Matthew Colton, used to draw on the foreheads of his victims.
But those victims were all men of a certain size and age who reminded Matthew of his older, far more successful brother, Big J. It had been Matthew’s way of doing away, by proxy, with a man whom he hated with every fiber of his being and whom he blamed for everything that had gone wrong in his life.
Matthew killed men, not women. The thought echoed over and over in Sam’s head. And while Matthew had killed his wife when she stumbled across his heinous secret, he hadn’t made a practice of killing young women in their twenties. If nothing else, it would have come to light by now if he had.
Besides, Matthew Colton had been behind bars for twenty years. He couldn’t have killed Celia.
Then who had?
This didn’t make any sense.
The detective in Sam wanted to focus exclusively on the murder—Celia was clearly already dead—of the woman whom he would have married in ten minutes. The human side of him that was struggling to resurface after being buried for more than twenty years felt obligated to offer some sort of comfort to Celia’s sister.
Zoe looked as if she was bordering on going into shock—if she wasn’t already there.
“Zoe—” Sam began, then fell silent, at a loss as to what to say next.
But he didn’t have to talk. The moment he said her name, she turned toward him. He saw the tears flowing from her eyes and the stricken look on her face just before she collapsed into his arms.
He barely caught her in time.
Sam held on to her awkwardly, as if he felt that making any sort of contact would wind up cracking his carefully built up, impenetrable walls.
“She’s dead,” Zoe sobbed. “I was just in here and now Celia’s dead. Why did I leave her? She’d still be alive if I hadn’t left the room. Oh, God, why didn’t I stay?” she sobbed.
Sam looked over her head helplessly toward Ethan. He knew what to do at a crime scene, knew how to defend himself against a killer and knew how to handle himself in all the steps between. But when it came to dealing with something like someone else’s grief, or a woman’s tears, he hadn’t a clue.
Completely at a loss, he looked toward his older brother for help.
Ethan picked up his cue effortlessly. “Why don’t you come outside, Zoe, get some air?” he suggested gently, trying to take hold of Zoe’s arm. He was ready to lead her out of the room.
But Zoe surprised even herself and remained firm. She shook her head adamantly from side to side.
“No, I can’t leave, I can’t leave Celia,” she insisted, looking down at her sister’s prone body.
Sam had already felt for the pulse he knew was no longer there. Celia was gone. Whoever had fired the shots knew exactly where to aim.
Rising to his feet, Sam took a firm hold of Zoe’s arm. “You can’t do her any good anymore, Zoe. Celia’s dead.”
“But why? Who?” Zoe cried, looking at Sam through fresh tears.
Her last thoughts of Celia had been angry ones. Her last words had been condemning ones.
How was she supposed to live with that now?
The guilt of that—and of leaving Celia alone to fall prey to her killer in the first place—had already begun to eat away at her.
“Those are my questions exactly,” Sam replied evenly. There wasn’t a shred of emotion evident in his tone as he asked her pointedly, “What can you tell me?”
“Sam, don’t you think now isn’t the time—” Ethan began, trying to get Sam to treat Zoe with a little more compassion. Ethan’s question indicated he thought the victim’s sister looked as if she was a hair’s breadth away from coming unglued. Asking her questions right now might just push the poor woman over the line.
But Sam apparently didn’t see it that way.
“Now is exactly the time,” Sam emphasized, looking at Ethan. “While it’s all still fresh in her mind.” And then he turned back to Zoe. “Zoe?” he asked, looking at her pointedly. “Did you see anyone walk into Celia’s room after you left her?”
Zoe shook her head, wisps of blond hair coming undone and falling about her face and neck. “No,” she responded hesitantly. “I don’t think so...”
“You don’t think so?” Sam demanded, stretching out the key word and making it all sound almost like an accusation.
It only caused Zoe to look even more bewildered and at a loss.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember,” she cried. “Everything’s just a huge blur.”
And the fact that it was, frustrated her beyond words. She would have raked through her brain with her fingernails if that would have somehow helped bring the missing details back into focus.
With Ethan looking on, Sam tried another approach. “All right, why did you walk out in the first place?” he asked.
She looked at him, stricken. How could she tell him what he wanted to know, knowing it would only humiliate him, embarrass him? Hurt him?
She would rather die herself than do that to him, especially at a time like this.
Dead or not, Zoe concluded, Celia didn’t deserve a man like Sam.
“Zoe, why did you walk out?” Sam repeated more forcefully when she didn’t answer him.
“We had an argument,” she finally answered in a low, quiet voice.
“About what?” he pressed.
“Nothing important,” Zoe told him, waving the subject away as fresh tears threatened to choke her for a second time.
Ethan attempted to step in again. “Sam, her only sister’s just been murdered. She’s clearly in shock. She should see a doctor, not be interrogated right now. And yes, I know I have nothing professional to fall back on like Ridge or Annabel, or Chris—or even Trevor,” he said, mentioning their other siblings, all of whom, unlike him, were in some branch of law enforcement. “But maybe you shouldn’t be the one investigating this murder to begin with.”
Sam gave him a look that most of the law enforcement agents in Granite Gulch had learned to steer clear of. “My town, my case.”
“Your fiancée,” Ethan countered.
Sam completely ignored the last detail. Instead, he looked at Ethan pointedly. “Did you happen to notice the mark on her forehead?”
Ethan had focused on the gunshots that had ended Celia’s life and then on the victim’s screaming sister. Now that his attention had been directed to Celia’s forehead, Ethan looked and was immediately stunned.
Like a man in a trance, he raised his eyes back up to Sam’s face. “Oh my God, is that—?”
“Definitely. Just like his signature mark, except the red dot’s off center.” Sam paused, staring at the bull’s-eye. “That might mean something.”
“Yeah, that the old man hasn’t figured out how to be in two places at once,” Ethan said, pointing out the obvious. “He’s in prison, Sam, where he’s been for twenty years.”
“Almost twenty years,” Sam corrected. He was a stickler when it came to facts.
Ethan conceded the point. “Either way, he couldn’t have done this. Besides, the old man only killed men who reminded him of his brother. Celia would have never been mistaken for a man, even in the dark.” The second the words were out of his mouth, Ethan suddenly realized that Zoe was still in the room. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Zoe. I didn’t mean—”
But Zoe waved his words away. She was far too numbed by what had happened to take offense