Eli’s groan was even louder than she one she made. “And you believed them.” The look he gave her was as flat as his tone. He didn’t spell out to her that she’d been gullible, but he was certain Ashlyn had already picked up on that.
She squeezed her eyes shut a moment. “I panicked. Wasn’t thinking straight. As soon as I could move, I jumped in my car and drove straight here.”
The drive wouldn’t have taken that long since Ashlyn’s house was only about ten miles away. She lived on a small ranch on the other side of Longview Ridge that she’d inherited from her grandparents, and she made a living training and boarding horses.
“Did the kidnappers make a ransom demand?” he pressed. “Or did they take anything else from your place?”
“No. They only took Cora. Who brought her here?” Ashlyn asked, her head whipping up. “Was it those cops?”
“Fake cops,” Eli automatically corrected. “I didn’t see who left her on my porch, but they weren’t exactly quiet about it. She was probably out here no more than a minute or two before I went to the door and found her.”
He paused, worked through the pieces that she’d just given him, and it didn’t take him long to come to a conclusion. A bad one. These fake cops hadn’t hurt the child, hadn’t asked for money or taken anything, but they had let Ashlyn believe they worked for him. There had to be a good reason for that. Well, “good” in their minds, anyway.
“This was some kind of sick game?” she asked.
It was looking that way. A game designed to send her after him.
“They wanted me to kill you?” Ashlyn added a moment later.
Before Eli answered that, he wanted to talk to his brother and get backup so he could take Ashlyn and the baby into Longview Ridge. First to the hospital to confirm they were okay and then to the sheriff’s office so he could get an official statement from Ashlyn.
“You really had no part in this?” she pressed.
Eli huffed, not bothering to answer that. He took out his phone to make that call to Kellan, but he stopped when he saw the blur of motion on the other side of Ashlyn’s car. He lifted his hand to silence her when Ashlyn started to speak, and he kept looking.
Waiting.
Then, he finally saw it. Or rather he saw them. Two men wearing uniforms, and they had guns aimed right at the house.
Chapter Two
Ashlyn immediately noticed the change in Eli’s body language, and she heard the single word of profanity that he said under his breath. And she knew something else was horribly wrong.
“Did those cops come back? Those men?” she corrected.
Not cops. Now that she had her baby safe in her arms and was seeing things a little clearer, she knew that. Well, unless they were dirty lawmen, but she doubted they would have shown up in uniform and full gear if they had been.
“Someone’s out there,” Eli confirmed, and while volleying his attention between the window and his phone, he fired off a text to someone. Kellan, no doubt. “Get down and stay down,” he added as he finished the text.
Ashlyn held Cora close to her while she hurried to the sofa and dropped down on the side of it. “How good is your security system?” she asked, trying to tamp down the fear that was racing through her.
“Good,” Eli verified. “But yours would have been, too, and yet they still managed to get in.”
That only caused her heart to pound even harder. Because he was right. After she’d nearly been killed two years ago, after Marta had died, Ashlyn had added a security system with motion detectors, but no alarms had gone off when the men had broken in.
She groaned. “They jammed it.” Eli didn’t verify that, didn’t need to. It was the only thing that made sense. Actually, it was one of the few things that actually made sense. They’d jammed it so they could get to her before she could grab a weapon or try to defend herself. But why had they set her up to go after Eli?
If that’s what had actually happened.
“The men aren’t coming closer,” Eli told her. “They’re behind the trees across the road from your car. As soon as Kellan gets here, I’ll go out there and confront them.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished. “If you go out there, they could gun you down.”
“Maybe. But they would have had a chance to do that when I stepped on the porch and found the baby. And they could have killed you when they broke into your house or even after you arrived here.”
That robbed Ashlyn of what little breath she’d managed to gather. Mercy, he was right. They could have shot her instead of using the stun gun. Once they’d overpowered her, they could have done whatever they’d wanted.
“What’s going on?” she mumbled.
“The hell if I know, but trust me when I say this, I will find out.”
Eli glanced back at her again, and even though the lights in the room were off, she could see his intense expression. Of course, plenty of things were intense about Eli. He was the tough Slater brother, the hard-nosed Texas Ranger who could intimidate with a single look.
Like now.
Of course, the intimidation was lessened some by the fact he was bare to the waist and his jeans weren’t even zipped. For just a split second, before she could push it away, Ashlyn saw the hot cowboy that she’d once crushed on way back in high school.
“You’d better not be lying to me about any of this,” he snarled.
And just like that, he caused the “crush” thoughts to vanish in a flash. “Everything that I’ve told you is the truth.”
It was. But with their history, she couldn’t blame him for asking. However, she could perhaps blame him for what’d gone on.
“If these men wanted me to kill you, then maybe it’s because of a case you’re working on. Maybe it’s because of Marta,” she added.
Ashlyn waited for the glare that she was certain he would send her way, but there wasn’t one. Maybe because he got an interruption when his phone rang. He put the call on speaker while he continued to keep watch, and it didn’t take long before she heard the familiar voice.
Sheriff Kellan Slater.
“I’m just up the road, and I have the two men in sight,” Kellan explained. “You’re right. They’re armed. From what I can see both have handguns, and one has a rifle with a scope.”
Eli’s scowl deepened, and she thought she knew why. The handguns might not be much of a threat to them if the men stayed across the road because of the range of the bullets, but they could use the rifle to fire into the house. If that’s what they planned, that is. But as Eli had pointed out, they hadn’t shot at either him or her when they’d had a chance.
“Gunnar’s on the way,” Kellan added a moment later. “I’d like to hold off doing anything until he gets here, and he can block the road from the other end.”
Gunnar was Deputy Gunnar Pullam, whom Ashlyn had known most of her life. Like Kellan, he didn’t live too far away, which hopefully meant he’d be there soon. That way, if they could pen in the men, they might be able to catch and then question them.
“You have IDs on these two?” Kellan asked Eli.
“No. But I believe they might have brought Ashlyn’s adopted baby to my house and left her on my doorstep.”
“What?” Kellan sounded just as stunned as Eli had been when she’d first shown up.
“Yeah,” was all Eli said. “I need to grab my boots from my bedroom,” he added to Kellan. “If we have to chase these guys, I don’t want to be barefoot. Ashlyn is on the floor, and she’ll stay down.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Kellan assured him. “Hurry.”
The urgency in Kellan’s voice came through loud and clear, and it gave Ashlyn another jolt of adrenaline that she didn’t need. At least Cora had stopped fussing and had fallen back asleep. That hopefully meant the baby 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 for her to explain more about that. Leon and Marta were both Eli’s criminal informants. Both Marta and Leon had prior drug arrests, but Marta had been small potatoes compared to Leon. And Leon had ultimately been blamed for setting up the ambush attack that’d resulted in the bloodbath the night Marta had been killed.
“Why the hell would you go visit Leon?” Eli asked. She was surprised he could speak with his jaw clenched so tight.
He wasn’t going to like her answer.
“I wanted to hear Leon’s take on what happened.” She paused, because she had to drag in enough breath to continue. “He worked out a plea deal to get the death penalty off the table so there was no trial, no testimony, and I wanted to see if—”
“If I’d been the one to set up what went on that night. You think I purposely had Marta go into that alley so a drug-crazed snake could gun her down.”
That thought had kept crossing her mind until she’d become obsessed with it. “I just had to know the truth.”
“And you thought you’d get that truth from a criminal with a long record. One who confessed to putting Marta on the scene because he didn’t like the competition. She was giving the Rangers and cops more reliable info and therefore getting paid more than he was, and he wanted to put her out of commission.”
Ashlyn hadn’t expected Eli to see it any other way. But then, he hadn’t nearly been killed that night. “I had to be sure.” Her gaze flew to his. “And this proves I’m right. There is something off, or why would these men have taken Cora?”
That felt like a punch to the stomach. Oh God. In her quest to find the truth, she’d put her precious baby in danger.
“Why go and visit Leon now?” Eli pressed, not answering her question. “It’s been nearly two years.”
Ashlyn wasn’t sure he would understand. Heck, she wasn’t sure she did, either, but enough time had passed that she’d finally felt able to start confronting some of her demons. Cora was responsible for that. Ashlyn hadn’t wanted her daughter to be burdened with her mom’s emotional baggage, and she’d thought the way to start dealing with that was to visit Leon.
Before Ashlyn could even attempt to answer Eli, she saw him shift his body a little, changing the angle of the view he had outside the window. He had his attention focused on something, or maybe someone, and he was suddenly so still. Holding his breath and waiting.
“Get all the way down to the floor,” Eli suddenly shouted. He scrambled toward her.
His loud voice woke Cora, and the baby started to cry again, but Eli’s shout wasn’t nearly as deafening as the next sound.
A gunshot.
It blasted through the window where he’d just been standing. A second and third one quickly followed. And the shots set off the security system. The alarms immediately began to blare through the house.
Eli practically threw himself over Cora and her. Good thing, too, because the bullets sent glass flying through the room, and it clattered and pinged to the floor next to her. It no doubt hit Eli, too. She hoped those hits had only come from the glass and not the shots.
As the bullets continued to slam into the house, he turned, pivoting so that his back was to her, and he took aim at the door. It didn’t take her long to figure out why he’d done that. The latest shots were hitting the door. It was as if the gunman was trying to tear right through the wood.
And there was something else...
“Is the shooter getting closer?” she asked, her voice trembling. Plus, the alarm was so loud that she wasn’t sure how he’d mana
ged to hear her.
“Yeah,” he verified.
Oh, mercy. Closer meant he could maybe get into the house and gun them down. Cora could be hurt.
Eli used his phone to turn off the blaring alarms. Probably so he could hear the gunman if he made it onto the porch.
“Move behind the sofa,” he instructed. “If things get bad, crawl down the hall and go into my bathroom. Get in the tub.”
She nodded and moved as he’d said, but things were already bad. The shots were coming nonstop.
“Where’re Kellan and Gunnar?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, but some of those shots are theirs,” he explained.
Ashlyn listened. That was hard to do with her pulse crashing in her ears, but she thought she could hear the different firearms. It meant Kellan and the deputy were in a gunfight with these men, but they weren’t stopping the one shooting through the door. The one who no doubt had the rifle.
Eli scrambled away from her again, heading back to the window. Putting himself in the line of fire, but a moment later she heard him deliver his own shot. It was even louder than the others had been, and it caused Cora to cry harder. Ashlyn tried to soothe the baby by rocking her, but the noise had obviously frightened her.
When Eli’s phone rang, he put the call on speaker, and she braced herself in case it was from the kidnapper. But it was Kellan.
“Hold your fire,” Kellan immediately said. “The shooter with the rifle is on the run, and Gunnar and I are moving in. But keep watch. We lost sight of the other one.”
“Where’d you last see him?” Eli asked.
Kellan didn’t even pause. “He was headed toward your house.”
Chapter Three
Eli had figured the danger wasn’t over, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected one of the thugs to come toward the house when he had two cops in pursuit and another lawman waiting for him inside. The smart thing to do would have been to try to escape, but this guy wasn’t doing that. That made him either an idiot, cocky or desperate.
Settling an Old Score Page 2