Chapter 30
Colt
The eggs popped in the pan as I flipped them over. Shit. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to burn them.
My mind was all over the place. There was something about the photo being dropped off on my porch that I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around.
It felt familiar. Maybe a case I’d worked on sometime in the past?
Maybe something I’d seen in a movie? I didn’t understand why I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where that feeling was coming from.
Two arms wrapped around my waist, and I smiled as I felt Vi’s belly press into my back.
“Morning, again,” she greeted me. “Something smells great.”
“Figured we needed to get some good fuel into you. We never did eat dinner last night, and we burned a bunch of calories out under the stars.”
Violet laughed as she snagged a piece of bacon off the paper towel-lined plate. “Oh God, this is delicious.”
I bent down, kissing her, letting my tongue lick the salt from her lips.
“Mm, you’re right.”
Her eyes were wide, pupils blown out. Her mouth had popped open and the cutest silent oh sat unspoken on her soft and still kiss-swollen lips.
“Too bad we didn’t have those cupcakes,” she joked. “Bacon and cupcakes in bed would have been a real treat.”
“I think we can find other ways for spending the day in bed to be a treat, don’t you?”
“Actually,” she laughed, patting her hand against my arm, “I need to spend some time writing this morning. Ryan is going to kill me if I fall any further behind schedule. I’m almost thinking he’s going to need to ask the publisher for another extension, but I doubt they’d give it to us at this point. I’m that far behind.”
“It’s not like those things have been in your control though.”
“No, and it’s not the end of the world. We’ll figure it out.” She smiled at me, sneaking another piece of bacon when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I turned, crossing my arms. “Can I read what you're writing?”
“Oh, absolutely not.” She waved the piece of bacon out in front of her like a baton. “It's a mess, and meant only for my eyes.”
“Are you writing a second chance romance?” My bottom lip slipped between my teeth as I winked.
She laughed. “I think we're writing one of those together, don't you?”
I nodded, placing my hand on her belly. “I think it's your best work yet.”
She sighed, but the flush that bloomed across the bridge of her nose told me she felt the same way. “After I'm done writing words that you are forbidden to see, I’d like to see the storage room, if you’re up for it. We don’t have to move things out, I just want to see what we’re working with.”
Fuck. I knew I couldn’t keep her away from that room forever. I just didn’t know if she was ready…
“Yeah, that all sounds great.”
Vi sat at the table, her laptop open while she typed like she was running out of time. I brought her over a glass of orange juice and got a smile as she gulped it down.
The eggs finished cooking just as I pulled our plates down from the cupboard. Vi gasped, and I whipped around, our plates clattering on the counter as I dropped them to get to her.
Her eyes were wide and watery, and I swear I watched as her normally flushed face drained of all its color.
“What is it?”
“He…he emailed me again. I don’t understand. No one should have this address.”
I turned the laptop away from her, my eyes running over every word. Trying to commit them to memory.
But I couldn’t, because they were already there.
“Violet. Holy shit. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.” Every nerve in my body buzzed as adrenaline dumped into my veins. How had I not seen it? How hadn’t Violet?
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
I pulled my phone out as I turned to walk through the house.
“Hey, Colt. Everything good?” Gage Walker, the cyber-security expert at Montgomery Defense, answered on the second ring.
“I need you to hack into my wife’s laptop and trace an email for me.”
“That…uh…I can do it, but I just need to know…is this my friend Colt, the Clarence County Sheriff’s Deputy asking, or is this Colt, the worried husband who is going to look the other way so I can get him some results?”
“The second one. You need to come over to do it?”
“Nope. I’ll access it from here. Just leave it connected to the internet. I’ll send you a text in a minute with the info I need from you, then just leave it to me, okay?”
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Anytime, man.”
Violet huffed up the stairs behind me as I hauled my ass down to my office.
“Colt?” She stumbled over my name as her eyes scrutinized every book on the shelf.
Violet melted into me as my hands settled against her hips.
The baby rolled as I pressed my hand against their little bum—or their head.
I tried to remember how the doctor had said they were positioned when we were at the hospital.
“You have them. You have all of them?” Her books, every one that she’d published after our marriage fell apart, sat on display in my office. Even the special edition books, with commissioned artwork and painted edges, sat displayed on a shelf with their own lights to highlight them.
Stealing Hope.
Vanishing Dreams.
Finding Home.
Book after book with her name and mine on the spine. Callie Ford. A play on the name I always loved and cherished, that I kissed across her body so many times it was branded on my heart, too. And the one she never let a single one of our friends or family call her.
“I thought you hated that name.” I smiled as I pulled the first book off the shelf. Fuck. I’d had these words memorized from the first time I read them. My eyes dropped to the pages as I flipped through all the annotations and highlights. Where the hell was that scene…
“I hate Calliope. You know I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. The only person who ever called me that name and made me want to love it was you. Hayes told me you read them, but you even have my special editions?” She gasped. “You have a copy of my book box collab?”
I nodded. “Why did you use that name, Vi?”
She stared at me for a moment before shrugging her shoulders.
“Out in the publishing world, being Callie Ford, it’s always been my armor. It was a way I could still be protected by you.” Her whispered words warmed my tight chest. “What does this have to do with him, though?”
I smiled. “I thought something about all of this was familiar. Just chalked it up to another case I was maybe involved with in the past. But that email he sent today, I think that’s going to be his undoing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t recognize the words?”
“No. Not at all.”
“You wrote them,” I said.
“No, I didn’t…”
“The proclamation of love? He’s taken that from A Love to End Them All, and put your name in there. And the way he’s only ever written that you're his? What if that is supposed to reflect the way your heroes are always so protective and possessive?”
“Ew. I wrote the words he’s been torturing me with?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I think he’s using your stories as a blueprint to get you to want to be with him.”
A shiver rolled through her body. “I’m never writing again.”
“No, Vi. This is good. We can cross reference everything he’s sent so far. If things line up, we might be able to see where the hell this is going. We might be able to catch him before his next move.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I think we finally have the upper hand.”
I had clearly gotten ahead of myself. My theory was proving right, but the time it was taking Violet and myself to try and decipher a pattern to this lunatic’s madness was taking its toll.
Violet had been shifting more and more in her chair the last hour. I watched several times where her hand slid to her belly for a moment and she held her breath, only to groan slightly or close her eyes before returning to whichever book she was looking through.
I didn’t know if they were just Braxton Hicks or real contractions, but I was timing the hell out of them.
“I think I need a break,” she said as she pushed off the chair.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just…this is a lot. Maybe we could go decide what we’re doing with the storage room. I’d like to focus on something happy for a bit.”
“Okay.” I grabbed her hand and brought her down the hallway, past our bedroom, and to the room at the end of the hall. I took a big breath, and opened the door.
Violet was silent as she walked in, her head scanning the clean and cleared out space.
The crib she’d picked out almost a decade ago, but never watched me assemble, was sitting in the corner, a precious horse and cowboy hat mobile gently swaying.
I asked my mom years ago for my grandmother’s rocking chair.
She never asked me why I wanted it, just simply patted my shoulder and told me I could have it.
It sat in another corner with a table and lamp, perfect for midnight feedings.
“Colt?” Shit. Her voice cracked. I moved quickly, walking until I could see her face. Silent tears tracked down past her jaw. I’d messed up.
“I’m so sorry, Vi. I should have told you…”
“When did you do all this? Did I sleep through you putting this room together?”
“No. It’s been like this for years.”
“Years?”
I nodded. “After your mother’s funeral. I just…
I needed to feel close to you again. And it was still on the list of things for us to tackle on your honey-do list. So, I started with the crib, and I just sort of didn’t stop.
” My fingers brushed away her tears. “If you hate it, we can change whatever you want.”
“I love it,” she whimpered. “It’s perfect. Everything I used to imagine before I gave up on this dream. I’m sorry you had to do it alone.”
“No.” I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear as her hand landed on my chest. “Don’t be. I got to do something that gave me hope. And look where it led.”
“A true manifesting king,” she joked.
“Something like that.”
“Can I look closer at things?”