narrowing quickly. “You’re here about my mother?”
“In part.”
“Why don’t we start from the beginning, then. Who are you?”
Hawk produced a card and handed it over. “I’m a private investigator. I have an office in Houston and I’ve been working on a case for the Krupid family for the past few months.”
He deliberately tossed out the Krupid name, curious to see if it registered, but Claudia remained unaffected as she glanced up from the card.
When she said nothing, he continued on. “They lost a daughter many years ago.”
Although confusion stamped her features, the wariness that had ridden her gaze at his arrival had faded in full. “I’m sorry for their loss, Mr. Huntley, but how does that have anything to do with me or my mother?”
“You’re aware of your mother’s ties to the skin trade?”
A flicker of something crossed her face, then vanished nearly as fast as it arrived. “Yes.”
“The Krupids believe their daughter was a part of your mother’s business, enslaved into prostitution.”
He’d expected anger. Perhaps even a bit of denial. What he never expected were the clear signs of remorse and sadness. They filled her face in sympathetic lines and spilled over in the gentling of her voice. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but my mother ruined many lives. More than I’m sure we can ever fully fathom.”
“You’re aware of your mother’s crimes?”
“Of course. I was a teenager when she went to jail, but I’m well aware of what she’s capable of. Worse, I’m aware of what she’s done.”
From her ties to sex trafficking, to the politicians she’d kept in her pocket, to the tight rein she had over most everything illegal in central Texas, Livia Colton had done enough damage for five lives. Even today, there were rumors she’d only been convicted for about a third of what she was actually responsible for, including several murders that remained unsolved.
Yet even with that knowledge, Hawk was surprised by Claudia’s quiet acceptance.
The still figure captivated him and he paused a moment to simply observe her. She was a beautiful woman. Tall and voluptuous, she had blond hair that cascaded down over her shoulders in a golden glow, matched to gray eyes that could knock a man to his knees. She had a sophistication and grace about her—a refinement, really—that carried her beyond the simplicity of her current situation.
She was a diamond in a town that had very little polish on it. And if he weren’t mistaken, Claudia Colton’s shine came from who she was and the life she’d built for herself, not the life she was born into.
How did someone like this come from a woman like Livia Colton? Although he was still in college when the infamous woman’s crimes had come to light, Hawk could remember the trial. The hunt for answers. And the relatively few details that had ultimately come to light for a woman purported to have such deep roots in criminal activity.
Those details had remained equally sketchy as he began investigating the Krupids’ case. The only reason he’d even connected the Krupid family and the death of their daughter to Livia Colton had been almost a sheer accident. But once he’d made the connection, every line he’d tugged started in the same spot.
Shadow Creek.
The small town nestled in the Texas Hill Country boasted acres of farmland and some of the prettiest land in the entire state. It was also where Livia Colton’s six children had been raised and often made their home.
He’d done his research on all of them. Six siblings, all seemingly fathered by different men. Children who’d grown up in the shadow of a powerful mother and her shady life. Heirs who’d been abandoned by the town, left to fend for themselves when the truth of their mother’s crimes came to light.
Claudia was a product of that. And, Hawk pulled her details from memory, she’d hightailed it out of Shadow Creek at the first opportunity. The moment she turned eighteen, Claudia headed for New York City, earning her degree before starting work in the fashion industry. Her return to Texas was recent and, from what he could see, something she’d embraced.
Yet something didn’t add up.
Why was she back? The young woman’s return to Shadow Creek coincided with her mother’s prison break earlier in the year. And her reunion with her family seemed to have a permanence, especially since she’d become the newest proprietor on the busiest street in Shadow Creek.
“I’m afraid I still don’t know how to help you, Mr. Huntley. Those crimes of my mother’s were put to bed over a decade ago.”
“Do you honestly think the police uncovered everything there was to find?”
“Maybe not, but I hardly have the answers on where they should look.”
“Maybe you do.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve been working this case for the Krupid family for several months now. They want to find answers. They want closure and the chance to still provide for their daughter, Annalise.”
That gray gaze had shuttered, her voice brisk and businesslike. “But I still don’t see how that affects me. Nor, I’m afraid to say, do I understand how her parents can possibly provide for a woman who passed many years ago.”
“By taking care of her child.”
Claudia shook her head. “Now you’re talking in riddles. Whatever my mother was, she wasn’t someone who killed innocent babies, Mr. Huntley. I’m afraid your leads have gone cold.”
He moved in, just a few steps but it was enough to have her eyes going wide, her mouth dropping in a small O. He lowered his voice, unwilling to share every private detail in earshot of her employee.
“If I’m right, and I believe I am, Livia Colton didn’t kill the baby. She took her and told everyone she was hers.”
“I think we’d have known if my mother stole a baby.”
The words were pointed fact, but Hawk didn’t miss the thread of understanding beneath them. Nor did he miss the light quaver in her voice that ensured whatever he said next wasn’t going to be a complete surprise.
“You’re the baby, Ms. Colton. Your mother is Annalise Krupid.”
* * *
“I’m what?”
Claudia had seen her mother pull a fainting spell several times throughout her life. Always dramatic, it was an act sure to bring several people running toward the delicate-boned woman with the features of an angel. She’d marveled at each occurrence, always surprised by the effectiveness of her mother’s show.
And up until now, she’d never had the urge to do the same.
But if there was ever a time to get a case of the vapors, this would have to be it.
“If my suspicions are correct, you’re Annalise Krupid’s daughter, Ms. Colton.”
“That’s impossible.”
Was it impossible? The question whispered over her senses, even as she caught sight of herself in the framed mirror that took up space behind the checkout counter. She was a big woman—her five-foot-ten frame and solid bone structure at decided odds with the delicate frame of her mother.
Claudia loved her body, but that hadn’t come easy. She’d spent far too many of her teenage years comparing herself to her mother’s small, willowy frame. A frame that good, old-fashioned biology had embedded in the genes of her sisters, Leonor and Jade. Claudia had always been the outlier. And it hadn’t been until she’d discovered fashion, and all the ways to find clothes and makeup, shoes and accessories to highlight every body type, that she’d come to love who she was.
No,