Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen Page 0,5

wasn’t picking up on the terror that Ashlyn was feeling.

Eli ran back to his bedroom, and within seconds he returned with his boots, holster and shirt. He laid his phone on the small table next to the door while he put them on and continued to volley glances out the window.

It didn’t take Eli long to dress, and when he put on the shirt, she saw his badge was already attached, and just like that the memories washed over her like a tidal wave. He’d been wearing the badge the night of the shooting. She could feel and smell the air in the parking lot of the seedy bar where Marta had asked Ashlyn to meet her. It’d been thick, humid. Smothering.

Ashlyn could also feel the bullets slam into her.

She felt the cold shock that followed. Then, the pain. Especially the pain. It hadn’t been just physical, either, after she’d seen Marta, her best friend, lying in a pool of her own blood.

Dead.

So was the person who’d fired those shots, Drake Zeller, a drug dealer scumbag whom Eli had managed to take out. But not before Zeller had put three bullets into Ashlyn and a fatal one into Marta. The only person who was still standing, still unharmed, after the gunfight was Eli—and he was the reason Zeller had been after Marta. Ashlyn had simply been collateral damage.

“Gunnar will have the road blocked in about five minutes,” she heard Kellan relay to Eli, but then the sheriff cursed. “Wait. The men are on the move.”

That pushed away the thoughts of that horrible night, and Ashlyn automatically tightened her grip on the baby. She considered asking Eli if she could have her gun back, but she didn’t want it that close to Cora.

“Hell,” Eli spat out as he ran out of the foyer and into the living room, very close to the sofa where Ashlyn was. He took up position at the window, which would give him a different angle to the front yard and the road.

“Are they getting away?” she asked.

“Can’t tell yet. They’re no longer in sight, but they could have just dropped back.”

And with that rifle, they’d still be a threat. Maybe, though, Gunnar would have had time to finish that roadblock.

Eli’s phone dinged, and his forehead bunched up when he looked down at the screen. “I’ve got another call with a blocked number.” He paused. “It could be these thugs. I’ll put you on hold while I find out.”

While volleying glances at the window, Eli switched over the call, but he didn’t say anything. He just waited, and several seconds later, she heard the man who came onto the line.

“Still alive, Sergeant Slater?” the caller asked.

Ashlyn gasped because she recognized that voice, too. Unlike Kellan’s, though, this one gave her no reassurance. “That’s one of the men who kidnapped Cora,” she told Eli. Eli immediately hit a button his phone, maybe to record the conversation or even try to have it traced.

“That’s right,” the man said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You didn’t do what you were supposed to do, so this is about to get very messy.”

The muscles in Eli’s face went even tighter. “Who are you, and what the hell do you want?”

“Best not to answer either of those on the grounds it might incriminate me.” He laughed. “Ready to play, Sergeant Slater?”

“I’d rather know the rules of the game first,” Eli fired back.

“Here’s the only rule you need to know. Your current houseguest, Ashlyn Darrow, is responsible for this.”

She shook her head and was about to insist that she’d done nothing to warrant her child’s kidnapping, but then everything inside Ashlyn went still. Eli saw her reaction, too, and he grumbled out more profanity.

“What did Ashlyn do?” Eli demanded.

“That’s a question you should ask her,” the man said, and with that, he ended the call.

Eli immediately switched back to his brother, and he also aimed her a hard look. “According to Ashlyn, the man who just called me is one of the guys who kidnapped her baby. Can you see the men now?”

“No. But I’m moving in closer. Gunnar’s doing the same from the other side. We’ll try to pen them in. I’ll call you when I can.”

The moment Eli ended the call, he gave her another of those looks. “Start explaining.”

She shook her head again. “I asked the San Antonio cops for the reports of the night of Marta’s murder. And I went to the prison to visit Leon Taggart.”

There was no need