Colters' Lady (Colters' Legacy #2)(10)

“I’m not having this conversation with you right now,” Seth bit out. “There are things you don’t know about Lily. I can’t even convince her to let her guard down around me. She walked in here, saw you and now she’s ready to bolt.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Michael asked, now dead serious.

Seth glanced down at the mug of hot chocolate, swore and then stuck it in the microwave. Then, as if realizing how much time had passed since Lily had gone to get dressed, he glanced at his watch and frowned.

“She’s been gone too long,” he muttered.

Michael watched as Seth stomped off down the hall. A few seconds later he heard, “Son of a bitch!” And then the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting the wall.

Michael surged to his feet, adrenaline spiking sharp through his veins. Seth came barreling out of the hallway and then ducked into the dining room. He came back out, face set in stone.

“What the hell is wrong?” Michael demanded.

“While you and I were out here discussing Lily, she took off.”

Michael’s eyebrow went up at the urgency in Seth’s voice. “Won’t she be back?”

“No, goddamn it. She’s homeless, Michael. She doesn’t have a place to stay. I found her between two cardboard boxes on the f**king street. She’s scared and alone, and she has no place to go. It took me forever to convince her to come here, and now she’s run scared.”

Michael’s stomach bottomed out with a thud. “Homeless? What the f**k?”

Seth whirled around like he couldn’t figure out what he needed to do first. He grabbed up his keys and then shoved his feet into his shoes.

“Yeah, homeless. I served her in the soup kitchen yesterday. I volunteer there once a month. She came in and bam. I mean I still don’t know what happened. When she left I followed her because I couldn’t stand the thought of her having no place to go. I found her in an alley, cold and alone.”

“Son of a bitch,” Michael muttered.

Seth pointed a finger at him. “Right now I don’t give a damn about what you feel for her or think you feel. I don’t give a shit about some f**king Colter gene that you think we got from the dads. All I care about is getting her back. Here. Where she belongs. Get your ass out to your Jeep so you can help me look. Everything else is just going to have to goddamn wait.”

Chapter Four

Seth punched in Michael’s cell number as be backed out of the drive. Michael picked up on the first ring.

“She can’t have gone far, Michael. We’ll skirt the perimeter of the house and make our way downtown. She’s probably heading back to the only place she knows.”

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

Seth hung up and focused his attention on the streets. At each intersection, he crawled forward, glancing each way for any sign of her.

For an hour he traversed the streets around his neighborhood, gradually falling away to the cityscape of downtown Denver. She could have caught a bus. She could have walked the entire way. Or she could be at any point in between. Cold. Alone.

Gentle rain began to fall, almost certainly a precursor to sleet and later snow. Seth cursed as he turned his wipers on. Not only would it make it nearly impossible to see her, but now she would be cold and wet with no protection from the elements.

“Where are you, Lily?” he murmured as he turned down a narrow street just a few blocks from the café where he and Lily had hot chocolate. “Why did you run? What are you running from?”

At the end of the street, he slammed on the brakes as he was confronted by a sea of flashing blue lights. Patrol cars were everywhere. Two SWAT vans were blocking traffic on two streets. Several unmarked cars were mixed in with the ambulances and fire trucks. It looked like the entire world had gone to hell around him.

Recognizing his lieutenant, Seth jammed the gear into park and then bolted from the truck, dodging through the rain as it slid down his neck.

“L.T.!” he called as he ran up.

Lieutenant Monday turned, his expression startled as he saw Seth. Then he scowled. “What the hell are you doing here, Colter?”

“What’s going on?” Seth demanded.

Monday rubbed an irritated hand through his hair. “Fucking drug dealers went to war over turf. I wish the f**kers would just kill each other and be done with it, but they insist on taking down innocent civilians with them. I’ve got bodies over eight blocks. Most of them the ass**les in question, but I’ve got at least three bystanders in body bags and two more en route to the hospital.”

Seth’s stomach tightened into a knot. “Shit.”

His lieutenant looked up. “Why are you down here?”

“I’m looking for someone. Her name is Lily. Short. Maybe five-one. Short, curly black hair. Vivid blue eyes. If you saw her, you’d remember.”

Monday frowned. “Don’t recall, but then I’ve seen a damn lot of faces today. Check with Houston over there. He has a list of the people we’ve ID’d.”

“Thanks, L.T.”

Seth hurried over to where Carl Houston stood barking orders into his radio.

“Hey man,” Seth said as Carl turned around. “L.T. said you have a list of casualties.”

“Looking for someone?”

“Yeah. Young woman named Lily. No last name.”