Fair Play (All's Fair Book 2) by Josh Lanyon Read Free Book Online Page A

way up the log steps to the front porch. He stopped short.
    The yellow and red fletching on the hunting arrow lodged smack in the middle of his front door struck an incongruously festive note.

Chapter Six
    The sheriffs arrived first.
    They weren’t quite as fast as Elliot thought—the aircraft he’d heard minutes earlier had been departing, not arriving—but fast and, yes, by air. They took his and Roland’s statements and began to process the crime scene. Well, perhaps
process
was an exaggeration. It was hard to process a large woodland area that didn’t even have a body or grave to show for itself. The unsub had retrieved the three arrows that struck trees. Why he had bothered when there was an arrow left sticking out of Elliot’s front door was anyone’s guess.
    Hopefully the arrow carried traces of DNA. Beyond that...you didn’t need a license to buy a crossbow or metal jacket arrows in the state of Washington. You could purchase both over the internet. You did have to buy a hunting license and tags, and that required passing an online course, so assuming the unsub tracked animals other than humans, there might be a lead there. But someone willing to commit murder might not be a stickler about following largely voluntary hunting regulations.
    On the bright side, at least no one from the Sheriff Department had suggested this was nothing more than an unfortunate hunting incident.
    Seattle Police Department arrived next. Since no one had called them, Elliot awarded bonus points for connecting the dots between a case of arson in Ballard and attempted murder out on a small island in the Puget Sound.
    He knew Detective Pine, or at least had dealt with him, six months earlier. Neither of them had been much impressed with the other. Pine was younger than himself, a hotshot rising star on the force who figured he had all the answers—mostly because he had still not come across the really big questions. Elliot had worked with a few cops like Pine and knew the type well. Detective Upson was even younger than Pine. She looked sharp and sporty and very brown. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a deep summer tan she would probably regret in her forties.
    “So you didn’t get any kind of look at this perp?” Pine asked, after Elliot had given his statement all over again to Seattle PD and answered a second barrage of questions.
    “No.”
    “Well, I guess it’s a long time since you were a trained observer,” Pine said understandingly.
    Elliot managed to swallow his response though it nearly choked him.
    “And what did you do when you got back here?”
    Elliot said tersely, “Waited for the sheriff’s department to arrive.”
    Upson, watching him, said, “Did something happen while you were waiting for the sheriffs?”
    Something had happened all right, but Elliot wasn’t about to share it with these two. He had retrieved his Glock 27 and started to go after the shooter, only to find Roland squarely in his way once more.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Roland had said.
    “Get out of my way.”
    “You’re not going out there.”
    Elliot had yelled, “Goddamn it, Dad. I’m trained to handle this kind of thing.”
    “No one is trained to handle this kind of thing!”
    “We’re not the only people on this island! I can’t hide out here while there are civilians at risk.”
    “There are no civilians at risk. He could have killed those women before we ever knew they were out there. He didn’t. He isn’t interested in anyone else.”
    “You don’t know that. You have no idea what this is. Whoever that is out there, they were sure as hell ready to take me out.”
    “That’s because you seem like a threat.”
    “That’s because I am a threat! Now get out of my way!”
    Roland, looking like a wild man, his hair loose, decorated with twigs and leaves, had actually put his arms out, gripping both sides of the door frame to block Elliot’s way. “The hell I will. Don’t you see? Every one of those