Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(74)

*

As they bumped up the pothole-riddled road to the remote airstrip, Penelope spotted her father’s Lincoln Continental. “There,” she said, pointing it out to Reid.

“All right.” He whipped his Range Rover into the parking lot and jammed it into Park. “You stay in the car. Let me handle this.”

“He’s my father. I—”

“All the more reason for you to stay put.”

She started to argue, but knew someone had to stay in the car with Nicholas. And Reid was the ex-cop. He’d know better how to handle her fleeing father. Assuming they weren’t too late.

She grabbed Reid’s sleeve as he shouldered open the driver’s door. When he faced her, she leaned across the center console and gave him a deep kiss. He returned the kiss, cupping her cheek in his palm before climbing out of the vehicle.

“Be careful, Reid.”

He jerked a tight nod. “When this is over,” he said, his expression grim, “we need to talk.”

The car door slammed shut as he rushed off, sending a shudder of dread to her core. Not only was Reid headed toward a confrontation with her father, but the look in his eyes as he’d issued his parting comment boded ill. We need to talk. Had anything good ever followed that statement?

While she agreed they had things to discuss, she feared the track his conversation would go down would be much different than hers.

*

Reid pulled his handgun from his waistband at the small of his back and ran around the side of the airport office to the hangar. He spotted Hugh at the side of a small twin-engine plane talking loudly to a man in coveralls and gesturing with his hands.

The plane’s propellers were already spinning, and the engines idled with a rumbling purr.

“Barrington!” Reid leveled his weapon at the lawyer who’d done so much to hurt Pen through the years. Coldness, distance...conspiring to murder Andrew. If he hadn’t once sworn an oath to uphold the law, he might have put a bullet in Hugh then and there. But murdering her father in cold blood was hardly the start to the life he hoped to build with Pen. Instead he worked to keep the calm professionalism he’d need to bring the man in.

Hugh spun to face him, and Reid saw Pen’s father grimace. Reach in his coat pocket. Extract a gun.

Reid stopped in his tracks, holding his weapon still poised toward Hugh with one hand and raising his other hand palm out. “Easy, man. No one has to die today.”

“I shot Fowler. Don’t think I won’t shoot you if I have to!” Hugh shouted.

The man in the coveralls scuttled away, pulling out a phone as he hurried to safety.

Reid sidestepped behind a pickup truck parked on the tarmac for protection in case Hugh opened fire.

“Fowler survived.” At least he hoped his half brother was still alive. “If you surrender now, maybe you can still work out a plea. But if you kill me, my family will see you put away for life.”

Hugh shook his head, and Reid could see him perspiring, despite the December chill. “I can’t go to jail. I won’t. I’m getting in that plane and getting out of here. Don’t try to stop me!”

“Too much has happened, Hugh,” Reid said evenly, despite the fury that churned inside him. “I can’t let you walk away.”

“I didn’t kill Eldridge! I swear to you I don’t know where he is!” A tenor of panic and desperation filled Barrington’s voice.

“I know that. I found Eldridge today. Alive. He’s been living in downtown Dallas the whole time.”

Hugh stiffened. “He what?”

“It was a ploy to see who in the family he could trust. To see Whitney’s true colors. And to root out any traitors in his inner circle.” Reid paused, watching Barrington’s body wilt, though the lawyer still held the gun aimed with a trembling hand.

“Did you tell him...what you found in my office?”

Reid drew a slow breath. “Yes.”

Hugh’s jaw tightened. “I wanted only what I’d earned. I helped make your father what he became. I saved his ass over and again. I deserved my fair share of his company!”

Reid wasn’t going to haggle the right and wrong of what Hugh had done, but he did need one point clarified. For closure. “And Andrew? Did you put the potassium in his insulin vial?”

Hugh hiked up his chin and his face grew florid. “Yes, damn it! I knew he was trying to build a case against me. I didn’t mean for you to be the one who gave him the fatal dose. I thought he’d do it to himself one day. But even that was a last-ditch effort, when framing him for stealing drugs from the evidence room didn’t get him to back off. I told him I’d clear his name if he’d abandon his witch hunt against me, but he refused.”

“Wait...you framed him for taking the stolen evidence? I thought he—” Reid’s gut pitched. Andrew was innocent. He’d never been a crooked cop. Andrew had tried to defend his honor and reputation when they’d argued that last morning, but all Reid had seen was the circumstantial evidence...

Hugh took a backward step toward the steps of the small plane, and Reid yanked himself from his reflection. “Hugh, stop!”

“No! I’m leaving. I’d die in prison. I refuse to suffer the humiliation of a trial and a jail cell and...”

Reid darted from behind the truck to the door of the hangar, staying behind the wall, but nearer to Hugh. He could almost reach him. Could almost dash out and tackle him during a distraction... “Barrington, I will shoot you to keep you from getting on that plane. Don’t put me in that position. I love Penelope, and I don’t want to be responsible for shooting her father.”