Easy Prey (Love-Inspired Suspense) (10 page)

“From now on, I’m your new best friend.”

TEN

E
lise stood back while Jonah ordered the tall one, Parker, and the mouthy one, Ames, to stay on Fix. They were letting him go?

Parker nodded, like this was business as usual. “I’ll put a bug on him, and we’ll stick close, but out of sight. We don’t want the trader to spot us and then run.”

Jonah said, “Great.”

The two marshals walked Fix away from her, something that didn’t bother Elise much. It hadn’t exactly been a happy reunion with her brother. He was going to jail, and she was going to try not to get killed.

Eric stepped close to Jonah. “I’m going to head to Hailey’s and check on Nathan. Make sure they’re all doing okay.”

Jonah nodded.

He wandered over to Elise. Apparently they didn’t have anywhere to be, the way everyone else seemed to. His lips tilted up in a smile. “He just wants to tell his girls good-night. Hailey lives with her dad, and her daughter—she’s thirteen—already calls Eric ‘dad.’ She didn’t want to wait for the wedding.”

Elise smiled. “That’s cute.” She looked around, suddenly overwhelmed by all the work there was. But she didn’t have to do it tonight. The mayor knew it would take weeks to get things back to normal, much like the rest of the town’s slow recovery after the flood.

“Do you want me to go over things with you? Explain what’s happening with Fix?”

Elise shrugged. She grabbed her notebook and meandered around debris to her discarded backpack.

“We’ll keep a close eye on him for now, let him go about his business while we’re watching. Parker and Ames will be able to track him, and if Fix has a phone they’ll put a trace on it. We’ll be able to hear when he gets a call, and if it’s the animal trader, then we’ll be able to run a voice analysis.”

She turned to him and Jonah continued. “I’ve explained to Fix what we want. For him to set a meeting, and I’ll join him as his ‘partner.’ We’ll go to see the trader wherever Fix is supposed to meet up with the man, and I’ll find out who it is. It’s a sting operation, but it’s also the only way I’m going to get close enough to this guy to find out who it is and be able to catch him in the act so we can arrest him.”

She measured his words. The buzz of doing his job and enjoying it was there, but also something else. “I don’t need you to justify it to me. Fix doesn’t want me in his life.”

“I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

If she was honest, it was too late for that. Jonah understood a need for physical safety, but he had no jurisdiction over Fix’s ability to bruise her emotionally. He never had.

That was just something Elise had to live with, and deal with, considering the fact Fix would always be her brother.

“It’s been years.” She glanced at the trees, shadowed in the evening darkness. “I thought they couldn’t hurt me because I was gone, like that would keep me from heartache. Nathan filled a lot of corners, a lot of spaces in my heart that were just...bare. I thought that would be enough, but my heart refuses to quit recognizing Fix, and my mother, as family.”

She shook her head. “No matter what they do, or how they are, they shouldn’t have the ability to bruise me like this. They don’t care, so why should I?”

“When you left, how did you know you were supposed to go?” He hesitated a second. “I know you had a job offer, but you could’ve stayed and worked here at the zoo. How did you know you were making the right decision for you, and then for Nathan?”

He looked so unsure, Elise wanted to reach out and comfort him. Would Jonah accept that, when he was still in his “work” mode? They were alone, but it wasn’t like they were close now.

She thought about his question. “I didn’t know about Nathan until after I was in Idaho. But God gave me peace about it. Actually the where didn’t matter too much. But I didn’t want to come home. I wanted a new place. I just knew that wherever I was, and whatever I was doing, that God would take care of me and Nathan. He wasn’t going to leave us hanging.”

“God?”

“First I had to make peace with Him, it’s contingent on that. Then He can give you His peace.” She locked eyes with him. “He’s never let me down. Not once.”

A darkness flickered in his eyes, like he’d taken on something she hadn’t intended to say. She hadn’t been thinking about her and Jonah. God was on a different plane. He didn’t shift and change the way people did, but it was true that nearly everyone in her life had let her down.

Jonah knew that sad truth. But he also needed to know she hadn’t spent years wallowing. She’d rested in God’s gifts of joy and peace, and raised her son. She’d found her strength in God.

He gifted her a small smile. “I don’t think I’ve had any peace at all since my dad died.”

She nodded. It had been hard for her, too. Though not as hard as it was for him, Martin or Bernadette. Losing Nathan Senior had been a blow. “You have to find it for yourself. You can’t piggyback off someone else’s faith. You have to make peace with God on your own.”

Elise figured if explaining this to Jonah, planting that seed for God to grow his faith, was the only reason she’d come home, she was fine with it.
Thank you, Lord.
She’d wondered a lot over the years where Jonah was, how his walk with the Lord was. Now she knew. And while it saddened her that he’d missed so many years of being in fellowship with God, she also knew it was never too late to turn around.

And while she could push him to make a decision now, Jonah was the kind of man who had to think through all the angles before he made a choice. It was why his leaving to join the marines bothered her so much. Obviously he’d thought long about it before leaving. He just hadn’t talked it over with her.

His head titled to the side. “What is it?”

Elise didn’t think. She just blurted it out. “Why did you leave?”

* * *

Did she really want him to answer that question? Elise was in no way ready for the truth about how strong his feelings for her had been back then. She’d been fifteen, much too young for what—only a few years later—would have been perfectly acceptable.

The only thing for him to do was put space between them. Their friendship had been strong enough it would have survived the years and the distance. Or so he’d thought.

“Are you going to tell me why you married my brother of all people?”

Jonah loved Martin, but his brother had been the party one. How he’d managed to convince Elise to marry him was anyone’s guess. She needed someone steady, not the guy who did things on a whim.

Jonah followed her as she strode, head high, in the direction of his truck. Apparently they weren’t going to talk about that now. Eventually they’d have to lay it all out, but it could come later. He was willing to let her have time now. He’d waited long enough already. He would get his answers, though. It was too important to just let it go. Again.

Or maybe he didn’t want to know. If he’d known when he left that she wasn’t going to wait for him, he’d probably have stayed. But then he’d have had to see her every day knowing she didn’t feel the same way he felt. He’d rather undergo severe torture than have to face that.

What if she didn’t feel the way he did?

Jonah blew out a breath and started the engine, not looking at Elise lest he see it written there on her face.

Her words about peace with God were still with him. Maybe that was what he needed. He barely even knew why he’d voiced the question. Usually he didn’t suffer attacks of doubt over operational decisions. That had never happened until she showed up.

The truth was, the cost had reached staggering proportions. There was no way he was going to allow himself to be beaten. Not this time. If Elise and Nathan’s presence here meant he had to double back and rethink everything, that was fine. So long as they were still moving somehow.

As much as he could, Jonah was going to keep them safe. It was the variables that worried him so much, those thousand things he had absolutely no control over.

Whether Elise reciprocated or not, Jonah still cared about her. He cared for his nephew, even though he barely knew the teen. They were his family, and they always had been even though he’d been an idiot not to track Elise down for himself. He’d needed her in his life.

Plain and simple.

He’d just needed her.

There was something about Elise that brought him to his knees. It was like being cracked open and laid bare for everyone in the world to see. The scariest thing in the world, and yet the one thing he didn’t think he could live without. The years had proven that, if nothing else.

And she’d brought something else with her that she hadn’t possessed before. Elise now had a wisdom that drew him in and made him believe there might be a God who would never let him fall. Despite the fact his father and brother had died. Despite the fact she’d left.

Could God still really be good, even through all that?

“You always were sort of broody, but this is ridiculous.”

Jonah glanced at her. “I’m not the only one not speaking.”

“Great. Now we’re going to argue about who started it.”

“No, we’re not, Lise. We’re not ready to go there yet, and that’s fine. We have time.”

“I hope so.” Her words were soft.

So soft, Jonah reached over and covered her hand with his. He gave it a gentle squeeze and then let go.

Out of the corner of his eye, she glanced at him again. “Who are you?”

Jonah looked over then. He shrugged.

“I think the Jonah I knew got lost over the years, because once in a while there’s this flash that feels familiar, but you’re so different from the guy I knew. If you’re going to be in mine and Nathan’s lives like you want, then we’re going to have to get to know each other from the beginning again.”

“We still have things to talk about.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that. Eventually. We can’t bury it, but we also can’t think we know each other.”

Jonah said, “You know me.”

She shook her head. “Maybe it’s been too long. Maybe I don’t anymore, as much as I might want to.”

Jonah pressed his lips together, trying to decide if he was okay with what she’d said. Part of him wanted to rail against it. They’d always known each other. Their friendship had been effortless. The years had been long, but still—how could they be strangers? The connection was as strong as it always had been. He’d known that the first minute he saw her again.

Jonah made the right turn, taking the highway back to his house. Headlights glared, coming toward them.

At the last second he wondered that they weren’t moving back in their lane. The vehicle was swerving into his, coming at his car faster than he might be able to react. A giant black truck, the front bumper level with Jonah’s window.

Elise gripped the dash, bracing herself. They were going fast, but he was going to have to risk it.

Jonah held his foot down on the gas pedal, picking up speed until the last second. Elise screamed. He pulled his foot from the gas and reached with his left hand across the steering wheel, swung the wheel in one hard motion and pulled up the hand brake at the same time.

Elise screamed through the entire turn. When they started to straighten, to face the way they’d been coming, Jonah released his grip on the steering wheel, letting it slide through his fingers so they could straighten fully. He released the hand brake, changed down to second gear and hit the gas. When they got up to speed, he put it back in drive.

Elise sucked in a breath. “You’re going to kill us! What
was
that?”

“A hand-brake turn.”

The truck that had been coming at them, determined to crash into them, was now in a ditch on the side of the road, judging by the angle of the lights in his rearview mirror.

As they sped away, Jonah waited. Watched. The brake lights blinked out and the truck roared away in the opposite direction. The driver wasn’t hurt, but he was likely going to regroup and try again later.

Elise was gasping. “You think I know you? I don’t. You never would have done that.”

“I would have if I’d needed to save your life.” Jonah selected his phone on the display and waited while it rang in the car’s speakers.

“Shelder.”

“Keep watch tonight. Someone just tried to run us off the road.”

“You guys okay?” Hailey was in work mode.

Jonah said, “We’re fine.”

“We most certainly are
not
fine!” Elise’s yell was loud in the cab.

Hailey chuckled. “Alive, aren’t you?”

“Barely.”

For some reason Elise’s reaction made him smile. Maybe she was right, maybe they didn’t know each other now. He had the feeling she’d discover plenty of things about him before they were done. Would she react like this for all of them?

“Are you laughing at me?”

Hailey laughed. “I’m hanging up now.”

Jonah clicked the phone off on his end, just because he didn’t want anyone listening by accident. Or on purpose. “They were going to try and kill us. Or me, and then kidnap you. Would you rather have experienced that, or do what we just did?”

“Neither.”

“Face the fact that this is happening, Elise.”

“I’m not in denial. But I don’t have to like it.” She folded her arms. “You scared the life out of me.”

Better him than anyone else.

Jonah grabbed her hand again. This time he brought it close to his mouth, touching his lips to the soft skin on the back of her hand. Elise was completely still and silent while he said, “Nothing will happen to you if I can help it.”

ELEVEN

J
onah pulled into the underground parking garage that served their whole building, not just the floors that housed the Marshals’ downtown offices. His phone beeped, so he checked the email notification.

“Cops will be here in ten minutes.”

Elise didn’t say anything. Jonah didn’t know how he was supposed to relieve her fears. It was good that she was afraid. That respect for the danger she was in would help keep her alive.

Jonah swiped his access card and signed Elise in with the duty receptionist. The office had a few lights on, but most people were home for the night if they weren’t out working like his team. Jonah’s office was at the end, next to the conference room. He unlocked the door and motioned Elise to his couch.

She sank into the cushions, huddled in the corner and pulled out her phone—the replacement Hailey had given her. Jonah figured she was texting Nathan, but she could just as easily be posting to her social media accounts about how awful a US marshal he was and what a bad job he was doing of protecting her.

Jonah sat behind his desk and cleared his inbox of things he could solve in a second, filing the emails that weren’t urgent and would take longer to respond to for Monday morning. Was she simply going to retreat into silence? He’d never seen her so defeated as she was now, finally recognizing the strength of the threat. His confusion lay in the fact that she’d apparently only fully comprehended this at the point she was in danger—when she should be grasping the fact that he could protect her.

It wasn’t pride; it was an understanding of the skills he’d been honing half his life. Maybe Elise was right, maybe she was trying to get to know a stranger, even despite their connection. He could only hope all that work was enough to help her, and part of that was her needing to trust him when it counted. If she hesitated and didn’t trust him, things could go wrong. Jonah was assuming a lot, counting on his skills. But between that and Elise praying about everything so she had the peace she’d been talking about, they were covered.

Elise took a shaky breath. Jonah looked over without turning his head and saw her wipe under her eye. Jonah locked his computer and went to sit by her. “How’s Nathan?”

Some of the tension bled from her posture. “Helping Hailey’s father install a new screen door because the puppy Eric bought Hailey’s daughter chewed through the old one.”

Jonah chuckled.

She glanced at him. “How much did you hear before you tackled Fix?”

“All of it.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe he said I betrayed them. Why does he even care what I did? It’s like trying to be happy, moving out and finding my own life was wrong.”

“But—”

“They suddenly decide to be offended the first time I ever do for myself, because apparently I’m supposed to be one of them until death.”

Jonah could actually see how they might feel betrayed by her leaving them behind. People like that, who’d spent Elise’s entire life telling her that she’d never make anything of herself or that she would never go anywhere else than their small town, would hate being proven wrong. Her mom and brother were only going to feel good about who and what they were if Elise never rose above exactly where they’d tried to keep her.

She blinked. “You agree with them?”

“I get their point. From where they stand you did betray them.”

Jonah met selfish people like that every single day. People who thought nothing of dragging others down with them. People who knowingly hurt those they were supposed to care for. It was a fact of life, but she couldn’t see that because she was still under the impression families were supposed to always love each other. But the world didn’t usually turn out the way it was “supposed” to.

“I didn’t betray them.”

“I only said
they
think you did,” Jonah said. “Not that you were selfish. If you hadn’t left with Nathan, where would you be now?”

She was quiet for a moment. “It’s not like I loaded him in the car and drove away. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. When I left town I was nothing but a scared kid with one suitcase, enough gas money to get to the sanctuary in Idaho and the promise of a job that had to be better than being here where everything reminded me of Martin.”

“You seem like you’ve taken care of both of you just fine.”

“Sure, we lived in a really nice trailer that leaked when it rained.” She smiled, but there was no humor there. “It was a perk of the job, the sanctuary owner’s dead uncle’s trailer he didn’t want to put any money in to repairing.”

“You had the death benefits, though. That must have seen you through having Nathan and setting up your life. Did you invest any of it, or just use it to support you?”

Elise’s brow crinkled enough that dread settled in Jonah’s stomach. “What?” She said, “I didn’t have any money other than what was in the bank at the time—my last paycheck from the zoo. And the bills for my student loans.”

“So you never claimed the death benefits?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The military compensates the family, to help them. It’s not a lot, but it should have helped you. Why did you have nothing? Didn’t they offer it to you? You were Martin’s next of kin. My mom was mine, but he’d have signed his to you in the event he was killed in action.”

“Your mom dealt with everything for me. She never said anything to me about money.”

“What about Martin’s life insurance?”

Elise said, “Do you think if I’d had any insurance that I would have lived in a run-down camping trailer until Nathan was ten? Eventually I saved enough for a two-bedroom apartment, but we certainly never lived the high life with all this cash you think I had.”

Jonah shook his head, not quite believing his mom hadn’t made sure Elise had what she needed. He’d have to talk with her, to find out what had happened to the insurance and the military death benefits that should have been Elise’s. She hadn’t known Elise was pregnant, but still... He couldn’t comprehend disliking someone that much that you would tear down the security of her entire future.

“It doesn’t matter now.” Elise shook her head. “Nathan will have college money. I’ll have a place to stay at the zoo, and everything will be fine.”

Be that as it may, Jonah wasn’t going to deny Elise something that should rightfully have been hers. It wasn’t like his mom had needed the money. What had she done with it?

Jonah glanced at his phone, sat on the top of his desk. He could wait until daylight tomorrow, but he was going to be calling his mother and talking with her. Or he could wait until this all blew over and Elise wasn’t in danger anymore.

Either way, he’d find out what happened.

* * *

Elise’s head was still reeling from what Fix had said. And now, on top of that, Jonah had thought all these years that she had taken the money from Martin’s death to fund her new life.

She couldn’t believe he’d think she was so callous as to have simply taken the money and left. He’d known her better than that.

Money was important, but it wasn’t the most important thing.

When she was growing up, it had seemed like every single person around her thought money was the source of a person’s value. Even the Rivers brothers, though maybe it was just part of how they were raised.

It had taken her years to come to the place where she’d no longer been hurt by one careless comment or other, which they probably hadn’t meant anything by anyway. They were no more responsible for their upbringing than she’d been for hers.

She’d tried to leave the past in the past, and Nathan had been her fresh start. God had taken the stains of the life she’d left here. He’d allowed her to forgive her family and the town who’d seen her as one of them.

She knew she was going to be safe now. God would take care of her and Nathan, no matter what. He always had, even through all the lean and lonely years.

The fact was, if she’d had all that money Jonah thought she should have had, her life might have been easier. But she never would have learned the lesson God had wanted her to learn—the lesson of fully trusting in Him. Not just for some things, but for everything.

The door popped open and the marshal who’d signed her in stuck his head in. “Two detectives are here to see you.”

Elise waited while Jonah shook their hands. The first cop was the older man who’d interviewed her at Jonah’s house—William Manners—and the other had been there, too, his partner. Though they acted casual enough, their eyes were anything but.

Detective Manners nodded. “Ms. Tanner.”

She gave him a small wave. “Hi.”

“I hear you identified the reporter for some of our officers.”

“Yes, though it doesn’t seem like it did any good. Not since he was found dead.”

The cop shook his head, the honesty plain on his face. “You didn’t start any of this. And for the record, I don’t like when good people take on board guilt that isn’t theirs to carry.”

“Uh, okay.”

Jonah laughed. “Leave the lecture for the next candidate, yeah, Bill?”

The detective huffed what was probably supposed to have been a laugh. “Can’t help the way I feel.” He glanced at Elise. “I’ve been a cop a lot of years. This one—” He pointed to Jonah. “He’ll take care of you, and then some.”

Elise nodded. “I know that.”

Jonah might scare her, but it was obvious he knew what he was doing. If he’d taken an interest in her safety, who was she to turn down his help?

Jonah told them all about the car trying to crash into them, and the evasive maneuver he’d pulled. He looked jazzed, like this was a race and he’d been triumphant. When the officer had finished making notes about the make and model Elise hadn’t even noticed, but apparently Jonah had, Jonah said, “What’s the latest?”

Jonah’s stance was all business. A man of authority used to commanding his team and infinitely comfortable in his own skin. Had she ever felt that confident about herself?

The cop gave her a wink and sat in one of Jonah’s chairs. His partner, who was younger and reminded her of Nathan, leaned against the wall.

The older cop settled himself. “Couple of beat cops over on Elm found a trash can on fire in a back alley. They managed to salvage a stack of papers that hadn’t burned yet along with the reporter’s computer.”

“Anything usable on it?”

Manners nodded in answer to Jonah’s question. “Hard drive wasn’t all the way destroyed, so our techs are uploading, or downloading, or whatever it is with those things. They’ll let us know what’s on it as soon as they know. I told them to put a rush on it, but everything they have is priority.”

“Did you get anything from the papers?”

“It looks like our reporter was making notes the old-fashioned way. And he seemed to think there was some significance to the zookeeper’s body never being found after the flood.”

Elise said, “Didn’t a few people go missing?”

“Sure, but most of those were found in other states, trying to start over. Or their bodies were discovered, eventually.”

“But not Zane?”

The cop shook his head. “Never. No sightings of him, and no body.”

“What does that mean?”

Jonah said, “It could mean he’s not dead.”

Detective Manners shrugged. “I doubt it means much, but we’re going to look. Not sure where else there is to check, but we’ll do it. The zookeeper never had the skills to kill the reporter the way it was done.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not ultimately responsible.” Jonah perched on the edge of his desk. “He could be working with another person.”

Elise tried to imagine Zane Ford hurting anyone, or even collaborating to do so. “There’s no way. He took care of animals, he wouldn’t hurt them. Not to mention, if he was still alive, then someone would have seen him.”

Detective Manners nodded. “That’s where I’m leaning.”

Elise looked at the younger cop to see if he agreed, but the guy was doing something on his cell phone. Apparently he had business to take care of, or he was late for a date or something. It was past eleven at night, and despite sleeping in that morning, Elise was exhausted. And her pain meds were wearing off.

She shifted on the couch, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit that wasn’t lying flat, which was what she wanted to do. When nothing was better, and every angle hurt her ribs, Elise sighed.

Jonah was studying her. The cop cleared his throat, which made the other cop look up from his phone screen. Jonah turned to Detective Manners and said, “You keep working your theory. My guys will tackle Zane Ford.”

“You think he’s alive?” Elise felt her eyebrows rise. “Did Fix tell you something which makes you think that, or are you guessing?”

“Cops don’t guess, Elise. We use our best judgment and we find evidence.”

“I just can’t believe Zane Ford would let people think he was dead all this time.”

Jonah’s gray eyes darkened. “Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.”

“He ran a zoo. He didn’t know how to plant bombs and shoot people.”

She might not have been best friends with the man, but she’d respected his work for as long as she’d known him.

The cop nodded. “She’s got a point.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not going to leave any loose ends.”

The younger cop looked up, probably noting the tone of Jonah’s raised voice. Still, he didn’t look impressed by Jonah’s determination.

Detective Manners stood. “If that’s all, we’ll take our leave.”

Jonah nodded, and they both said goodbye to the cops. When they were gone, he turned to her. “Want to get out of here?”

“Sure. I can stay with Hailey if you need to be up early. She said it was fine.”

Jonah didn’t say anything for a moment. “Is that what you want?”

She eyed him while they walked to the elevator. Why did he look so disappointed? He wanted to focus, find the killer. Right? “It would be nice to be near Nathan, but he probably doesn’t want me coddling him in front of other people. And he’s texting me updates pretty regularly. He’ll be okay with two marshals close by.”

She took a breath, waiting to see if he’d accept her offer of company. His guest room bed was more comfy than anywhere she’d slept in years.