Jennifer Morey - Mission - Colton Justice

She nodded. “Yeah, I know some people who have one of those.” She turned to face him. “Fascinating.”

“My partner bought my share of the company. That’s what I used to build this.” He opened his arms.

She met his eyes with softening warmth. He hadn’t known her long before his wife had died. He and Tess had chosen her from a donor pool.

He suspected she was thinking of that time along similar lines, perhaps how she didn’t really know him, either.

Tess had been so excited with the prospect of having a baby. He had been thrilled to make her that happy. The sting of loss caught him as it often did. He still could not let her go.

Lingering too long on the sparkle in her glowing eyes, he gestured to the chairs. “Please, have a seat.”

He stepped back and then around to his chair behind the desk. She adjusted herself until she found a comfortable position, crossing her sexy legs and leaning back to patiently await his purpose in inviting her to his office.

“Is there a reason you’re armed?” he asked. The college student he once knew wouldn’t have packed heat.

“Only when I work cases that make me nervous.”

“Hopefully that doesn’t mean me.” He kept his tone light. If she had any idea why he’d asked her to meet, she’d have a good reason to be armed.

A brief breath left her, seeming to stem partly from a response to his lightness and partly from patient tolerance. “No. A mother hired me to track down a drug dealer her son has gotten mixed up with.”

“Ah.” He leaned back with his fingers to his jaw. “You do target practice?”

“I wouldn’t have a gun if I didn’t. I assure you, I’m legal and qualified.”

“I wasn’t questioning your experience as an investigator.” He knew nothing about her experience. Her website had glowing reviews from clients, and everything about her presented professionalism. He’d take a chance on her, which was better than he’d get from the local sheriff’s department. Other than Knox Colton, he didn’t trust anyone.

“Why did you ask me here, Mr. Kincaid?”

“Jeremy. I want to talk to you about Tess.”

Adeline’s gaze faltered with the mention of Tess, making him wonder if that part of her past bothered her, being an egg donor and surrogate to fund her college tuition, giving up her baby.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been two years,” she said.

“Yes. The first year was pretty hard on me and Jamie.” He’d spent the next year trying to get deputies to look into the car accident that had killed her. That had proved futile.

Her eyes lifted and he saw the hungry need for more information about the boy. Jeremy couldn’t deny her link to him, and Jamie had influenced his decision to call her.

“He’s doing much better now. He misses his mother, but he’s adjusting,” Jeremy said.

Adeline only met his eyes, seeming to be caught in ponderous thought.

“He looks like you.” Jeremy didn’t know why he’d said that. After Jamie had been born he’d focused on thinking of him as his and Tess’s baby. But it had been difficult not to make the comparison. “He’s got blond hair and blue eyes.” He breathed a laugh and pointed to his dark, short cropped hair and brown eyes. Tess had dark hair and gray eyes.

Adeline made no comment and lowered her gaze. Talking about Jamie must make her uncomfortable.

He used to tell himself that Jamie’s bright blue eyes resembled Tess’s. Jamie had a lot of his own features, but the blond hair and blue eyes were always Adeline’s. He’d often felt he had to convince himself that Jamie was his and Tess’s and not his and Adeline’s.

“Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have been so impulsive,” Adeline said at last. “Being an egg donor and surrogate for Tess.” She shook her head. “I wanted and needed to finish college, but...wow.”

Jeremy wasn’t sure what she meant by “wow.” “You regret it?” She’d given him and Tess a priceless gift. Why would she be anything but proud?

“No, not regret. I know how much Tess wanted a baby. I saw that when I met her. And the money did get me through college. It was worth it just for those two things.”

He heard the but she didn’t say. Giving up a baby would be hard but she’d gotten past that...hadn’t she?

Tess had lost her ability to have children due to polyps in her uterus. When she had found out, she had been devastated.

Catapulted back in time, he remembered certain key things about the in vitro fertilization process. Using his sperm and Adeline’s egg and implanting the fertilized embryo into Adeline, her growing stomach through the pregnancy, and then giving birth to Jamie—to all accounts, his son with Tess. He’d tried to experience it all with Tess, but there had been moments when he felt connected to Adeline in an intimate way only a man and woman who produced a life could understand. That’s why he’d kept his distance from Adeline as much as possible. Adeline had spent most of her time with Tess when visiting them during her pregnancy. Thankfully he’d had work to fall back on.

“Why don’t we talk about the reason you asked me here?” Adeline said.

“Of course.” They’d ventured a little too far into the past. He sat forward and placed his hands on the desk. “There is no easing into what I have to say. So I’ll just say it.” He watched anticipation brighten her eyes. “I think Tess was murdered.”

Adeline’s head moved back in unexpected surprise. “Murdered? She drove into a pole.”

She hadn’t injected herself into his and Tess’s lives after giving birth, but she had attended the funeral. She had also done her research before meeting him. He liked that. “Yes, and her blood alcohol level was high. But a few months ago I spoke with a local who said he saw Tess having lunch with a man the day of her accident. She left upset over whatever the two discussed. Her death always bothered me but I didn’t start thinking there might be more going on than a simple accident until then. What if she had relations with people I didn’t know about? Why did she meet this stranger and what made her upset? It’s too much of a coincidence that she died the same day.”

“Who is the man?”

“The local didn’t know. I tried to get the sheriff’s office to look into it but they haven’t. I get a brush-off every time I go there.” Renowned local criminal Livia Colton had her tentacles buried deep into the department in Shadow Creek, Texas. Jeremy knew her through his ties with other Coltons. He wouldn’t put it past Livia having something to do with the lackadaisical mindset of the sheriff’s department.

“I don’t see how Tess’s lunch could have anything to do with her accident. She may have been upset and that may have contributed, but...murder?”

Adeline clearly thought he was taking a leap. Jeremy expected her to be analytical.

“Even in prison Livia still had contact with a few of her followers. Someone I know heard one of them talking at a cocktail party, saying how she’d love to see Tess suffer somehow. ‘Like some kind of terrible accident, something to mess up her perfect, fortuitous life so she can see how the rest of the world lives,’ she said. Livia did not like Tess. She hated her youth and goodness.”

“Why do you think she had motive to kill? And from prison? Tess was young and beautiful and she married you. Maybe Livia was just jealous.”

Jealousy was enough. She didn’t know Livia well enough if she didn’t agree. “I know there has to be more and I don’t have much to go on right now, but Livia is capable of paying lackeys to do her dirty work. She could have paid someone in the sheriff’s department to cover it up. She’s a sociopath. Matthew Colton was her brother, remember, and a serial killer. Even he feared her. She worked in the highest ranks of an organized crime group, trafficked drugs—and people. She’s been convicted of murder before, so why not do it again if it made her feel better or gave her some kind of gain?”