Bounty Hunter Ransom

“I’m okay. I got out before—”

“Well, I didn’t! Someone broke into the house and attacked me. You knew, and you just let me walk right into it!” The tears Aubrey had been holding at bay came on full force.

“Are you hurt?” Patti asked in a small voice.

“Not seriously.” Aubrey swallowed, getting the tears under control. “Why did you call me home if—”

“I don’t understand. He was after me, not you. Why would he hurt you?”

“Who? Damn it, Patti, who are we talking about?”

“You’ll just get mad if I tell you.”

“I’m already mad. He could have killed me. Is it Charlie?”

Patti hesitated. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay? I just didn’t want you to worry about me. I might not come home for a couple of days. Oh, damn, my batteries are going.”

“Patti, don’t hang up. Tell me who! I won’t get mad, I promise,” Aubrey tried in a last-ditch effort to get Patti to talk. But the connection went dead.

Lyle was listening intently. “Did she say?”

“No.” Aubrey hung up. “But at least I know she’s safe for now, anyway. But this wasn’t just a random crime. Patti said someone was after her.”

“Sounds like you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Aubrey swallowed down her irritation with Lyle. She waited until the cops left, then unearthed her phone book so she could look up the number for First Strike Bounty Hunters, a gesture which turned out to be wholly unnecessary. Beau was at her front door.

She let him in. “How did you know I was trying to call you?”

His eyebrows rose as he entered her filthy living room. “You were calling me?”

“I want you to find Patti and Sara for me. You could probably do it in your sleep.”

He looked around her house, his attentive gaze missing nothing, but he didn’t reply right away to her request. “They sure did a number on your house. The cops, I mean.”

“They were just doing their job. Now, how about if you do your job? Will you take the case or not? I think Patti’s in trouble. She called, but she sounded really strange and she wouldn’t tell me—”

“She called?”

“Just a few minutes ago. She said she was safe, but—”

“Aubrey, I’m sure she’s fine. You know Patti. She’s a drama queen. Whatever’s going on with her, she’s blowing it out of proportion and creating a mystery so you’ll worry.”

“Maybe,” Aubrey said grudgingly. “But she’s changed a lot since Sara came along. She’s more responsible, more considerate. She even has a job at an insurance company. Couldn’t you try to find her? There’s an innocent baby involved.”

“If she hasn’t turned up by tomorrow, let me know.”

Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I get it. There’s no huge bounty on Patti’s head, so it’s not worth your time.”

“It’s not that—”

“Of course it is. Big payoffs are all that motivate you anymore. And since I don’t have anything to offer you—” She broke off when she saw the appraising look in Beau’s eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said in a lazy drawl. “I think you might have something I want.”

Aubrey felt the air rush out of her lungs in a swoosh as her every hair follicle wiggled with awareness. He’d never shown the slightest interest in her before. But the way he was looking at her now, practically…what was that old cliché? Undressing her with his eyes?

She felt a little thrill at the idea that he might want her, but quickly squelched it. The very idea was hideous—trading sex for his professional services.

The corner of his mouth twitched up in what passed for a smile with Beau. “Not that. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

She shook herself. What was she thinking? “What, then?” The question came out a breathy whisper.

“I want you to put the past behind us. Admit that maybe you don’t understand what happened between me and Gavin, and give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“It’s hard to misinterpret a bullet in the leg.”

“It could have been through his heart. He was pointing a weapon at me first.”

“So you say. Forget it, Beau. I can’t forgive you for what you did to Gavin. Not now, not ever.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing more to talk about. I stopped to see if you were really okay, but it appears you are. So I’m out of here.”

As he sauntered away, Aubrey had to bite her lip to keep from calling him back.

Chapter Two

Aubrey couldn’t wait to take a shower, to get the intruder’s feel and smell off of her, to wash the blood out of her hair—and to wash that insane exchange with Beau out of her system. She carefully locked her doors, checked that the windows were secure, then headed for the upstairs bathroom.

A few minutes later, feeling much better, Aubrey decided to tackle the mess the police had made. She could have called the cleaning service Lyle recommended, but the idea of letting more strangers into her house bothered her. This cozy frame house, once her grandmother’s, had always been her haven, her cocoon, in which she could shut out the rest of the world and focus for hours at a time on an obscure chemical equation, or grade papers, or read nineteenth-century chemistry texts, her favorite hobby.

Now she preferred to set things right herself, restoring each object to its correct place, buffing the old mahogany coffee table to a mirrorlike shine.

When she moved into the dining room, which had been converted to her home office, she immediately spotted something odd. A fat white envelope sat in the exact middle of her desk with her name on it. It was in Patti’s writing. How had she not noticed it before?

The envelope wasn’t sealed, and Aubrey opened it and withdrew the contents. The moment she read the first words on the first page, her breath caught in her throat. It was Patti’s last will and testament, drawn up by her father’s law firm and dated only a week previous.

That in itself was weird. Patti had been estranged from her wealthy father for many years. Why had she suddenly felt she needed to go to him for a will? The implications were ominous.

Aubrey scanned the document. Patti had apparently left everything to her daughter. That made sense. But she’d also made provisions for Aubrey to be named as Sara’s guardian. The gesture brought Aubrey to tears, especially given the uncharitable thoughts she’d had about Patti in the last few hours.

“Patti, girl, you better not need this,” Aubrey murmured as she tucked the will into her file cabinet.

The phone rang, startling her. She fumbled with the receiver. “Hello?”

“Do you have the money yet?” The voice was rough and low, and the words sent a chill wiggling up Aubrey’s spine.

“Who are you trying to reach?” Aubrey demanded, though she was pretty sure she knew. Callers often mistook her voice for Patti’s.

“Patti, Patti, Patti. After all that’s been between us, you’re not pretending you don’t know me, are you?” the caller cooed, his voice taking on a whispery, singsong quality.

“This isn’t Patti,” Aubrey insisted. “She’s not here. Who is this?” She checked her caller ID. The number had been blocked.

A long silence followed. Aubrey thought at first the caller had hung up. But then his creepy voice assaulted her again. “Whoever you are, chicky, you tell little Patti something for me. Tell her I’m coming for her. I want my money now. She knows what’ll happen if I don’t get it.”

The line went dead.

Aubrey hung up and immediately dialed the police again, asking for Lyle. She was soon patched through to his cell phone. He listened attentively.

“Did he make any threats?”

“Not explicitly, but dire consequences were certainly implied.”

“We can’t really do anything unless this guy makes a move.”

“What? He already made a move!” Aubrey paced back and forth in front of her desk. “Or did you forget so quickly that I was assaulted?”

“We don’t know it’s the same person.”

“Of course it’s the same person,” Aubrey said impatiently. “Can’t you put a trace on the call? Something?”

“Sure, we can check it out. But he’s probably calling from a cell phone. Meanwhile, is there anywhere else you could stay for a few days?”

Aubrey hated the idea of abandoning her home to the Fates. But she reluctantly agreed she could stay with friends for a couple of days, until Patti came home and this mess got straightened out. She could have her home phone calls forwarded to her cell, in case Patti tried to call again.

“Try not to worry too much,” Lyle said, his voice soothing. “These things have a way of blowing over. These bad guys, they don’t want to work too hard. So if you make things the least bit challenging for them, they move on to greener pastures pretty quick.”

Aubrey was only slightly reassured by Lyle’s words. Sure, he’d been a cop for a few years, and he probably knew what he was talking about. But he wasn’t the one who still had a headache from her last brush with this particular bad guy.

As she packed up a few things, and a load of books to keep her occupied—she wasn’t teaching at all this summer—she considered which of her friends she would impose on. Or she could drive down and stay with her parents, who had retired to South Padre Island on the Texas coast. But she didn’t want to put anyone else in the line of fire. And she wanted to stay close. She wouldn’t rest easy until she saw Patti and cuddled Sara in her arms.

A motel was the answer. She would stay at her favorite little hole in the wall, the Golden Sands, where she’d hidden out when she wrote both her master’s thesis and her doctoral dissertation. She’d had a little problem meeting deadlines back then, and her solution was to push it as far as she could, then check into the motel and write eighteen hours a day until the thing was done, ordering out Chinese food or pizza for every meal.

The motel was only a couple of blocks from campus, near a busy intersection. She requested a room facing Eighth Street, the main drag, where her door would be very visible to anyone passing by. This might even be kind of fun, she thought as she slid her credit card to the multipierced young woman at the front desk. She could turn the air-conditioning up, swim in the tacky little pool out back, watch trashy movies or noodle around with equations.

Maybe if she distracted herself enough, she wouldn’t worry so much about Patti and Sara.

With her maroon duffel bag in one hand and her key in the other, Aubrey coaxed the lock and opened the door. The room was stuffy, but she’d soon remedy that. She switched on the light, turned toward the window unit, then froze.

There was a man sitting on her bed.

She inhaled to scream until it registered that the man was Beau. He lounged against the pillows as if he had a perfect right to be there.

“What—how—what—”

“You’re usually a bit more articulate, Aubrey.”

Instead of trying to push one of the dozen questions she had for him out of her mouth, she folded her arms and stared until the silence became uncomfortable.

“I drove past your house again and saw you throw a duffel in the back of your Jeep,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll admit it, I was curious. Were you spooked? Had you found out where Patti was? I was worried, so I followed you here. If you’re trying to keep yourself safe, you’re not doing a very good job. Any kid with a credit card could break into these rooms.”

“How did you know which room I would be in?”

“I was standing right behind you at the front desk. You never even knew I was there, so I thought I would teach you a lesson.”

“You’ve made your point,” she said, dropping her duffel and sinking into the room’s only chair. She should be furious at his high-handedness—except he was right.

“Anyone could have followed you. Don’t you ever check your rearview mirror? I practically tailgated you the whole way over.”

Jeez. How unobservant could she be?

“You were right, I got spooked,” she said, defeated. Arguing with Beau would get her nowhere. “Patti got a phone call from some creep. Apparently she owes him some money.” She clenched her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “But there’s no reason anyone would be after me. I figured once I was away from the house, I’d be fine.”

“So what did the caller say?” Beau prodded her.

“He said he was coming after her to get his money, and Patti would know what would happen if she disappointed him. Something like that.”

“How much money does she owe this guy?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but it must be more than I could come up with easily, or she would have asked me for it.”

“What about her father? Or her brother? They’ve both got plenty of money.”

“I doubt she would ask, and even if she did, I doubt either one of them would lift a finger to help. She’s hardly spoken to Uncle Wayne or David for years.”

“But if she believes her life is in danger…”

Aubrey looked pensive. “I should check with them, I guess. She had a will drawn up recently at Uncle Wayne’s firm, though that doesn’t mean she dealt with her father or brother directly.”

Beau sat up, abandoning his lounging-tiger pose. “Let’s get back to the phone call. Did the guy threaten you or Patti?”

“Not in so many words. That’s the same thing Lyle asked.”

“So you already called the cops. That was going to be my next suggestion.”

“For all the good it did. Lyle’s the one who advised me to get out of the house for a while until all this blows over. He said he’d try to track down the caller.”

“They always say that. I’ll lay you odds he never traces the call.”

“What have you got against Lyle, anyway?”

“He’s a lousy cop, that’s all. The business that Gavin got caught in—”

“Don’t talk about Gavin to me.”

“Lyle was in it up to his eyeballs,” Beau continued, glossing over her sudden anger. “But no one could prove it.” And then the jerk had gotten a promotion. Life wasn’t fair.

Aubrey got up and paced. Beau caught a whiff of her fragrance, perfume, or maybe just shampoo or lotion. Whatever it was, he liked it—way too much. He’d thought Aubrey Schuyler was long out of his system. But seeing her again had reawakened cravings that really weren’t useful at the moment. In fact, they’d never been useful, except to distract him from sleep on lonely nights.

“If some guy was threatening Patti, why didn’t she call the cops?” he asked, following Aubrey with his eyes. She moved nice. He liked the play of muscles beneath her snug denim shorts, and the way he could see her shoulder blades whenever she lifted her mass of curls off her neck.

“She doesn’t want the police involved, and I don’t blame her. After all her arrests and whatnot, she has no reason to feel good about cops. Anyway, social services keeps a close watch on her, and she’s worried they’ll take her baby away from her.”

“Maybe they should.”

“No,” Aubrey said fiercely. “Patti doesn’t deserve that. She’s grown up a lot since you last knew her. She’s off drugs, working and paying her bills. She’s trying really hard to be a good mother, and she loves Sara. It’s just that her past is catching up with her.”

“A past is a pretty hard thing to escape,” Beau said. Then he sighed, hating what he was about to say. “You want me to try to track down that phone call for you?”

“Lyle said—”

“Lyle might or might not get around to it. Besides, he has to follow certain rules, protecting privacy and all that. I don’t.”

“You can do that? Trace a call?”

“Not me, but Lori Bettencourt. Her father was one of the founders of First Strike.”

“Glenn Bettencourt? The one who was killed last year?”

“Yeah. Lori’s father didn’t want her anywhere near the agency, but now that he’s gone, she’s there every day, begging for scraps. Ace—he’s the guy in charge now—got her started skip-tracing. She was a quick study, and pretty soon she was on the payroll. She already had a background in computers, but now she can rival any hacker out there. She’ll find out who made that call.”

“Let’s make it happen, then.”

“One rule, though.”

Aubrey sighed. “I knew this was too easy.”

“If I help you out, you do what I say. No more staying in sleazy motels with crummy locks and a clerk who could be bought for a pack of cigarettes.”

“What alternative do you suggest?”

“We’ll work out something. Maybe you could stay with Lori.”

Aubrey wrinkled her nose at that, but she didn’t object.

“Bring your bag, you won’t be coming back here. But we’ll leave your car, on the off chance it’ll throw someone off the scent.”

Aubrey looked as though she wanted to object to the way Beau had suddenly taken control, but again, she didn’t. She must be plenty scared, Beau thought grimly, to throw in her lot with him and let him call all the shots.

Once they were in his car, Beau put the top down. The sun’s full heat beat down on them, but it was worth it because he got to watch out of the corner of his eye as Aubrey tried to control her windblown curls.

“If you’re able to track this guy down, what will you do with him?” she asked. “Will you turn his name over to Lyle?”

“Hah! No, I’ll handle him myself. Once he realizes he’s not dealing with defenseless women, that you and Patti have an ex-cop on your side, he’ll be a bit more patient about getting his money.”

“Do you really think so?” Aubrey asked hopefully.

“Sure. The guy sounds like a bully, and bullies run and hide when anyone stronger than they are comes around.”

Aubrey flashed him a grateful smile, and it just about melted his insides. When was the last time Aubrey had actually smiled at him?

Hell, he really needed to pull his mind out of the past. Aubrey had been his first real crush, the first girl whose opinion of him had ever mattered. She’d just turned fourteen, and she was all legs and budding breasts and lips that were unconsciously pouty. He’d casually mentioned to Gavin he might like to take Aubrey out, now that he had a driver’s license and an old wreck of a car. Gavin had pushed him up against a wall and threatened to kill him if he so much as looked at his sister. It was the first time Gavin had ever directed his temper toward Beau, and it had unnerved him. Not that he was afraid, exactly. He probably could have beat Gavin to a pulp. But he didn’t like seeing that side of his buddy, his best friend. Rather than provoke that sleeping beast inside Gavin again, Beau had limited himself to covert looks at Aubrey—and an active fantasy life. There were plenty of other girls who wanted to ride in his car, he’d reasoned.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, and Beau forced himself to focus on Patti’s predicament. He’d known Patti well when they were kids, all of them hanging out together. As Gavin Schuyler’s best friend, he’d been treated practically as one of the family, and he had always been welcome at the Schuylers’ house as well as at the Clarendon home—a mansion, really. Wayne Clarendon came from old money, and he didn’t hesitate to flaunt it.

Once Beau left the police force, though, his relationship with Gavin, and hence the entire family, had grown tense, and he hadn’t seen much of them after that. What he did remember of Patti, though, was a weak, self-indulgent young woman prone to histrionics and a master of manipulation. Aubrey had always been vulnerable to her cousin’s hijinks, because Aubrey was kind and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Everyone except him.

Aubrey had said Patti was more mature now, but Aubrey tended to see the best in everyone, even when it wasn’t deserved. Why she wanted to believe the worst about him was no mystery—he’d shot her brother, after all. But he wished she’d cut him a break.

Beau wheeled the Mustang into a parking space in front of a run-down shopping center in one of the worst parts of town.

“Why are we stopping here?” Aubrey asked with some alarm.

“This is it.”

Aubrey followed his gaze to a tattered blue awning that featured First Strike in barely discernible white letters. Next to it was the image of a coiled snake, ready to strike. The office itself was housed in perhaps twenty feet of storefront, with steel bars covering windows streaked so dirty she couldn’t see a thing inside. On one side was Bloodgood’s Pawn Shop. On the other was Taft Bail Bonds.

She made no move to get out of the car.

“Aubrey, what’s the holdup?”

She shook herself. What had she expected, anyway? Beau Maddox wasn’t Remington Steele. “Coming.”

Inside it was worse than Aubrey had feared. The office was bigger than it appeared from the outside, narrow and deep. A battered reception desk sat near the door, unoccupied at the moment, but a half-full bottle of Dr Pepper sitting on it indicated the occupant wasn’t far away. A couple of other desks were arranged haphazardly around the main room, all of them messy but currently unused. In one corner was a home gym—a weight bench and a couple of machines with torn, blue-sparkle vinyl upholstery. The floor was partially covered with nasty blue indoor-outdoor carpeting, except where the concrete floor showed through huge rips and holes. The walls had been flat white once upon a time. Now they were dingy with fingerprints and God-knew-what.

A huge garbage can near the exact center of the room was full to overflowing with beer bottles and pizza cartons. Several beer bottles were strewn about the rest of the place as if it were a decorating statement. The acoustic tiles on the ceiling—the ones that weren’t missing—were stained and crumbling, and the ancient fluorescent light fixtures bathed the entire nightmare in anemic blue light.

One wall was entirely covered in Wanted posters. Several of the scary faces peering out from those posters had darts protruding from them.

“This place is completely gross,” Aubrey couldn’t help saying. “How can you stand working here?”

Beau smiled and shrugged as he looked around. “I don’t spend much time here, really. Hey,” he called out, “is anyone here?”

A door in the back opened and a striking woman close to Aubrey’s age appeared. She was tall, slender and large-breasted, but ultracasual in a snug black tank top, low-slung camouflage cargo pants and flip-flops. Her honey-blond hair was cut in a short, no-nonsense style, and she wore little if any makeup, which in no way detracted from her very feminine appearance.

She smiled at Beau. “Sorry, I was just in the bathroom,” she said without embarrassment. “Ace isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for. Who’s this?” She turned her winning smile on Aubrey.

Aubrey liked this woman immediately. She held out her hand. “Aubrey Schuyler.”

“Lori Bettencourt,” the other woman said, gripping Aubrey’s hand firmly. “I know this place is disgusting, and I apologize. But I told Ace when I came to work here that being a maid wasn’t part of my job description just because I’m the only woman. I clean up after myself and I try not to look at the rest. Though I do carry around a big bottle of Lysol.”

Aubrey found herself smiling back. “I like your attitude.”

“Actually,” Beau said, “I’m not looking for Ace. I’m looking for you.”

“Really? Need some help with a takedown?” she asked hopefully.

Aubrey watched Lori closely, trying to figure out if there was anything sexual between her and Beau. Not that it should matter. She didn’t give a rat’s behind who Beau slept with, she told herself sternly. But she found she was relieved when her radar didn’t pick up any sexual undercurrents between the two, though they obviously liked one another.

“Aubrey got a threatening phone call. I want you to trace it.”

Lori looked disappointed. “Just a phone call? Piece of cake.” She led the way to the desk farthest back from the front door, on which sat what looked to be an ancient computer with half its guts hanging out. But once Lori fired up the machine, Aubrey could see it was endowed with a powerful CPU and lots of state-of-the-art software.

Aubrey gave Lori her phone number and the approximate time of the call, then left her alone to do her thing.