Addison Fox - Cold Case Colton

An ex-boyfriend who’d increasingly made the city she loved a nightmare of dark streets, threatening messages and late-night harassments.

And the small town she’d grown up in that seemed to exist in a perpetual state of fear of her mother. Livia’s recent escape, ten years after being put away for multiple lifetimes, had once again gripped the town in her thrall.

Neither situation was tenable.

But what to do about it?

Claudia had innately understood her mother was different. It wasn’t just the unique characteristics that made up her family, from a series of relationships that had produced Livia Colton’s six children. Nor was it simply the large estate that had provided the backdrop to her childhood. No, it was the odd, nearly reverent way the entire town of Shadow Creek treated her mother.

Livia Colton was the town’s patron saint and their resident demon, and everyone treated her with the softest of kid gloves. Livia could do no wrong, even when others suspected her of the worst sorts of crimes.

Theft. Human trafficking. Murder.

Which had left her children to puzzle through the realities of their mother. Was Livia Colton some misunderstood, benevolent benefactor or some demon temptress who used kindness as one more tool in her psychopathic arsenal?

Claudia had spent much of her childhood wondering, only to have the truth finally come out the year she turned sixteen. Her mother’s crimes—all she’d been suspected of and more—had been exposed and she’d been soundly convicted by the State of Texas, sentenced to spend the rest of her life—as well as four more—in prison.

At the time and in all the years since, Claudia had tried desperately to feel some sense of sadness, or remorse or even relief that she and her siblings finally had some answers.

But none came.

Instead, she continued to struggle with this odd sense of indifference that kept her mother at an emotional distance. Separate, somehow, as if they’d never really had a mother-daughter bond at all. Claudia lived with the shame of that—that strange, unapologetic apathy—and used the guilt as a way to push herself forward.

She didn’t feel it for her siblings. Nor did she feel it for Mac, the man who’d practically raised her. So maybe there was hope for her, after all.

Claudia ran a hand over the slender, gathered shoulder strap of the dress. Her brother would marry the woman who wore this dress. The wedding would be hosted on Mac’s ranch. In addition to Thorne, the groom, all her siblings would be there.

Joy filled her at the thought of them all being together and in that, Claudia knew there was strength. Bonds that were forged in truth and honesty and love.

And in that joy, she felt no guilt. No empty ties. Not even a trace of sadness. Instead, she knew she was home.

It couldn’t come at a better time, she thought as she fiddled with the ruching on the shoulder strap, seeking to match its folds to its twin. After nearly ten years in a Texas prison, Livia had found a way to escape.

Her mother’s extensive network of contacts had helped engineer the escape, but it was the events that came after—including the kidnappings of Claudia’s nephew and then Mac just last month—that had proven just what sort of people her mother had surrounded herself with.

Her brother Knox had spent a tense time in an emotional standoff that started with Cody’s kidnapping and ended in the death of one of Livia’s minions. Although her nephew was back, safe and unharmed, neither Claudia nor her siblings had fully rested easy since. The fact that the kidnapping had been the byproduct of an old enemy of her mother’s, using the boy as a pawn to get money Livia would never have paid, had only added to the horror of the situation.

And Mac. Her heart still leaped into her throat at the thought they’d nearly lost him. Livia’s cruelty—and the pain she’d exacted on her third husband—had contributed to the man’s plot against Mac. Thank God they had him back, safe and sound. And through it all, Maggie and Thorne had found each other, as well. A challenging way to begin any relationship, but one that was firm and solid all the same.

One that had also reinforced another truth. Her family needed her and she needed them. And with her mother’s disappearance going on nearly four months, she couldn’t deny her fervent hope the woman would never come back. Livia’s disappearance would finally give them all much-needed peace.

The prison break had proven her mother had established her influence far and wide. But the one thing, if she knew her mother at all, was that there was little Livia Colton wouldn’t do to avoid going back to prison.

Life was calmer without her mother’s presence. That had been as true ten years ago as it was now. And in the months she’d been back in Shadow Creek, she’d had the opportunity to reforge bonds with her siblings. To build an even closer one with Mac. He was still the most wonderful father figure and her time away hadn’t changed their relationship.

Claudia ran a hand down the pale silk of Maggie’s gown, the subtle fall of material plunging from the bodice in a dramatic, almost Grecian sweep. The suggestion of a goddess fit Maggie to a T and her future sister-in-law had been in love with the design from the start.

Now to stop woolgathering and finish it.

She settled her coffee on the edge of her station, far away from any material, and focused on today’s work.

The bustle.

Claudia ran her fingertips over the silk, gathering large folds and pinning them to the areas she’d premarked with small pins. Fold by fold, the bustle came together, the elegant weight forming and reshaping the gown in her hands.

What felt like only moments later Claudia heard a different sort of bustling behind her. “Oh. Oh, wow.”

She turned to find Evelyn Reed, employee number two of Honeysuckle Road and the woman Claudia fondly thought of as her partner in crime.

“What do you think?” She took a few steps back and reached for her coffee, frowning when she realized it had gone cold.

Evelyn already had a fresh cup out of a holder, extended in Claudia’s direction. “I think Thorne’s eyes are going to pop out of his head. We haven’t had a bride this bedecked in Shadow Creek since the Thompson wedding of 2001.”

“Sugar Thompson?”

“One and the same.” Evelyn nodded, walking around the dress, her gaze sharp as she took in the gown from head to toe.

As Claudia recalled, Sugar Thompson’s marriage hadn’t lasted long, nor had union two and three. Last she’d heard the woman was off to California to make her name in Hollywood and Claudia hoped Sugar found what she was looking for.

Shadow Creek wasn’t for everyone. Hell, she’d believed herself well and gone, so it was a surprise to realize how the town was growing on her as an adult.

“Claudia?”

“Hmm?” Claudia looked up from her musings, unwilling to even mention Sugar’s failed marriages in front of the dress. “You see anything I missed, Eagle Eye?”

“Not a single thing. This dress is amazing. The only worry is that Thorne’s not going to make it through the ceremony once he sees his bride coming toward him in this. Between the wedding and Maggie’s pregnancy, Thorne has been floating about five feet off the ground.”

“I could say the same about his daddy and the dress you’re going to wear.”

Evelyn’s dark skin flashed with a decided blush as she busied herself once again around the dressmaker form. Claudia had recently settled in on the idea that Evelyn needed to make a move on Mac—or at least show her interest—but Evelyn had remained steadfast in her reticence.

“My dress is age and station appropriate.” Evelyn’s voice was muffled behind the dress, where she bent over to inspect the bustle.