Colton Baby Conspiracy (The Coltons 0f Mustang Valley Book 1) Read online

  Being honest was almost a curse at times, she thought darkly. But Selina Barnes Colton was not exactly a wizard. If she wasn’t there tomorrow, someone else would come along to fill the vacancy and do just as good a job—if not better—without secretly attempting to pit them against one another.

  The benevolent giant looked at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps there is something that Mrs. Colton is holding over Mr. Colton’s head. Blackmail is a very powerful, dangerous tool in the wrong hands,” he told Marlowe.

  The point had already crossed her mind more than once. She remembered saying as much to Callum when they had discussed the power Selina seemed to wield over their father.

  She closed her eyes. Something else to worry about, Marlowe thought.

  * * *

  True to his word, Bowie called Marlowe to check in on how she was faring with his bodyguard the moment that his own meeting was over.

  “Would you mind if I dropped by?” he asked Marlowe.

  The very sound of his voice had her brightening. She tried to upbraid herself for her reaction, but it had no dampening effect on the way she responded to him. The plain truth of the matter was that hearing his voice made her smile. She called herself a fool, but it didn’t change anything.

  “When?” she asked.

  “I was thinking now,” he answered.

  She could feel her heart racing and called herself an idiot. She was acting like a simpering teenager, not the president of a high-powered oil company.

  “Sure. I’ve still got a few things to finish up.” It was a lie, but it was all she could come up with on short notice.

  “Be right there,” he promised. When Bowie arrived at Colton Oil within the half hour, he got right down to business. “So, is everything going all right?” he asked Marlowe, clearly referring to Wallace.

  “Well, I hate to admit it,” Marlowe told him, “but it’s going better than I thought it would.”

  “Then I was right?” he asked innocently, glancing over toward the bodyguard. “Bigelow is blending in, becoming part of the furniture?”

  Deliberately turning her chair away from Wallace’s general direction so that her voice didn’t carry, she told Bowie, “He’s a little too big to be an ottoman, but yes,” she said, giving Bowie his due, “you were right. Wallace does seem to have a knack for blending in.”

  Bowie all but beamed. “Told you.”

  The man was obviously pleased with himself. That made her a little leery. She didn’t want him thinking that she was handing him free rein over her.

  “Oh no, you’re not going to be one of those men, are you? The ones who say ‘I told you so’ every chance they get?” she asked. Marlowe was only half kidding.

  “Only if the situation calls for it,” he told her with a grin. “All right, I won’t say it—this time,” he added after a beat.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Marlowe went on to say.

  “Good thinking or bad thinking?” Bowie asked.

  “Well, I don’t know how you’re going to view this. What I do know is that to implement this I’m going to have to leave Wallace behind,” Marlowe told Bowie, warming up to her subject.

  He cut her off before she could say any more. “Not doable,” Bowie replied.

  Marlowe pushed on, curbing her very strong impulse to inform Bowie that he was not the boss of her and she was only going along with his providing her with a bodyguard because it suited her purposes. At the moment, however, it didn’t, and she wasn’t going to allow Bowie to stop her from doing what she felt might be the only course of action available to her.

  She talked right over him as if he hadn’t said anything. “I want to follow dear old Selina the next time she leaves headquarters, and I can’t do that with Wallace shadowing my every move. Selina will see him coming from a mile away, and whatever I’m hoping to catch her doing won’t happen. I have to go alone,” she insisted.

  “No,” Bowie contradicted her calmly, “you don’t have to go alone.”

  Marlowe could feel her temper fraying, just like that. “Look, Robertson, I’m not going to argue about this,” she informed him.

  “Good, because I don’t want to argue—and before you get your second wind and launch into another all-out attack, trying to shoot me down, I just want to tell you that you’re right.”

  Marlowe’s mouth dropped open, the words she was about to say dying before they ever emerged. He’d caught her completely off guard.

  “I’m what?” she asked.

  “You’re right,” Bowie repeated. “From everything you’ve told me, Selina doesn’t have your family’s best interests at heart, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out that she was at least partially behind what’s been going on to undermine the company with Ace.”

  We. He had said we. As if they were a set, two parts of a whole. Ordinarily, she would rebel against that, saying something snide because she felt that he was trying to order her around or just take over.

  But for some reason she couldn’t begin to explain to herself, this time the fact that he thought that way just warmed her.

  She could only think that this pregnancy was playing havoc with her mind as well as her emotions. What other reason could there be for her reaction? She wasn’t willing to admit that she was falling for the father of her unborn baby, at least, not yet. Even though, deep down in her gut, she already knew the answer to that.

  “So you agree with me that I should follow her the next time she leaves the building unexpectedly. See what she might be up to,” Marlowe concluded. She didn’t expect it to be this easy. He had to be up to something, she reasoned—or did he just really care for her?

  “I agree with everything,” Bowie told her, “except the part about you following her on your own.”

  “Robertson,” she began, frustrated because they seemed to be going around in circles.

  But Bowie pushed on as if she hadn’t just said his name. “Which is why I’m going to tag along when the time comes,” he told Marlowe, then turned toward the bodyguard. “When that happens, consider yourself relieved, Bigelow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wait, what just happened here?” Marlowe asked, feeling railroaded.

  “I just agreed with you,” Bowie replied simply.

  “The other part,” Marlowe stipulated from between clenched teeth.

  “The other part?” Bowie repeated innocently.

  That only managed to fan her anger. “Yes, the other part. The part about you taking Wallace’s place and coming with me while I follow Selina to wherever she plans to go.”

  “Seems to me like you have a clear understanding of that part,” he told her. And then he grew serious. “Look, Marlowe, there’s someone out there who clearly has it in for Colton Oil in general and maybe you specifically. In either case, I have no intentions of taking a chance on you getting hurt—or worse.”

  “You have no intentions,” she echoed.

  “Then we understand each other,” he concluded, evidently hoping that would be the end of it.

  Marlowe drew herself up. “Since when did you get to figure into this equation?” she demanded.

  Bowie’s eyes looked into hers. “I think you know the answer to that,” he informed her in a low voice that was only loud enough for Marlowe to make out.

  “Oh, and having you with me won’t set off any alarms with Selina?” She laughed at the very idea.

  “I thought the idea was to follow the woman discreetly so she could lead you to whoever she’s working with—if she is working with anyone,” he qualified.

  Marlowe blew out a breath. She was defeated and she knew it. Bowie had just shot her down, and he was right. She would be safer with him along—not that she’d mind having him by her side. She had no doubts that Selina was vindictive enough to do something drastic if she set her mind to it.

>   “All right, you win,” Marlowe told him. “When I follow Selina, I’ll let you know.”

  He looked at the man he had hired to be Marlowe’s bodyguard. “Bigelow?”

  The big man knew what was being asked of him. “I’ll call you and let you know, sir,” he promised.

  “My word isn’t good enough for you?” Marlowe questioned, looking at Bowie.

  “You might get caught up in the moment and forget to call,” he explained innocently. “While Bigelow here has only one thing to focus on—your safety,” he told her.

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Marlowe said curtly.

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks at my company,” Bowie replied.

  Chapter 16

  Everyone who filed into the boardroom the next day was aware of the conspicuously empty chair at the conference table.

  Ace’s chair.

  Marlowe could see by the looks on her siblings’ faces that they all felt as awful about Ace’s absence as she did. Oddly enough, she had the feeling that her father felt the same way that the rest of them did.

  All of them except for Selina, of course. Her father’s haughty ex looked like the cat that had eaten the canary—and had enjoyed every bite.

  Selina leveled her gaze at Marlowe, looking at her expectantly. “Well, go ahead, tell us what you learned, Marlowe,” she urged. As if she and that woman had a close relationship, Marlowe thought, rather than the antagonistic one that existed between them.

  “We didn’t learn anything,” Marlowe informed Selina coolly.

  “Well, that doesn’t sound right,” Selina commented. The woman cocked her head, as if trying to understand. “Why not?” she asked.

  Marlowe fought the really strong desire to scratch the woman’s eyes out. She had a feeling that Selina already knew the answer to that.

  Taking a breath, Marlowe managed to get her temper under control. Going down to Selina’s level wouldn’t accomplish anything or lead anywhere, Marlowe told herself.

  Deliberately turning toward the other people who were around the table, she said, “According to the hospital administrator, the day Ace was born, there was a fire in the maternity ward. All the records there at the time were destroyed in that fire.”

  “A fire?” Ainsley repeated, surprised. “I don’t remember ever hearing about a fire breaking out at the hospital before.”

  Marlowe nodded. “From what Callum and I could piece together, it was just a small fire, and it was quickly gotten under control before any lives were threatened,” Marlowe told the group.

  “But not before the maternity records were destroyed,” Rafe concluded.

  “No, not before then,” Marlowe said, knowing how suspicious that had to sound to them. It did to her, as well.

  “That sounds awfully convenient to me,” Selina said to the other board members. There was more than a trace of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Yes, it would seem that way,” Marlowe was forced to agree. It was obvious that she was far from satisfied with this outcome. “But I’m not giving up until we get to the bottom of this—and to an explanation of what sounds like a Christmas miracle.”

  Her siblings exchanged looks. Marlowe had lost them with her last sentence.

  “How’s that again?” Ainsley asked.

  “Dad, didn’t you say that when he was born, Ace was very frail and sickly. So frail and sickly, the doctors didn’t expect him to live through the night. And yet, he not only lived, but he actually went on to thrive, almost overnight. The night after his birth,” Marlowe specified.

  Remembering, Payne smiled sadly. “I thought those were just the Colton genes, coming to the forefront and taking over,” he told the rest of his children.

  “Or,” Marlowe suggested, “it could be someone switching babies that night, substituting a healthy son for an unhealthy one.”

  Marlowe knew that, on the outside, it sounded preposterous. “But why?” Ainsley asked. “Why would someone do that? Who stood to benefit from the switch?”

  “Well, from where I’m sitting, that sounds like the million-dollar question,” Rafe told the others.

  “So you all think we should go looking for the real Ace—provided he survived his sickly infancy.” The statement came from Payne and surprised everyone. He was not in the habit of asking anyone for advice, least of all his children.

  Ainsley put her two cents in. “I think we should look for the real Ace, but we should check him out before we risk telling him who he really is,” she told her father. “You don’t want to take a chance on bringing in someone who was shortchanged in the morals department. We have no way of knowing what sort of influences the real Ace had in his life while growing up. For all we know, he might have turned into some kind of serial killer.”

  Payne was shaking his head.

  “Blood or not, the Ace we knew was—is my son,” Payne insisted, clearly upset by the discussion, despite the fact that he had been the one who had ousted Ace from the boardroom to begin with. It was obvious to Marlowe that for the first time in his life—as far as they knew—Payne regretted something that he had done.

  “Well, you can always ask our Ace to come back on the board,” Ainsley told her father.

  “People.” Selina raised her voice to get their attention. “You are forgetting about the bylaws. You can’t just go against them like that because it suits you to do so,” she informed the others sitting around the conference table.

  Payne looked as if a gathering storm was about to break. “I can if I want to,” he informed his ex-wife angrily.

  “Payne,” Selina countered, looking at him squarely. There was a warning note in her voice as she told him, “I beg to differ.”

  Marlowe saw the expression on her father’s face. He was struggling to get himself under control. That wasn’t his style. He was a volcano that blew on a regular basis.

  There was something else going on here, Marlowe thought, not for the first time.

  Because it was what she thought he wanted, she decided to try to buy her father a little time. “Why don’t we hire a very good, very discreet private investigator to try to locate the so-called real Ace? And while he’s at it, maybe the detective can also locate our Ace, who as far as I know seems to have taken off. He’s not at home, and he’s not at any of his regular haunts.” Nor was he answering her calls when she tried to check up on him. She had left a total of five messages and received no answers. She hoped that he wasn’t doing anything drastic, just giving himself a little space and taking a breather from all of this for now.

  Rather than talk over them, Rafe raised his hand to get the others’ attention. “Why don’t I look into that for us?” Of all of them, he, as an adopted son, surely knew better than any of them what Ace had to be going through at the moment. “I’ve got a couple of ideas on how to follow up on this,” he told the others.

  Selina looked as if her interest had been suddenly piqued. “Just how do you plan to proceed?” she asked.

  Rafe looked at the woman, unmoved by her question. “I’ll let you know when and if I find something,” he said her.

  Miffed, for once Selina turned toward her ex. “You know, I get the feeling that your children don’t trust me, Payne.”

  Payne’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the woman who had been a thorn in his side for years now.

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” he replied cryptically.

  That was not what she was expecting. Selina shot her ex a very cold, dark look. Caught in the cross fire, Marlowe could hardly keep from shivering.

  Payne drew himself up, looking even more formidable than he usually did. “Well, if there’s nothing else, this meeting’s adjourned,” he declared. “I’ve got a meeting to get to with some possible investors.” He glanced toward Rafe and Marlowe. “Keep me apprised of any progress you make. And de
finitely call me if you locate Ace—our Ace,” he specified. “Tell him he and I need to talk.” He took a breath, then added, “I feel bad about the way we left things.”

  Well, this was new. Marlowe exchanged looks with her siblings.

  “Dad?” she said hesitantly. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Why?” Payne challenged gruffly.

  On the spot, she knew she had to push on even though she wasn’t up to a shouting match. “Because you don’t usually feel the need to, well, apologize,” she told him.

  Payne’s complexion went through several changes in color. “Yeah, well, sometimes things need to be shaken up,” was all Payne seemed willing to say. “I’ve got to go,” he repeated, removing his all-but-overwhelming presence from the boardroom.

  Marlowe exchanged looks with her siblings. “Who was that man?” she quipped, only half in jest.

  Rafe raised his broad shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “Beats me.”

  Turning to pick up the notepad she’d brought in with her, Marlowe suddenly became aware of another empty seat at the table. She looked around the room to no avail. “Where’s Selina?”

  Turning to answer Marlowe, Ainsley said, “She’s—gone.” It was obvious that was not what she thought she was going to say when she’d started her sentence. “I didn’t see her leave, did you?” she asked Rafe.

  Annoyed with herself for not noticing the woman slipping away, Marlowe said, “No, but she probably just slithered out. You know how vipers are.”

  Marlowe’s mind was racing ahead, weighing several possible answers to that question. Possibly Selina had just gone back to her office to lick her wounds. Or perhaps she had slipped out to meet with someone. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that her father’s ex-wife was somehow involved in sending that anonymous mass email that had started all of this turmoil. For that matter, she could be even further involved in all this. Maybe she had even known about the switched infants and had helped with the switch—but Selina would have been a child herself when Ace was born.