Chapter 3

      Ryan knew that as an investigating detective with the Tulsa PD, even if he was questioning his own sister, because he was doing it in reference to a current active case he was working on, it was in everyone’s best interest to keep things businesslike and official. Among other things, that meant that he should be making this call from the phone on his desk at the precinct, not from his personal cell phone while he was sitting in his car.

      He supposed that he could argue that he was doing it for the quiet, because the precinct was usually almost too noisy to allow anyone to hear themselves think. But the truth of the matter was that his real reason for making the call from inside his vehicle was that he didn’t want to be overheard.

      It was bad enough that he had to ask his sister painful, probing questions like this without having everyone within a ten-foot radius hearing him asking. He was a Colton. One of the Coltons. The family that had, through absolutely no fault of their own, their very own serial killer in their family tree, thanks to his father’s brother, Matthew.

      Granted, it all had happened a long time ago and his uncle had been locked away in prison for a while now, but he was well aware of the fact that people loved to point an accusing finger and watch people of prominence come tumbling down. They loved watching their fallen-from-grace sinners every bit as much as they loved cheering on their saints and heroes.

      Sometimes even more so.

      He wanted no part in supplying those people with any sort of ammunition, especially if there did actually turn out to be a reasonable excuse for all this.

      He supposed a tiny part of him hadn’t turned cynical yet and still believed in miracles.

      So he sat in his vehicle, trying not to notice how stuffy it seemed with the windows rolled up and his doors locked, and he called his sister’s number.

      After a short delay, he heard the cell phone start to ring. Waiting for Greta to answer her phone, Ryan counted off the number of times her cell rang. After four, her voice mail kicked in. Impatient, he was about to terminate the call and try again in a couple of minutes when he heard Greta’s breathless voice as she came on the line.

      “Hello?”

      Rather than relax, he felt his shoulders stiffen. “Greta? It’s me. Ryan.”

      “Hi.” And then he heard her ask guardedly, “What’s up?”

      Was that just his imagination—or her guilty conscience stepping up? “I’m coming up to the ranch to see you.”

      He heard her laugh softly. “Well, you can come up to the ranch, but you won’t see me.”

      Was he tipping her off with this call? Was she planning on taking off? He needed more to work with. “Why?” he asked.

      “Why do you think?” Not waiting for him to respond, she gave him the answer to her own question. “Because I’m not at the ranch. I’m not in Tulsa at all. I’m back in Oklahoma City.”

      Ryan frowned to himself. Ever since Greta had gotten engaged, she’d spent more and more of her time in Oklahoma City, where her fiancé lived. She’d even taken on horse training jobs there.

      “I thought you’d stick around the ranch for a while, you know, because of Mother.”

      There was silence on the other end of the line and for a moment, he thought that the call had been dropped. But then Greta said, “Yes, well, I wasn’t really doing her any good just hanging around the house. Especially since she kept looking at me as if she was afraid of me. As if she thought I was going to do something to her. I don’t know what’s with that,” Greta complained, sounding as if she was at a complete loss.

      “Did you ask her about it?” Ryan asked.

      “Yes. But when I asked her why she was looking at me like that,” Greta went on, obviously upset about the matter, “she denied it.”

      “So what’s the problem?”

      He heard Greta sigh. “I got the feeling she denied it because she was afraid if she didn’t, I’d do something to her.”

      He couldn’t believe that things between his mother and sister had actually degenerated down to this, but then Abra was prone to mood swings. “You’re imagining things, Greta.”

      He heard Greta sigh. “I suppose that maybe I am, but just the other day she asked me if I was doing any recreational drugs. Me, who’s never taken anything stronger than an aspirin. I think that beating Mother took might have been even more serious than any of us suspected.”

      It was Ryan’s turn to sigh. No one was more frustrated about not being able to find whoever had hurt his mother than he was. But right now, he had the break-in to deal with.

      The break-in with the evidence mounting against Greta. There had to be an explanation for all this, he thought, but he needed to talk to her in person to get at the truth.

      Growing up, Greta had been a tomboy almost in self-defense. She’d been outnumbered by her brothers five to one and had learned to hold her own at a very early age. At five-nine she was tall and willowy, and at first glance, very feminine.

      But she was also tough to the point that he was certain no one could easily push her around. As far as he knew, his sister didn’t really have much of a temper, but then he supposed everyone could be pushed to their limit. What was Greta’s limit? he couldn’t help wondering.

      Was there something that could push Greta over the edge?

      His thought process suddenly took him in a very new direction, almost against his will. What if, for some reason, their mother had suddenly taken exception to Greta’s pending marriage to Mark Stanton? Handsome and glibly charming, it was no secret that the younger brother of the president of Stanton Oil got by on his looks, not his work ethic. Maybe, despite the fact that she had been instrumental in throwing Greta and Mark an engagement party—their father always left such things to his wife—Abra had told Greta to slow down and think things through and Greta had balked. One thing could have had led to another and—

      And what? Ryan silently demanded. Greta had had a complete reversal in personality and gone ballistic on their mother? That account just didn’t fly for him.

      None of this was making any sense to him—and he was getting one hell of a headache just reviewing all the various details over and over again in his head.

      “Ryan? Are you still there?” The stress in Greta’s voice broke through his thoughts.

      “What?” Embarrassed, he flushed. Luckily there was no one to see him. “Yeah, I’m still here, Greta. How long have you been in Oklahoma City?” he asked her abruptly, changing direction.

      He heard her hesitate. Was she thinking, or...?

      “A couple of weeks or so,” Greta finally answered. “Why?”