Love Inspired Suspense September 2015 #1

by Margaret Daley

Nathan’s eyes lit up. “Serious?”

  Jonah realized the implication of what he’d said. “Or you could borrow it sometime.” He nudged Nathan’s shoulder.

  “Or you could borrow it.” Nathan shoved his shoulder back.

  Jonah sobered. “Where do you think you’ll be after the summer?”

  Nathan shrugged. “I got accepted into a zoology program at the university, so I’ll be leaving in August and it’ll be nothing but labs and research classes for four years.”

  Jonah eyed him. “You like all that science stuff?”

  “Sure.” Nathan shrugged. “Maybe I’ll enjoy it.”

  Multiple thoughts went through Jonah’s head, but he didn’t know either Nathan or Elise well enough to speculate on the topic of Nathan’s future.

  The front door slammed open. Shelder was already down the porch steps with Elise on her heels when the screen door snapped back on its hinges.

  “She identified him.” Shelder stopped in front of him. “It’s the reporter.”

  Jonah turned to Elise. “Are you sure? It won’t be official until you make the identification to the police, but it’ll give us something to go on.”

  Elise nodded. “That man on Hailey’s phone—” She motioned to Shelder’s cell. Jonah saw the reporter’s picture was on the screen.

  “That’s the man who hit me in the office.”

  SIX

  Elise’s heart was still pounding at the revelation of the identity of the man who’d attacked her in the office and stolen files. A silver Buick pulled onto the drive and crawled past cops searching the area, gathering evidence and taking Jonah’s mailbox into custody. Or that was what it looked like, at least. The driver lifted his hand to the cops, who nodded respectfully in return.

  Jonah rubbed his hand along his jaw, his eyes on the newcomer. Elise figured the gesture probably didn’t mean he just found out he had a math test second period he hadn’t studied for. She had no frame of reference for Jonah’s mannerisms now. “Who is that?”

  Shelder—who’d asked Elise to call her Hailey—was the one who answered, “The mayor.”

  Elise caught her tone. “You don’t like him?”

  The mayor had been completely professional in their emails and the one conversation they’d had over the phone. Essentially she’d been hired sight unseen. But still, he’d been pleasant enough and there hadn’t been any other qualified candidates.

  “It isn’t that. It’s the office itself I don’t have such an affinity for.” Shelder shot her a wry smile. “Dominic Alvarez is a perfectly nice retiree with too much time on his hands, who wanted to help the town after the flood.”

  “He didn’t get elected?”

  “Loosely.”

  Elise wondered what the rest of the story was, but there wasn’t time to answer before the elderly Hispanic man parked his car and hopped out. His hair was perfectly arranged and his suit included a buttoned waistcoat. “Ms. Tanner?”

  Elise strode over and stuck her hand out. “It’s nice to meet you finally, Mr. Alvarez.”

  He held her hand with both of his, his hands warm where hers had been cold from what Hailey told her was shock. The cordiality in his dark brown eyes was genuine. “I’d planned to visit with you this morning, but my assistant informed me of what happened yesterday and this morning. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, thank you.” He released her hand, and Elise waved Nathan over so she could introduce her son.

  The mayor shook Nathan’s hand and waved toward the house. “Should we go inside? There’s a chill out here, and you probably want a moment to sit.”

  Elise didn’t want to spend much more time out in the open, even if the area was crawling with law enforcement. Not when she could still hear the echo of the gunshot in her ears. She nodded and the mayor stepped closer, holding out his elbow. She slipped her arm in his and he patted her hand as though they were walking through stately gardens, not the dirt drive that led to Jonah’s house.

  Sam trotted over to the mayor. Dominic bent to scratch the dog’s ears. “Good dog.”

  Elise wasn’t used to people being so concerned about her—it was almost disconcerting. The introvert in her needed some quiet time. Maybe she could go to the ranch where a few of the animals were being cared for and spend some time with them, instead of using all her time rebuilding the zoo. She’d have to ask the mayor about that.

  Alvarez waved Nathan over, and her son walked with them. Elise heard Hailey chuckle, but didn’t get the chance to find out what was so funny. Jonah stood in front of them. Was he going to move, or would they have to swerve around him?

  “Good morning, son.”

  Jonah didn’t move. “Dom.”

  Elise said, “Do…you guys know each other?”

  Jonah turned to the mayor. “Elise had a scare. She doesn’t need to be working right now.” His eyes were dark with something she didn’t understand.

  “I know that. This isn’t about work. I’ll go easy on her.”

  “Dom—”

  The mayor glanced at her. “Come.” He walked her around a now sullen Jonah toward the house, as though he’d been here many times and was perfectly at home. “Let’s go sit.”

  When they were a short distance from Jonah, Elise looked back. He was watching them walk. The mayor looked back over his shoulder. “Is the coffeepot on, Jonah?”

  “Yeah, Dom. The coffee’s on.”

  The mayor—Dom, evidently, to his friends—leaned close to her as they walked. “Jonah is my stepson.”

  Elise nearly tripped. “You’re married to…”

  “Nettie, yes. For four years now.” Dom grinned. “I heard a rumor that makes you my step-daughter-in-law.” Before Elise had a chance to answer, he turned to Nathan. “And you, my step-grandson.”

  Nathan smiled. “I guess so.”

  The kid had never had so much family in his whole life as he’d had in the last two days. He was probably on overload. Elise sure was.

  She bit her lip. “You really married Bernadette Rivers?”

  Dom’s gaze on her softened. “She’s told me so much about you, Elise. Nettie very much… Well, none of it is for me to say, given Nettie is the one who needs to make amends. But she greatly regrets the wrong done to you.”

  “Because she found out she has a grandson?”

  Jonah must have called his mom the night before, after Elise fell asleep, and told her all about Nathan. She glanced back at Jonah, but he was talking with Hailey. Was he going to leave, to go talk with the reporter she’d just identified as the man who’d attacked her in the zoo office?

  Maybe he would just go without telling her, assuming she would be fine without him. Which, of course, was true. She didn’t need it to be specifically him who made sure nobody else tried to kill her this weekend. Any of the marshals, or a cop, or Sam, would do.

  She reached down and patted the dog and then turned back to Dom. “All of a sudden Bernadette wants to make amends?”

  They stopped at the porch. Elise opened her mouth to tell the mayor where his wife—Elise’s former motherin-law—could go, but he cut her off.

  “You’re probably not feeling up to this. Please don’t get upset. That was not my intention.” His mouth compressed into a frown. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but I didn’t want there to be secrets between us.”

  Nathan opened the front door for them. Elise poured the coffee and they sat on the couch where she’d been interviewed by the police only minutes ago. Jonah didn’t come in, but what did she care? At least she was trying not to. Whether he was inside with her or outside shouldn’t matter so much. She didn’t need to be that attuned to his presence in her life…or her heart.

  Elise’s cup shook, so she set it down on the table. “Thank you for coming to check on me. I really appreciate it.” She covered the shakes by clasping her knees tight. Her smile probably looked brittle, but it was the best she could come up with. If she’d eaten lunch she would probably be losing it, but her stomach was now pa
infully empty.

  Nathan left the room silently.

  Dom waited until Nathan had left the room. “Your son might favor his father.” He smiled. “But he reminds me of his uncle.”

  Thinking about her son, Elise’s heart unclenched just a little. She couldn’t lose it, not when Nathan was relying on her to be the parent. Sure, he was almost grown, but that didn’t mean there weren’t times he needed his mom. She’d recognized as much in the hospital.

  He strode back into the room and handed her a banana. “Here, eat this.”

  Was it that obvious? He did know her better than anyone in the world. And where once that had been true of Jonah and Martin, now the position of most important in her life went to Nathan. God, thank You for keeping me safe today. They needed each other equally, and she could easily have been killed if she hadn’t taken that step away from the mailbox at just the right time.

  Dom glanced between them. “Well, let’s talk zoo. Shall we?”

  Elise nodded. Talking about the animals would take her mind off the craziness of the last two days.

  At least until the next crazy thing happened.

  *

  Shelder hung up the phone. “Parker and Ames are ready to roll. They’ll meet us at Colombes’s place.”

  Jonah was itching to go after the reporter and find out if it really was him who had attacked Elise.

  He wanted to look at the house where Dom had walked with Elise, and where his traitorous dog had disappeared, but he didn’t. Hailey would know, and Jonah would never live down pining for a person of interest in one of their cases.

  “I take it there’s nothing new on the hunt for Fix.” Especially not when the team was raring to go after the reporter. Why were they all of a sudden so concerned with Elise’s well-being?

  “Parker and Ames are still trying to get an address on the girlfriend from Eric’s research. Two they tried this morning turned out to be previous residences, and no one seems to know where she or Fix is living now. Eric isn’t coming up with much else.”

  And now someone had opened fire on Elise.

  Shelder said, “Was it really a sniper?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Anyone you know?”

  Jonah remembered the thought that had crossed his mind when his neighbor came over to talk with him and Elise. The man was retired army, and had the necessary skills. At least from what he’d told Jonah. “What did the investigators get?”

  “They’re still looking for the bullet. It tore a hole through the mailbox, so they’re tracking where it might’ve gone. They’ll find it eventually.”

  He’d have made sure to use a bullet that couldn’t be traced back to him. If they did find it, the likelihood that it would lead to an arrest was slim. But they still had to try.

  Shelder continued. “Local police are talking to all your neighbors. They’ve got a decent lock on the area he’d have to have been in to hit your mailbox at that angle.”

  Jonah looked at the thing. It was mangled so bad he wondered that they could use it to work the angle of trajectory back to the location where the shooter would have to have been situated. “I need you to stay here and watch Elise and Nathan.”

  Shelder reacted. “Because I’m a girl?”

  Jonah shot her a look. “You’re the only team member here, and I’m going after this reporter.”

  “You got a chance to read the article?” She didn’t comment on the fact that it wasn’t their case to investigate, and he was grateful. The police knew he was invested now, since the threat had been brought to his doorstep. They were going to have to let him do what he needed to do to take care of Elise and Nathan.

  Jonah nodded. “I think Howard Colombes is the one who broke into the office. But I’m leaning away from him being the one who planted the bomb. I think he was just looking for a story. I think he knew who Elise was when he saw her in the office and took the opportunity to take her keys.”

  “Pretty vicious attack for a story.”

  “Maybe he thought she was in on it. Selling animals.” The reporter could also be an animal-rights activist. It would make for a strong drive to uncover cruelty or mistreatment of animals.”

  “If you want to go, I can tell Elise where you went.”

  Jonah saw the look on Shelder’s face. “I can tell her myself.”

  She raised both hands, palms out. “Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”

  “I stand behind what I said yesterday. I’m not above firing you, Shelder.”

  Shelder sobered in a moment of empathy. “She’s had a rough couple of days. Add in you on top of it and she’s probably got something akin to whiplash.”

  “What do you mean, add in me?”

  She motioned toward him, shoulders to shoes. “You can be…intimidating.”

  “Elise and I, and Martin, we were best friends.”

  “In childhood, yeah.” Shelder paused a beat. “But I bet you’re a lot different than your teenage self. Taller. Bigger. You’re the boss and you know it. A woman like Elise has had to hold her whole world together for years. She’s dealt with her husband’s death, the birth of her baby, made a name for herself in her career and now she’s made a big change. Coming home. Running into you probably wasn’t part of the plan for her first day back.”

  Jonah’s gut churned. “Or getting hurt, or shot at this morning.”

  “I’m just saying, give her some time to get used to you again.”

  Jonah was willing to concede that his colleague knew what she was talking about. Hailey was a single mom herself, also taking care of her aging father. He was suddenly glad she had fallen in love with Eric Hanning. He also recognized a surge of hope. Hailey was a strong, independent woman, and yet she’d learned how to rely on Eric for help in a tough situation.

  Could Elise do that?

  It was tempting to assume he was someone she wanted in her life now, but he couldn’t know that. If he wanted her to get used to him again, he had to ease her into it gently. That plan was certain to produce better results than the force of his will. Jonah had waited plenty long enough to feel that spark again—the spark he’d only ever felt with little Elise.

  Despite the difference in their ages, Jonah had seen something in her even as a teenager. Puppy love, maybe. But it was strong enough that he’d retreated to the military while he waited for her to finish growing up. Then she’d gone and married Martin instead.

  Now was his second chance, and Jonah wasn’t willing to step wrong and live another lifetime without her. He’d waited this long—he could wait a little longer.

  Inside, Elise was on the couch with a banana peel on the coffee table in front of her. Jonah saw how pale she was, and he crouched to brush some hair back from the side of her face. “You okay?”

  Her brown eyes were wide, like a doe’s.

  “I have to go talk with the reporter, but Hailey’s going to stay here.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was small, like the young Elise he’d known. She cleared her throat. “That’s fine.”

  “Maybe Nathan could make you some tea or something. Do you still drink hot tea?”

  She nodded, then looked aside at her son. “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll be back soon.” Jonah wanted to kiss her forehead, the way he’d done many times years before, but he held back. Affection wasn’t what she needed, or wanted, from him now.

  He drove across town with the radio off, wondering at how much his life had changed in only a day. He’d been on a lonely trajectory, nothing but work and a little family in his mom and Dom. Now Elise had brought her light back into his life.

  And Jonah was going to find out who was trying to kill her.

  He pulled up down the street from Howard Colombes’s house, donned his vest and grabbed his shotgun from the lockbox in his trunk. Parker, Ames and Hanning met him on the sidewalk. Parker led Hanning to the backyard while Ames backed up Jonah at the front door.

  Jonah knocked and it swung open.

  They c
leared the rooms from front to back, meeting in the middle. Jonah headed to the center room in the hallway. When he opened the door, he saw it was an office, and Howard Colombes was in his chair.

  Dead.

  SEVEN

  Beyond the body, the reporter’s wall safe was open and empty. Howard Colombes had been shot in the forehead, execution-style. His desk was clear except for the computer monitor, and the tower under the desk had been unplugged and removed. The file-cabinet drawers were open and someone had cleaned out Howard’s papers.

  Jonah finished up his notes and put his phone back in his pocket. He passed the two homicide detectives the police department had sent, and met his guys in the hall.

  Parker’s eyes were dark, the way they always were when he was faced with death. The former navy SEAL kept his past pretty well hidden, but Jonah saw the darkness creep up when their work turned grisly.

  Ames was all mouth, and usually at the wrong moment. But he was working on it.

  Eric Hanning was the newcomer of the group. Formerly assigned to witness protection, he came to the hunt for each fugitive with a more cerebral approach. And he was excellent at research.

  “So, what do we have?”

  The three men were used to his testing approach to a hunt. He wasn’t going to spoon-feed them everything, not when one of them would likely be team leader soon. He was sure Parker would take the position when Jonah transitioned to a more office-based role, but he didn’t want to give it up just yet.

  Jonah glanced at Parker, who said, “Whoever planted the bomb is cleaning up after himself. Howard Colombes was a loose end, someone who knew too much about what was going on at the zoo before it flooded. Whoever has a vested interest in the story not coming out is getting rid of anyone who knows.”

  “Which means he isn’t going to stop until Elise is dead, too.”

  “But by that logic, everyone who read the article in the paper should be killed,” Eric said.

  Ames shook his head. “Not since he’s destroying evidence. The article is only hearsay if there’s no evidence to corroborate the story.”

  Jonah nodded. “That means there’s something about Elise that’s put her on his list.”

  “Did she know about the animal trading?” Parker’s eyebrow rose. “Maybe from when she was here years ago?”