Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(64)

Shifting Nicholas onto her hip, she hurried into the kitchen. She’d seen Reid stash the keys to her Explorer in the drawer by the refrigerator. The same drawer where he’d put her cell phone when they’d arrived. Taking both from the drawer, she fumbled to put the phone back together. Like most mothers, she’d become adept at performing tasks while also holding a squirming child, but her nerves made her hands clumsy and it took several tries to get the battery to snap in place and the back cover securely snapped on. She hesitated the briefest moment before turning on the cell phone. Reid had purposely removed the batteries to prevent anyone tracking the phones through GPS. But she had to reach the doctor. And she needed to call Reid to tell him what was going on.

Her first call was to the doctor’s office, a number she kept stored in her phone. She explained to the receptionist who she was and that she had an emergency. “I’m sure I can be there in forty minutes or so if you could please wait on me.”

After extracting a promise from the office to see Nicholas after hours, she hurried to the Explorer. She’d call Reid from the road. She wasn’t at all sure she could reach the clinic as quickly as she’d promised. Her recollection of the time it took Reid to drive them into downtown a few days earlier was foggy since she’d slept in the car. The lake house was probably more like fifty minutes or an hour from town. And while she knew she could take Nicholas to the emergency room, she foresaw an interminable wait at the ER. Overworked doctors and nurses who weren’t familiar with Nicholas’s medical history.

As she buckled her son into his car seat, his cries grew to a frenzied pitch. She knew the tenor and volume well from past illnesses. He was in real pain.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Hang in there.” She quickly rifled through his diaper bag until she found a bottle of children’s acetaminophen drops. Hands shaking, she administered a dose, recapped the bottle and bolted to the driver’s seat.

Before cranking the engine, she plugged the address for the pediatric clinic into her map application and searched for driving directions. Next, she dug the scrap of paper out of her pocket that had the phone number for Reid’s burner cell. She put the phone on speaker; while it rang from her lap, she backed out of the garage and headed down the bumpy lane toward the country road.

“Turn left in a quarter mile,” her phone app said, while Reid’s burner cell rang without an answer.

“Mommy...” Nicholas cried pitifully.

“Hang on, darling. We’re going to get you help.” She turned onto the rural road, left a terse voice mail for Reid, then tapped the disconnect icon. Where was he? Why wasn’t he answering?

She gripped the steering wheel as she accelerated down the highway, then glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see Nicholas throw up the medicine she’d just given him. Her heart kicked hard seeing the droopy look of his eyes and the flush of his cheeks.

Speed limits be damned. Her baby needed help...quickly.

*

Reid flattened his hand on the diner’s table. “The family reacted to your disappearance about the way you’d expect. Backbiting, accusations, finger-pointing.”

Eldridge’s shoulders slumped, and he met Reid’s gaze. “Even Whitney?”

Reid scratched his head, trying to remember everything he’d heard Whitney say or do. “She’s done her share of finger-pointing, largely to shift the spotlight off herself. She was one of the first people suspected. She stood to inherit a lot of power and wealth, depending on the terms of your will. But after the will was read, it was obvious to everyone she really loves you. She didn’t care about what you did—or rather didn’t—leave her. She just wanted her, quote, ‘Dridgey-pooh back.’ From the looks of it, she truly mourned for you during the short time we believed the burned body was you.”

Eldridge heaved a relieved sigh and smiled. “Ah, Whitney...” Then he frowned darkly. “What burned body?”

Reid explained how, the month before, Hugh Barrington had claimed to have seen Eldridge shoved in a car at gunpoint and how the same car was seen later, crashed and burned with a charred body inside. “We all thought it was you for a few days, until a second medical examiner looked at the case and called us. When we tried to find the first ME and question him, the guy had disappeared.”

Reid’s burner cell buzzed at his hip, and he flipped it up to check the number. At a glance, he knew it wasn’t the secure cell he’d left for Pen, although the number on the caller ID did look familiar. But Penelope was the only person for whom he’d interrupt his discussion with Eldridge. He re-clipped the phone at his waist and regarded his father.

Eldridge’s hands twitched and fidgeted on the tabletop, and his dour expression echoed his agitation. “So who do you think Hugh saw getting kidnapped? Do they know who the burned body did belong to?”

Reid glanced out the large picture window beside their booth to the slow-moving traffic on the street. “We have reason to believe Hugh arranged for a body to be stolen from a funeral home or morgue. Probably thanks to more greased palms.”

“Hugh?” The surprise in Eldridge’s tone drew Reid’s attention back to his father. “Why do you suspect Hugh?”

“Well, the terms of your will certainly gave him reason to want people to think you were dead.” At Eldridge’s befuddled look, Reid added, “Controlling interest in Colton Inc.?” He barked a humorless laugh. “Let me tell you, Fowler was not pleased by that surprise.”