Page 6 of Colton's Last Resort

Her brothers exchanged a look. “In what way?” Adam asked.

“He hasn’t been well,” Laura reminded them. “The ministrokes last year and the rumors about sideline business deals going sideways... We could be losing him.”

They lapsed into silence. Joshua reached up to scratch his chin. “Is it not fair to say I feel like I lost him a long time ago?”

She studied him, and she saw the ten-year-old who’d needed a parent. His hand clutched the arm of the swivel chair. She covered it with her own. “It is fair,” she assured him.

Adam had shielded his mouth with his writing hand. He dropped it to the table, the ballpoint pen still gripped between his fingers. “Mom left the resort to us in her will not just because she wanted us to have a piece of her and financial security. She left it because she knew the house in Los Angeles wasn’t a home. She left us a place we could belong to. Dad never provided that for her or us. She made sure after she was gone we wouldn’t need to rely on him, because she knew all he would ever do was disappoint us. Like he disappointed her.”

“She left us fifty percent of the shares in Colton Textiles, too,” Joshua added. “If it’d been him...if he had gone first...would he have done the same?”

Laura shook her head. “I don’t know.” But she did, she realized. She knew all too well.

Adam dropped the pen. He folded his hands on the tabletop. “If we have an opening, we can slot him into one of the VIP bungalows. Would that ease your conscience?”

Laura considered. She opened her mouth to answer.

A knock on the door interrupted.

“Come in,” Adam called.

The panel pulled away from the jamb. Laura felt the tension in the room drain instantaneously as Tallulah Deschine peered into the room. The fifty-year-old Navajo woman was head of housekeeping at Mariposa. She’d been with the Coltons since the renovation. In the last decade, she’d become more of a mother to them than a member of staff, and she was one of the few workers at the resort who, like Adam, Laura and Joshua, lived in her own house on property. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

Joshua sat up straighter. “No need to apologize, Tallulah. Come sit by me.” He pushed out the chair next to his.

Worry lines marred her brow. “There’s a situation. Down at the pool.”

“What kind of situation?” Adam asked, his smile falling away in a fast frown.

Tallulah’s attention seized on Laura. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Laura saw her chin wobble. Quickly, she pushed her chair back. “What is it, Tallulah?” she asked softly, crossing to the door. She heard Adam and Joshua get up and follow suit. “What’s happened?”

Tallulah’s eyes flooded with tears. She spoke in a choked voice. “The maid, Bella... She noticed one cabana was never straightened after hours last night. When she went inside to do just that, she found someone there.”

Adam touched her shoulder when she faltered again. “Someone who? What were they doing there?”

“Oh, Adam.” Tallulah shook her head, trying to gather herself. “Bella thought she’d fallen asleep there, so she tried waking her up. She couldn’t. There’s somethingreallywrong...”

“Who is she?” Laura asked. There was a hard fist in her stomach. It grew tighter and tighter, apprehension knotting there. “Tallulah, who did Bella find in the cabana?”

“It’s Allison,” Tallulah revealed. “The yoga instructor. Knox knows CPR. He’s trying to bring her around—”

“Did you call 9-1-1?” Adam asked, his phone already in hand.

“Alexis made the call.”

“EMTs should only be ten minutes out,” he assured her.

Joshua pushed through the door. “If she’s not breathing, that’s not enough time.”

Laura tailed him. He’d already broken into a run. She didn’t catch up with him until they came to the end of the hall.

If Allison wasn’t asleep in the cabana...if she wasn’t breathing... What did that mean?

Laura hastened her steps and nearly ran into Alexis Reed, the concierge, and Erica Pike, Adam’s executive assistant, in the lobby.

“What’s going on?” Alexis asked urgently. “Is Allison okay?”

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