Chapter Fourteen #3
“Oh yeah. Nearly knocked me out. I wasn’t anticipating the roof maneuver, so I wasn’t looking up.
Learned a lesson that day. My partner caught the skipper before he got to the edge of the property they were squatting on.
I’d dropped my gun when she landed on me, so I ended up grabbing a rock and hitting her in the head.
I had a goose egg on the back of my head and needed a CAT scan, and she needed eight stitches in her forehead.
As law enforcement was dragging her away in handcuffs, she vowed she’d get me back.
At the end of the day, it was good she did attack me.
My being in the ER gave me an alibi for the murder of another fugitive’s girlfriend who’d threatened me.
I didn’t star that one on the list because the woman’s been dead for two years. She can’t be involved in this.”
Ronan’s whole body relaxed, and she wondered why. “How did you train for that kind of risk?” he asked after a few beats of silence.
Elle’s guard went up, because she hadn’t been expecting that question. She’d thought he’d ask her more about the alibi, about the circumstances.
Maybe he already knows. The thought startled her, because why wouldn’t he just say so?
Because you’ve already hidden so much from him. That he’d thought she’d hidden her previous brush with the SFPD was possible.
She decided to answer the question he’d asked, although she wondered what he’d been told about her need for an alibi.
“Mostly on the job. One of Sara’s hunters gave me some hand-to-hand tips.
I already knew about firearms and I wasn’t totally clueless about what would be required on a physical level.
My late husband was a PI and I assisted him from time to time.
” Although most of Todd’s job was done from his car with a long-range telephoto lens.
“So…let me get this straight. You were shot while saving that baby. You were attacked by an angry sister and given a concussion by a rooftop-ninja girlfriend.”
“Among other injuries, yes.”
He stared at her. “I’m sorry if I’m being insensitive, Elle, but why on earth did you choose to be a bounty hunter?”
Elle hadn’t expected that question, either. She took her time answering it. “I needed a change,” she said finally.
“Learning needlepoint is a change,” Alexis said, now glued to her phone. “Bounty hunting is suicide.”
So Alexis had been saying for the past three years.
And maybe Alexis was right. Elle had been injured more in the past three years than in the previous thirty-two, and that counted her car accident. And two weeks ago, when they were confronted by those growers? We could have easily been killed.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been looking for. A way out but not by her own hand.
That’s disturbing.
Ronan cleared his throat because the room had grown very quiet.
“This is a useful list. Thank you. I’m going to start by looking for homicides connected to your fugitives.
” He stared hard at the list before circling the San Francisco case that had turned her new world upside down.
Cathy Martinelli had threatened to kill Elle after her boyfriend died in the fire he’d set himself.
The fire that had nearly claimed both Elle’s life and that of the child she’d rescued.
The skipper’s official cause of death had been exsanguination.
He’d bled out after Elle had shot him a second time, in the leg.
It had been declared self-defense, but Elle still had nightmares about those final moments when she’d been trapped in the fire with him.
She’d second-guessed her actions that day countless times, but could never think of anything she’d have done differently.
She opened her mouth to explain the case and the part she’d played in it, but he spoke first.
“This is the one you didn’t mark because the woman who threatened you is dead?” he asked. “Cathy Martinelli?”
So…he already knew. “Who called you?”
“Lieutenant Diego Sanchez. He said you’d been cleared.”
“But he still thought I could be guilty. He just couldn’t prove it.” She tilted her head, feeling a trifle confrontational. “Do you think I was guilty?”
“No,” he said firmly. “But I do think that the murder of Cathy Martinelli could be connected to our five.”
Alexis glanced up briefly before returning her gaze to her phone. “How?”
Elle frowned. “Yes, how?”
“I don’t know yet. It seems a little too convenient that a strand of your hair was found next to the victim who’d just threatened you publicly.
And it’s too close to what was found today—the candy cap caramel bag next to Garfield’s body and the victims’ belongings in your room at the inn.
If you hadn’t had that alibi in the ER two years ago, you could have been charged. ”
“It was too circumstantial,” Alexis said, not looking up from her phone. “They never would have charged her.”
“You sure about that?” Ronan challenged.
“No,” Alexis admitted. “But I would have made mincemeat of their case in court.”
“It’s just a theory,” Ronan said. “But, combined with the fact that you’ve been bugged for anywhere from a few months to two years, I can’t ignore it. That case was at the two-year mark. Now, if we don’t find any murders since then, I’ll let it go. It would just be a coincidence.”
“Not a coincidence,” Alexis said grimly, finally putting down her phone. “I found another murder.”