Mindy wrapped her arms around her thin middle and looked cold even though it was about a million and one degrees outside. Ash watched her and wondered if she’d eaten tonight. He had this urge to take her in hand or something. It was odd. He generally wasn’t the sort of person to volunteer to care for someone else, but Mindy seemed like such a disaster and not by her own hand either.
“I can see you there in the trees. You should just come out and say what you have to say instead of hiding there like a perv watching a bunch of kids play golf.”
It took Ash a moment to register what Mindy had just said. She could see him? How? And perv watching kids play golf? He gathered his legs beneath him to stand up and give her a piece of his mind. Then another voice stopped him cold.
“I wasn’t hiding.” A man in his late twenties stepped out of a group of trees about twenty feet away from Ash’s position.
Ash had been so focused on Mindy that he had completely neglected to see the second person coming up. Who was it? He was tempted to take a photograph and go running to Detective Lowell to inform him his potential civilian undercover agent wasn’t nearly as trustworthy as she needed to be in order to pull off an operation like the one Lowell was suggesting.
“You were hiding, Kevin,” Mindy said firmly.
“And what are you doing?” He pointed at his watch. “Because you were supposed to be at my place at nine and here it is half past and I had to come over here to find you!”
So, it seemed likely that Mindy did live at the bottom of the hill. She gave him an arched look. “I’m just taking a walk. And we didn’t have an appointment or anything, Kevin. I told you I would think about it. I did and I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Kevin sputtered as though he’d been thwarted and didn’t like it. “Don’t be ridiculous! Of course it’s a good idea! You come over, we enjoy ourselves, you go home, end of the night. And it would have been perfect if your stupid brother didn’t need someone to walk his ass home because he’s too much of a loser to get there by himself.”
“Don’t say that!” Mindy snapped the words at him, but then backed off as though she didn’t want to anger the guy. “My brother isn’t like that. He’s a sweet kid and you know it. He’s just made a few bad decisions lately.”
“Uh huh, and if we stand here long enough, I bet we can witness him acting like every other teen idiot in the world,” Kevin said angrily. He sliced his hand through the air. “Let’s go. Now.”
“No.” She was shaking her head. “I don’t want to leave. I’m going to finish my walk and then I’ll go home.”
“Yeah? Well I want to get laid.”
The crass announcement startled Ash more than he would have liked to have admitted. That’s what was going on here? This Kevin guy had showed up to Mindy’s house for sex? Revulsion ripped through Ash and for a moment he felt as though he was wallowing in doubt for reasons he could not begin to understand.
Why did he care what Mindy did or didn’t do? Or who she did or didn’t do for that matter? It made no difference to him. Not really. And yet, it did, because he felt bad for her. He had felt the desire to help her. To make sure that Detective Lowell didn’t take advantage of her and now here she was allowing herself to be some kind of booty call? That wasn’t cool.
“I’m not in the mood, Kevin.” Mindy’s voice was extremely firm, but there was a wobbly quality that made it not quite believable too. Ash frowned. What was really going on here?
“You’ll be in the mood before I’m done,” Kevin told her with no small amount of rudeness. He marched toward her and held out his hand. “Come on. Right now. If you don’t come with me to your apartment, I’ll have you right up against that fence.”
The hell he would! Ash gave up trying to remain hidden for the moment and stood in one smooth, fluid movement. He could only imagine what he looked like emerging from his hiding place with paint on his face and clothes that nearly hid everything but his eyes from sight thanks to the darkness and the micro camo blending affect.
“Look Kevin,” Ash said in a low voice dripping with revulsion. “The woman said she’s not interested. All right? I think that most guys know that means no. As in no means no. Right?”
Kevin and Mindy both stumbled away from Ash. They were wearing identical expressions of shock, but Kevin was the one who literally looked as though he was about to pee his pants. The guy sputtered something. Ash couldn’t decipher. Then he sort of spun around and half tripped, grabbed for Mindy, and used her to haul himself upright again. And then he nearly shoved her to her knees in his haste to get away. But of course, he started running up the hill instead of down. So, he had to do this stupid sort of twirl and then bolt back down the hill.
Ash watched with satisfaction as the Kevin guy picked up too much speed and discovered his legs were moving faster than his mind could control them. He stumbled and went down hard on the pavement at the bottom of the hill. But he was in such a rush that he nearly ran on his hands and feet together as he shoved himself back up into the upright position and then managed to get to his car without slamming head first into the front fender.
Within moments, Kevin was speeding away into the darkness at the bottom of the hill and he had left Mindy behind as though she were nothing but trash. Despite the humor that Ash could see in the entire situation, he could not get over the idea that Mindy had just been unbearably disrespected.
“I’m sorry to scare you like that,” Ash told Mindy.
She was staring at him in gaping shock. She seemed absolutely rooted in place and Ash reached for his hat to take it off. Perhaps that would allow her to see beyond the paint and camo gear. Or not.
“Mindy, it’s Ash Forbes,” Ash told her in a very gentle voice. “We met at the police department earlier today? We had a meeting with Detective Lowell. Remember?”
Mindy’s mouth at least closed. In fact, it rather snapped shut. Then she seemed to get control of her faculties all at once. “You! No… you can’t… why would… ugh!”
Another moment of silence seemed to put it all together. No doubt she wanted to thank him for stopping whatever—well whatever that had been.
“How could you just do that without having any kind of idea who or what you were messing with?” Mindy’s outraged tone of voice surprised Ash so much that he couldn’t come up with a response. She seemed to take that as an invitation to keep yelling. “I didn’t ask for you to intervene! I didn’t need your help and now… Oh my God! You have no idea what kind of problems I’m going to have to deal with now.”
Ash had evidently gotten this all wrong. “That was your boyfriend?”
“No!” She seemed insulted. Then she looked chagrined. “Well, kind of. But not really. It’s complicated.”
Ash found himself absolutely fascinated against his will. “Are you telling me that loser has a friends with benefits situation with you?”
“I guess that’s what you could call it,” Mindy said after a minute or two of looking as though she wished she could actually say no. “Like I said, it’s just complicated. But you didn’t help anything.”
“I’m sorry.” Ash put his hand on his chest.
He felt bad. But more than that, he felt strangely embarrassed for Mindy. It was on the tip of his tongue to assure her he’d done her a favor because she could do so much better. Except, wasn’t Ash the one who had only a few hours earlier declared her a waif in his own mind? She wasn’t the attractive kind of woman. Not really. It was difficult to say what she might look like if she weren’t so worn down and in desperate need of a good meal. She didn’t actually look strong enough to handle a man at the moment. She looked like she would break in half right in a guy’s arms. Like a twig. She looked fragile.
“What?” Mindy demanded suddenly. “What are you thinking? Your face is all weird and I don’t like it.”
“It’s the paint,” he told her flatly. “And I should ask you the same thing. What are you doing here?”
“I came here to check
on my brother.” Mindy slipped her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, which drew them even tighter around her sharp jutting hipbones. “I do that almost every night. I’ve been trying to figure out who is actually doing the selling. I’ve never parked out here with an outfit on though.”
“It’s just habit,” Ash told her casually. “I’m used to doing surveillance. It’s part of my job. And Lowell thought it might not be a bad idea just to get an idea of what this place is like on a regular basis. So, this week I’ll be staking it out.”
“Wait. This week? As in you’ll just be sitting out here every night for a week?”
“That’s how we catch criminals.” Ash couldn’t hide his smile. “It’s nothing like it is on television. And drug crime is the hardest. That takes some effort and some time. We have to see if there is unusual activity and how often and who is involved. And then once we have some of that information, we can put some kind of operation in place to actually get involved.”
“You mean, like Detective Lowell wants me to do?” Mindy questioned him. “I suppose I can understand that. At least this time you won’t have to waste any time getting one of your guys all nice and infiltrated or anything. I can just sort of walk in and go from there.”
Ash still didn’t approve of this idea, but he wasn’t going to tell her that right now. “So, that’s why I’m here. And that’s why you’re here. I suppose the real question is what you’re going to do now that you know someone else is already watching your brother.”
“You’re watching him?” She sounded skeptical. “Which one is he? Do you know any of them?”
Ash had only been out here one night or he would have had the answers for her. Instead, he pulled out his notebook and held it up. “I’m taking notes. I’ll get it figured out.”
“Or, I can just sit with you and explain it.”
She actually looked as though she thought this was a good idea. Ash was mildly horrified. He’d never tried to do any sort of surveillance with anyone else. That wasn’t his style. He worked alone. That was is style. But right now, Mindy was already stealing the soft ground cover sheet he’d put down earlier, sitting and arranging herself and her knobby legs beneath the trees. It was obvious Ash didn’t have a choice at the moment. No choice at all.
Chapter Eight
Shit. Shit. Shit! That was the only thing that kept running through Mindy’s mind. That and the need to make sure she was nowhere near her apartment for a while. She wasn’t so sure Kevin’s dramatic exit was the last she was going to see of him tonight. It wouldn’t be like him to just give up like that. Nope. Kevin would be the guy who would lay in wait for her when she got home and then pounce because that—in his mind at least—would somehow recapture all of the masculine macho points that he had just lost.
Although, his reaction had been absolutely hilarious. As Mindy tucked herself beneath the little copse of trees just behind the Dino Golf back fence and stared up the hill, she almost couldn’t keep herself from chuckling now and again. Kevin had fallen flat on his face! And oh it was so deserved! But that didn’t matter. Not really. What mattered was that he was going to end up blaming her for his humiliation. And then there was no telling what would happen after that.
“So, which one is your brother?” Ash’s whisper was so low that the sound of it didn’t carry at all. Mindy was forced to lean a little closer to his warm body in order to catch what he was saying.
Her brother. Right. That was supposedly her excuse for camping out right here. Darren. Not because she was afraid to go back to her apartment lest she get a visit from Kevin. Mindy craned her neck left and right and finally spotted Darren in the lower corner of the property with a broom and dustpan. He was using the handheld flipping dustpan to pick up bits and pieces of debris from the miniature golf course.
“That’s my brother,” Mindy said, leaning even a little closer to Ash Forbes and pointing at Darren. “His name is Darren. He’s only seventeen.”
“So, almost an adult then.”
“Not at adult at all,” Mindy retorted. “Sometimes I wonder if he’ll ever grow up.”
Ash Forbes turned his head to stare at her. She suddenly realized how close they were. Too close. Then he spoke very softly. “He will never grow up if you don’t let him. You can’t keep making sure he doesn’t make mistakes. The only way he’s going to learn is to reap the consequences for what he does.”
“You might be right,” Mindy acknowledged. “But I’m worried he’s going to bite off more than he can chew and I don’t want it to ruin his life for good.”
“It might change his life,” Ash acknowledged thoughtfully. “But you can’t choose his destiny for him anyway. Remember?”
She frowned at him. “When did you become a philosophical guru?”
“I’m no guru,” Ash told her with amusement. Even in the dark and with paint on his face, his eyes sparkled and he looked breathtakingly handsome. “Let’s just say I’ve got some experience with doing it wrong. I think we all do. Right?”
Mindy could hardly argue with that. Look at her situation with Kevin. That was all because of her. All of it. And she reaped those consequences every damned day. “I still wish I could protect him.”
“That’s because you’re a very good big sister.”
The words warmed her in places she hadn’t realized were cold. For just a moment, Mindy was flabbergasted. Had she heard him wrong? It was such a simple phrase to say. Something you would tell to a small child and not a grown adult and yet she felt as though the sun had come out just hearing that from him.
“Thank you,” Mindy whispered.
Ash only nodded and went back to his binoculars. Mindy answered a few of his questions. She told him who the manager was, pointed out exactly where she had seen Sergeant Caprico the other night, and even told him what she knew of the drug operation. At least what her brother had told her.
Mindy had no idea how long they had been sitting there in the dark when she saw something odd from the corner of her eye. A group of teenagers—it was hard to tell if this was a new group or one of the ones who had been around earlier—were lingering at one of the holes not far from the maintenance shed. It honestly looked as though they were playing through the same hole over and over again. One by one, the members of the group would disappear from the course for just a few minutes, maybe five or so, but instead of going down to the maintenance shed, they were heading back up to the hut where a customer chose a putter and ball.
“Did you see that?” Mindy whispered to Ash as a girl in horribly short shorts and a skimpy half shirt pranced back onto the miniature golf course. “That girl. The one with the short shorts.”
“I’ve actually been avoiding looking at her for the most part.” Ash sounded totally blasé. He was peering through his binoculars. “But I will admit I’m a little curious why she and her friends are just hanging around that hole. I know there’s nobody waiting to play through behind them, but you would think that getting your par on the strokes basically means you’re done with that hole and can move on.”
Mindy made a gesture to the putt putt hut. “They keep going back up to that counter where you choose your putter and your ball but I don’t know why.”
Ash swung his binoculars in that direction. “How very interesting,” he murmured.
Just about the time she was about to beg him for a peek in his high-powered binoculars, he handed them to her. They were huge and heavy and she lived in fear of dropping them. But when Mindy lifted them to her eyes, she could not believe how wonderfully clear everything had become.
Ash’s hand brushed hers. The feather light touch sent a thrill of heat through her body that had nothing to do with the humidity in the air. “Here. You can adjust them right here if you need to focus.”
“Thank you,” Mindy whispered hoarsely.
She felt so very alive and aware right now. He was sitting right beside her and yet it felt as though it was more than that. He was around her. His arms were around h
er. She could feel the hardness of his chest muscles at her back. The man was too attractive for her peace of mind.
Focus. Right. Not just her eyes, but her mind as well. She focused on what she saw, and then she saw something very strange. “They’re getting something from the guy in the hut,” Mindy told Ash. “I thought it was the maintenance shed. But it’s the hut. It’s just the guy handing out the putters and stuff. How does that work? Do these kids just know where to go by what day it is? Does this drug dealing enterprise actually involve the entire place? Can you imagine?”
“Unfortunately, I can,” Ash muttered. “That would mean we’re looking at total employee involvement, too. We would need to interview them all and find out who has been dealing and who hasn’t been.”
“You’re talking about when they finally make a bust though.” They were talking in circles. That’s what it felt like to Mindy. “You can’t say a word right now. Can you? And if they’re selling at some of the after-hours clubs too?”
Ash heaved a heavy sigh. “That’s a pretty big operation.”
“Why does that happen?” Mindy suddenly asked. “I don’t understand. Why do you have to move in and infiltrate an entire town?”
Ash took his binoculars back and focused on the putt putt hut. “It’s about volume. The more volume you sell, the more discount you get, the more money you make. And an addicted customer base will need more and more anyway. You can’t stick to the same dosage. I’m sure you realize that.”
“But this is Branson,” Mindy moaned. She put her face over her hands for a moment. “It’s not some huge city with a bunch of ways in and out of here. How do they even get it into town?”
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 77