Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen Page 0,11

was on his phone screen, but she could certainly see Eli. The muscles flexing in his jaw. The tightness of his mouth. The formidable expression.

She’d always thought he had the face of a warrior, and that was especially true now. Like all his brothers, he had the cocoa-brown hair and stormy gray eyes, but there was an edge to Eli. Something unsettled. He was dangerous-looking. As if the only thing he was searching for was the next fight. A fight he was certain he would win.

Maybe it was the adrenaline and fatigue, but Ashlyn remembered when he’d kissed her. So many years ago. They’d been practically kids, and it was something that the bad memories of Marta should have washed away.

But it hadn’t.

He’d kissed like a warrior, too.

“Are you okay?” Gunnar asked.

It took Ashlyn a couple of seconds to realize he was talking to her and that he was volleying glances at her in the rearview mirror. Heaven knew what her expression must have been for him to ask that now, but she hoped she hadn’t shown any signs of remembering that warrior kiss from Eli.

“I’m just tired,” she settled for saying.

Gunnar nodded. “Once Kellan gets your statement, maybe we can find a place for you to take a nap.”

She doubted she’d be able to sleep, but Gunnar’s comment told her that she probably wouldn’t be leaving the sheriff’s office before morning. Not that she especially wanted to leave. Ashlyn definitely didn’t want to go back to her house until they’d figured out why this attack had happened.

Or if there’d be another one.

“Remy will be coming in for questioning,” Eli told her after he read another text on his phone.

Ashlyn immediately shook her head and tried to process that. Eli didn’t have to explain who Remy was. She knew. Remy Sager was Marta’s boyfriend, and he’d been crushed when she died. And in a rage from the pain of losing the woman he loved.

“You actually think Remy had something to do with the attack?” Ashlyn asked.

“Just covering all the bases,” Eli repeated.

She supposed he had to start the investigation somewhere, and with both gunmen dead, Eli would need to find the reason for the attack. But Remy seemed as much of a long shot as contacting the funeral home and the San Antonio hospital.

“Has Remy threatened you recently?” she asked.

Eli shook his head. “But it’s hard to know what’s in a person’s mind. Some people don’t just jump right into revenge. They stew on it for a while and then come at you when you’re not expecting it.”

Maybe, but it didn’t make sense in this case. “Remy didn’t hold a grudge against me, and he never threatened me. Whoever did this wanted me to kill you. You would have been dead, and I would have gone to jail. The grudge or whatever this is seems to be against both of us.”

A grudge that was a sick kind of poetic justice to have her end up killing the man that she had blamed for Marta’s death. Well, in part she had blamed him, anyway, but Remy had put the full blame on Eli. Ashlyn hadn’t witnessed firsthand the exchanges between Eli and him because she’d been in the hospital recovering, but some of the nurses had told her about Remy’s accusations and threats against Eli. Then the cops from San Antonio PD had brought it up, too, when they’d interviewed her.

“Remy could have let his grief fester to the point that he wants someone else to pay for Marta’s death,” Eli pointed out. His voice was calm enough, but she figured that was a facade. Someone had just tried to kill them, and that had to eat away at him. Plus, he would want to get the bottom of it, and that meant taking a hard look at Remy. Doing so would dredge up the past and put the nightmarish memories right in front of them again.

Gunnar pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office, and as Eli had done at his house and at the hospital, he positioned himself in front of her when she scooped the baby into her arms. He kept right by Cora and her when they hurried inside, where she immediately spotted Kellan in the doorway of his office.

The bullpen was empty, which likely meant everyone other than Gunnar and Kellan was out working the investigation. No sign of Eli’s other brother, Owen, who was a deputy, and she hoped he was home with