Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen Page 0,13
son, Danny. Danny died of a drug overdose when Olive was pregnant, so Olive decided she’d put the baby up for adoption. Olive and I met, and she liked me. She’s a college student, only nineteen,” Ashlyn added.
“Olive didn’t want Dominick to raise the child?” Eli pressed.
“No, and neither did Danny,” Ashlyn said without hesitation. “Dominick has a police record, and Olive thought he, well, bullied Danny. Dominick tried to stop the adoption, but that didn’t go anywhere.”
“A judge denied him custody,” Eli spelled out. “But he does have supervised visitations.” Obviously, he’d gotten that information during one of those many calls he’d made.
Ashlyn nodded. “He sees Cora every two weeks. But not alone. When he visits, I’m there, and so is a social worker. And then there’s the nanny he hired.”
“A nanny?” Eli questioned. Obviously, that wasn’t something Eli had known, and he was probably wondering why a man with very limited, supervised visits would need the services of a nanny.
“His visits weren’t long, only an hour each time, but Dominick was hoping that Cora would eventually have overnight stays at his house. He thought it was a good idea to have a nanny in place, one who already knew Cora.” She paused. “He’s never been hostile toward me. And he’s very loving with Cora. That’s why I don’t believe Dominick would have hired those men.”
“Maybe the gunmen didn’t have orders to fire into the house or endanger the baby.” Eli’s argument came so fast that she realized he’d already given this some thought. “Unlike Remy, Dominick has the funds to hire thugs.”
Yes, he did, and she couldn’t completely dismiss the notion that the thugs hadn’t followed orders. Maybe they panicked when things hadn’t gone as planned. Still...
“Why would Dominick have sent gunmen after you?” she asked Eli. “He doesn’t even know you.”
“Dominick doesn’t have to know me, but I’m sure he’s heard of me,” Eli assured her.
He let that hang in the air, and Ashlyn tried to figure out his train of thought. It didn’t take her long to do that. It’d been all over the news about Marta’s death, and Dominick could have easily found out the details with some simple internet searches. If Ashlyn had indeed murdered Eli, she would be in jail. Maybe even dead. The gunmen could have been instructed to kill her and make it look like a suicide because she was so distraught over killing Eli.
And then she would have no longer been in the way of a custody challenge from Dominick.
His police record and Olive’s wishes might be dismissed with the adoptive mother out of the way. Dominick could even possibly use this as a way of discrediting Olive and accusing her of handing over Cora to someone mentally unstable enough to commit murder.
“Oh God,” Ashlyn said under her breath.
“Yeah,” Eli agreed. Obviously, he’d had no trouble figuring out what was going through her head. “He’ll be brought in for questioning, too. And since Dominick does have the money to hire more guns, Cora and you will need to be in protective custody. For the time being, that’ll be with me.”
Her head snapped up, and she fired a glance first at Eli, then Kellan. “Eli insisted,” Kellan explained.
“I’m seeing this through to the end,” Eli added when her attention shifted back to him. “No one puts a baby in danger and then tries to kill me. Whoever’s behind this won’t get away with it.”
She wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a promise. Maybe it was both. But before Ashlyn could point out the problems of the two of them being under the same roof, there was a knock on the door. The sound caused her to gasp, a reminder of just how on edge she still was. Her body tensed, bracing for a fight, but it wasn’t a threat. It was Gunnar.
“Here are the baby supplies,” Gunnar said, holding up several large bags. “Want me to put them in the cruiser?”
Eli nodded. “You’ll be driving us to Jack’s?”
“Jack?” Ashlyn repeated. She knew who he was, of course. Marshal Jack Slater, another of Eli’s brothers, and he lived on the grounds of their family ranch.
“We’re going to his place,” Eli verified. “He’s out of town on a case, and he said we could use it. We can’t go back to our houses because the CSIs are still there.”
She didn’t want to go to their houses, but she was still shaking her head about Jack’s. “What if hired guns follow us