Page 140 of Starcrossed Colorado

Then Emma answered, “I fought him, yes. Your dad did too. The scary man is gone now. We all did a really good job, especially you.”

Maisie smiled proudly. “And Stella.”

“Yes. And Stella too.”

The paramedics had pronounced Elias dead at the scene. Since Elias technically lived outside the boundaries of Silver Ridge, the sheriff had jurisdiction over the investigation. His deputies had reunited us with Maisie. The paramedics had checked Emma’s injuries, but she’d refused to go to the hospital, insisting instead that she stay with us. With lots of TLC, she was recovering.

Judson offered his house, since he had plenty of bedrooms. Callum and Grace had already been here, and Piper and Olliehad arrived the next morning to join us. Judson’s acres of land put a nice barrier between us and the media.

His ranch hands lived in a bunkhouse nearby, but they’d all had background checks when he hired them. Of course, it wasn’t possible to know a person’s soul on the inside, was it?

Elias had fooled me completely. Fooled us all.

“Ashford?” Emma prompted, bringing me back to the present.

“Sorry.” I shook off those thoughts and sat on the couch beside her. “What did you say?”

“That Judson and Callum are helping the kids feed carrots to the horses. It’s pretty cute.”

I squinted again at the view. “Maisie hasn’t talked Judson into letting her ride one by herself, has she?”

Piper laughed. “No. Much to the kids’ disappointment. Ollie would be standing in the saddle right now at a full gallop if he had his way.”

Judson kept goats, pigs, and chickens in addition to the horses. Maisie and Ollie had been keeping busy. Under close supervision, the kids had taken some rides on the horses, but of course they wanted to gallop off on an adventure without meddlesome parents getting in the way.

My daughter loved it here. She now wanted to be a cowgirl. Plus a superstar singer, of course. But I wasn’t ready to let her ride on such a huge animal on her own. I would probably get there, but not until she’d had a lot more practice. And especially not if Ollie was being a bad influence.

Grace got up from the couch and took the chair opposite, tucking her legs beneath her. “So, what did Teller say?”

“Sheriff’s deputies interviewed Elias’s ex-wife this morning. Holly.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s filled in a few more of the pieces.”

“Is it as bad as the rest of it?” Emma asked, voice still quieter than usual. She touched her neck just below the bruises.

“I don’t even know what scale we’re on anymore. But yeah, it’s bad. Holly said she suspected he was having an affair three years ago. She didn’t know it was with Lori. But Elias had also been getting more volatile at home. Threatening her, grabbing her arms and leaving bruises. Things like that.”

This stuff was confidential, part of the investigation. Teller shouldnothave been sharing it with me, since I was the guy who’d ended Elias’s life. But we all knew it was self-defense. The final ruling from the sheriff’s department was a pure formality.

“Then, on the night Lori died, Elias showed up back at their house completely freaked. He insisted that Holly say he’d been with her the whole evening.”

After Lori died, Elias and Holly had been interviewed. Except for his wife, no one suspected he hadn’t been at home that night. Certainly not me.

“So his wife lied about Elias’s alibi,” Emma said. “Does Holly know what really happened? If Elias intentionally pushed Lori into the highway?”

I shook my head. “No, Elias never explained any of that to her. But he told her he’d kill her if she contradicted his story.”

Grace put her hand over her mouth. “That’s horrifying. Maybe I can go out to Denver and see her. Holly was going through all that alone. Thank goodness she finally left him.”

“Apparently she got fed up a couple of years ago, packed, and drove away to stay with her cousins,” I said. “Elias never risked showing his anger in front of anyone else, so he just let her go.”

Piper rubbed her eyes. “I feel like I should’ve seen it. All these years he was our friend. I never would’ve thought he could be capable of something like that.”

“Me neither.” I never would’ve guessed that Elias had been seeing Lori, much less that he could be so monstrous as to hurther. Or hurt Emma. I reached for her hand, tugging her closer. “But I think he did it. He killed Lori. Even though we’ll never know for sure.”

Without Elias confessing what had really happened that night, all we could do was speculate.

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