Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen Page 0,10

want to take any chances. Since her baby’s life could be at risk, neither did she.

But Ashlyn wanted to know why there was that dangerous risk in the first place.

And who was really behind it.

She hated that the hired thug claimed that Marta was his boss. Hated even more the man had died before giving them the truth. Of course, to him maybe that was the truth. The person who hired him could have told him that. It was just as possible, though, that he’d used his dying breath to lie.

Judging from the phone calls Eli was making, he was considering that it was at least a possibility that Marta was alive.

On the drive to the hospital and during Cora’s exam in the ER, Eli hadn’t left their sides. He’d stood guard, continuing to keep watch. That gave Ashlyn the chance to hear him contact the admin office at the San Antonio hospital where Marta had been pronounced dead. When he hadn’t been able to reach someone who had answers, he’d left messages both there and then at the funeral home that had handled Marta’s remains.

She listened to those calls and others he made. Some to the two CSI teams who were at her house and his to remind them to relay to him anything that they found. He’d done the same to the medical examiner and his brother Kellan. Ashlyn had no doubts that he would get that info.

However, what concerned her was that it wouldn’t keep her daughter out of further danger.

When her mouth began to tremble and the tears threatened, again, Ashlyn clamped her teeth over her bottom lip and forced herself to stay steady. It wouldn’t help anything if she fell apart, and it would likely only rile Eli even more. He was obviously upset, not just at the attack but probably at her, too. She’d been a fool to believe those thugs when they’d told her Eli had kidnapped Cora.

And it could have gotten Eli killed.

Ashlyn hated to think that she would have pulled the trigger, but she’d been out of her mind with fear and worry when she’d driven to his house. If Eli and she had gotten into a scuffle... But she stopped herself from going there. It hadn’t happened, period, and she didn’t need to play “what if.”

“Marta’s dead,” Ashlyn repeated once Eli had finished his latest call to the crime lab.

Eli made a sound of agreement. It was the same reaction he’d had the first time she pointed out that obvious fact shortly after he had told her what the gunman said. Eli definitely hadn’t argued with her then, or now.

“But you called the funeral home and the San Antonio hospital,” she pointed out. “So you must think her being alive is at least a possibility.”

He made another of those annoying noncommittal sounds but then glanced at her. Well, actually his glance went to Cora first, then her. “Just covering all the bases.” He paused and didn’t say anything else until his attention was back at keeping watch out the window. “I checked Marta’s pulse that night and didn’t feel one.”

Ashlyn had known he’d done that. Once backup had arrived, Eli had stooped down and touched his fingers to Marta’s neck. He hadn’t said anything, but Ashlyn had seen it in his eyes. The dread. The grief.

The guilt.

Or maybe she’d seen the guilt only because she had blamed him for what had happened to Marta. Ashlyn still did blame him. Though it was hard to hang on to every drop of that blame after what Eli had done tonight. He’d put his life on the line for Cora and her.

“Thank you for protecting Cora,” she said.

The next sound he made seemed to be one of dismissal. It had an “I was just doing my job” ring to it, and maybe that’s all it was, but at the core of it was something very personal. A different kind of personal than the old attractions that had once been between them.

She and Eli had been in that alley when Marta was shot. When she’d been shot, too. And whether either of them wanted it, it had created this connection between them. One that came with bad memories and a shared nightmare that was still haunting them. Maybe it always would.

While Gunnar drove down Main Street, Eli continued to keep watch, and he checked his phone whenever it dinged with a text message. Since Cora’s car seat was between them, Ashlyn couldn’t see what