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  Brayden’s was the voice Esmée wanted to hear, his was the story she wanted to use as her starting point. If she could only get in touch with him.

  “Oh, yes. Chief Finn Colton insists on it. Part of the trust that funds the unit provides for the K-9 team to do outreach work in the community.”

  Esmée and Hester had only just met and the circumstances hadn’t exactly been pleasant. Sarah Mull had been happily married to Hester’s older brother until he died in a car crash a few years ago. Now, Hester was helping her sister-in-law recover from another shock death, that of her fiancé, Jack.

  Esmée, having met Hester a few times at the hospital when she visited Sarah, had instinctively liked the other woman. Hester was warm, kind and she had offered to show Esmée and Rhys around Red Ridge.

  Before Hester had retired, she’d been a police officer herself, so Esmée was confident she knew what she was talking about. “The police dogs take part in demonstration events, and the officers are there to answer any questions members of the public have about the unit.”

  Hester turned to wave a hand at Rhys, who was in his safety seat.

  “Rhys will enjoy today,” Esmée said. “He loves all animals, but he really likes dogs.”

  “Such a pity he can’t talk.” Hester lowered her voice to a whisper as she fastened her seat belt. “Isn’t there anything the doctors can do to cure him?”

  “Rhys can talk.” Esmée dealt with this all the time. People meant well, but they didn’t understand. “There’s nothing wrong with him,” she explained to Hester. “He had a very bad experience when he was just twelve months old. Before that, he made the usual babbling noises all babies of his age make. Then he went quiet. Not speaking is his way of dealing with the trauma. It’s called selective mutism.”

  “Oh.” Hester cast a sidelong glance at Esmée, obviously wondering what to say next.

  “It’s okay.” Esmée placed her hand briefly on the older woman’s knee. “You didn’t know and I don’t mind talking about it.”

  It was true...in a way. Of course she minded that Rhys didn’t talk. But she had always been open about it, even if the reason for his emotional distress filled her with guilt. The toxic downturn in her relationship with Gwyn Owen, Rhys’s father, had been gradual. Even so, the deterioration into violence had taken Esmée by surprise. It was only Jack’s intervention that had saved her from serious injury. Her old friend had come to her rescue, removing her from the scene of a vicious attack and helping her deal with the aftermath. But the damage had been done. Rhys had witnessed his mother cowering with her hands over her head as his father punched and kicked her.

  “Why don’t we go see some dogs?” Change the subject. Yeah, that always worked. For a while.

  Rhys clapped his hands together before holding up both hands with his fingers curved as he imitated a begging dog. Esmée’s heart expanded with pride and love and she clapped her own hands in response. It was important to praise any efforts he made to communicate, even if they weren’t verbal. She wanted to use the dog show to meet Brayden Colton and set up an interview, but the most important thing was for Rhys to have a good time.

  Her sweet, silent boy spoke to her in his own way. And one day he would use words. She had to stay positive that it would happen. Every time she looked into his dark eyes, thankfully like her own rather than his father’s, an icy shard of guilt pierced her heart. She should have gotten away sooner, should have known it was never going to have a happy ending...

  Hester laughed delightedly. “He’s so clever.” Esmée already liked Hester, but her admiration for Rhys sealed the deal.

  She chatted to Rhys as she drove, describing the late-afternoon scene. Hester picked up on what she was doing and joined in. Esmée didn’t need the psychologist and the speech therapist who saw Rhys regularly to tell her that he needed lots of talk to stimulate him. She was his mom—her instincts told her what to do. At the same time, talking to Rhys, singing songs to him and telling him stories were all reminders of her own childhood. Esmée was a talker. It was who she was, and it made Rhys’s silence so much harder to bear.

  The dog show was held at the K-9 training center. Located at the far end of Main Street, the center was a large one-story brick building that edged onto the woods. They got out of the car and headed toward a large backyard with a five-foot-high wooden fence all the way around. The gates were open and the event had spilled out onto the surrounding grass with stalls lining the route all the way to the trees.

  Hester explained that the major part of the K-9 unit funding came from a trust left by Mayor Fenwick Colton’s late first wife. “That’s him.” Even though the man she indicated was too far away to hear, Hester murmured the words out of the corner of her mouth.

  Esmée had heard a few things about Fenwick Colton, none of them good. According to the Gages she’d spoken to, the short, skinny man with the blond hairpiece thought he owned Red Ridge. He was a wealthy businessman in his midfifties, with three divorces behind him. Apparently having finally decided marriage wasn’t for him, he now preferred to have a new young girlfriend on his arm, and changed them every few months.

  “His daughter, Layla Colton, was supposed to marry Hamlin Harrington, the owner of Harrington Inc., at the end of the year.” Hester’s voice took on a gossipy ring that triggered Esmée’s human-interest radar. “There’s a rumor that Fenwick’s business, Colton Energy, is in trouble. Hamlin has signed the documents that will save Colton Energy once he marries Layla. But since the Groom Killer murders, Hamlin has gotten nervous and called off the engagement. Now the clock is ticking and Fenwick faces losing everything. He needs millions by December 31st or it’s all over. The problem is, if Fenwick loses Colton Energy, the funding for the K-9 unit will be pulled.”

  Esmée looked around her at the training center and the people who had gathered to celebrate the work it did. “That would be awful.”

  Hester spread her picnic blanket on the ground. “Fenwick is putting pressure on Chief Finn Colton to get a quick arrest. There is no such thing as family loyalty for our mayor. He can’t stand his lowlife cousin, Rusty, who owns a bar, or any of his kids. As far as Fenwick is concerned, he doesn’t care whether Demi is guilty or innocent. He just wants her arrested and locked up so folks won’t be scared of getting married and he can get his money-making plans back on track with his daughter’s wedding.”

  “Nice man.”

  Hester snorted. “You think?”

  Although Fenwick wasn’t the Colton that Esmée was interested in right now, the story added color to her research. There clearly wasn’t much family feeling between the three Colton patriarchs, Fenwick, Judson and Rusty. No wonder Demi had gone on the run. Guilty or innocent, there didn’t seem to be much sympathy for her in Red Ridge. On the subject of the dysfunctional Colton clan...

  She looked over at the enclosure in the center of the grass, where the officers were gathering with their dogs. “Which one is Brayden Colton?”

  “I don’t see him.” Hester shielded her eyes with her hand as she looked toward the enclosure. Some of the officers were standing in a group nearby. “But it will be easy to pick him out when he does get here. He’s the search-and-rescue officer on the team, so he wears an orange vest over his uniform. His K-9 partner, Echo, is a golden retriever. Echo also wears an orange vest.”

  It was a useful piece of information, and Esmée kept checking on the K-9 team as she and Hester took Rhys around the stalls and activities.

  Her feelings about Red Ridge were mixed. Jack was the reason she had come to this town. He had worked closely with her mother, assisting Portia da Costa on several of her best-selling true-crime books. After Portia died and Jack left the force, he had helped Esmée with her own research. He had even joined her in Wales, where she’d spent almost two years filming her award-winning documentary, What Remains. When Jack alerted her to the Groom Killer case, Esmée had im
mediately been intrigued. But arriving in town to find her friend had become one of the victims had tilted her whole world off course. It also made her motivation for staying a whole lot stronger.

  Even without Jack’s death and the background of the Groom Killer story, there was enough of an undercurrent here in Red Ridge to stimulate her interest. Esmée’s stories were about the individuals, families and communities that had been torn apart by acts of violence and lawlessness. It was hard to explain to anyone else, but she could also tell when a place was suffering. And, even though she’d only arrived recently, she knew Red Ridge was hurting more than any other town she’d known.

  When Jack had called her with the news he and Sarah were getting married, Esmée had just finished delivering an online course to murder-mystery writers. She was in the unusual position of being between jobs.

  “There’s a story here, if you’re interested,” Jack had said. “How about a town where folks are scared to get married in case the groom is murdered? Couples are making a big deal of publicly calling off their weddings. Flower stores, cake shops, caterers and wedding-dress designers are seeing their incomes plummet. No one is going on dates or out for romantic meals. Hell, most people are even scared to hold hands with their partner.” Jack always did have a knack for catching her attention and hooking her into a story, making her see the human-interest angle.

  Esmée had reached for a notepad and pen. “Red Ridge, South Dakota. The town where romance died?”

  She recalled that conversation as she looked around her now. Although there were couples at the show, she noticed a definite lack of any displays of affection. It created a strange, false atmosphere.

  Hester entertained her by explaining that there were competitions for the saddest eyes, waggiest tail, floppiest ears and scruffiest dog. “There was a campaign to have a crossbreed disqualified after he won all four categories last year.”

  Esmée burst out laughing. “Now that’s a dog I need to see.” She noticed that a tall, dark-haired officer in an orange search-and-rescue vest had entered the K-9 enclosure. “Hester, would you watch Rhys for a few minutes? There’s someone I need to talk to.”

  Copyright © 2018 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  ISBN-13: 9781488092978

  Cavanaugh Vanguard

  Copyright © 2018 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella

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