Asking the question burning through his mind, Gabe looked at Walker. “Did you kill Mark Ellis?”
“No,” he answered immediately. “But I know who did.”
“Was it the same person who ran me off the road?” Ellena appeared in the kitchen’s small entryway.
“Yes.”
“You want to share with the rest of the class?” Matt prodded, his voice still laced with thick disdain.
“Guy by the name of Chris Hall. He’s a piece of shit criminal who’d do his old lady in for a quick buck.”
“Funny.” Matt offered him a disdained smirk. “That’s what we always said about you.”
“Then I guess my cover story worked.”
While Matt flipped the restrained man off, Gabe asked, “So Chris Hall works for Radcliff?”
“Hall works forPrice.”
“I thoughtyouwere Price’s golden boy, Walker,” Nate goaded him.
“I am. Hall is Price’s plan B.”
Gabe thought for a moment. “If you don’t get the job done, they send Hall in?”
Walker nodded. “That’s why he went after her with the car that night. In Price’s eyes, I failed on my first try, so he went behind my back and hired Hall. I suspected the asshole may pull something like that, which is why I was keeping an eye out on her.”
“The bicycle,” Ellena muttered more to herself than anyone else. “You shot my tire, didn’t you?”
Walker didn’t bother to deny it. “I’d been watching you for a while. Knew how steady you were on that thing. I waited until I knew you could make it to the railing before taking the shot.”
A low, menacing noise hit Gabe’s ears, and it took him a second to realize it was coming from him.
“Down, boy.” Walker shot him a look. “She’s okay, isn’t she?”
“No thanks to you, dickhead.”
“See that’s where you’re wrong.” Walker shook his head. “If I hadn’t continued to follow her even after Price chewed my ass for my supposed fuck-up, your wife would’ve been stuck in that car a hell of a lot longer than she was. If that had happened, she very well could’ve bled out.”
“Why didn’t Hall just shoot her then and get it over with?” Zade’s eyes shifted to Ellena’s. “No offense.”
“Because the idiot saw all the blood and that her eyes were closed and assumed she was dead. As soon as he left, I approached the car. Saw that she was alive and called it in.”
“And took my picture,” Ellena added curtly. “Then you sent it to me, along with other pictures and a warning.”
“Yeah, what the fuck was that all about?” Matt asked. “You develop some sort of crush on Gabe’s woman? Followed her around so long you became fixated on her?”
That same animalistic growl escaped Gabe’s throat again.
Walker shot a narrowed Gaze in Matt’s direction. “No, I didn’t become fixated on her, asshole. I sent that email to try and scare the shit out of her.” Walker looked over at Ellena. “It was the only way I knew for you to agree to have Gabe and his team protecting you.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me?”
“Uh…I did come to you, remember? In fact, I seem to have a very clear memory of you pulling a gun on me in your apartment not too long ago.”
“You showed up with your riddles, acting like you’re Jason Fucking Bourne. You could’ve told me all of this then. Now that I think about the timing, you had to have gone straight from the scene of the accident in San Diego to the airport, because the hospital didn’t even call me until after you left.”
“That’s exactly what I did. And Iwouldhave told you, but the powers that be gave me strict orders not to.”
