Page 87 of Fighting Conviction
Ellie felt her cheeks redden. It’d been embarrassing that her brother still treated her like a child, but it was mortifying that now she’d earned it with her poor decision to crash the party.
“I, uh. I forgot,” she explained lamely. “I was just leavin’.” She pointed to the glass door behind Henry and shuffled around him.
He moved and laughed, letting her pass by. “I won’t tell Jason I saw you if you won’t.” He put his finger up to his lips and smiled.
Ellie cocked her head to the side and forced a laugh, not really sure what he meant, but deciding to play along. “It’s too late for me, I think. I saw Dev, so I’m sure Jason already knows.”
“Ah, well too bad. Sucks you might get in trouble. See ya, Ellie.” He waved to her and turned down a small, brightly lit hallway.
Ellie waved back and leaned against the silver bar on the door to go outside. She pulled her phone out of Virginia’s borrowed clutch to call her to come take Ellie back to BlackStone. V was going to flip. Ellie would make it up to her, though. Probably by agreeing to go shopping on demand at Virginia’s every whim, but Ellie had earned the punishment.
Can you come pick me up? Same alley you dropped me off in? I’m ready to go.
Va: WTF? Really? I was just starting to have fun :(
‘Just starting to have fun’? What the heck does that—
“Hello, Miss Stone.”
A memory of that smoker’s voice clawed against Ellie’s brain, and she dropped her phone to the ground in shock.
She bent down to pick the phone up before realizing she should’ve left it, but on her rise up, she met the man’s eye.
It was him. The man from the park. The investigator on Sasha’s case. Even though she’d thought the man’s voice at the park seemed familiar, she hadn’t seen the investigator in a year and had never put the two together. He’d lost weight over the year, and his cheeks were sunken in while his sweaty skin was a sickly shade of yellow. The two sides of Investigator Burgess collided in her mind, confusing her to the point of indecision.
The investigatortsked, snapping her out of her assessment, and shook his head. “Oh, so you do remember me? Not good, I’m afraid. Not good at all.”
The threat in his voice was clear and fear skyrocketed Ellie’s pulse, making her dizzy enough that the world faded at the edges.
Run. Hide. Fight. First priority is escape.
Dev’s mantra settled her and she glanced around after taking a breath, her thoughts racing over possible exits. It was an alley behind the hotel leading to nothing but open space and parking lots on either side of the building. The only thing big enough to hide behind was the dumpster directly to her right. Her only option was the exit behind her.
“Whatcha doin’ there, girlie? You ain’t got nowhere to go. We’re gonna figure this out, right here, right now.”
“O-okay, I’m here. Wh-whatcha wanna talk about?” Ellie slowly backpedaled to the hotel door. If she was around people, he couldn’t do anything to her. It was a short-term plan, but it was the best she had in the seconds she’d been brainstorming.
Ellie tried to blindly swipe numbers over her phone to unlock it and call Dev. But the screen was cracked and a tiny glass shard pricked her finger. Would telling the phone to call Dev work? It was worth a shot.
She watched the investigator as she thought, but his eyes had glazed over.
Is he paying attention anymore? Maybe I should run for it…
He was muttering under his breath faster than she could attempt to read his lips. Actually, now that she thought about it, his mouth had been moving constantly since she’d seen him. Ellie was watching so intently, trying to figure the investigator out, that she didn’t realize his hand was on the butt of his gun until it was too late.
It only takes a second for a pro to take his gun out of his holster.
She risked turning her head to see how far away she was from the door. Just enough.
Ellie turned and ran on her toes, praying her pretty gold heels wouldn’t literally get her killed. Her dress tightened around her knees but she used quick steps to get to the door. She was about to open it when gunshots reverberated in the alley. One sounded off in the distance, but the other was close. She would’ve wondered if he intentionally tried to miss her, if the wall beside the door didn’t also have a new bullet hole in it.
“Try’na leave? Nope. Can’t let you do that. And there’s five more where that came from.”
Five? Revolvers have six. Who else is shooting?
The door in front of her opened wide and Ellie tensed to run through it, but a beautiful blonde in pink chiffon crashed into her. Ellie steadied her roommate by the shoulders so neither of them would fall.
“Virginia! What are you doin’ here? We have to—”
