Easy Prey (Love-Inspired Suspense) by Lisa Phillips Read Free Book Online

angry tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know I would get shot at.”
    Jonah blew out a breath, trying not to let her emotions prick his conscience. “I have to go talk to the Sheriff.”
    * * *
    Elise stared out Jonah’s living room window, trying to purge the feeling of having been thoroughly dismissed. She knew why he’d yelled. He’d always gotten loud when he was scared, always. How loud he got was directly related to how scared he was. Which meant Jonah had been really, really worried about her getting hurt. A fact that comforted her, even as she was angry he’d basically blamed her for almost getting hurt.
    “Ms. Tanner?”
    She turned to the cop, Detective William Manners, but she didn’t sit when he motioned her to. The man was older, probably in his sixties, and had gray stubble on his jaw. “You want to tell me why you think you’re being targeted all of a sudden?”
    She’d filled him in on the zoo, and her brother. It wouldn’t have looked good if the sheriff’s department found out later she was Fix Tanner’s sister—even if they’d had no contact. But now, looking at the sheriff’s deputy and the disapproving look on his face, all the decades-old shame over the trailer where she’d lived, the state her mom lived in and her brother’s antics welled up in her.
    Jonah and Martin had repeatedly told her it didn’t matter what she’d grown up with, that it didn’t stain her. But a lifetime of people looking down on where she’d come from had affected her. She wasn’t naive enough to think otherwise.
    “No, I don’t know why I’m being targeted. The only thing I can think of is that whoever stole the files thinks I can identify him, and so he tried to kill me today.”
    Could it have something to do with the newspaper article? How did the reporter know all that about the zookeeper? Zane Ford couldn’t have been caught up in exotic animal trading, could he? She found it hard to believe he would do that to animals he’d dedicated his life to taking care of.
    If the man wasn’t dead, she’d have been able to ask him.
    “We’d like you to come in to the station today and look at mug shots, to see if you can identify the man who bombed the office.”
    Elise nodded. “The police asked me the same thing, I’ll make sure to do that. Do you think it was the same man in the office who set the bomb?” She wasn’t convinced, but what did she know? She wasn’t a cop.
    The cop said, “We’re looking for conclusive evidence that will prove one way or another.”
    The cops excused themselves, and Elise turned again to the window. Nathan stood talking with the US marshals who had tried to arrest him last night. Jonah looked like he was coordinating a search-and-rescue operation that was going to encompass the entire area while she was closeted in the house. All because she wanted fresh air and to read the newspaper.
    Jonah might still care about her, but only to make sure his friend, the girl he considered his little sister, was okay. That was all. She didn’t blame him for wanting to get to know Nathan, and to keep her safe for her son’s sake. But the ache in her chest was because he didn’t seem to want to be around her. Her younger self had suffered a debilitating crush on Jonah. He’d been so strong in her eyes, the perfect answer to her childhood dream of being rescued from her life. Too bad that dream was over now.
    After Jonah had left for the marines, never even responding to her letters or the packages she sent, Elise had allowed that dream to die. Despite his assertions of how much he cared for her, Jonah had obviously been content to let their friendship languish.
    In the end, it had been Martin who offered her everything she’d ever wanted. But now he was gone, too. All she had left was Nathan.
    Elise needed to remember that.
    * * *
    Deputy Marshal Hailey Shelder motioned to the house using Jonah’s newspaper. “The deputies left. They want your girl to look at mug shots