Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen Page 0,27

he readily admitted. Then he paused. “I’ve been hearing things lately. Rumors. They’ve got to be rumors,” Oscar added as if talking to himself.

Eli kept his attention nailed to the man. “What have you heard?”

Oscar opened his mouth. Closed it. And he seemed to reconsider what he’d been about to say. “Leon’s no threat to anybody. The man doesn’t have a nickel to his name. But there could be other folks out there, drug dealers, who might not be pleased that Marta was tattling on them to the cops.”

Everything inside Ashlyn went still. “What are you talking about?”

“Marta.” That’s all Oscar said for several long moments. “The rumors I’ve heard are that she’s alive, that she faked her death to hide out from some of those dealers who might want her dead for real. If that’s true, give her some advice from me. She’d better stay dead.”

Chapter Eight

There was a whole lot of information—and questions—going through Eli’s head. He’d thought that being at Jack’s house would help him process all of it since it was quieter here than it’d been at the sheriff’s office. But the processing just kept circling back to one of the questions.

Was Marta actually alive?

If she was, did that have anything to do with the attack and the mortician’s murder?

No matter how it circled and mentally played out, Eli just couldn’t see Marta faking her death and letting everyone believe she’d been murdered. Nor could he see Marta killing anyone, but maybe someone had done it on her behalf. Someone like Remy, who wanted to protect her from drug dealers who might come after her if they found out she was alive. But Remy had looked shocked when Eli had brought up the possibility of Marta surviving the shooting.

Real shock.

It was hard to fake that. Then again, the surprise could have been simply because Remy hadn’t expected Eli to know anything about it.

While standing by the kitchen table, Eli drank more coffee, studied his notes on his laptop and then glanced at his phone. He considered giving Marta’s father another call, but before he could do that, Ashlyn came into the kitchen. She looked exhausted with her pale face, heavy-lidded eyes and rumpled hair. Those were the first things he noticed. The second thing that snagged his attention was that despite the fatigue, she looked good.

Hell.

He might as well hit his head against the wall a couple of times. He’d known that hug in the observation room was a mistake, but Eli hadn’t counted on it lighting a couple more fires that shouldn’t be lit.

She glanced at Gunnar, who was grabbing a catnap on the sofa. “Cora’s finally asleep,” she whispered to Eli. She went to the fridge and got a bottle of water. “Gloria’s with her.”

Not a surprise, since Gloria hadn’t left the baby’s side since they’d arrived. That was good, and Eli hoped the woman continued to be okay with that arrangement since she might be there for a while.

“I’ll text Owen and tell him to come so he can stay here while Gunnar, you and I go out to your place,” Eli offered, and he fired off the message. “Or if you’re having second thoughts about going, I can get the things you need and bring them to you. You could make a list.”

She shook her head. “I want to make sure the horses are okay.” Then she paused. “I want to make sure I’m okay, too. I need to be able to go back there, to prove to myself that I can do it.”

Eli understood that. It was akin to getting back on a horse that’d just thrown you. But the horse wasn’t going to hire gunmen to kill you.

“It’s my home,” Ashlyn added as if she needed to convince him, but it sounded as if she was actually trying to convince herself. “If I can’t stay there, then...well, it changes everything.”

Yeah. She’d have to sell the house and land that’d been in her family for a couple of generations. She would have to give up her livelihood, too, at least until she found another place big enough for the horses.

He hadn’t thought it possible, but Ashlyn now looked even more exhausted than she had when she’d first come into the kitchen. Eli wished there was something he could do to help with that. Of course, his stupid body came up with a few bad suggestions, but he shoved them aside. Holding and kissing her wasn’t going to help.

“You scowl whenever I’m