Colters' Gift

CHAPTER 19

THE drive to the house Seth shared with his two brothers and Lily was silent except for Lauren giving them directions where to turn off once they got out of town.

Dusk had already descended when they pulled in next to the parked vehicles in front of the house. The porch lights were on, and Seth appeared in the doorway as they got out of the vehicle.

Concern reflected on his face as he watched them approach. Dread pitted deep in Lauren’s stomach because she knew that before it was over with, everyone would have to know. Max. The Colters. And they would all know what a selfish coward she’d been.

She couldn’t meet Seth’s gaze when they stopped on the porch.

“What’s going on?” Seth asked quietly.

“We need access to a computer,” Noah said. “And depending on what we find on the disk we brought, we’ll need to discuss our options with you.”

Seth turned to Lauren. “Why don’t you go in and visit with Lily. I don’t want her upset. I’d rather her believe this is a social visit and that Noah and Liam need the computer for work.”

“I won’t say anything to her,” Lauren said in a low voice.

She started by Seth, but he caught her arm.

“I never thought you’d do anything to intentionally upset her, honey. But the look on your face speaks volumes right now. She’ll take one look at you and know something’s wrong right away.”

Lauren nodded her understanding. It was hard to pretend nothing was wrong when she knew she was responsible for a woman’s death. More than anything, she wanted Holly Colter. She was the closest thing Lauren had to a mother since her own had passed on. And right now, she really needed a mom.

Seth let her go and she walked into the living room, very nearly colliding with Michael Colter.

“Whoa there,” Michael said with a laugh.

Lauren forced a smile and willed herself not to outwardly show her internal devastation. “Where’s Lily?”

“She’ll be right out. Everything okay?”

Lauren nodded. “Yeah. Noah and Liam had some work stuff and I didn’t have a computer so Seth offered to let them borrow yours.”

On cue, the men walked into the living room. Dillon walked out of the kitchen and immediately dropped a kiss on the top of Lauren’s head.

“Hey kiddo. How you doing?”

She kept the smile on until her face ached. “I’m good.”

“When you going to dump the diner and come to work for me?”

It was a running joke between her and Dillon. He’d been mortally offended that she hadn’t come to him for a job, but she’d wanted to find work on her own and she liked the diner. While Dillon operated a great bar and grill, the bar scene wasn’t really her thing. She liked the quietness of the diner and getting to know the locals who came in regularly.

“When you buy the diner,” she said with a genuine grin.

He laughed. “You never know. I may yet add it to my growing list of real estate.”

Dillon Colter owned several businesses in Clyde, including the sporting goods store that was previously owned by a man Lauren only knew as Riley. He’d retired some time ago and had sold the business to Dillon.

Lily came into the living room, her belly looking tight as a beach ball. She smiled when she saw Lauren and came over to hug her.

“Have you eaten?” Lily asked.

Lauren blinked. She hadn’t. Hadn’t even thought about it.

“No, she hasn’t,” Liam said bluntly. “She’s probably starving.”

Lauren nearly groaned. So much for subtlety.

Lily grabbed Lauren’s hand and dragged her toward the kitchen. “Dillon made the most awesome pasta dish. I already ate, but I swear I’m hungry again. I’ll make us both a plate.”

Then she looked over her shoulder to where Noah and Liam stood. “Would you like something to eat too?”

Both men shook their heads.

Lily shrugged. “More for us,” she said with a grin in Lauren’s direction.

Noah watched as the women disappeared into the kitchen, and then he was immediately cornered by three large men who obviously had questions.

“Is Lauren in danger?” Dillon asked bluntly.

“Most likely, yes,” Liam said just as bluntly.

Seth swore. “What happened? Has that bastard shown his face here?”

Noah held up his hand. “Look. I really need that computer. Lauren has a disk with information she says she copied from Joel Knight’s computer. If what she says is on this disk is actually on it, we’ve opened one big-ass can of worms. But first I need to see exactly what’s on here, and then we can discuss what the hell we do with it.”

“Shit,” Michael muttered. “That doesn’t sound good at all.”

“I’ll get the laptop,” Dillon said as he turned to walk away.

“How serious is this looking?” Seth asked in a low voice after Dillon had left the room.

“Very,” Liam said shortly. “Lauren is devastated. The woman Noah and I questioned, who led us to Joel Knight and then eventually here to confront Lauren with what we’d found out, was found dead in her apartment. She was beaten to death the day after we spoke to her. Lauren’s taking it very hard. She blames herself.”

“Son of a bitch,” Seth bit out.

“Yeah,” Noah said. “We didn’t know about the disk. Another surprise, and not a good one. She’s determined to go back to New York with the evidence she has so she can put Joel away, and she blames herself for not having the courage to do it before. She feels guilty for running away and hiding behind her brother and your family. She feels like she’s let you all down.”

“That’s bullshit,” Michael said, his face drawn in anger.

“I want to shake her,” Liam said. “I’m pissed that she kept something this heavy from us. Or even you. Someone needed to know. I’m pissed that she blames herself. I’m pissed that she’s taking responsibility for everything that bastard has done.”

Dillon had returned for the tail end of the conversation and he scowled openly at Liam. “You didn’t hurt her, did you?”

Liam’s brows drew together in an angry cloud. “What the fuck? You think I’d hurt her? You think I’d do anything to make her afraid of me?”

Seth held up his hands. “Enough. I don’t want Lily or Lauren to overhear us. Dillon, you didn’t hear the whole story and we don’t have time to repeat it. Noah and Liam are protecting Lauren’s best interests.”

“She is our best interest,” Noah said flatly. Let them make what they wanted of that statement. He was staking a claim now so that when the shit hit the fan, there was no way the Colters or her brother were stepping in and taking over. Over his dead body would he and Liam simply step aside.

Michael’s eyebrow went up as he stared between the two men. “I suppose coming from me, surprise would be hypocritical.”

Liam snorted. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Dillon wasn’t quite ready to back down, though.

“Either of you do anything to take advantage of her or hurt her, and I’ll make you both very sorry.”

“I’m not fighting with you over Lauren unless you do something to interfere in our relationship or her safety,” Noah said calmly. “We both want the same thing. What’s best for Lauren. And we want her out of danger.”

Dillon relaxed. “Sounds like we’re on the same page then. We care about her a lot. She’s like a little sister to us. When she came here from New York, she . . . Well, she was a different woman.”

“We know,” Liam said quietly. “We were there just a few days after that bastard worked her over. We had to bully her to get her to eat, and she couldn’t stand the sight of us for a long time.”

“Let’s go into the office,” Seth said when Dillon held up the laptop. “I don’t know how long the girls will be, but I’d rather not hash this out in front of them. Besides the upset it’s obviously causing Lauren, Lily will worry, and we’re trying to make sure she has absolutely no stress during this pregnancy.”

“I understand,” Noah said. “I’m sorry we had to bother you. If it wasn’t so important, we would have waited, but this is potentially explosive and I don’t want to be caught unprepared when it comes to Lauren’s safety.”

“I’d be pissed if you hadn’t come to me,” Seth said.

He motioned them into an office just off the living room. The room smelled strongly of cedar. Fresh cedar. The room had a newness to it that the rest of the house lacked.

“Is this an addition?” Noah asked.

Dillon nodded. “We’ve added on quite a bit since Lily came to us.” His expression softened as he spoke of his wife. Noah doubted he even realized it. “Extra bedrooms. We gave Lily space for her painting and we added this office that we all use. Michael runs a veterinary clinic, I run several businesses, and Seth needs space at home to work as well.”

Seth motioned for Noah to take the seat behind the desk. He put the laptop down and opened it up as Noah maneuvered his way behind the desk.

When he put the disk in, Liam pushed his way in to look over Noah’s shoulder.

Once he opened the drive for the disk, he clicked on the file that was only labeled by a date. The date Lauren had left Joel and called her brother for help.

Once inside, there were several different files, and he clicked on the first, which was a spreadsheet. He quickly scanned over it, noting the categories. It was remarkably detailed with the name of the client, his sexual preferences, everything down to specific kinks. Deal breakers were listed for each client. Prices were different depending on which client it was, and the charges ranged from hourly to entire weekends.

There was a list of his “girls,” but they didn’t look like real names. Each client had a detailed list of past girls with notes rating each woman on her performance.

Disgust boiled in Noah’s gut. The bastard had basically done a follow-up every time one of the women serviced a client. There were marks of the times one of the girls was “disciplined” for not satisfying the client properly, and Noah could only imagine what that punishment entailed.

Once he got past the initial astonishment of how detailed the information was, he focused in on the client names.

“Holy fuck,” he murmured.

“What?” Seth demanded.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Liam asked in disbelief.

“What?” Dillon and Michael both bit out.

“I doubt the names would mean anything to you,” Noah explained. “Well, some of them would. There are quite a few celebrities listed. Movie stars, pro athletes, entertainers.”

“Where?” Dillon asked, shoving in so he could see the screen.

Noah pointed to several well-known names.

“I’ll be damned,” Dillon murmured. “These are the asshole’s clients? Men who used women for sex?”

“Women they paid for sex,” Liam said grimly. “Though I doubt the women pocketed nearly what Knight charged. His fees are exorbitant.”

“I’m more interested in these names,” Noah said, tapping the top of the screen.

“That one’s a judge.” He dropped his finger down two lines. “That one’s an aide to the mayor. This one is a state senator from New York. And this one is the one who most concerns me. This one is the police commissioner. Lauren said he had several cops on his payroll. It’s more likely he has blackmail material, and they make damn sure nothing touches Knight because if he goes down, he brings them all with him.”

“Fuck.”

The expletive exploded from Liam as he stood bristling with anger next to Noah.

“This sounds big,” Michael muttered.

“Yeah, it’s huge,” Seth said grimly.

Noah opened another of the files, and there was a list of the women on Knight’s payroll. Real names, social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and background information.

What drew Noah’s alarm was that there was a list of family members, friends, even neighbors. Detailed information on the women’s personal lives, where they liked to vacation, hang out, the salons they used. It was clear that Knight kept his women firmly under his thumb and that once they went to work for him, there was no escaping.

As he studied it closer, his mouth dropped open. There were notations out to the side of some of the women’s names that sounded ominous.

Situation taken care of.

No longer poses a problem for the organization.

Went to police. Threat eliminated.

Noah turned to Seth. “Is there any way you can discreetly run these names and details of the women with these notations and see if they’re still alive? And if they aren’t, find out date of death and circumstances? Because it sure as hell looks to me like he made notes on the women he killed or had killed.”

Seth’s expression was grim. “Yeah, print it off for me. I’ll do what I can.”

Dillon perched on the edge of the desk, angled so he could see Noah and Liam.

“What does this do for Lauren’s safety?”

“It damn sure doesn’t help,” Liam growled.

“She wants to go to New York and turn in the disk. She wants to nail Joel Knight’s ass to the wall,” Noah said.

“Shit,” Seth swore.

“She took Suki’s death very hard,” Noah continued.

“Suki?” Michael asked.

“She’s the woman Liam and I talked to and who was beaten to death the day after,” Noah replied. “Lauren blames herself. Said that if she’d gone to the police when she left Joel instead of running here to hide that Suki would be alive.”

“That’s crazy,” Dillon bit out. “She’d probably be dead herself. He would have gotten to her before Max ever got there.”

“Exactly,” Liam said. “But she has it in her head that she’s to blame and she wants to rectify the situation by going to New York and handing over the disk to the authorities.”

Seth rubbed a hand over his hair. “Does Max know about any of this?”

Noah shook his head. “We came straight here. I wanted to see what was on the disk before I made any decisions with regard to Lauren.”

“He’s going to flip out,” Michael said.

Liam leveled a stare at Seth. “What do you think, Seth? What are our options here? We have to be careful who we trust. We can’t just ignore the issue. It’s not going to go away. And the minute we relax our guard, that’s when that bastard will show up. For all we know he has someone looking for Lauren now. It’s obvious by looking at his records that he doesn’t take kindly to women leaving the fold. I can only imagine how personally he took it that a woman he considered his possession walked out on him.”

Seth nodded his lips drawn into a grim line. “I agree. From everything you’ve told me about him and from what Max has said, I’m inclined to agree that he’s not going to just forget about Lauren and move on. Which means you’ll always have to be looking over your shoulder unless something is done to stop him.”

“I think we should contact the district attorney and set up a meeting,” Noah said. “On our terms. We name the place and we prepare for the worst-case scenario, which is that the D.A. is dirty and the meeting is a setup to take Lauren out. We make damn sure she’s protected and that he’s on the up-and-up before we let him talk to her. And at no time do we give him any details about where Lauren is now or give him any of her family’s names.”

“Max wouldn’t be hard to track down,” Dillon pointed out. “If someone does any digging, they’ll discover Max and they’ll come here looking for her.”

Seth shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Max is a cagey bastard. I did some checking up on him when all that shit was going down between him and Callie. All I was able to discover about him was his connection to the business he owned. Apparently he’s always been big on privacy, because the only link was to the corporation, and the headquarters lists an address in New York City. I highly doubt that changed after he hooked up with Callie. He’s very protective of her, and he’s a wealthy son of a bitch. He wouldn’t want any risk to her whatsoever and she’s a free spirit, so putting her under lock and key wouldn’t exactly work.”

“Okay, well, that’s a good thing,” Liam said. “No one but Max and your family knows that she’s here or that she came from New York. I assume the locals only know she’s Max’s sister and not much else.”

Seth nodded. “Exactly. I don’t think you should take her anywhere near New York.”

Noah frowned. “Hell no. If the D.A.’s interested in talking to her, he’ll have to meet us someplace that isn’t connected to here or New York.”

“I’m sure Max would fly you out on his jet,” Seth said. “No paper trail that way. No IDs. No way to trace you back here. Have Lauren either dye her hair or wear a wig. Alter her appearance as much as possible for the meeting.”

“I like the way you think,” Liam said.

“And I don’t think you should go alone,” Seth added quietly.

Noah lifted his brow again. “Meaning what?”

“I think some of us should go with you as backup.”

Liam sent Noah a worried glance. The last thing they wanted was to involve the Colters. But he also recognized that he and Noah were only two people, and while they’d risk their lives to protect Lauren, if they went down, who would be left to protect her?

“I don’t know . . .” Noah hedged.

“Seth and I can go,” Dillon said firmly. “Michael can stay with Lily. We can talk to the dads. Max is going to have to know. We really need to let everyone in on what’s going on so we can plan Lauren’s meeting with the D.A. but also make sure that mom, Callie and Lily aren’t left unprotected here.”

“This is going to devastate Lauren even more,” Liam said. “She looks at you and your parents as her family. She loves all of you and she feels like she’s let you down and that she’s not worthy of the unconditional support you’ve offered her. She’s going to hate that it’s all going to come out this way.”

“Mom will nip that in the bud,” Michael said confidently. “The important thing is that we get the family together and decide what’s best for Lauren.”

Seth nodded his agreement. “Lauren is family. There’s no way in hell we’re just going to stand by on this. No offense to you and Noah. I’m sure you’re damn good at your job, and it’s obvious you care a lot about her.”

“No offense taken. We could use the help,” Noah said bluntly. “We need people we can trust, and I feel like we can trust you and your family absolutely.”

Seth checked his watch. “It’s late and I hate to drag everybody out tonight for a family meeting. But I think we should do it first thing in the morning so we can get rolling on what needs to be done. You take Lauren back home and try to get her to rest. Michael, can you call Doc Burton and ask him to call in something for Lauren to take to help her sleep tonight?”

Noah shook his head. “Don’t worry about Lauren. Liam and I will handle things with her. Just tell us when and where to meet you tomorrow. I’ll make sure she calls into work. There are things we need to get worked out between us before we bring in the rest of her family.”

Seth nodded his understanding. “We’ll meet at Mom and the dads’ place first thing in the morning at eight. I’ll go into work early and see what I can find out on those women on the printout. I’ll call Dad and let him know we’re coming. And then I’ll call Max.”

Noah rose from the chair he was seated in and extended his hand in Seth’s direction. “Appreciate the help. I know Lauren will too once she’s gotten over her fear and upset.”

Seth took his hand, shaking it. “You just watch out for our girl. She’s one of us even if her last name isn’t Colter.”

“What about Lily?” Michael said in a low voice. “For that matter, what about Mom and Callie? This is going to upset them.”

“Lauren is going to need their support,” Dillon said. “Lily would be pissed if we tried to keep this from her. Mom would kick all our asses. We’ve been through tough times before. Our women can handle it. We can’t protect them from everything. Besides, they need to know what we’re dealing with so they aren’t blindsided. They need to know to be on the lookout and to be careful until things are resolved.”

“I agree,” Seth said. “We can’t not tell them. They need to stick together and make sure they don’t go anywhere alone.”

“Okay then. We’ll take Lauren home and we’ll meet you at your parents’ place tomorrow at eight,” Noah said.

“Let’s go get our girl,” Liam said gruffly.