The Hero's Son

“All right, you caught me,” she conceded. “I’ve only been in Memphis for six weeks.”

“What brought you here?”

“I got a job with the Journal. I’m a reporter.”

His dark eyes met hers. “Made any enemies since you’ve been here?”

Besides you and your father, you mean? “Reporters always make enemies,” she said. “We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t.”

He gave her a disparaging glance. “What about your private life?”

“Are you asking if I have any jilted lovers lurking about in the bushes?”

He smiled slightly. “Something like that. Jealousy and rejection are powerful motivations. They rank right up there with revenge.”

Their gazes collided, and something jolted inside Valerie. Something she wanted to deny, but couldn’t.

What is going on here? This man is your enemy, remember?

Or at least, he was the son of her enemy. And if she forgot that fact, all she had to do was look into his eyes.

The devil’s eyes…

Must be the painkiller, she decided. The drug had dulled her senses. She’d better get rid of him.

“Look, why don’t we cut to the chase here, shall we? You asked if I’d made any enemies since I’ve been in town. We both know that I have.” She ran a tired hand through her tangled hair. “You’re Judd Colter’s son, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.” His eyes still gave away nothing.

Valerie shrugged. “Then you must know about the article I wrote for the Journal. The one about the Kingsley kidnapping. If you really want to find out who pushed me in front of that bus, maybe you should start with the three people I mentioned in that article. Including your own father, Sergeant Colter.”

A tiny spark of anger ignited in his eyes, the first emotion he’d shown since he’d walked into her room. “Are you accusing my father of attempted murder, Ms. Snow?”

When she didn’t reply, he said, “It might interest you to know that he recently suffered a stroke. He’s a very sick man. He’s hardly capable of dressing himself, much less pushing someone in front of a bus.”

An image flashed in Valerie’s mind of the way Judd Colter had looked that night all those years ago. He’d been a vigorous man, tall and muscular, at the peak of physical conditioning. For a moment she felt… what? Surely not sympathy at the thought of such a man being crippled by a stroke. She remembered her own father and why he had been sent to prison, and she lifted her chin.

“He wouldn’t have to do it himself, and in any case, there were others mentioned in the article besides Judd Colter. Your uncle, for instance. Raymond Colter was involved in the Kingsley kidnapping investigation, too, as was Captain Rawlins, an old family friend, I believe. Any one of them could have hired someone to follow me.” Her eyes narrowed as she gazed up at him. “As a matter of fact, I can’t help wondering what you were doing on that street corner, Sergeant Colter.”

He cocked his head slightly. “Is that a question or an accusation?”

Valerie shrugged.

“As you said, my cousin is holding a press conference this afternoon. I guess it was just luck that put me at the right place at the right time.”

Valerie wasn’t sure if there was sarcasm in his voice or not. She gave him a long, hard stare. “Whatever your reason for being there, the fact remains that someone tried to kill me, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”

“I’ll file a report as soon as I get back to headquarters.”

She looked at him incredulously. “That’s it?”

“There’ll be an investigation, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” Valerie retorted cynically. “And I’m sure no stone will be left unturned.”

He flipped his notebook closed and put it away. “You don’t like cops much, do you?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

An ironic smile touched his lips. “Your article, for one thing.”

“Then you did read it.”

“Oh, I read it, all right.”

“And what did you think?”

It was his turn to shrug. “I guess it made me wonder what it is you really want.”

“That’s easy,” Valerie told him. “I want justice.”

“For whom?”

“Cletus Brown.”

He looked at her in disgust. “Cletus Brown kidnapped and murdered a three-year-old boy. Justice was served when my father arrested him. Justice was served when Brown was convicted by a jury of his peers and the judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole.”

“The evidence against him was all circumstantial,” Valerie said.

“Circumstantial or not, it was pretty convincing as I recall. His own brother-in-law testified against him.”

“Yes, because he hated him,” Valerie blurted. Then, when she saw Brant looking at her curiously, she tempered her words. “It was no secret. The two of them didn’t get along. Odell Campbell worked for the Kingsleys as a chauffeur, and he used to throw Cletus Brown some repair work occasionally, but only because Cletus was married to his sister. He said so under oath. He claimed Cletus had been around a few days before the kidnapping, wanting to borrow money, then asking all kinds of questions about the big fund-raiser Iris Kingsley was throwing for her son, wanting to know about the mansion’s security and all that. But it was always his word against Cletus’s. No one else heard the conversation.”

“But why would he lie?” Brant challenged. “Why would he want to send his own sister’s husband to prison?”

He was still looking at her strangely, and Valerie realized how close she’d come to blowing her cover. She would have to be a lot more careful from now on, especially around Brant Colter. She couldn’t afford to arouse his suspicions any more than they already were.

“Two reasons,” she forced herself to say evenly. “He never thought Cletus was good enough for his sister, and since she wouldn’t divorce him, this was a good way to get rid of him.”

A dark brow lifted in skepticism. “And the other reason?”

“He was paid to lie. He quit his job with the Kingsleys several months after Cletus Brown was convicted and sent to prison. He turned up driving a new car, wearing new clothes, apparently having money to burn. Where did he get it?”

Brant frowned. “How do you know all this?”

“I’m a reporter. I’m paid to dig up this kind of information. Just like cops are—or should be.”

Their gazes clashed again, and beyond the icy surface, Valerie saw smoldering animosity in Brant’s dark eyes. Animosity and something else that made her wonder how she could ever have thought him without emotion.