Chapter 34

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

It was almost dark when Colton pulled up to his cabin at Linear Tactical. He sat in his truck, staring blankly ahead. Ever since leaving the Eagle's Nest a few hours ago, he'd been driving around everywhere trying to find Ella.

Evidently Ella didn't want to be found.

He'd gone everywhere. Her house multiple times. Fancy Pants Bakery multiple times. Even to each of her friends' houses.

He'd started with Eva here on the Linear Tactical property. She'd answered the door, Theo standing protectively just behind her. They both still had that newly married glow to their faces.

They'd invited him in, but he hadn't wanted to lose any time in his search for Ella. Eva had heard about the cruel social media posts against Ella, but Ella hadn't told her what Colton had done.

Because Ella was good and kind. Because she knew it would hurt her friends to know he'd done something like that. Because for whatever reason, she was still nice even after he'd been an asshole.

Colton did not provide himself the same consideration Ella had afforded him. He spelled out exactly what he'd done and why he was looking for her.

Eva had been mad and told him he better make it up to Ella. When he'd gone over to Becky and Derek's house next and repeated his transgressions to them, Becky had pretty much responded the same way Eva had. They wanted him to make it up to their sweet friend.

He planned to.

When he got to Lilah's cabin and told her what he'd done, she'd been much more direct than Ella's other girlfriends.

"You will make this right, jackass. And I'll see you in the ring tomorrow."

With that, she slammed the door in his face. Knowing Lilah, she probably shut the door to keep from drop-kicking him right then and there.

He had no doubt the woman could do it. In some ways, he wished she would have. He deserved it.

He looked down at his phone when it buzzed. A text from Bear.

Any luck?

Can't find her anywhere. Checked work, house, friends. Texted five dozen times.

Don't worry. She'll definitely show back up for tomorrow's goodbye lunch for the campers. She wouldn't miss that, no matter how pissed at you she is.

That was true. She would definitely want to be able to say goodbye to Ashley and Marshall and the other kids.

But damn it, Colton didn't want to go another night without being able to tell her how sorry he was. Even if she didn't forgive him—which he wouldn't blame her at all for—he wanted to try.

He swiped a hand down his face and got out of the truck. What he wanted didn't matter. If Ella needed time on her own, he would give it to her. Not that he had any choice at this point anyway.

He was so lost in his own stupidity that he was completely unaware of the attack until he was being tackled on the ground.

The wind was knocked out of him as he hit the dirt, but Colton had spent all of his career reacting to unexpected circumstances that changed in a split second. He caught a punch on the jaw, but he was able to roll over to his side and then kip back up onto his feet.

For a second, he wondered if Lilah had decided not to wait for the sparring ring after all, but almost immediately, he realized that the person who tackled him was too big to be Lilah. She was strong and fast, but she was tiny.

"You son of a bitch!"

Colton blinked twice when he realized it was Rick standing in front of him like some sort of bull in front of a red flag.

"Rick? What the fuck are you doing?"

Not only was he here, he was wearing a black hoodie.

"Why would you fire me?" He flew at Colton again, but this time, Colton was ready and he sidestepped, letting the younger man fly through the empty space.

Rick stumbled but caught himself without falling. He spun back around, glaring at Colton. "You ignore my calls? And you don't even have the guts to fire me to my face, especially after what I did for you?"

"What you did for me? I fucking fired you because you made it look like Ella was the one who posted that social media message."

"All I did was mention the damned sticky note! And yeah, it did look suspicious. But then I figured out that she wasn't the one who'd posted it, yet you still fired me."

"Nice try."

Rick threw his hands up in the air. "You little prick. You were just looking for a reason to get rid of me, weren't you? Just because I don't like your precious town."

"Go home, Rick. You're fired. There, now I've said it to your face."

Colton just wanted to go inside, but there was no way he was going to turn his back on Rick. And damn, if the man had a weapon, this might get ugly quickly. Colton had a concealed carry permit and kept a Glock in his truck. He casually started easing in that direction, hoping he wouldn't need it.

"You're so damn ungrateful. Always thinking about yourself. "

Colton shrugged. "Actually, on that, we agree. Although I'm hoping to change."

Rick continued to glare at him. "I knew I'd been a dick about this town and about your precious Ella. That's why I started digging deeper into who posted that announcement on social media. I was the one who discovered it wasn't her."

"Why should I believe you?"

Rick rolled his eyes. "Why would I make something like that up?"

"To get your job back?"

He threw up his hands. "I told Tony all this before you fired me. Because, yeah, I knew I'd been an asshole and deserved to be fired. But I thought discovering this would make a difference."

Something wasn't making sense here. "Wait. What? You told Tony?"

"Yeah. I told Tony, and I thought everything would be good. But then a couple hours later, he shows back up to say you'd fired me and you'd gotten a restraining order against me."

What the hell was going on? "Rick, that's not even how restraining orders work. I can't just order one and have it ready thirty minutes later. And especially not without some sort of probable cause. Plus, why would I get a restraining order against you? They don't give them out for people being an asshole. You must've misunderstood what Tony was saying."

Rick reached into his pocket, and suddenly, getting the gun out of his truck wasn't an option. Colton had no idea if Rick was going for a weapon, so he did a flying tackle of his own. Once they were on the ground, Colton didn't waste any time getting Rick flipped over and pulling one arm up behind his back.

"Ow!"

"If I jerk this much farther, it's going to break your arm. What were you going for in your pocket? Gun? Knife?"

"No, man, my phone. I just wanted to show you what Tony showed me."

Colton patted down Rick's front pockets. Sure enough, the only thing he had on him was a phone. He let the man go, and they both rolled over to sit on the grass. Rick got the phone then a second later stuck it in Colton's face.

"See?"

Colton had to admit, it looked like an electronic copy of some sort of restraining order. And it was signed by Colton.

Colton hadn't signed anything of the sort.

"This isn't right. Yes, I signed the paperwork to fire you, but that was because Tony said you'd had a plan to blame Ella from the beginning."

"It wasn't me. I'm telling you, it wasn't me."

Colton had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Why didn't you call me and tell me what happened?"

"I've been trying to call you all day. But my calls were blocked."

"I didn't block your calls." Colton took his phone out of his pocket and looked up Rick's contact info. Sure enough, the contact was blocked.

Colton knew for a fact that he hadn't been the one who'd done that.

He also knew that Tony had taken his phone for a minute at the Eagle's Nest today. Colton had been so caught up in his guilt over Ella that he hadn't thought much about it.

Until now.

"I think something really bad is going on, Rick."

He dialed Tony's number, but it immediately went to voice mail.

He sent a text.

Need to talk to you. STAT.

No response. In the year that Tony had worked for him, he had never once not responded to a text within just a minute or two.

Something definitely wasn't right.

"Yes, I did fire you, but I thought it was because you'd set Ella up. But it sounds like somebody might be setting you up."

"What do you mean? "

They both got to their feet.

"Is that your hoodie, Rick? I've never seen you wear it." Colton definitely would've remembered if he had.

Rick looked down at the piece of clothing. "No, actually, I found this in my car. Somebody must've left it there, but it was cold tonight so I thought I would wear it." He shrugged sheepishly. "Also, because it meant it would be harder for you to see me as you got home."

The guy was a good cameraman, but he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

"You know that Ella saw the stalker in a black hoodie at her shop, right? And you remember how we were talking the other day about there being a man involved in all this, maybe as the stalker's partner?"

"Whoa. That's not me. I have nothing to do with the stalker."

No. Tony did.

"I'm pretty sure that Tony was setting you up to make it look like it was you." And Rick just happily got his DNA all over a piece of clothing that no doubt would become a big factor in making him look guilty.

Colton froze as he thought this through. Shit . If Tony was behind all this and was setting Rick up as his patsy, the only way he could be successful was if Rick was out of the way permanently .

Otherwise, Rick would defend himself. Maybe no one would believe him, but he'd still plant seeds of doubt about his guilt.

Tony had probably thought Rick would drive back to Denver after being fired. And since he didn't have direct access to Colton, since his calls were blocked and Tony filtered through all of Colton's emails, Rick wouldn't have any way of getting in touch with Colton.

Tony hadn't counted on Rick's idiotic temper driving his actions and that he would come here to confront Colton tonight. The man had probably saved his own life by doing so.

Colton hoped he was wrong about all this and Tony wouldn't go to such extremes just to keep Colton in the game. Because it wouldn't. Colton wanted to be wherever Ella was.

Shit . Dread pooled in his stomach. Tony had to know that too. Which meant…Tony had to plan to do something to Ella too.

Where the hell was she?

Colton rushed toward his cabin. "Get on your phone and call Sheriff Webb. Tell him that Tony is our stalker and that we don't know where Ella is and that everything has gone to shit."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm calling in the people I trust most."

All his friends came through exactly the way Colton knew they would. Within thirty minutes of Rick tackling him, Theo and Lilah had arranged a house-to-house search in Oak Creek. The search would be guised as friendly visits and touching base, but the true purpose would be to make sure Ella wasn't there. Callum Webb was checking businesses.

The fact that everyone in Oak Creek was so friendly and open—and cared so much about helping find Ella—reaffirmed to Colton that this was where he belonged.

Rick had actually provided some useful information—reminding Colton that he'd given Tony permission to put a tracker on Colton's truck right after the avalanche since he'd been spending a lot of time alone in the wilderness. Colton had forgotten about it, and they'd never removed it.

No wonder Tony was always able to find Colton so easily.

But he and Ella hadn't been driving Colton's truck the day they'd gone shopping at the sporting goods store. Yet, if Tony had released that social media announcement, he'd been following him. So maybe he'd put a tracking device on Ella's car too.

Colton had already put a call in to Lincoln, asking him if he could reverse-engineer the info from his truck's tracking device and maybe gather some details if Ella's vehicle had one placed on it too .

If anyone could do it, it was Lincoln.

Colton kept trying to call Tony also. Finding him before he made his move was just as important. Colton had to pretend like everything was still business as usual until they caught him.

Colton froze when Tony answered on his fourth time calling him.

"Hey, boss, what's going on? Sorry I missed your other calls. Battery died."

Colton forced himself to stay cool. He could not give away that he knew what was happening. "Just wanted to talk over some possible plans with you. You got time to meet? I'm sure the Eagle's Nest is still open. We could grab a bite."

"Actually, I decided to go back to Reddington City. I wanted to talk to the manager of that store again. Get all the details I can so we can move forward."

Reddington City. Shit. If he had Ella, they couldn't do any door-to-door search there.

"Okay, I hear you. But I'd really like to talk about this tonight, if we can. I'm wondering if you're right and we need to just get back to work."

This was a delicate balance. Colton wanted to disarm Tony by seeming compliant to the other man's ideas, but he didn't want to change his tune so much that it made him suspicious.

"Really?"

A text came through from Lincoln.

I was able to locate Ella's car. Coordinates 40.8056°N 106.9442°W

Colton rolled his eyes. How the hell was he supposed to know where that was off the top of his head?

"Honestly, I don't know," he continued with Tony. "I just want to talk options, you know? Pick your brain." He needed to keep this conversation going with Tony while he texted Lincoln back .

Is it near Reddington City?

No. South. Colorado. Closest town seems to be some place called Fairytale.

She'd gone to the cabin. Relief flooded Colton's gut. Tony didn't have her.

"Okay," Tony said. "I'm happy to talk plans out with you. Let me handle this at the store, and we can touch base maybe tomorrow morning? I know it's been a long day for you."

"Sure, tomorrow morning sounds good. Let's plan on breakfast. I'll call you."

But he wouldn't be meeting Tony for breakfast. He disconnected the call and immediately called Callum Webb. The sheriff agreed to go to Reddington City and bring Tony in for questioning. Theo and Lilah were going with him in case Tony decided to make a run for it.

Colton trusted his friends to get the bad guy.

He was going to get the girl.