I balked. “You can’t do that. We weren’t doing anything. In fact ....” I trailed off at the sound of a slamming car door. Turning, I found Jake stalking toward us.
“This won’t be good,” Eliot muttered. Despite his words, I could feel him relax against my back. Now that Jake was here, he wasn’t nearly as worried as he had been.
“What’s going on here?” Jake was all business. He didn’t even pretend he wasn’t preparing to throw his weight around.
Mahorn laid it out for him. He didn’t appear intimated by Jake’s stature, which didn’t strike me as a good thing. “Your friends have been here for two separate altercations. It’s time I sat them down and got to the truth.”
“What makes you think they’re not telling the truth?” Jake challenged.
“I’m not a rookie.”
Jake folded his arms over his chest and waited.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mahorn sneered. “They’re clearly up to their necks in this.”
“You have no proof of that,” Jake argued. “They said they were here to interview the owner of the halfway house.”
“And now he’s dead.”
“Did witnesses say they did the shooting?”
Mahorn faltered and then sucked in a steadying breath. “Witnesses say they were standing on the street. Once it became an active shooter situation, Mr. Kane yanked Ms. Shaw behind that car and waited things out.”
Jake nodded. “So, in the scenario you just described, how are they involved?”
“They’ve been here twice!”
“Ms. Shaw is a reporter.” Jake utilized his most practical voice. “She chases stories. She followed a lead to this location. The fact that she could’ve been caught in the crossfire of whatever is going on here is cause for alarm, but she shouldn’t be punished.”
Mahorn’s eyes were narrow slits of hate. “I’m in charge of this scene. I say she’s going in for questioning.”
Jake dug in his pocket and retrieved his phone. “I’ll call your chief and we’ll hash it out. Once I explain what happened, I’m sure she’ll agree that hauling Ms. Shaw in is neither necessary nor warranted.”
Mahorn worked his jaw. It wasn’t difficult to read his thoughts. He wanted to tell Jake where to stick it. Ultimately, though, he offered a stiff nod. “Call her. Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t side with you because you have standing in another county.”
“I have no intention of using my standing to convince her. The facts will do.” Jake pinned me with a dark look as he pressed the phone to his ear. “As for you, don’t say a word. Just ... be quiet.”
I had no intention of speaking. That would simply cause more trouble.
“We’re sorry,” Eliot offered lamely. “We had no idea this would happen.”
“That doesn’t help me now, does it?” Jake was a coiled ball of rage. “You just couldn’t leave things alone as I asked, could you, Avery? You can never let things go.”
He wasn’t wrong. I turned to the lawn, where the medical examiner’s personnel toiled over the bodies. Jake’s anger aside, something very big was happening here. What had I gotten myself into this time?
21 Twenty-One
Jake wouldn’t let us leave. He insisted that we hang back until he smoothed things over with Mahorn. We waited by Eliot’s truck, open to stares from the emergency personnel.
“Do you think someone was watching Cal or us?” I asked.
“Hmm?” Eliot dragged his attention away from the driveway, where the medical examiner’s team loaded the bodies. “I don’t know. It makes more sense for Cal to be the intended target.”
“He was obviously the target.” I couldn’t argue with that. “But what if our killer was following us?”
Eliot’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I guess I wouldn’t rule that out. I don’t know that it makes much sense. I mean ... you’re in this, but you’re hardly leading the charge with the articles you’ve been writing.”
He had a point, but still .... “I’ve been down here twice today. What if someone saw me earlier?”
“You were talking to prostitutes. It’s not as if they gave you a ton of information.”
“No, but they gave me more than I had.”
“Fair enough.” He automatically moved his hand to the back of my neck and started rubbing. His fingers were cold against my skin, causing me to hiss. “None of this makes a heckuva lot of sense. We’re just going to have to wait to see what Jake says.”
“All he’s going to do is give me a lecture and tell me to stay out of it.”
“He has more than that on his mind,” Eliot countered. “Let’s just sit back and see how he approaches us.”
“It will probably be with a gun.”
Eliot smirked. “You’re so dramatic.”
“He’s dramatic.”
“You’re dramatic together.”
Even though I knew he was trying to be reasonable, his approach bugged me. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side.”
“It doesn’t sound like it. You do know that if we get married, I’m going to demand that you’re always on my side? Like ... you’ll have to stand up in public and tell people I’m never wrong.”
His lips quirked. “I didn’t realize that was part of the package.”
“Does that have you re-thinking things?”
“Nope.”
“You’ll have to make public declarations about me being the smartest woman in the world. I’m deadly serious about that.”
“I know. I’m fine telling the world I think you’re smart.”
“The smartest woman in the world.”
“We can debate that point later.” He shifted his gaze to the house across the street and inclined his head. “I’m pretty sure the shots came from there.”
I frowned when I took in the dilapidated house. The windows were boarded up, the rotting porch filled with holes. “I’m pretty sure that place is abandoned.”
“Or used as a drug house.”
Now that was an interesting thought. I moved away from him to look up and down the street, my mind busy. “How many houses here do you think are inhabitable?”
“I don’t think
