Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
Fort Bragg, California
Ronan wondered if he looked as rough as Elle did. She was even more drawn than when he’d seen her a few hours before. The circles under her eyes were darker.
They both needed to get some sleep. And if he pictured himself holding her as they did so—together—he was blaming it on exhaustion. He’d leave as soon as she finished telling him her thoughts, he’d rest, and then he’d be sharper. Better able to protect her.
Because the woman sitting next to him made him need to protect her.
Elle folded her hands on the table, a sign he now recognized as nerves.
“I need more information before I can make a clear connection, but if I’m right, this person has become desperate very quickly.
For two years he listened to me and gave no reason for me to even consider that he was doing so.
I read about the murder victims and nothing stood out.
Not like Kasey with the well and Dianne with the brooch.
Or even the two growers we talked to being dead.
It’s like he wants me to know it’s him. It’s not smart.
He had to have known you’d find the listening device if you arrested me.
So why clue me in? Why let me see his cards?
It indicates that he’s radically changed his behavior. ”
“I think it’s fair to say that he has,” Ronan said. “Every other murder has been a single. Only one death per city, at least that we know of. All the police reports say that time of death was hard to conclusively declare.”
“Because he used heaters?” Elle asked. “Like with Steve Garfield?”
“Yes. But based on accounts from the last people to have seen the victims alive, the murders happened as you were leaving the places or after you were already back home.”
“With the exception of San Francisco,” Alexis said, “where she had an ironclad alibi.”
“Yes,” Ronan agreed. “Which is probably why he started tampering with the time of death in the later murders. But my point was that he’s killed at the end of your fugitive recoveries, Elle. He’s killed six people here, the first when you had only just arrived. He’s growing impatient.”
“And careless,” Elle added. “He planted the belongings of Dianne, Kasey, and Steve in the clumsiest way possible. No one had entered our room until that day. We cleaned and tidied the room ourselves, Sara and I. Suddenly, someone dressed like housekeeping enters and voilà! There’s suddenly evidence tying me directly to the crimes. That was sloppy.”
“And the candy bag that was found with Garfield’s body?” Alexis asked. “It has your fingerprints on it, Elle. How did he do that?”
“I’ve been snacking on those candy cap caramels for nearly two weeks.
I sometimes threw the bag away in a trash can at the bluffs.
” She bit at her lip. “There were a few times that I thought I heard someone following me. Nights when I went out to the bluff. Usually, you showed up right after that, Ronan, so I didn’t think anything about it, but what if it was him?
The killer? It would have been easy to fish one of my empty candy bags out of the trash.
But that was sloppy, too. It’s not like I’d go to all the trouble of killing Steve Garfield and leave a piece of trash so noticeably with the body.
The other difference is that the victims before I came here had threatened me.
I would have had motive to kill them, albeit flimsy.
But here, he killed people who gave me information. Nobody threatened me here.”
Ronan agreed. “What’s changed? The last murder we’ve identified before you came here was in October. What happened between October and January, when you came to our community?”
Elle’s brows bunched, her forehead furrowing. “I don’t know.”
“Oh,” Alexis whispered. “Oh, Elle.”
Both Ronan and Elle turned to Alexis. “October was when I told you about the possible position in my firm.” Alex looked at Ronan.
“I’d finally convinced the partners at my firm that we should offer family law.
It took me another three months to get them to offer the position to Elle. I’d been working on them for years.”
“Ever since I accepted the bounty hunter job from Sara,” Elle said quietly. “You kept giving me options for other work. Other careers.”
Alexis nodded. “I didn’t like any of my friends doing such dangerous work, but, Elle…
” She trailed off, giving Elle a look of apology.
“You were so vulnerable after the accident. You were desperate for a change. You jumped into Sara’s job with both feet, but I worried.
I wanted you safe. And happy. You haven’t been. ”
“I know. I wasn’t ready to practice law when I first came here. I think I am now.”
“You’re really leaving bounty hunting?” Ronan asked, feeling relieved.
“I am. And it’s ‘fugitive recovery,’ ” she added lightly.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” she said and he heard a note of affection in her voice. It floored him. Left him momentarily speechless.
Then he saw Alexis watching him shrewdly, so he cleared his throat. “I am sorry, actually. It’s a necessary job and I’m glad someone does it.”
Just not you.
“Just not me,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.
“Did you tell Ms. Hellier in October that you’d consider the position with her firm?”
“Yes, I did.” She sighed. “And I called my mom and dad and talked to them about it. He would have heard my conversation. I told them that I really wanted to go back to family law, but that I owed Sara for taking me on. I always talk to my folks on speaker. He could have heard it all.”
“That’s a change, Ellie,” Alexis said. “You never considered it before.”
“Not out loud,” Elle admitted. “The job with Sara felt wrong for me from the beginning, but I wasn’t going to fail again.”
Alexis made an impatient noise. “You didn’t fail in Florida. You were a victim, goddammit. And if I’d known that your husband was a prick, I would have gotten on a goddamn plane and dragged you away myself.”
Elle looked away, fidgeting with the cup of tea in her hands.
“I know. I should have told you about Todd. I didn’t tell my parents, either, and they were super upset that I kept the abuse from them, but all that’s done.
What I need to understand now is why would that trigger this killer?
Why would he care if I wasn’t a hunter anymore? ”
“Fugitive recovery agent,” Ronan muttered.
He saw a slight twitch of her lips, which was what he’d been hoping for, because he hated seeing her look so sad. So guilty. He hated that she’d felt like a failure when she’d been a victim then. Just like she was now.
“I stand corrected,” she said. “Still…why? That doesn’t make sense that he would care what I do for a living. He wants revenge. He could frame me just as easily if I was a butcher or a baker. He could kill my customers.”
“Your clients who jump bail are a matter of public record,” Alexis said gently, and Ronan could see that the lawyer had already figured it out.
“The city issues an arrest warrant for them, and you go after them. If you’re an attorney in our office, clients come to you.
We’re in a big building with a lot of other businesses.
Your clients would enter through a main door and effectively disappear into the crowd.
They could be meeting with any one of hundreds of people.
Even if he loitered outside our office, the clients could be meeting with any one of fifteen attorneys.
Identifying victims would become so much harder. ”
“I think she’s right,” Ronan said. “You were planning on making a life change that would make his plan to frame you much more difficult. He was willing to keep killing the fugitives’ friends and family who threatened you until one of them stuck and you were arrested.
When he thought you might take the attorney job, he had to step up his efforts.
He’s made some mistakes, though, like the sloppy way he planted the evidence in your room. ”
“Speaking of my room, how did he get into the inn?” Elle asked abruptly.
“He knew I was here because he was listening to Sara and me when we made the reservation. Or he could be physically following me. Probably both. You saw him leave—pretending to be me—and come back last night, but did you see him enter the hotel before he left? Did you see him leave after?”
“No. That’s a question Gary and I had, too, and something we’ll be following up on. We had another question. How did he get access to your jacket?”
Elle had thought about that at length. “It gets dirty when I’m on a case, so I clean it whenever I come home. I have a routine.”
“Ellie likes routine,” Alexis commented.
“I do,” Elle said, looking embarrassed. “I clean it with a mild soap, then use leather conditioner on it. Because I want it to last forever.”
“It’s your lucky jacket,” Ronan said. “I’d feel the same way.”
Her smile was weak, but real. “Thank you. It’s a little superstitious, but I’m still here, so…
” She shrugged. “The leather conditioner doesn’t smell bad, but it’s intense.
It sometimes gives me headaches so I apply the conditioner out on my patio and leave the jacket there to air out.
The patio has an overhang closest to the house, so even if it’s raining outside, my jacket won’t get wet.
It’s often foggy—misty like it is here, so I never leave it outside too long. A few hours at the most.”
“And you do this every time you finish a case?” Ronan asked.
“Yes. It’s the first thing I do, whether the jumper is local or if I’ve had to follow them out of town. Then, if I’ve been on the road, I unpack and do my laundry.”
All this person needed to do was monitor when Elle got home. She’d made it easy for them to plant the device. “We need evidence to show that he planted the bugs while your jacket was airing out outside. Does your patio at home have a security camera, Elle?”