“Thirteen hundred,” Reed said. “That’s not a big sum for a hit man, but killers have been hired for less.”
Colt didn’t like the way that caused Elise to cringe, but this was possibly a piece of evidence that could end in Buddy’s arrest and put a stop to the danger. Not just for Elise but for his father. If Buddy had indeed done this, then it would clear his father’s name.
About this, anyway.
They’d still have to deal with Elise’s testimony, but Colt decided to take on one battle at a time.
Battles that involved keeping his mouth away from Elise’s.
“I need to call Cooper,” Colt said, taking out his phone. “He’s at the county jail right now where the FBI’s about to start questioning my dad.”
“I’ll do that for you,” Reed volunteered. He tipped his head to the two messages that were waiting on Colt’s desk. “You need to call them back.”
Colt had already glanced at the message on top. It was from the Texas Rangers, and he was supposed to contact them with a time and place for them to take over protection detail for Elise. She glanced at the message, too, her eyebrow lifting, and Colt was about to make that call when he looked at the next message.
It was from Robert Joplin with a message to contact him ASAP.
“Did Joplin say what he wanted?” Colt asked.
Reed glanced at Elise. “Joplin made her an appointment to see a hypnotist this morning. So he can find out what else she remembers about what she saw at the cabin.”
At best, the timing sucked. At worst, it was flat-out dangerous for Elise to be going to any appointments. With Buddy’s money and criminal connections, he could simply hire another hit man to come after her.
Or come after her himself.
Either way, Colt didn’t want to make this easier for him, and having Elise out and about was a good way to do that.
“Joplin’s pressing hard,” Reed commented, and he stepped aside to make the call to Cooper.
Colt hoped that pressing hard was all the man was doing. “Joplin’s already put in for a mistrial, and he’s looking for anything to clear Jewell’s name. Anything,” he repeated under his breath.
Elise stared at him. “Not that.”
It was spooky that they were on the same wavelength. Of course, Colt hadn’t bothered to hide his disdain for Jewell’s lawyer since the man seemed hell-bent on pinning the murder charge on anyone but his client.
“Why not?” Colt asked.
She huffed and got to her feet. “Because I refuse to believe that Joplin would have me murdered all for the sake of getting a mistrial.”
“Maybe murder wasn’t the plan. Not your murder, anyway. He could have hired Martinelli to run you off the road but not kill you. It would have accomplished the same thing—it would have made it look as if me or someone in my family was trying to obstruct justice. Then he could have eliminated Martinelli.”
Obviously being on the same wavelength didn’t mean Elise agreed with him. “Joplin has never said or done anything threatening toward me. Now you think he’s capable of murder?”
“Murdering a piece of scum like Martinelli—yes. And he’d be saving his client in the process.”
Of course, Elise could have been seriously hurt. Or worse.
“It would also explain why Martinelli didn’t just shoot you when he ran you off the road,” Colt added. “And Joplin could have had those explosives set to make sure that Martinelli never told anyone who hired him.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished, but the head shaking stopped, and she sank down into the chair again. “You believe Joplin could do this because he’s in love with Jewell.”
Oh, yeah. “They were high school sweethearts, and from everything I’ve heard, he didn’t take it too well when she dumped him to marry my dad. He could see this as his chance to get her back and get my dad out of the picture.”
Elise didn’t jump to deny that. She sat there, obviously giving his theory plenty of thought. “Still, it would mean he committed murder.”
Okay, so there was the denial, after all. Except she did take several more moments to think about it. “I’ll call Joplin and have him cancel the appointment with the hypnotist,” Elise finally said, reaching for the phone.
Good. At a minimum, it would keep her away from Joplin until Colt had more time to get to the bottom of this. And just in case it was Buddy behind the situation and not Joplin, canceling the appointment would also keep her from going someplace where she’d be easy pickings for another hit man.
Elise and Reed started their calls, and Colt was about to press in the number for the Rangers when he spotted a tall, thin woman making a beeline for the sheriff’s office. Elise obviously noticed her, too, because she quickly ended the call with Joplin and got to her feet.
“You know her?” Colt immediately asked.
She pulled back her shoulders. “We haven’t met, but I recognize her from her pictures. That’s Meredith Darrow.”
The woman Elise had recently run a background check on. A less-than-favorable one from what Elise had told him, but Meredith wasn’t supposed to know about that report for another couple of days.
Judging from her tight expression, the woman had learned early. Colt figured her coming here wasn’t a coincidence.
Meredith stepped inside, unwinding a pricey-looking scarf from her neck and removing her equally pricey-looking shades. Her gaze landed on him, and his badge, before her frosty green eyes went to Elise.
“Elise Nichols, I presume,” Meredith said, her voice as frosty as the rest of her. Her pale blond hair, bleached-out skin and stark white coat reminded Colt of an icicle. “I drove out to your house first looking for you, and when you weren’t there, I decided to come into town. Someone at the diner said they thought they’d seen you come into the sheriff’s office.”
Colt figured that same person could have also told Meredith about Elise nearly being killed. Trouble of that sort didn’t stay under wraps long in a small town.
“What can I do for you?” Elise asked, her tone a lot more polite than their visitor’s.
“You can stop telling lies about me, that’s what.” Meredith shoved the shades and the scarf into her purse as if she’d declared war on them. Declared war on Elise, too.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Elise insisted.
“Of course you do. I read the report you sent to Frank Wellerman, the owner of the company where I applied for a job. All lies, and those lies cost me big-time. Now I could end up facing charges. I’m not going to jail because of some pencil pusher like you.”
Since Colt didn’t like the crazy look in Meredith’s eyes, he tried to step between them, but Elise would have no part of that. Even though she obviously wasn’t feeling well enough to be standing toe-to-toe with this irate woman.
“They weren’t lies,” Elise answered. “I was very careful and thorough with my research. I’d be happy to go over each area with you. In private.”
“You think I care if this cowboy cop knows the lies you told about me? I don’t,” Meredith snapped. “I only want you to call Frank Wellerman and tell him that it was all a mistake. That you gave him the wrong report. Then he’ll back off, and I won’t end up facing charges.”
“It wasn’t a mistake.” Elise paused. “And how’d you get the report, anyway? Mr. Wellerman assured me that he wouldn’t talk to you about this until Monday, two days from now.”
Meredith’s chin came up. “It doesn’t matter how I found out.”
Which meant the woman had likely done some hacking or at least something unethical to get her hands on that report.
“All that matters is this situation will be corrected now,” Meredith insisted. “And you’ll be the one correcting it.”
Colt had heard enough of these threats. “What exactly do you think Elise lied about?”
The woman spared him a glance but kept her attention pinned to Elise. “She claimed there were some irregularities with the account
s of my current job. There’s nothing wrong with those accounts. Then she implied the so-called missing funds might be linked to my brother.”
“Leo Darrow,” Elise explained to Colt. “He has a criminal record under an alias. I found it and included it in my report since Leo’s record is for misappropriation of funds and embezzlement.”
“You had no right to dig into his past,” Meredith insisted.
“But I did. Companies pay me to be thorough.” Elise looked at Colt. “I thought it was a red flag that her brother has been trying to do business with Frank Wellerman’s company for months now but has never been able to get his foot in the door. I was concerned that maybe he was using his sister to help with that.”
Meredith stabbed a perfectly manicured nail in Elise’s direction. “Leo served his time, and you should have never brought him into this. Never!”
Since Elise had already admitted that she bent the law when searching financials, Colt didn’t ask her how she’d gotten the information on Meredith. Besides, he had a bigger fish to fry.
“Someone ran Elise off the road last night,” Colt tossed out there. “What do you know about that?”
Meredith made a sound of outrage.
“Well?” he pressed.
“I know nothing about it, and I resent the implication that I had anything to do with that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled and turned back to Elise. “Does the ice princess have the funds to hire someone to do some dirty work?”
“She does,” Elise answered without hesitation.
Colt nodded and made sure the stare he aimed at Meredith was all lawman. “Then I’m going to ask if you knew a man named Simon Martinelli?”
“Of course not.” Meredith didn’t hesitate, either, but again that didn’t prove she was telling the truth.
“I’ll do some checking,” Reed volunteered. “I’ll see if there’s a connection, and if there is, I’ll arrest you.”
That clearly didn’t please Meredith. “I’ll be back with my lawyer, but I’m warning you, you’d better back off. I’m obviously not the only one you’ve managed to upset. Well, it serves you right.”
Elise shook her head. “What do you mean?”
Colt wanted to know the same darn thing.
“I saw your barn,” Meredith said as if that explained everything.
“You mean the red-paint splatter?” Colt asked.
“Splatter?” Meredith repeated, shaking her head. “This was more than just that. Judging from what I saw, someone obviously wants you dead.”
Chapter Seven
Elise dreaded what she would see when she got home. Of course, with everything else that’d happened, nothing should surprise her. However, she figured there was plenty that could make her even more afraid than she was now.
And angry.
She was sick of feeling like the victim. Sick of having someone throw her life into upheaval this way. And especially sick of having to rely on Colt. Yet here he was again, driving her home to face heaven knew what.
Meredith had said there were death threats scrawled on the barn. Better than having someone try to run her off the road, but it was still another attempt to upset her and maybe try to force her to leave town.
“Thank you for doing this,” she mumbled to Colt.
“No need to thank me. No way would I have let you come back out here by yourself.”
Nor would Elise have come alone. As sick and angry as she was about the incidents, she wasn’t stupid and didn’t want to make herself an easy target for another attack, and coming alone would have done just that.
Colt glanced at her, but then he continued those lawman glimpses all around them. No doubt making sure that someone wasn’t following them. Elise was trying to make sure of that, too, because after all, someone could have used this as a ruse to get them back out in the open. That’s the reason that Reed was following behind them in his truck. That, and because they weren’t sure what they were about to face when she got home.
The death-threat graffiti might not be all they’d have to deal with.
There could be someone waiting to try to kill her.
And that brought her right back to their suspects.
“Buddy could have made a return visit,” she said. In fact, he was the most likely candidate since he’d already vandalized the barn once.
Colt made a sound of agreement. “We’ll find him, question him. We’ll also question Meredith again since she admitted to being out here.”
Yet something else that was unnerving. The woman obviously despised her and had come all the way out to her home to threaten her. Of course, that led Elise to the next thought.
“If Meredith did this, wouldn’t she know she’d be an automatic suspect?” she asked.
“Yeah, but she might have seen the other paint splatter and thought she could blame it on someone else. A sort of reverse psychology.”
True. “Joplin might be trying to use reverse psychology, as well. Especially since this wasn’t a physical threat against me.” But she hated to think that Jewell’s lawyer or anyone else would go to such extremes. Of course, someone had gone to an even bigger extreme than this by hiring a hit man.
Elise paused. “Do you think anyone in Whitt Braddock’s family could be behind all this?”
Colt shrugged. “I don’t see why. His wife and kids probably don’t care who’s convicted for his death. They just want justice. None of them have said a thing about you returning to testify for Jewell.”
She had to agree with that, and a mistrial was the last thing they’d want. If fact, Whitt’s family might be glad that her testimony could implicate Whitt’s old nemesis, Roy McKinnon.
So, they were back to Joplin, Buddy or Meredith. Elise hoped they were the only ones on her list but maybe not. What if the culprit was someone else? Perhaps someone from her past.
Some former potential employees she’d given an unfavorable report and who was now out for revenge?
She made a mental note to go through her old files and see if there was something she’d missed. Over the years, there had been a few people who’d gotten angry that she’d uncovered something unsavory about them, but no motive for murder immediately came to mind. And she was pretty sure she would have remembered something like that.
Colt checked the time. “The Ranger should be here within an hour or so. We’ll work out the details of where you’re going then.”
Because she had so much on her mind, it took a moment for that to sink in. Those details with the Ranger likely wouldn’t involve Colt staying with her. That should have pleased her. And it would have done just that twenty-four hours earlier.
Not now, though.
“You’re uncomfortable around me because of the kiss,” she admitted, even though she figured it was a subject Colt would want to avoid.
He did. The sudden tightening of his jaw confirmed that. “I’m uncomfortable around me because of the kiss. Because it shouldn’t have happened.” He cursed. “Us getting involved would be the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.”
She couldn’t argue with that. His father and brothers probably hated her, and she was the last person on earth they’d want around Colt. Plus, she didn’t think it was her imagination that Colt was still holding a grudge for her leaving all those years ago.
Or not.
A grudge would have meant that he’d actually had feelings for her that went beyond a teenage crush. He certainly hadn’t said a word to stop her when she’d brought up the subject of leaving Sweetwater Springs to go to college in Dallas instead of heading to the University of Texas where he was going.
Not. A. Word.
Okay, so maybe Colt wasn’t the only one holding on to a grudge here. A grudge still mixed with attraction.
Yes, nothing could go wrong with that combination.
“We can just agree that the kiss was a mistake,” she said, “and that it won’t happen again.”
Colt gave her a flat look. “If we’re aroun
d each other, it’ll happen again.”
She returned the flat look. Or rather tried. “It won’t happen again,” she repeated, hoping if she said it enough, it would come true.
Or at least it might want her to make it come true.
“It’ll happen,” he argued. His gaze went from her mouth to her breasts. “And next time, it might not just stay a kiss.”
Oh, that really didn’t help. The look alone had caused her to go all warm and golden, and the thought of pushing this further took her well past the warmth stage and made her forget all sorts of things.
Like the grudge. And common sense.
At least for several moments.
Then Colt took the final turn for her place, and the house and barn came into view. He slowed the truck to a crawl and put his hand over his gun. Bracing for an attack. But Elise didn’t see anything that would require him to pull his weapon.
Well, other than the obscene threat scrawled in red paint on the side of her barn. And there was no doubt about it, it was a threat.
Stay here and you die.
It was surrounded by other obscenities, all obviously meant to unnerve her.
Sadly, it was working.
“Don’t get out yet,” Colt insisted when he brought the truck to a stop.
Cursing, he used his phone to take several pictures, but Colt didn’t get out until Reed had stopped directly behind him. “Help me keep an eye on Elise,” he told his fellow deputy.
He walked toward the barn, his attention still firing all around them. Reed’s, too. They drew their weapons, went to the barn opening and looked inside.
Colt glanced back at her and shook his head. “No one’s here.”
Elise wasn’t exactly relieved about that. If Colt had managed to catch the person red-handed, literally, then the danger would be over, and she might be able to get on with her life.
“I’ll check the house and make sure no one broke in,” Reed offered.
The deputy walked toward her front porch. Elise got out of the truck and went to stand by Colt. He opened his mouth, maybe to tell her to get back in the truck, but they both knew she wasn’t necessarily any safer there than she was by the barn. After all, bullets could go through glass.
The Deputy's Redemption Page 6
