Cindy Dees: Colton Under Fire

Frowning, he opened the door and stepped in.

The living room was thin on furniture with only some bean bag chairs, a big recliner and a flat screen TV hanging on the wall.

The place had clearly undergone one of those open concept remodels recently that knocked out most of the walls. The living room flowed into a dining room taken up with toddler toys and no furniture and on back into a gourmet kitchen.

He headed down the hallway, and the first room he came upon was Chloe’s, a princess paradise. A low bed was tucked inside a fairy castle, and a night-light cast firework patterns on the ceiling. He backed out of the room, feeling oversize and alien surrounded by so much...sparkle.

A hallway bathroom was unremarkable and he left that quickly. A utility closet held a furnace, and the door at the end of the hall revealed a bedroom much more his speed. Four-poster bed. No-frills navy comforter. A handmade-looking oak dresser and chest of drawers were crowded with framed pictures of Chloe, but other than those, the room was devoid of decoration—or any personality.

Odd. Was Sloane still unpacking, or was she that shut down emotionally?

He opened the first of two interior doors in Sloane’s bedroom and found an elegant, but sterile, bathroom. It was pretty but didn’t feel lived in.

Where was the real Sloane Colton hiding in this house? He hadn’t found her yet.

The second door revealed a spacious walk-in closet the size of a small bedroom. A riot of color and texture assaulted his eyes as he turned on the light. Ahh. Here she was. The fiery Sloane he remembered so clearly.

He looked for something to put her clothes in and spied a duffel bag stuffed on a high shelf. He reached up, needing his full six-foot height to grab it. He turned his head to the side as he reached for the back of the shelf and happened to glance out into her bedroom. Which was probably why he spotted the tiny hole in the wall, hidden high in a shadowed corner of the room, tucked beneath the beautiful, dark oak crown molding.

Maybe if he hadn’t already been suspicious of an intruder, he would’ve ignored the hole. But as it was, he took the duffel and moved over to the chest of drawers underneath the hole, and then took a quick peek. A tiny glass circle filled the small opening.

Alarm exploded in his gut and fury threatened to overcome reason.

For all the world, that looked like a surveillance camera.

Stop. Breathe. Think . It wasn’t necessarily what it looked like.

Maybe Sloane had some sort of high-tech security system installed in her house.

Or was that camera something more sinister?

Surely, he was being paranoid. After all, he was bored to death being a police detective in a quiet little town where the occasional bicycle theft was about as exciting as police work got.

Until that murder last month out at the Crooked C ranch, of course. A high-end call girl who’d been seen up at the resort had been killed by a client. Initially, there were two possible suspects—Wyatt Colton as well as European millionaire George Stratton, who’d brought the girl in from Vegas. But upon further investigation, the sheriff’s department figured out that a disturbed man who’d later killed himself had done the deed.

Liam forced himself not to look up at the camera lens as he randomly opened drawers in search of clothes for Sloane. His mind raced as he found socks, T-shirts and sweaters.

Why would anybody covertly surveil a young mother in Roaring Springs? Who had Sloane made an enemy of? A criminal she’d been involved with in her work? The ex-husband? Either way, a random stranger going to all the trouble to set up surveillance on her was not likely.

He retreated to the closet, where he spied jeans and sweatshirts folded on shelves and grabbed one of each.

He moved to the shoe rack and was bemused to discover that it rotated. How many pairs of shoes did one woman need, anyway?

He grabbed a pair of gym shoes made of a knit fabric that looked comfortable and headed for her bathroom. There had better not be a camera in there, or there would be hell to pay. He took a surreptitious look at each of the corners and spied nothing but paint. Then he did a thorough search of the walls as well to assure himself there were no hidden surveillance devices in the vicinity.

Not a sicko Peeping Tom, then. Which left something—or someone—more sinister behind that camera in her bedroom. He swore under his breath and grabbed a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste out of the cup by her sink.

Taking a moment to look at the duffel bag, he forced himself to think about what he’d forgotten to pack for her.

Goop . Fox always used to complain that Sloane was a world-class goop collector and hogged the bathroom they’d shared to smear it all over herself.

Liam warily eyed the neat rows of bottles and tubes on the counter.

Did Sloane even wear makeup? He honestly didn’t remember. He’d been so shocked by the girl he’d had a giant crush on all through high school slamming into him out of the blue at the hospital that he hadn’t registered any of the details he usually would as an observant detective.

What was he missing?

Of course. Underwear.

His gut jumped a little at the idea of handling Sloane Colton’s unmentionables. Which was absurd. He was a decent-looking man in his thirties and had been around plenty of lingerie, and the women in it. But his very first fantasies of a skimpily clad female, all the way back in junior high, had involved Sloane Colton. He’d never admitted it to Fox and had pretended to have a crush on another girl. But it had been Sloane he’d dreamed of and woke up in hot sweats over.

He went to the dresser in her bedroom and opened a long, shallow drawer.

He inhaled sharply as a spill of brightly colored lace assaulted his eyes. Prim and proper Sloane Colton wore this sexy stuff? Wow. Uh, good to know. Of course, he was never going to look at her again without imagining which jewel-toned ensemble of silk and lace she had on under her clothes.

Swearing under his breath, he grabbed the first pair of skimpy bikinis and bra that matched—a scarlet ensemble with pert little bows strategically placed. Dammit, that was not sweat breaking out on his forehead.

He left the bedroom light on and headed back to the living area. Under the guise of poking around in the toy box for a stuffed animal to take to Chloe, he inspected the walls.

There. Over the front door. Tucked high in the corner under the crown molding. Another tiny, circular hole. From that vantage point, a surveillance camera would have a view of the entire living-dining-kitchen area.

Sonofa—

He ducked into Chloe’s bedroom and grabbed the well-worn stuffed elephant off her bed. A telltale circular shadow lurked in the far corner of Chloe’s bedroom as well. Now, why would a bad guy watch a toddler? The ex-husband climbed to the top of Liam’s suspect list for being the creepo stalker.

He forced himself to keep his rampant cop suspicions in check. After all, he still wasn’t positive Sloane was being watched nefariously. She could have hired a security company to monitor her, or perhaps there was some other legitimate reason for the cameras being there. But his gut was dead certain the explanation wasn’t so innocent. Which was weird. He was usually the soul of logic, relying completely on facts and careful analysis. Intuitions were for amateurs. Real detectives used their minds to uncover the truth.

Assuming Sloane herself wasn’t the source of the cameras, she faced a choice. Rip the cameras out of her walls and have a security firm sweep her house for any more surveillance devices. Or, she could let the cameras ride, pretend she didn’t know they existed, and let him investigate who was behind the surveillance without tipping off the perpetrator.