Read Online Crash and Burn by Allison Brennan, Laura Griffin - Free Book Online Page B

raped her? Maybe she should’ve been nicer to Bishop earlier and he might have told her something.
    “The answer to your unspoken question is I can’t tell you anything about the case.”
    “I’m not asking.”
    “You don’t need to use words.”
    “I’m going to help Isaac.”
    “The best help he can get is to hire a good lawyer.”
    “Or a good P.I.”
    “Don’t get involved.”
    She didn’t respond. Hank knew her better than that. “I can vouch for you with Bishop, but I’m not going to tell him to keep you in the loop.”
    “Don’t bother. Someone has already gotten to him.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means he thinks he knows everything about me.”
    “You have friends here, Scarlet. You know that. He didn’t hear anything from my people.”
    “Maybe I don’t have as many friends as I thought,” she mumbled. She thought back to the responding officers last night. It had to be one of them. Maddox? She doubted it. But she didn’t know some of the others, like the cop named Pete. She’d burned bridges when she left L.A., and it wouldn’t surprise her if one of the NBPD cops was friends with someone who hated her guts. They might be in separate police departments in two different counties, but they weren’t all that far apart.
    “I’ll talk to him.”
    She shook her head. “I’ll handle it.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Nothing to damage the police investigation—but I need to prove Isaac couldn’t have shot two college kids in cold blood.”
    “Two?”
    She blinked, not realizing that she’d voiced a theory that wasn’t fully formed. “There was another gunshot victim on the beach. Young guy, I didn’t see his face. And then Sanders a couple blocks over? My mind connected them. I can’t shake off the feeling that it’s the same killer.”
    Hank nodded. Took another sip. “Bishop came to the same conclusion.”
    Both of them knew he shouldn’t have told her, but she was grateful he had. It helped her focus on how to prove Isaac was innocent. She needed to find a witness who saw him during the window of at least one of the crimes. Even though it was late at night, he was pretty recognizable at six feet, two-hundred-ten pounds with tats on his arms driving a Harley at two in the morning.
    Hank smiled up at the television. “Finally, the Dodgers are playing like they used to. This is our year. I can feel it.”
    “It won’t last,” she said optimistically, and Hank glared at her. “Later.”
    She walked to the opposite end of the bar where Isaac was pouring his killer margaritas for a group of young women in bikinis. The word had gone out about Isaac’s talents, and Diego was going to have to hire a second cocktail waitress because Heather only worked three nights a week. Isaac glanced at Hank, then said to Scarlet, “You’re going to find someone who was out at two in the morning and remembers seeing me?”
    “Eventually,” she said. “I have a couple other ideas first.”
    “Don’t jeopardize your relationship with Riley over this.”
    “Over keeping you out of prison? Really? You want to go back?”
    “I didn’t kill anyone.”
    “What did you want to tell me before?”
    “Do you know what caliber gun was used?”
    “No.”
    “Can you find out?”
    That lead ball in her stomach came back. “Isaac—spit it out.”
    “I own a .357 revolver.”
    “Shit.”
    “It’s not legal. I can’t pass—”
    “Don’t tell me anything else yet. Just—” Just what? Turn it over? Get rid of it? Lie?
    “Promise me you won’t talk to Bishop without a lawyer.”
    “I won’t.”
    Scarlet hated feeling that she was on the wrong side of the law.
    She’d better be able to prove that Isaac was innocent, or she was going to have to question every instinct she thought she had, and she feared she’d come up short.

Chapter Seven
     
    It took Scarlet an hour to learn Valerie had been discharged from the hospital that morning and where she lived—a large,