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Being here in the City Central Hotel suite with Joe made her feel safe.
Oddly, she found him more handsome in his casual clothes rather than his uniform. Maybe because she was accustomed to seeing him in uniform, as he was usually working when he was at the homestead. He was always nice to her from a professional perspective.
Without the uniform, he seemed more approachable. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble on his cheeks only added to his attractiveness. But even as the thoughts whirled in her mind, she knew better than to make a big deal out of being here with him.
Joe was here because he’d promised Rhy he’d keep her safe. His loyalty was to her brother, and she could respect that.
Even though she would rather have had more.
“I’ll get this information about the rivalry to Steele.” Joe’s words interrupted her thoughts. “It can’t hurt to interview the skaters’ parents.”
“Will you get to help with that?” He was close enough to touch, and she would have loved to lean against him. But she reminded herself that she was a Finnegan. Maybe she wasn’t a cop like Rhy, Tarin, and Kyleigh or an FBI agent like Brady, but she wasn’t a weakling either. She wanted to do her part in bringing this guy to justice.
He shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see.” He abruptly stood and moved away, stretching his arms over his head. “In the meantime, are you hungry?”
“Yes.” She glanced around the room. “Are we staying here or going out?”
“Staying here where it’s safer.” He frowned. “We’ll order room service. Just tell me what you’d like.”
Leaning forward, she plucked the room service menu from the desk. “The breakfast special sounds good.” She handed it to him.
He scanned it, then nodded. “That works.” He reached for the phone and placed their order.
“What else can we do to find this guy?” she asked when he’d finished. “I’m sure the police have more access to information than what we can find on social media.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said with a sigh. “We can uncover a lot if they have criminal backgrounds. If they don’t, we only have what’s out in the general public.” He gestured to the computer. “Which is what we’ve been doing here.”
“Wow.” Somehow, she’d thought they’d have more. “Okay, then we keep digging. The rivalry is only one possibility, right? You initially thought the shooter might be Gabrielle’s former boyfriend or spouse.”
“That reminds me.” He returned to sit beside her. “I meant to access the public records to see if Gabrielle had been married.”
She watched as he brought up a new search window. After a few minutes, he shook his head. “Okay, no marriage or divorce on file. That means this guy may have been a former boyfriend.”
“That won’t be easy to nail down,” she murmured.
“No.” He glanced at her, and their gazes clung for a long moment before he looked away. “Here, you keep poking around on Gabrielle’s social media sites. I—uh, need to call Rhy about obtaining a car.”
Joe moved away to make the call. She continued scrolling through Gabrielle’s posts but without much success. If the skater had a former boyfriend who matched the description of the shooter, he wasn’t in any of the photos she could find.
Joe’s conversation with her brother was brief, and she only heard his side of things. “A rental SUV under the Callahan name would be great, Rhy. Let Matt Callahan know we appreciate the help.”
“Matt Callahan?” she asked. “He’s the K-9 officer of the Callahan clan. He has a beautiful German shepherd named Duchess.”
“Yes, I’ve met them, they’re quite a team.” He smiled. “Matt will rent the vehicle for us, but your brothers Colin and Quinn will drop it off.”
“Sounds good.” It seemed her entire family was pulling together in this, and she appreciated their support. “I didn’t see Matt at the parade, was he there?”
“He was but was stationed toward the end of the parade route.” Joe shook his head. “There wasn’t much of a scent trail for Duchess to follow, but they assisted in searching for the perp anyway. Unfortunately coming up empty-handed like the rest of us.”
It was disheartening how the shooter managed to get away. Then again, disappearing in the midst of chaos wasn’t that difficult. All he would have had to do was to run and act frightened, blending in with everyone else who fled the scene.
A knock at the door had Joe rushing forward, waving her back. Without protest, she stood and moved toward the bedroom as he squinted through the peephole.
“Room service,” a muffled voice said.
She watched as Joe opened the door just wide enough to take the tray. He set it on the table, passed some cash over, and then closed and locked the door.
Elly willed her pulse to return to normal. She wasn’t used to this. She didn’t normally look for danger around every corner the way Joe did. The way her cop siblings did.
