Page 160 of Triggered By Love
Jason corrected just in time to avoid hitting a guardrail. “Thanks. I’m not being paranoid, but the gun Ernesto supposedly used is the same make and model as the one I carry.”
“Was it yours?” Avery’s heart rate sped up, and suddenly, she wasn’t sure she’d been smart to run off with Jason. The nagging what-ifs flittered in her mind like gnats around a bug zapper light.
Ivanna suggested that Jason could have snuffed out Ernesto to cover up his role in hiring him. But Jason had said he’d gone to the fashion show because he was investigating the deaths of the male models who’d attended parties with prominent donors.
Jason had no motive to kill Brando or anyone else at the show. He was hoping to meet the models at the after-party and find clues to their deaths—or so he said.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Jason said, no doubt aware of her suspicions. “To answer your question. No, none of my guns have gone missing. It’s the same make and model, and the serial number was filed clean. At the time, no one suspected Ernesto wasn’t the shooter. All we know is from Saul and Ivanna’s story. Saul claims Ernesto and Joselito wanted to disrupt Alida’s events, and Ivanna says she saw an orange tip.”
“When you shot Ernesto, what did you see?”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut a moment and shook his head as if shaking off water. “Frankly, I was staring at you, and Alida was talking to me. I’d noticed the sweaty guy earlier, and he must have jumped up and pointed something. I couldn’t say I saw him with the gun. I caught a glint of light, and the shooting started, so I shot back.”
Avery bolted up alert in her seat. “You mean, you didn’t know if he was the one doing the shooting?”
Jason seemed to hang his head. His jaw worked, and he swallowed several times, keeping his eyes on the road. His lips flattened, and he inhaled through his nostrils, then nodded slowly. “It’s why they say I’m trigger-happy.”
“You did save my life,” Avery pointed out. “You stopped him from taking another shot.”
“If he was the one doing the shooting,” Jason said. “Which was what everyone assumed. The gun was found next to him where he’d dropped it. DeBrassos was on the scene to bag it as evidence, and ballistics checked out. Besides, no one found a toy gun.”
“I didn’t see anything in the pictures from last year’s show,” Avery said. “There is a picture of Ernesto standing near the photographers.”
“Wait a sec.” Jason snapped his fingers. “Didn’t Saul lie about not being at the show?”
Avery nodded and sat up straighter. “That’s it. If Saul was there, he might have taken pictures. Since he lied and said he wasn’t there, he’s never shown the pictures to anyone. Didn’t the police impound his camera? Have they reviewed his memory card?”
“There’s a problem.” Jason’s voice was flat. “Blade says the memory card was missing.”
“It can’t be. He was showing us pictures while in the elevator.”
“When you and Mrs. Bonet both went down, everyone’s attention was on you two. Saul and Ivanna tried to run off. He had time to remove the card.”
“The police nabbed them quickly.”
“True, and they strip-searched him. They also searched the elevator and the floor where he got off. Nothing.”
Avery put her hand on her forehead and knocked her head back on the headrest. “What do we do now?”
“Try another tack.” Jason suddenly pulled off the parkway. He drove several city blocks and cut over to Interstate 95 toward The Bronx.
“Where are you going?” Avery asked.
They double-parked in front of a gun shop in a sketchy-looking area of The Bronx where graffiti and concertina wire predominated over spindly trees and pothole-peppered roads.
Twenty minutes later, Jason had a brand-new Glock 26 semiautomatic handgun used for concealed carry. He’d traded in his Smith & Wesson. Since the store catered to law enforcement, he was already on file and registered.
“This time, if they try to frame me, they’ll have the wrong type of gun,” Jason explained once they got back into the car.
Avery gulped and tried to calm her wildly beating heart. “Are you saying someone’s going to be shooting at me?”
He patted his new Glock which was fully loaded. “Not if I can stop them dead.”
* * *
They haddinner at Gino’s, and it was fairly late when Jason drove Avery to the hunting cabin. He checked that they hadn’t been followed, and he also turned off his cell phone just in case.
Whoever had tried to kill Avery would try again. That much he knew. He would spend the rest of his life protecting her. That much he more than knew.
