Easy Prey (Love-Inspired Suspense) (8 page)

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“It’ll be more dangerous to other people if we keep letting her roam all over the place. Shera could hurt someone.” Elise didn’t wait for him to argue more. She just slid the door open and slid it closed behind her, dismissing Jonah.

“Elise—” His shout was muffled by the barn door. And so was the female laughing—either Sienna or Hailey or both. The two women could quickly become Elise’s friends, if she had any free time outside the zoo to spend with them.

She scanned the area as she walked. When the barn door slid open, she looked back to see Jonah emerge with his gun out.

“No way.” She stopped and turned to him. “You cannot shoot this animal.”

“I’m not here to protect you from the tiger. This is to protect you from the person trying to kill
you
.”

EIGHT

E
lise lifted a charred piece of wood and tossed it aside. All that fuss at Sienna’s ranch and they hadn’t even found Shera. Now it was getting dark and the old tiger was probably cold, and hungry. Then she’d had to look at photos to officially identify the reporter, even though he was dead.

She threw another piece of wood, narrowly missing Jonah.

“Watch out, Lise.” His eyes narrowed, but there was a hint of humor there as he turned to her. “What did I do now?”

He looked so boyish, Elise couldn’t help laughing. Then it wouldn’t stop. She set her hands on her knees and bent over, trying to suck in air.

“Uh-oh. It’s never good when you get all hysterical.”

Nathan chuckled, across the entrance pathway, clearing his side. “She’s snapped.”

Elise straightened. “I have not. But if I had, it would be entirely justified.” She put a hand on her side. “Ouch, my ribs hurt.”

Jonah crossed the distance between them, and she noted Nathan and the marshals all strategically turning away. Did they think something was going on between Elise and Jonah? Because there most certainly was not.

“Are you okay?”

“What?” Elise jumped, and turned to him. “Uh, fine. Thanks.”

Jonah reached up and tugged on the growing-out strand of her bangs. “No bruises from the mailbox incident?”

Elise shook her head. She didn’t think she could talk. Jonah had done that pulling-on-her-hair thing when she was a teenager, but it hadn’t felt like this. Serious crush or not, Jonah back then had nothing on the grown-up version.

Jonah stepped back, his face awash with mischief. “You should get back to work. There’s a lot to do.”

Elise narrowed her eyes. If he wanted to stick around for the hauling and sweating part, what was it to her? She knew he was primarily here to protect her, but he could have claimed that meant he needed to be watching and not working. Yet here he was. Still as honorable as ever.

She swiped her notepad from her backpack and started making a list. They could clear debris, but soon enough they would need a construction crew with heavy equipment to remove what was unusable. After that the crew would have to start reconstruction of the buildings and the animal enclosures. There was a lot that had to be done before the zoo could reopen, but this would help her start making a list on paper.

Jonah looked aside at her. “Can I ask you a favor? I was thinking maybe you know some people Fix used to hang out with. Anyone I wouldn’t know to talk to.”

Elise tried to think if there were friends of her brother who might still be in town. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to know who is here and who isn’t.”

“What about your mom? Could she have stayed in contact with Fix? Did she ever mention him?”

She stilled. “Are you working right now?”

Jonah shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, you’re interrogating me. You want information, so you’re working
me
right now.”

“Elise—”

“For your information, I have not once in the whole of Nathan’s life said one word to my mother. Apart from the fact that her trailer never had a phone, and I haven’t been back here, I don’t see how you’d think I would even keep in contact with that woman.” She sucked in a breath. “You know, Jonah. Of all people, you know.”

His gaze dropped, and why not? Jonah had been driving the truck half the times they’d had to pick her mom up from whatever bar she’d passed out in. Fix had always been conveniently too busy to deal with her, which left the baby of the family—though she’d been in high school—to head across town after midnight. Jonah had never let her go alone.

There had only been one time Martin had been busy, but that wasn’t important, and he’d loaned her Jonah’s truck.

“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I’m here to protect you, but I’m also here because there’s a chance Fix will show up again. It’s where he was running to last night. I’m not going to lie to you, Elise. My team and I are working right now.”

“And I’m the job?”

He looked disappointed. “On paper maybe. But you know that’s not the truth. You’ve nearly been hurt twice in as many days. I’m looking for Fix, but there’s no way his running into the zoo yesterday was a coincidence. If it was, I’d be seriously surprised.

“Until I know for sure the threat against you has been resolved, or that it has nothing to do with my case, I’m your shadow.”

“And if it has nothing to do with my case?” Elise didn’t know that she liked it being called that. A file was too bland to represent her nearly being killed.

“I’ll have to turn your protection over to the police, just like the investigation into the bomb and the reporter’s death.”

She swallowed.

“The initial report said he died early this morning, hours before you were shot at by my mailbox.” His voice was low, but full of determination. “That’s why I’m here, because for some reason you’re wrapped up in this and I’m going to find out why.”

Elise’s voice came out breathy. “He was murdered?”

Jonah got close. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

She should just leave. Why had she even come back? Elise didn’t care about construction, or renovation. She wanted to look after animals, not revamp a zoo that had been run down years ago in a town she hadn’t liked when she lived here. And she’d brought her son to this place?

Her breath was coming in gasps. “You need to take Nathan away from here.”

Pain filled her chest. It felt like her heart was breaking. She wanted her son with her, but if she was in danger the last thing she wanted was for Nathan to be in a killer’s crosshairs.

“Mom—”

She looked up, her gaze filled with Jonah—full grown, and capable of keeping her son safe when she couldn’t. “He can’t be with me.”

“He can go to my mother’s.”

“No.” Nathan’s voice was firm.

Jonah glanced at him, so Elise did the same. She saw the confusion warring on his face. “You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want. But I need you safe, and right now that isn’t wherever I am.”

Nathan bit his lip. “I could go back to Jonah’s.”

Whoever had tried to shoot her that morning might be watching the house. Waiting there for her to come home, and shoot Nathan by accident.

Elise shook her head. “I don’t think that’s an option now.”

“My mother’s house is secure. She wants to meet you.”

Nathan lifted his chin. “Well, I don’t want to meet her.”

“Nate—”

“My name is Nathan.” Her son sucked in a breath. “And if you’re going to send me to your mom’s, then you might as well drop me off in that trailer where my mom grew up so I can be abused like she was.”

Elise took a step toward him. Nathan shot her a hard look, and she stopped. He wasn’t protecting himself; he was trying to protect her from having to revisit the painful parts of her past.

Nathan turned back to Jonah. “You just want to drop me off so you don’t have to worry. Well, you can forget it. I don’t want my mom or me anywhere near either of those women.” He turned and strode away. Eric Hanning followed, keeping a distance, but Elise was confident the marshal wasn’t going to let her son out of his sight.

Jonah stepped in front of Elise, his eyes hard the same way her son’s had been. “What on earth did you tell him that my mother did to you? He thinks she’s some kind of monster.”

* * *

Jonah folded his arms. He really wanted to know why Elise had essentially poisoned Nathan against his grandmother. Sure, Bernadette Rivers hadn’t always been the easiest person to get along with, but this was excessive.

“He’s protecting me.” Elise pushed out a full breath. “It was bad. I didn’t embellish. I only told Nathan the truth. He’s been the man of the family his whole life, and I’ve tried not to rely on him, but he’s a good kid, Jonah. He’ll try to protect me anytime he thinks I’m going to get hurt or upset. It’s who he is. And he might not be able to protect me from bullets, but he can keep me from this. It’s his way.”

Jonah figured a good slice of Nathan’s honor had come from his father, and his grandfather. But part of it was also down to Elise. She brought out those feelings in anyone who knew her. Not because she was the victim, or she had been when she was a child. Nathan saw something in her that was worth protecting, the same way Jonah and Martin, and their father, had.

He was proud of the way Elise had raised his nephew. The kid was going to be a noble man who took things in stride, and understood the importance of family.

“Dom told me your mom wants to make amends.”

Elise didn’t look like she thought too much of that. He could appreciate how it might seem like too little, too late, if his mom had truly been bad enough to make Elise gun-shy to the point she didn’t want her or Nathan around Bernadette.

“I know it was bad.” Jonah gave her a second. “She told me she got saved recently.”

Shock flashed across Elise’s features. “She did?”

“I’ve seen a change in her. It’s okay if you want to protect yourself from being hurt again, or more, and if you want to protect Nathan. Maybe not right now, given everything that’s going on. But at some point it might be worth giving her the benefit of the doubt.”

Jonah didn’t know how else to convince her. Elise looked so vulnerable, staring up at him with those huge brown eyes. It was like gazing into a past that had always pulled him in like a magnet. Her presence in his life anchored him the way nothing in his life ever had before.

At once he realized what it was that had been missing for so long. The pain of losing his brother, and Elise at the same time, had left him aimless. He’d walked through the past eighteen years with nothing to center him, no anchor to give him a reason to come home at the end of the day. He’d lived for work, because that was all he’d had. His mom had moved on, finding new love with Dom, while Jonah had only known the yawning expanse of loneliness.

Hailey stepped up beside him, breaking the moment. “I can take Nathan to my dad’s place. It’s a full house, but one more won’t make a difference and he’ll be safe for the time being.”

Jonah waited, allowing Elise to be the one to make the decision. She looked at him, and he nodded. He’d been content to stay out of it, and she’d included him. For the first time since he’d seen her the day before, it felt like maybe they could be on the same team—and the same page.

Elise turned to Hailey. “If it’s fine with Nathan, it’s fine with me. He’s almost an adult. I’m confident he’s able to make the decision for himself.”

Shelder strode away, shoulders back and head high in her “work” stance.

“So I—”

His phone rang.

“Sorry.” What she’d been about to say was going to have to wait. “This ring tone means it’s one of my team.”

She stepped away, going back to her debris while Jonah answered the call from Parker. “Rivers.”

“Fix’s personal effects are in the back bedroom of his mom’s trailer. We found the girlfriend—who is pregnant, incidentally—also living there. Claims she hasn’t seen Fix, but it’s obvious he’s been there recently.”

“And the mom?”

Elise glanced over, but Jonah didn’t give away that he was talking about her mother.

Parker said, “Isn’t here. Don’t know where she is.”

Jonah had a few ideas where she might be, although how she was still up to her same old ways all these years later without detrimental effects on her health was anyone’s guess. “See if you can find out. I’m guessing cooperation is a long shot, but it’s worth a try.”

After Jonah hung up, he tried to figure whether Elise would want to know she was going to have a niece or nephew soon—assuming the girlfriend’s baby was Fix’s. Who knew?

“What is it?”

He must be tired if he was off his game enough that he was giving his thoughts away with his expression. He needed to be able to school his features better. Not to deceive Elise, but because his job required it. If he started slipping around Elise, it would start happening when it really counted.

Jonah rubbed his hand across his side.

“You keep doing that. Is something wrong with your stomach?”

“I was shot.”

Elise gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

“It was a few weeks ago, during the flood. It’s mostly healed, but it still hurts. If I’ve been moving a lot, or if it’s been a long day.”

“Do you want to sit?”

Jonah looked around at the sodden pieces of wood, drywall and bent enclosures. “No, I don’t want to sit.”

Elise’s face morphed into disappointment. “I’m only trying to help.”

It wasn’t help; it was care. Something Jonah didn’t exactly know how to accept. He hadn’t had much experience with people caring for him. When he was sick, he just opened a can of soup and microwaved it. When he was better, he went back to work. That was it.

Elise was looking at him with entirely too much heart in her eyes. It was going to make him say something he shouldn’t, or admit too much.

“Fix’s girlfriend is pregnant.”

Elise blinked and her eyes widened. “She is?” She hesitated. “Who is it? Do I know her?”

“Janessa Franks.” Jonah didn’t remember her from school, but Elise might.

“Huh.” Elise glanced aside, like she was trying to remember. “Maybe when I see her face I’ll recognize her.”

“You’re going to see her?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Jonah shrugged with his mouth. “Maybe because she’s living in one of the places you said you were never going to go.”

“I’m not going to exclude her from my life. She might need something.”

“You don’t even know this woman.”

“Why are you questioning that I would help her? She’s family.”

Jonah huffed out a breath. She was the same way with animals, unrelentingly compassionate even when she’d been bitten. Repeatedly. The woman just wasn’t going to quit giving until it killed her.

“Same old Jonah.” Elise laughed. “You just can’t share your real feelings, can you?”

“Who says I’m not sharing them? Maybe you’re just looking for the wrong thing.”

She frowned. “What are you saying?”

Jonah shrugged. “Never mind.”

If she wasn’t going to try and figure it out, then it wasn’t worth explaining and making a complete fool of himself.