Page 14 of The Fixer and the Fugitive

“About the same.”

“Oh, I bought pain reliever. And food. And pie.”

His brows rose. “Pie?”

“It was on the list.” She disappeared before he could ask which list, if he had ever intended to. She returned with the pain reliever and a glass of water. He popped the pills and guzzled the water, draining it in about three gulps. She refilled it, and he drained it again. Next she searched the cupboards until she found a large pitcher. She filled that and set it beside the couch.

“Thank you,” he said, sounding exhausted.

“Replacing lost blood is a lot of work,” she commented.

“Sounds like you have experience,” he said.

She tipped her head in acknowledgement, but otherwise didn’t respond.

He let out a sigh and closed his eyes. He was fading, but all of a sudden his eyes popped open. “Oh, I forgot I need to tell you something.”

She braced herself, not certain why. Something in his tone told her she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. “Did someone come looking for you while I was gone? The person who shot you?”

“No, but that’s what I needed to tell you. The person who shot me, it had nothing to do with me.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because the person who shot me is a local.”

Chapter 11

Elliot was perplexed. He liked being perplexed, actually. It was a nice change of pace from his other job making pizzas. There he only had to repeat the same rituals over and over: make the dough, form the dough, bake the pizzas. But during his job as a deputy, the one he was now performing, he had to use his brain a surprising amount. That was what he liked about being a cop. No day was ever the same, especially in Paradise where he might help rescue a calf from a freezing pond one minute and break up a fight between husband and wife over whose fault it was the calf got stuck the next. But this was a new one on him.

“So you shot the guy,” he reiterated, staring at a patch of trampled grass. It was starting to snow, but he could still see blood spatter among the dried blades of grass.

“Of course I did,” Edward Jonas said around his chew of tobacco. He spit a stream out the side of his mouth. Far from being disgusted, Elliot felt the familiar pull of addiction. He had given up first smoking and then chewing when he and Missy got together, but he never lost his love of the stuff. Instead his love for Missy was greater, great enough that he wanted to cut his riskof mouth and lung cancer significantly, if only for her sake. In an effort to distract himself, he reached into his pocket and popped a piece of gum. Mint gum, thoughtfully purchased and given to him by Missy, who knew he still struggled, despite his protests to the contrary.

“Why, though?” Elliot asked, trying not to sound as longsuffering as he felt. He had grown up in Paradise. He knew everyone, understood exactly how they thought and felt and acted. And yet he still felt baffled more often than not.

Edward blinked at him as if Elliot was the one who didn’t make sense. “Why? Because he was on my property.”

“What if he had a valid reason to be here?”

Edward’s eyes narrowed farther. “Valid? Valid like stealing cattle or tractors or 4-wheelers?”

“But he didn’t do any of those things, right?”

“Right. Cause I shot him.”

“How do you know it was a man?” Elliot tried.

Edward rolled his eyes and spit again. “When’s the last time you heard of a woman rustling or thieving?”

Last week, actually, but Elliot didn’t say so. No need to spread more gossip than necessary. “But you don’t know that he was rustling. And he arrived here on foot. How was he planning to make off with cows or equipment?”

That stumped Edward, but only for a moment. “He was the scout,” he said with a decisive nod.

Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking. It was highly likely a man who showed up alone at night in the middle of nowhere on foot was up to no good. But what if he wasn’t? Or, worse, what if it wasn’t a man? What if it was the person who lived closest? The woman who wouldn’t yet know that everyone here lived by the code “shoot first and ask questions later, if they’re still alive?”

“No one has showed up at the vet’s office, asking to be patched up,” Elliot said.

“Of course they wouldn’t. Everyone would know they’d been shot by me. I was at the hardware store today. Everybody already knows to keep a look out.”

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