Marie Ferrarella - Colton Baby Rescue

Triumph filled her eyes. “There is no ‘but’ here,” Demi retorted. “You have nothing to hold me on, that means I’m free to go. So I’m going.” Her eyes swept over her cousin and Carson. “Gentlemen, it has definitely not been a pleasure.”

And with that, she swept past them to the interrogation room door like a queen taking leave of a pair of disloyal subjects.

Finn shook his head as his cousin stormed out. “Hell of a lot of nerve,” he muttered under his breath.

“As I recall, Demi was never the sweet, retiring type. If she was, she would have never become a bounty hunter,” Carson told him.

Finn blew out a breath. “You have a point.” He walked out of the interrogation room with Carson directly behind him. “Well, check out her alibi, talk to anyone who might have seen her,” the chief said, addressing the victim’s brother. “I’m open to any further suggestions.”

Carson looked at his boss in mild surprise. “I thought you made it clear that I wasn’t allowed to work on my brother’s case.” Although, he thought, since Finn could work on the case in which his cousin was a suspect, he should be allowed to investigate his brother’s murder.

“Technically, you’re not,” Finn said as they walked out into the main squad room. “But I’m not an idiot, Gage. You’re going to work this whether I give you my blessing or not.” He stopped just before his office. “So you have any ideas where to start?”

He’d been thinking about this ever since he’d found Bo’s body. The fact that Bo had written Demi’s name seemed pretty damning to him, but he didn’t want to discount the slim possibility that someone else had killed his brother.

It didn’t warm his heart to have to admit this, but in all fairness, he had to. “Well, it’s common knowledge that Demi wasn’t the only woman Bo romanced and then dumped. I’d say that there were a whole lot of women who’d love to have seen Bo get what was coming to him. And that includes a number of disgruntled husbands and boyfriends, as well. Why don’t we start talking to them?”

That Bo was a playboy wasn’t exactly news to anyone. Finn frowned. “But would any of them actually resort to murder?”

Carson shrugged. Nothing jumped out at him, but this needed closer examination. “Only one way to find out,” he told his boss.

“I agree,” Finn responded. “Make up a list. Meanwhile, I’m going to have some of the boys go over the crime scene with a fine-tooth comb, see if someone missed anything just in case. Although the ground’s undoubtedly been trampled on,” he commented.

Carson nodded grimly. “Nobody ever said that solving crimes was easy. I can swing by my place, pick up Justice,” he said, referring to his K-9 partner. “See if maybe he can pick up a scent.”

“After you put that list together,” Finn told the detective.

Carson headed over to his desk. Given the hour, the squad room was practically empty. “Will do,” he told the chief.

“Oh, and, Gage?” Finn called after him.

Carson turned around, expecting further orders. “Yeah, Chief?”

“I’m really sorry for your loss.”

The words were standard-issue, said over and over again in so many instances that they sounded numbingly routine, yet he felt that Finn really meant them.

“Yeah, me, too,” Carson answered stoically, then added, “Thanks.”

* * *

Carson had just finished making a preliminary list of all the women he could remember Bo having had any romantic encounters with over the last several years when J.D. Edwards, one of the crime scene investigators, came into the squad room. J.D. looked excited.

Temporarily forgetting about the list he’d just compiled, Carson crossed over to the man. J.D., in turn, had just cornered Finn.

“You’re going to want to hear this,” the investigator was saying to Finn.

The chief, seeing Carson, nodded at him, indicating that he join them. Carson was all ears.

“What have you got?” Finn asked.

“Lots,” J.D. answered. “First off, I found this under a wheel near where the body was found.” He held up a sealed plastic evidence bag. The bag contained a necklace with a gold heart charm.

Finn squinted as he looked at the necklace. “That looks familiar.”

“It should be,” the investigator said. “It belongs to—”

“Demi,” Carson said, recognizing the gold heart. “That’s her necklace.”

“And that’s not all,” J.D. informed them. The investigator paused for effect before announcing, “We’ve got a witness who says he saw Demi Colton running in the shadows around 6:45 p.m. near The Pour House.”

“Six forty-five,” Carson repeated. He looked at Finn. “I found Bo’s body at seven.”

J.D. looked rather smug as he said, “Exactly.”

“Who’s the witness?” Finn wanted to know.

“Paulie Gains,” J.D. answered.

Carson frowned. He would have preferred having someone a little more reliable. “Gains is a small-time drug dealer.”

“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have seen her,” Finn pointed out. He looked at J.D. “How did he know it was Demi? It’s dark at that hour.”

J.D. laughed. “Not that many people around here have her color hair, Chief.”

Finn nodded. J.D. was right. “Okay, that puts her at the scene. Looks like we’ve got that evidence Demi kept going on about,” he told Carson, adding, “Time for that bounty hunter to do some heavy-duty explaining if she intends to walk out of here a second time. Let’s go wrestle up an arrest warrant.”

Carson didn’t have to be told twice. He led the way out the door.

Chapter 3

It took a little time, but Carson and his boss finally found a judge who was willing to issue an arrest warrant at that time of night.

“Do me a favor, lose my number,” Judge David Winkler told Finn, closing his front door and going back to his poker game.

Tucking the warrant into his pocket, the chief turned toward Carson. “Let’s go. We’re not waiting until morning,” Finn told the detective as he got back into his vehicle.

Armed with the warrant, for the second time in less than five hours police detectives hurried back to Demi Colton’s small ranch house on the outskirts of town, this time to arrest her.

The house was dark when they arrived.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Carson murmured as he and Finn approached.

Carson knocked on the door. When there was no response, he knocked again, harder this time. Rather than knock a third time, he tried the doorknob. He was surprised to find that the door was unlocked.

Guns drawn, they entered and conducted a quick room-to-room search of the one-story dwelling. There was no one home.

“Damn it.” Finn fumed. “My gut told me to keep her in a holding cell and not let her just walk out of the police station like that.”

“Looks like some of her clothes are gone,” Carson called out to the chief, looking at a cluster of empty hangers in the bounty hunter’s bedroom closet.

“Yeah, well, so is she,” Finn answered from the kitchen. When Carson joined him, Finn held up the note he’d found on the kitchen table.

“What’s that, a confession?” Carson asked, coming around to look at the piece of notepaper.

“Just the opposite,” Finn told him in disgust. “It says ‘I’m innocent.’”

Carson said what he assumed they were both thinking. “Innocent people don’t run.”

The chief surprised him when Finn said, “They might if they think the deck is stacked against them.”

“Is that what you think? That she’s innocent?” Carson questioned, frowning. He supposed that there was a small outside chance that the chief might be right, but as far as he was concerned, he was going to need a lot of convincing.