Settling an Old Score

by Delores Fossen

  None of those was a good option. All three would be the perfect bad storm, especially considering the guy was armed and ready to commit murder.

  Eli fired glances all around the yard. No sign of the man, but Eli knew he was out there somewhere, and if his brother and Gunnar were in pursuit of the other gunman, then that meant Eli needed to make sure this clown didn’t get anywhere near Ashlyn and the baby.

  He made a quick look over his shoulder at them, to make sure they were still behind the sofa. They were. But now that the security alarms weren’t blaring through the house and no one was shooting at them, he could hear Ashlyn’s ragged breaths and the baby’s whimpers.

  Hell.

  Ashlyn had to be terrified, perhaps even getting some flashbacks of the night she’d been shot. And that wasn’t even the worst of it, because this was a parent’s worst nightmare, to have a child in the middle of an attack.

  No baby should be put through this, and once he had the situation under control, he needed to make sure it never happened again. That’s why he wanted to take the gunman alive. Maybe Kellan and Gunnar could do the same so they could pit the two against each other and get to the truth. Maybe, too, this wouldn’t be connected to Marta’s murder, but it wasn’t looking that way.

  Your current houseguest, Ashlyn Darrow, is responsible for this, the kidnapper had said.

  Eli didn’t intend to just accept the word of a guy trying to kill him, but it left him with an even more unsettled feeling. Had Ashlyn really triggered this by digging into the old case file or visiting Leon? And if so, why would it have caused someone to respond with violence like this?

  Leon was in prison. Locked up in a maximum security facility where he was serving a life sentence. It was exactly where he belonged since he’d been the one who’d lured Marta, and therefore Ashlyn and Eli, into that alley with the drug dealer. No way could Leon dispute that, either, because there’d been multiple witnesses.

  But Leon had always claimed that he’d been set up.

  There’d never been an ounce of proof to that claim and plenty of evidence to indicate Leon had simply wanted Marta dead because he resented her and also because she was about to rat him out for his new criminal association with the drug dealer who’d been killed. Still, it chewed away at Eli that there could be something else about the violence that’d gone on that night. Something he’d missed.

  Something that had led to the situation they were in now.

  Eli was so focused on watching for the gunman that the sound of the bullet was an unexpected jolt. It caused Ashlyn to gasp.

  “The shot wasn’t fired near the house,” he told her.

  It had come from the east side of his land, probably where his brother and Gunnar were. Eli prayed that one of them hadn’t been shot. He figured Ashlyn was doing plenty of praying, too, because he heard her mumbling. Also heard her whispering reassurances to the baby.

  There was another shot. Also in the distance. But it had no sooner rung out when Eli finally saw something. Not Kellan or Gunnar. This was a man wearing camo who was doing a low military-style crawl on the ground by a line of trees on the side of the house. He was close.

  Too close.

  Eli shifted and took aim out what had once been a window. It was now just a gaping hole from the other rounds of gunfire. And he waited for a clean shot, maybe to the guy’s shoulder. Something to slow him down enough so that Eli could get out there and disarm him.

  His phone beeped with a text message, and since Eli didn’t want to take his attention off the crawler, he slid his phone across the floor to Ashlyn.

  “It’s from Kellan,” she relayed a moment later. Her breath gusted even more. “He had to kill the shooter.”

  Eli groaned, but he’d known that could be the likely outcome. That’s why it was even more important to keep thug number two alive.

  “Kellan and Gunnar are on the way back here,” Ashlyn added.

  “Text him back and tell him that I’ve got the gunman in my sight, and he’s on the west side of the house in the cluster of pecan trees.”

  He immediately heard her do that, and Eli knew it would send Kellan and Gunnar that direction. Maybe if the thug knew he had three lawmen bearing down on him, he’d surrender.

  Or not.

  No sooner had that thought popped into Eli’s head, the gunman moved out of the crawling position to crouch behind one of the trees. No doubt getting into position to continue the attack. Continuing it didn’t take long, either. It was only a couple of seconds before the guy leaned out and took aim at the house.

  Eli couldn’t risk another bullet being fired this close to the house, because it could go through the walls and hit the baby. That’s why Eli fired first. His shot slammed into the guy’s shoulder, just as he’d planned, but the gunman didn’t go down. Instead, he lifted his gun again, ready to take the shot that Eli couldn’t let him take. Eli tapped his trigger again, sending another bullet into the man’s chest.

  That put him on the ground.

  Cursing, Eli took out Ashlyn’s gun, and as he’d done with the phone, he slid it across the floor to her. “Stay put,” he warned her, and hoped that she would listen. She probably would only because she wouldn’t want to risk taking the baby outside.

  “Be careful,” she said, but that didn’t sound like her first choice of things to tell him. Right now, she likely just wanted him to stay alive so there’d be someone to help her protect the baby.

  When she peered out from the sofa to get the gun, he saw the uncertainty in her eyes. Probably because she knew that his going out there was a risk. One he had to take so that he could get to the shooter before the guy bled out. A dead man wouldn’t be able to give him any answers.

  “Kellan’s almost certainly already done it, but go ahead and call for an ambulance,” Eli instructed.

  Eli heard her do that, too, while he did a quick mental check of the security of the house. The place was all locked up except for the front window with the shattered glass. It wasn’t a big enough hole for someone to climb through, but he’d need to keep watch just in case there was a third thug, lying in wait.

  That definitely didn’t help loosen the knot in his stomach.

  Eli unlocked the front door, glanced around. And he listened. There was nothing other than the groans of pain coming from the injured gunman. Those moans let Eli know that the guy was still alive. Probably still armed, too, and that’s why Eli couldn’t just go charging toward him.

  He gave the living room one last glance to make sure Ashlyn was still behind cover. She was and was no longer peering out from the sofa. And with that safeguard ticked off his mental to-do list, he walked out on the porch. His foot brushed against the side of the baby carrier, a reminder that it needed to be processed for trace and fiber evidence, and he took the steps one at a time while still keeping watch.

  The gunman groaned again, and as Eli got closer, he saw the guy was lying on his back and clutching his chest. And yeah, he still had a gun in his hand. A gun now soaked in blood. Eli had hoped he’d been wearing a Kevlar vest and had only had the breath knocked out of him. But this was much more serious than that.

  The man was dying.

  Eli didn’t feel any sympathy for the man, this clown who’d come to his house with guns blazing, but he wanted him to hang on.

  By the time Eli reached the man, he heard the hurried footsteps behind him. Eli automatically pivoted, his heart jumping to his throat with a fresh slam of adrenaline, but it was just Kellan and Gunnar.

  “The ambulance is on the way,” Kellan relayed, but then he cursed when he saw the man. And the blood. The guy would be dead before the ambulance could get there.

  “Wait on the porch,” Eli told Gunnar. “Ashlyn is inside with her baby.”

  Gunnar nodded and ran to the door to stand guard in what Eli hoped would be an unnecessary precaution. Eli and
Kellan continued to the man, and the first thing Eli did was take the gun from his hand because a dying man could still be dangerous and pull a trigger.

  Kellan had a small flashlight that he aimed at the shooter’s face. Brown hair, nondescript features except for a scar that cut through his right eyebrow. Eli was certain that he’d never seen him before.

  “Who are you?” Eli demanded.

  The guy managed a sneer. “I got a family,” he said. “And you won’t get an ID off me from my prints. No record.”

  Even though it wasn’t an answer to his question, that response told Eli plenty. This was a hired gun, and his family would get a payout whether he lived or died. Or at least that’s what this clown believed.

  “Once you’re dead, your face will be plastered on every news station in the state,” Eli warned him. “Someone will recognize you, and once I have an ID, I can and will go after your family as accessories to kidnapping and attempted murder of a Texas Ranger. How do you think that’ll play out for you, for them, huh?”

  No sneer this time, but the guy did cough, and there was a rattling sound in his chest while his hands stayed pressed to his wound. “My family had nothing to do with this. You were just the job.”

  “Funny, but it felt very personal to me.” Eli knelt down, got right in his face and made sure he looked like the badass Ranger that he was. “You endangered an innocent baby. I won’t forget that, and I’ll go after your family until I put every last one of them in a cage. Now tell me who the hell you are and why you did this.”

  The man shook his head, dragged in a ragged breath, but Eli saw the realization in his dying eyes. The realization that Eli wasn’t bluffing. “I’m Abe Franklin,” he finally said, his voice barely audible now. “And if I tell you who hired me, you have to promise to protect my family. Promise me,” he repeated.

  Eli would have lied to get the name of the guy’s boss, but in this case, no lie was necessary. If his family was indeed innocent, then they’d be protected. “I promise,” Eli assured him.

  Even though the man clearly only had a few seconds left, he still took his time answering. “The woman with the kid, Ashlyn Darrow, was supposed to shoot and kill you once she thought you’d taken the baby. And then the woman would be arrested for your murder.”

  Eli had already come up with that theory, but it didn’t give him the info he needed. “Who set that up? Who hired you?”

  “She said you and Ashlyn wouldn’t see it coming, that you wouldn’t suspect her at all.”

  “She?” Eli demanded.

  “The woman who hired me. She said you wouldn’t suspect her because you thought she was dead.” The next breath was much thinner. The cough, more of a death rattle. “Her name is Marta Seaver.”

  Chapter Four

  Ashlyn eased Cora into the infant seat that Eli had arranged to have in the back seat of the cruiser. The baby remained asleep, thank goodness, and Ashlyn hoped she stayed that way for the next couple of hours. Cora had already had enough interruptions to her routine and sleep.

  Even though it would only be a short drive from the hospital where they’d just been examined to the sheriff’s office, Eli had insisted on them riding in the bullet-resistant cruiser. He’d told Ashlyn that he didn’t want to take any chances. Since her baby’s life could be at risk, neither did she.

  But Ashlyn wanted to know why there was that dangerous risk in the first place.

  And who was really behind it.

  She hated that the hired thug claimed that Marta was his boss. Hated even more the man had died before giving them the truth. Of course, to him maybe that was the truth. The person who hired him could have told him that. It was just as possible, though, that he’d used his dying breath to lie.

  Judging from the phone calls Eli was making, he was considering that it was at least a possibility that Marta was alive.

  On the drive to the hospital and during Cora’s exam in the ER, Eli hadn’t left their sides. He’d stood guard, continuing to keep watch. That gave Ashlyn the chance to hear him contact the admin office at the San Antonio hospital where Marta had been pronounced dead. When he hadn’t been able to reach someone who had answers, he’d left messages both there and then at the funeral home that had handled Marta’s remains.

  She listened to those calls and others he made. Some to the two CSI teams who were at her house and his to remind them to relay to him anything that they found. He’d done the same to the medical examiner and his brother Kellan. Ashlyn had no doubts that he would get that info.

  However, what concerned her was that it wouldn’t keep her daughter out of further danger.

  When her mouth began to tremble and the tears threatened, again, Ashlyn clamped her teeth over her bottom lip and forced herself to stay steady. It wouldn’t help anything if she fell apart, and it would likely only rile Eli even more. He was obviously upset, not just at the attack but probably at her, too. She’d been a fool to believe those thugs when they’d told her Eli had kidnapped Cora.

  And it could have gotten Eli killed.

  Ashlyn hated to think that she would have pulled the trigger, but she’d been out of her mind with fear and worry when she’d driven to his house. If Eli and she had gotten into a scuffle... But she stopped herself from going there. It hadn’t happened, period, and she didn’t need to play “what if.”

  “Marta’s dead,” Ashlyn repeated once Eli had finished his latest call to the crime lab.

  Eli made a sound of agreement. It was the same reaction he’d had the first time she pointed out that obvious fact shortly after he had told her what the gunman said. Eli definitely hadn’t argued with her then, or now.

  “But you called the funeral home and the San Antonio hospital,” she pointed out. “So you must think her being alive is at least a possibility.”

  He made another of those annoying noncommittal sounds but then glanced at her. Well, actually his glance went to Cora first, then her. “Just covering all the bases.” He paused and didn’t say anything else until his attention was back at keeping watch out the window. “I checked Marta’s pulse that night and didn’t feel one.”

  Ashlyn had known he’d done that. Once backup had arrived, Eli had stooped down and touched his fingers to Marta’s neck. He hadn’t said anything, but Ashlyn had seen it in his eyes. The dread. The grief.

  The guilt.

  Or maybe she’d seen the guilt only because she had blamed him for what had happened to Marta. Ashlyn still did blame him. Though it was hard to hang on to every drop of that blame after what Eli had done tonight. He’d put his life on the line for Cora and her.

  “Thank you for protecting Cora,” she said.

  The next sound he made seemed to be one of dismissal. It had an “I was just doing my job” ring to it, and maybe that’s all it was, but at the core of it was something very personal. A different kind of personal than the old attractions that had once been between them.

  She and Eli had been in that alley when Marta was shot. When she’d been shot, too. And whether either of them wanted it, it had created this connection between them. One that came with bad memories and a shared nightmare that was still haunting them. Maybe it always would.

  While Gunnar drove down Main Street, Eli continued to keep watch, and he checked his phone whenever it dinged with a text message. Since Cora’s car seat was between them, Ashlyn couldn’t see what 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 r
emembered 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.”