Marie Ferrarella - Colton Copycat Killer

He certainly hadn’t thought she could actually stand up to anyone.

Live and learn, he thought now.

He spared her a quick glance. “This way,” he instructed, taking Zoe by the elbow and guiding her out of the crowded area.

He’d gotten the church’s layout just the other day, when Celia had dragged him to meet with the reverend to make the final arrangements for the splashy wedding she had made abundantly clear she had always wanted.

As far as he was concerned, they could have exchanged two-minute vows in front of some justice of the peace. He had absolutely no desire to have witnesses to something he wouldn’t have done on his own in the first place. But since he’d made up his mind to do right by her and especially to do right by his unborn child, they were to exchange vows in front of people who were all one and the same to him at this point.

He didn’t care. He’d just wanted it over with.

And now it is, he thought in an almost accusatory tone.

He forced himself to focus on the moment and not the past.

“The reverend’s office is this way, down the hall,” he told Zoe.

Releasing her arm, he led the way down the narrow passageway.

Compared to the rest of the church and its connected areas, the hallway was almost tomblike in its silence. The lighting that came through the windows located eight feet off the ground was strained and diffuse. Nothing about it was welcoming in Zoe’s opinion.

“Kind of eerie,” Zoe noted, stifling an unbidden shiver that shimmied up and down her spine.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Sam responded almost automatically, then assured her, “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Although he wasn’t carrying his primary weapon, because he was supposed to be off duty and the tuxedo afforded no place to carry the heavy piece, he still had his backup weapon strapped to his ankle. Wearing it beneath the tuxedo trousers had been a challenge, but in the end, he had managed.

He thought of the old adage, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“I’m not afraid,” Zoe replied, waving away the suggestion that she was. “But it is eerie here,” she pointed out. That feeling was only heightened by the crime that had just taken place there.

Arriving at the reverend’s office, Sam tested the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked. Even so, he looked carefully around and then entered the tiny alcove of a room first.

Caution trumped chivalry every time in his book.

A quick visual sweep of the area assured him there was no one in the small, rather claustrophobic room. Shelves crammed full of books of all sizes and shapes lined three of the four walls, adding to the intensely cramped feeling.

The reverend’s desk was no different from the rest of the room. It had piles of papers and folders stacked around, behind and in front of an antiquated computer someone had donated to the church. The piles of paper and the computer succeeded in taking up all the available space on the desktop.

There were papers on the chairs, as well. At first glance, they looked to be preventing anyone from making proper use of the chairs.

Sam cleared off what was obviously the reverend’s chair and then turned his attention to the only other available one in the office. He put both piles of paper on the corner of the desk as carefully as possible, sincerely hoping there wouldn’t be an avalanche.

Finished, he gestured toward the chair and then suggested, “Why don’t you take a seat.” When Zoe did so and he had followed suit, he said to her, “In your own words, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened before you left your sister—and then what you saw when you came back.”

The knot in her stomach returned, tightening and threatening to cut off her very air supply.

She didn’t want to tell him what Celia’s last words to her had been.

Chapter 3

Zoe folded her hands in her lap and for a moment, she just focused her entire being on breathing.

Once she had taken in and exhaled several deep, cleansing breaths, she raised her eyes to Sam’s and addressed his request—at least in part.

“I really don’t have anything to add to what I’ve already told you, Sam.” She’d racked her brain these past couple of minutes, trying to remember some small, salient clue she could offer him that would turn out to be the crucial piece of the puzzle and solve this awful crime, but she had come up with nothing. “Celia and I were alone in the bridal room. When I left the room, she was still fussing with her veil. When I came back a few minutes later, she was exactly the way you saw her—dead on the floor.”

Zoe pressed her lips together, struggling to keep her voice from breaking again. Crying wasn’t going to do anyone any good, least of all Celia. “And you know the rest.”

“You forgot a part,” Sam told her, his voice neither accusing, nor annoyed. He was merely calling her attention to a fact.

She looked at Sam quizzically. She’d told him everything. “What?”

He leaned in a little closer over the desk, creating a sense of intimacy. He was well aware of the fact that trust was grounded in intimacy. “You said you argued with Celia.”

She’d forgotten about telling him that for a second. Or maybe she’d just pushed it out of her mind. Either way, it wasn’t something she was willing to bring out into the light of day. Besides, the argument had no bearing on her death.

“Oh. Yes.” That whole episode came rushing back to her. “We did.”

“What was the argument about?” he asked her pointedly, watching her carefully.

Sam’s voice was even more authoritative than usual. Ordinarily, she would have already volunteered the subject matter of the argument. It had always been in her nature to be as helpful as possible. But in this particular instance, nothing had changed about the way she felt regarding the argument.

She couldn’t tell Sam what Celia had told her. Knowing would only hurt Sam and it would serve no purpose to tell him now. It certainly had no bearing on Celia’s murder.

Raising her head like someone defiantly guarding a secret, Zoe answered, “It’s private.”

“There’s nothing private about a murder,” Sam informed her.

She stared at the man she had loved for as long as she could remember, trying to make sense of what he had just told her. Holding stubbornly onto her convictions, she brazened it out.

“The argument had nothing to do with Celia’s death. I didn’t kill my sister, if that’s what you’re leading up to. Why would I?” she challenged.

This was an entirely different Zoe than he had ever seen before. He wondered if it was just the stress of the situation, or if there was another reason for the change in her behavior. Could it have something to do with the plain Jane suddenly coming out from beneath her far more vivacious sister’s shadow?

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “You tell me.”

“I am telling you—I didn’t do it. I’ll do everything I can to help you find whoever murdered my sister—but it wasn’t me,” Zoe insisted.

Sam said nothing for a long moment, choosing instead to study her in silence.

After what seemed like an eternity to Zoe, he finally told her, “I believe you. But don’t leave town. I may have more questions for you.”

“Where would I go?” she asked him simply. “Granite Gulch is my home.”

Sam merely nodded in absent acknowledgment, his mind already elsewhere.

Whether the red dot was off center or not, the red bull’s-eye on Celia’s forehead was too reminiscent of his father’s signature trademark not to have something to do with Matthew Colton in some way.

But what?

Since his father most definitely was in prison, this had to be the work of a copycat killer. But if so, to what end? Why would this killer choose to follow in the old man’s footsteps, but deliberately elect to ignore the fact that Matthew killed middle-aged men? Why had he killed a young woman in her twenties?