brennan had been reluctant to share the text with them. Probably because of the shacking up part. Cash smiled and caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the rearview mirror. Despite being twins, he and Brennan looked nothing alike because they were fraternal, not identical. Brennan had pale blond hair and pale blue eyes and a baby face while Cash had brown hair and green eyes and always looked like he needed a shave even if he’d just shaved. But given how busy he was, he’d given up and wore a beard now.
Valentina had always told him that she thought his scruff was sexy. But that was when he’d kept his beard neatly trimmed. He didn’t look neat now. He probably should have stopped home and showered after leaving the office, but for some reason he’d had this compulsion to drive to Brooklyn and Coney Island. To see for himself that Valentina was really all right, that she was safe and not sad.
“Valentina? Are you all right?”
The voice startled her, drawing her attention back to the present, and not the past where it had been constantly slipping since that call a week ago. From Cash...
She had not heard the sound of his deep voice in three years, but she’d immediately recognized the rumble of it in her ear, raising goose bumps on her skin like they were rising now despite the warmth of the library.
“Valentina...” he’d murmured.
“Valentina!” the older woman repeated. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head and blinked and squinted against the late-afternoon sun pouring through the tall windows. Then she tried to focus on the woman standing in front of her, blocking her path as Valentina tried to push the double-wide stroller between the rows of children’s books.
“You’re not all right,” Mrs. Miller remarked, and she reached over the top of the stroller to pat Valentina’s hand. “What’s troubling you, honey?” The back of the woman’s hand had thick veins crisscrossing it, and on every finger, below the swollen knuckle, she wore a ring with big stones that sparkled and reflected the sunlight. The sun also glinted off the jewels hanging from the chains around her neck.
Four pudgy little hands stretched out from the stroller, reaching toward those shiny pendants. The girls loved shiny things.
She smiled. “Nothing, Mrs. Miller, I’m fine. Really.”
The woman stepped back then and leaned down to smile at the toddlers in the stroller. “How could you not be happy all the time with these two gorgeous girls?”
Mother’s pride suffused Valentina. “I just picked them up from day care.” If they didn’t love going to school, as they called it, she might have regretted having to work full-time. But as a single mother, she didn’t have a choice. At least she had a job that she enjoyed.
“And you came right back to work?” Mrs. Miller asked with surprise.
“We’re picking out a book for bedtime. Well, two books. They each get to choose one.”
“You’re passing your librarian’s love for books on to your little girls, that’s wonderful,” Mrs. Miller enthused. “And speaking of books...”
“I tracked down that memoir you’ve been looking for,” Valentina assured her.
“That’s wonderful!” the woman exclaimed, her pale blue eyes sparkling like her rings with excitement.
“I ordered it to be sent here from the branch where I found it. If it arrives while I’m off this weekend, I asked Randall to call you and let you know,” Valentina said.
“I can wait until you’re back on Monday, honey,” the woman said. “Then you and I can discuss it.”
That was one of the parts of Valentina’s job that she enjoyed most. Discussing books with other avid readers.
The older woman loved reading the memoirs of famous theater actors and actresses and socialites and artists from years past, probably looking for a mention of herself. She’d once been an actress before marrying well and becoming a socialite; there was even a rumor that she had also been a famous artist’s model and muse.
“When are you going to write your memoir?” Valentina asked. “Yours is the book I would love to read.”
The older woman blushed and giggled and waved a hand in front of her face, and the sunlight glinted off the bright stones on her rings. She had the air about her, with the furs she wore and her perfect makeup and clothes and jewelry, of old Hollywood glamour. “I might be scribbling down a few notes here and there,” she admitted with a sly smile. “But I find myself focusing on other far more interesting people and events than myself. I’m definitely not the type to kiss and tell. But I certainly enjoy reading the stories from the people who do.”
Valentina laughed now, and the girls echoed it, despite having no idea what she was laughing about.
Mrs. Miller giggled again, and she looked much younger than her probably eighty or ninety years. “You enjoy your bedtime stories,” she told them, and she patted Valentina’s hand again as she walked past them.
The little girls leaned out either side of the stroller and stared after the older woman.
“Sparky...” Luciana murmured.
“Sparky,” Ana repeated.
They must have been talking about the older woman’s jewelry. Valentina smiled as her heart filled with love. They were so adorable with brown curls framing their little faces. Ana had dark eyes, like Valentina, while Luci’s were green, like...
No. She wasn’t going to think about him anymore. And for the next while, she managed that while helping the girls pick out books. But they knew the routine, so they chose quickly once they ruled out the ones they’d already read. Then they checked out and were back in the stroller, heading toward home, shortly after Mrs. Miller left.
The distance between the library and the high-rise condo complex where they lived was far enough that it was easier and safer to push the girls in their double stroller than for them to walk. The only problem was that with the street noise from traffic echoing off the commercial buildings, Valentina couldn’t hear all of their chatter. Not that she understood much of it; they had their own little twin language. While they always understood each other, it wasn’t as easy for Valentina all the time.
She still wasn’t certain she understood Cash’s call, either. He’d received a text about her from a serial killer? Or so he and the rest of his unit suspected, but nobody at the FBI had been able to trace it. With all their technology, how was that possible?
And why send Cash a text about her?
She had not had any contact with her ex-husband since that day she’d moved out to take some time to think, to figure out if she could accept what he was willing to give her. Whatever time that was left over from the job that consumed him. But she’d wanted more than that; she’d wanted a family. And that was the one thing he’d told her he would not give her. But he actually had...
Neither of them had known it when she’d moved out, though. She hadn’t even known it yet when the divorce papers had come. Thinking he didn’t care enough to figure out a compromise with her, Valentina had just signed them and ended it without an argument, without a fight. And she’d thought it was done, that she would never see or hear from him again. And she hadn’t for three years...
Until that night a week ago.
“Valentina...”
And just the sound of his deep, rumbly voice had all the feelings rushing back, overwhelmingly intense. The pain, the loss, the guilt...
She should have told him all those years ago when she’d first found out herself that she was pregnant. But she’d figured that it was too late then, because she had already signed the divorce papers. And in sending them, Cash had clearly also been sending her the message that there was no hope for them as a couple. They were over. Done. He hadn’t wanted the same things she had. He certainly hadn’t wanted—
A loud pop rang out, startling her and making her jump. It wasn’t so much the noise, which must have been a backfiring car that had passed or started up along the curb or in one of the alleys they’d passed. It was that she’d been so distracted again that she hadn’t even realized where she was. That she had almost walked past the street she needed to turn on and cross to head home. She had to put that phone call out of her mind.
Cash hadn’t called again. And he probably wouldn’t. She knew he was busy chasing another killer, like he always was. The Landmark Killer. She’d watched the news and had read the article the New York Wire had recently run about the investigation.
That article had been more about the investigators than anything else. It had been about the Coltons, who worked in the elite serial killer unit of the FBI. And it had revealed the reason why they were all on that unit and so dedicated to hunting down killers: because a serial killer had murdered their police officer father, to some of the investigators like Cash and uncle to a couple others, so many years ago.
But were they hunting the Landmark Killer or was he hunting them with the notes he left in his victims’ pockets and with the text he’d sent Cash?
She didn’t know exactly what the text had said, just that it had mentioned her. Since she and Cash had had no contact since their divorce, how had this serial killer known about her at all?
So was she in danger? And the girls?
Or were Cash and his siblings really the ones who were in danger, and the serial killer was just texting to taunt them as he had with those notes he left on his victims?
He had killed again.
Like he had so many times before. That didn’t even bother him anymore.
Taking a life.
It wasn’t a big deal. It was just what he did like other guys played video games. But this wasn’t a game to him. It was a vocation.
One he had to protect at all costs.
This time he couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t get caught. He couldn’t be certain unless he made certain. He had to eliminate any possibility of being identified as the killer.
So he settled into the driver’s seat and pulled the mask over his face and drew up his hood, pulling it tight around that mask so that nothing of his face reflected back at him from the rearview mirror. Nothing but his eyes: his cold, dark eyes.
