Chapter Fourteen #2
Because today had been a hard day for Elle Randolph. That was all. She was a nice person who was having a really hard time.
It had nothing to do with her big brown eyes. It had nothing to do with how right she’d felt in his arms.
Nope. It had nothing to do with anything at all.
He pulled his car into the garage and turned to look at her. She was panicked no longer, but she still seemed muted.
“Elle? You okay?”
She glanced at him, her smile way too tight. “Look, I know you’re being kind and I don’t want to take advantage of you or cause issues with your boss. We don’t have to work here. We can go to your office.”
He could see how much it cost her to suggest it.
“And we will, but let’s do that tomorrow.
You’ve had one hell of a day and I don’t want to make it worse by forcing you to do something that upsets you.
We can start with you telling me all the places you’ve been over the last two years.
I can do a quick check to see if there have been any homicides similar to ours in those places.
I can’t access the national crime databases from home, but I can do some simple searches with my personal laptop.
That will get me started.” He cocked his head, listening. “Besides, we have some company.”
Elle leaned to the right, checking the passenger-side mirror. “Is that…?”
“Yeah, that’s your lawyer friend. She texted me asking for my address and telling me she was coming. She didn’t ask permission,” he added dryly.
“I’m sorry. She’s looking out for me.”
“I’m glad she is. This way we’re more legit. And once I have a list of places to research, she can take you back to the inn. Come on. I asked Penny to start the coffee machine. We should have a full, fresh pot waiting for us.”
“That was kind of her.” Elle got out of the SUV, looking uncertain. “She’s okay with me being here? And are you? I mean, people around me keep dying, Ronan. Whoever shot those growers and planted evidence in my old room at the inn is still out there.”
He’d thought of that. But he wanted answers and he needed Elle Randolph clearheaded to provide them. She wouldn’t be if she spiraled into a panic attack.
“I texted Penny before we left the bluffs. She knows you’re coming.
As for being okay that you’re here, well, she may not be driving the welcome wagon tonight.
Kasey Arnold was a classmate of hers. Pen’s taking her death hard.
” When he’d come home to shower off the death stench, he’d found her sitting at the kitchen table, trying to study but crying too hard.
“She’s aware that this isn’t your fault, but she may not be as friendly as she usually is. She’ll probably stay in her room.”
Elle’s eyes were wide and wild. She looked like she’d bolt. “And the danger?”
He heard the door to Hellier’s Mercedes slam and the click of the lawyer’s heels on his driveway, but he remained focused on Elle.
“Penny is the child of a cop. There’s always going to be some level of danger.
We have an excellent security system—a home alarm system and Puff.
He looks sweet, but he can be formidable.
Penny’s also proficient with firearms and has taken self-defense classes.
She knows this is about getting justice for Dianne Foster and Kasey Arnold.
For Steve Garfield, too, even though he was stealing and selling drugs.
” He gently took her arm. “Come in. We’ll have some coffee and you can brief me on your past cases.
Then you can go back to the inn. All under the guidance of your attorney. ”
“Hey, Ellie,” Hellier said quietly. “You okay? We can go back now, if you want to.”
Elle shook her head. “No, I’m not okay. But I want justice, too, so we will do this tonight. I’ve been trying to figure out who could want to frame me and it could be a lot of people. You haven’t asked me that yet, Ronan.”
“I figured we’d glean some of that information when you gave me locations.
I’ll need the skipper you were hunting and anyone who may have tried to keep you from retrieving them.
Friends or family who were angry that the skipper was caught and sent to prison.
The skipper himself, or herself, if they’ve been released. Anyone you’ve pissed off.”
Hellier huffed. “We’ll be here all fucking night.”
Elle squared her shoulders. “You might be right. Let’s do this.”
Mendocino, California
Monday, February 2, 11:50 p.m.
“I think this is all of the places and dates and names.”
Elle had been writing for an hour, a cup of coffee at her elbow and Puff at her feet.
Alexis had been sitting silently, looking over Elle’s shoulder as she’d re-created two years of cases.
It would have taken only a few minutes if she’d been able to use her phone, but she’d locked it in the safe in the inn until they were sure it was clean.
So she’d logged into her email using Alexis’s laptop to review each case.
Ronan took the legal pad, his eyes widening as he scanned the list. “You’ve been busy the past two years.”
Sara would be displeased that Elle was volunteering so much information, but Sara wasn’t being bugged and stalked. Nor was she being framed for murder.
I am.
More importantly, though, five people were dead. Elle had to do something.
So she’d listed all the places and dates she’d done fugitive recovery work in the past two years. She’d noted the names of the fugitives she could remember. There were a lot of cases, any one of which could be connected to the frame.
It might be a fugitive she’d retrieved, although most of those were still in custody—either in jail awaiting trial or in prison after a guilty verdict.
But even if the perpetrators weren’t free to frame her, most of them had someone who cared about them.
Someone who was upset that they’d been sent to lockup. Someone who might want revenge.
That had certainly happened before. Ronan needed to know about those cases, so she went back and added asterisks next to the most egregious instances.
“About three quarters of the skippers were local to San Francisco,” she said. “We usually found them hiding out in the basement of their girlfriend, best friend, or mom. The rest skipped town and we had to cross state lines to hunt them.”
“What are the asterisks for?” Ronan asked.
“Cases where there was bad blood between us and the fugitive’s personal network. People who might be wanting revenge.”
Nodding, Ronan ran his finger down the column of names and dates. “Looks like the farthest south you traveled was just north of the Mexican border.”
“Imperial Beach, south of San Diego,” she supplied.
“That was an embezzler. Tried to blend in on the beach with all the surfers while he waited for a boat he’d chartered to take him into Mexico.
He was super skinny and didn’t have a tan, so he stood out.
He surrendered without a fight. I don’t think he’s a likely suspect. ”
“The farthest north was Minot, North Dakota.” He looked up at her. “Cold up there.”
“Luckily that one was in the summer. If it had been a few months later, I would have been hip-deep in snow.”
“And loudly complaining about it,” Alexis said fondly.
“Probably,” Elle agreed, not offended in the least. “That case won’t likely yield a suspect, either.
The skipper was a minor-league drug dealer.
He figured everyone would think he’d go south to Mexico, so he went north.
He had a friend on the Air Force base in Minot.
He thought that his pal would help him get over the border into Canada.
The pal turned him in to us instead. Got a reward.
I like to think the friend would have turned him in even without the reward. ”
Alexis coughed into her hand. “Naive.”
Ronan frowned at Alexis. “That’s a shitty thing to say. You’re supposed to be her friend.”
Alexis seemed taken aback but then nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Ellie. It’s just that you’ve got a big heart and I worry about you. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re not naive.”
“It’s fine.” She’d rather be naive than jaded and salty.
And a liar. She really hated lying. She liked that Ronan had taken up for her, though.
“The farthest east was Kansas City,” she said to him, trying to stay on topic.
“That case happened two years ago and is possibly relevant to our current situation. Skipper was a brute. Beat his eight-year-old daughter so badly that she had to be hospitalized. His sister in KC took him in when he jumped bail and fled San Francisco.” She didn’t like this memory.
“I was working with Orrin, one of Sara’s other hunters.
When we closed in, the skipper tried to shoot himself in the head.
He survived, but he won’t ever be the same.
” She shook her head, hoping to dislodge the mental pictures, but now that she’d dredged them up, they wouldn’t fade.
It had been a grisly sight, one that still gave her nightmares.
“He’s seriously disabled and, last I checked, was in a rehab facility.
His sister should probably go on your list, though.
She came at me when we talked to the local police in the ER after her brother was taken into surgery.
She was aiming to scratch my eyes out. She was charged with a misdemeanor.
Got probation. I’d say she hates me enough to try to frame me.
She was also in IT, so she’d have the technical skills to set up the bugs. ”
Ronan noted it. “You’ve starred the fugitive recoveries from Phoenix, Denver, and Las Vegas, too. Similar stories?”
“Yeah. Phoenix was an angry girlfriend who leapt off a roof to take me down while the skipper ran out the back.”
Ronan stilled, his focus on her seeming to sharpen. “Did she hurt you?”