Page 59 of Witness To Murder

The Colby Agency, 7:30 p.m.

VICTORIA SHUT OFFthe light to her office and closed the door. It had been a long day, but a very good one. Several investigations were settled, and all investigators and clients were safe. This was always what she hoped for. When love bloomed between an investigator and a client, it was all the better.

The Colby Agency had a long history of solving the most difficult cases as well as bringing some amazing people together.

Victoria was very proud of her agency and of all who’d worked here, past and present. They were all such great people. In all the years she had been at the head of this agency, she had onlyever lost one investigator and that was one too many. The many, many clients they had helped often sent postcards or letters of thanks even years later.

Victoria truly loved the agency and the work they did.

She smiled as she reached the lobby. Lucas waited there for her. She should have known Jamie would call him. She hadn’t wanted to leave this evening without Victoria. Everyone else had gone. But Victoria had needed some time alone at her beloved window, watching life on the street below. Not that she had any troubles to worry about. No. Life was well within the Colby family. But there were times when she just needed to stare out that window and remember all the times she had done so before.

This evening had been one of those times.

The sight of Lucas waiting for her lifted her nostalgic heart. No matter that they were both getting up there age-wise, she still saw him as the dashing man who had stolen her heart when she had been certain her heart would never again feel that kind of love.

Like James, her first husband, Lucas had been a master spy, his work the darkest of dark operations. He, James and Victoria had been dear friends for a lifetime before tragedy stuck so very hard. First, her son had been abducted, and then her husband had been murdered. Before James’s death, they had desperately searched for their child. She regretted so that James had not lived to see their son returned. Jim was a good, strong man.

He hadn’t returned to Victoria that way, however. Jim had been horribly abused and brainwashed. He had come back to her as a killer, determined to murder her. But somehow she had reached him and he had changed. Over the years since that time, he had married and had two beautiful children. One of which, Jamie, now worked with Victoria, running the agency. Luke, the younger of the two, was in medical school.

Life was as perfect as could be expected in this changing world.

“I thought,” Lucas announced, “that I would take you to dinner, my love.”

Victoria put her arm in his and turned to the elevator. “I think that is an amazing idea.” She grinned. “Jamie called you, didn’t she?”

He grinned as well. “She did. She said you were looking a little sad.”

Victoria rose onto her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the jaw. “Not sad, just lost in memories.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped into the car.

“I hope I was present in those memories.”

“You, my dear husband, are in the very best of all my memories, going back to the night we met.”

“The night James stole you away from me,” he teased.

Victoria laughed. Lucas swore to this day that he had been smitten with Victoria, but it was James who had swept her off her feet that long-ago night when they were all so young.

“But you were always there,” she reminded him. “Always a part of our lives, for better or worse.”

He nodded. “I was, indeed.”

“Thank you, Lucas.” When he met her gaze with a questioning look, she explained, “For being the man who helped me love again.”

“No thanks necessary, my dear. I was happy to wait for that moment.”

The doors closed and the elevator swept them down to the lobby.

When the doors opened once more, rather than finding an empty space where only the security guard manned the information desk, she found a room full of people. She gasped. Not just people. Everyone from the agency…even some shehadn’t seen in years. And the massive lobby was decorated beautifully with balloons and flowers and streamers.

“What on earth?” she murmured.

“Happy birthday, Victoria,” Lucas said, turning to her. “I hope this one is the best one yet.”

Jim and Tasha, Jamie and Luke, they hurried forward and hugged her. Despite her best efforts, tears filled Victoria’s eyes.

“You didn’t say a word,” she said to Jamie.

Jamie grinned. “It was a surprise, Grandmother.” She gestured to a small stage that had been erected with a waiting microphone.

Victoria surveyed the clapping crowd as they urged her to speak.

“Come along,” Lucas said, ushering her toward the stage. “They’re all waiting to hear from you.”

Victoria stepped up onto the stage and scanned the crowd. She smiled. Lucas didn’t have to worry. This was certainly the best birthday ever.