Hot on the Trail

by Vicki Tharp

  “Sure,” Jenna said. “I’m Turner. You’re Hooch.”

  He flashed her a grin. “I was thinking something a little more mysterious, like Batman and Cat—”

  “I’m not wearing a skintight bodysuit.”

  “You’ve got the legs for it”—he tipped his head and looked at her behind—“and the ass.”

  She socked him in the shoulder but laughed anyway. “Go.” Jenna shoved him toward his cabin. “Take a shower.”

  Forty minutes later, they were rumbling down the streets of Murdock. They drove by a few parks, from the tourist part of town to the dismal part. No railroad tracks separated the two sides, only a downhill slope. Neat yards with white picket fences gave way to chain link and weeds, to unfenced front yards where rusted-out cars and broken-down furniture grew as thick as spring flowers.

  The first pass through Murdock didn’t take long. It wasn’t that big of a town. On the second pass, they parked on the main drag and set out on foot.

  “So, where to?” Jenna asked as she settled her favorite tan cowboy hat on top of her head, her ponytail dangling out the back.

  Shrugging, Quinn pointed up the street. “This way is as good as any.”

  Main Street had a quasi-touristy vibe that didn’t quite hit the mark. Dusty souvenir and T-shirt shops, abandoned spaces with For Rent signs in dirty windows. A bar that hadn’t yet opened for the day. A mom-and-pop sandwich shop. Three pawnshops scattered up and down the street.

  In a side alley next to the sandwich shop was a dumpster with the top flipped back beside the store’s side door. A woman leaned against the opposite wall, a cigarette wedged between long, thin fingers. She might have been attractive before her hair had gone stringy, her cheeks gone hollow, and her old clothes hung off her willowy frame like wilted leaves.

  An aproned employee came out the door with a couple of bags of trash, which he tossed in the bin. The woman approached him, and he reached into the front pocket of his apron, pulled out something wrapped in paper, and handed it to her.

  “Go on, now,” he said, “before you get me fired.”

  “Same time tomorrow?” the woman asked.

  The man shook his head. “Nah, I pulled the late shift.”

  She peeled the paper back. “Thank you,” she muttered around a bite of sandwich.

  “Yeah, yeah. Go on,” the man grumbled, but he watched her a moment as she walked down the alley. The man returned to the shop, and Quinn nudged Jenna with his elbow and turned into the alley.

  “Hey, what—” Jenna hissed, trying to keep her voice down.

  Quinn jogged ahead to catch up with the woman, forcing Jenna to do the same.

  “Ma’am,” Quinn called out. The lady stiffened but kept walking. A few more steps and Quinn caught up with her, placing a hand on her arm to stop her. “Ma’am.”

  She stopped. Looked at his hand on her arm, took another bite of sandwich. It was almost gone. “No one calls me ‘ma’am’ unless they want somethin’.” She looked him up and down. “And I ain’t got nothin’ to give. Even to a handsome buck like you.”

  Jenna stepped up beside him.

  The woman glanced from Quinn to her and back again, her eyes narrowing. Quinn reached into his back pocket and pulled out a twenty.

  “And I don’t do three-ways. Never have, never will.”

  Quinn paused, his hand and the twenty in midair. “Three-ways?” He winked at Jenna, but now wasn’t the time for his brand of humor.

  “Wait,” Jenna said before the woman stepped away. “We only want information.”

  “What if I don’t have it?”

  “The money is yours either way,” Quinn said.

  The woman plucked the bill from his hand, tucked it into her bra, and popped the last of the sandwich into her mouth.

  “Whaddya want?” she said. “I ain’t got all day.”

  From his pocket, Quinn pulled out his cell phone, thumbed through the pictures until he found the one of Crystal. The quality was bad, and Quinn’s screen was cracked, but you could make out her face well enough.

  “Her name’s Crystal. We—”

  “I know who she is.”

  “You do?” Excitement shot through Jenna’s voice.

  Quinn replaced his phone. “Where we can find her?”

  The woman chuckled and started walking again. “You don’t.” Jenna and Quinn fell into step beside her. “Most people want to know how to get rid of her.”

  Quinn stepped in front of the woman to stop her. “Who would want to do that?”

  “No one specific…that I know of.”

  Again, Quinn reached for his wallet, but the woman waved him off. “Save yer money. I ain’t got nothin’ else to say.”

  She sidestepped Quinn and continued on her way, rounding the next corner.

  “That was helpful,” Jenna said, adding a heaping helping of sarcasm.

  They canvassed the rest of the street. The pawn and other shops. Talked with people on the sidewalk. Some had seen Crystal around. No one had seen her lately. No one seemed concerned, though, like it was normal for Crystal to disappear for days or weeks at a time, only to show back up again later. No one knew where she had gone, or what she was up to.

  No one really cared.

  They made their way back to the sandwich shop and ordered lunch, eating at one of the two-top bistro tables on the front sidewalk.

  “Maybe she’s not missing,” Jenna said.

  Quinn sucked down half his soda. “You think it’s one of her regular walkabouts? That she’s gone off to wherever she goes and will be back when it suits her?”

  “Maybe.” Jenna twirled a fry around and around and around in a tub of ketchup.

  Quinn caught her wrist and plopped her fry into his mouth. “But?”

  “I don’t know. Frank seemed very worried. He’s got to be used to her doing this by now. What’s different this time?”

  They both came to a conclusion at the same time. “Kurt.”

  “And that message she left her dad.” Jenna popped the last fry into her mouth and swallowed. “‘I’m gonna make you proud’? What was that all about?”

  “Dunno. But between that and the text messages from Kurt, it sounds like her disappearance was unexpected.”

  * * * *

  Quinn had a thing for hands.

  Okay. Not just any hands. Jenna’s hands. He liked the way they fit in his. Liked their warmth, their calluses. He even liked the way she kept her nails chewed back to the tips of her fingers when she thought no one was watching.

  Liked how she wasn’t afraid to dig into life and get dirty.

  He reached across the table and took her hands. Small hands. Skilled hands. Strong hands.

  “Jenna.” There was so much he wanted to say, about how much he’d missed her. About what an idiot he’d been. How sorry he was. But the reality was, he wasn’t convinced he’d do it any differently if he had the chance to do it all again. He loved flying. Lived for it. He wasn’t sure he could give that up for anybody.

  Not even Jenna.

  From his tone, her eyes narrowed, and she sat back, wary. Smart woman. Instead of saying what was on his mind, he tried on one of those smiles people wore to parties they didn’t want to go to. All teeth and no heart. “About that three-way…”

  She laughed and tossed a napkin, hitting him in the nose, breaking the tension. Jenna picked up the tray, and Quinn glanced around again as Jenna tossed their trash.

  At the end of the street, he saw an old sign, half-hidden by tree branches—Weller’s Gun and Pa—was all that was visible, with an arrow pointing down a side street. He tapped Jenna on the shoulder and pointed.

  “Looks promising,” she said.

  They jogged across the street and followed the sign around the corner to a little hole-in-the-wall pawnshop. The bel
l tinked against the glass door as they went inside. There was no one behind the counter.

  Quinn walked straight over to the U-shaped display counter with row after row of new and used guns. Semiautomatics. Revolvers. He’d made his way halfway around when a woman stepped out of the back room.

  “See anything you like?” The way she said it, she wasn’t referring to the guns. She was young and lithe and sexy. And she knew it.

  Quinn offered a smile, and the woman smiled back the way fishermen do when they’ve hooked the big one. Jenna slipped her arm around Quinn’s waist and said, “My boyfriend’s looking for a gun his friend pawned. It had sentimental value, so he wants to buy it back, only it’s a surprise and we aren’t sure which shop he pawned it at.”

  The girl’s smile faltered, but only a little. She still had a potential sale, if not a potential one-night stand. “What kind of gun was it?”

  “Sig Sauer P229,” Quinn said, “custom stars and stripes grip. Brought it in within the last week, I think.”

  “Let me check the back. My dad might have taken it in.”

  Jenna stepped away, and her absence was like hitting an air pocket and losing all lift. Even if Jenna was putting on a show, he’d liked having her arm around him.

  Putting on a show? Or had she actually been jealous?

  She leaned over the case on the far side of the store, her ass filling out her jeans in a way that made him think of skintight bodysuits and what she’d look like in them; better yet, what she would look like out of them. What she’d feel like—

  “What’s up with you?” Jenna said.

  Quinn shook off the daydream. It wasn’t easy. “Nothing.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because you’re naturally distrusting and”—he tossed his head toward the back room and the girl—“and jealous.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Puhleese.”

  “This it?”

  They both turned. The girl laid down a soft cloth over the glass and set a gun and empty magazine down on it. The slide was racked back, and a safety cable ran through the slide and out the end of the grip.

  The saliva dried up in his mouth, and his hand shook as he reached out for the weapon. The metal had a thin film of gun oil left over from a recent cleaning. He ran his fingers over the cold steel. Noted the nick on the slide, the scuff on the butt where Kurt had dropped it in the parking lot one night. And there was no mistaking that grip. Matte-black stars and stripes. He cleared his throat. “That’s it. How much?”

  The girl smiled at him, not like a seductress, but like a girl who knew she had the upper hand. Suddenly, she wasn’t all that pretty.

  “Fifteen hundred.” No thought. No hesitation.

  Quinn nearly dropped the gun. “Sweetheart, the last time I got screwed like that, it involved a lot of booze and wom—”

  “Even with the custom grip, it’s not worth anywhere near that.”

  He stared at Jenna.

  “What?” she said. “You can’t live with Mac and Boomer and not know your way around guns.”

  He smiled at that. Wasn’t sure why.

  The girl reached across the counter and took the gun back. “Suit yourself.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” Quinn said. “As soon as we leave you’ll sell it for half that and still make a profit.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but not to you.”

  There was no decision to make. As soon as he’d seen the gun, he knew he’d buy it, no matter the cost. “Fifteen hundred.” Quinn glanced around the store, spotted the security camera in the corner. “But I want to watch the videotape of who sold it to you.”

  “Thought your girlfriend said your friend pawned it.” At the word girlfriend, her face screwed up as if she’d stepped in dog shit. She knew they were lying, and she leaned a hip against the counter, enjoying the spectacle too damn much.

  “Work with me here,” Quinn said.

  She glanced from Quinn to Jenna and back again. “The security tapes loop every twenty-four hours.”

  Quinn pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course they did.

  “But I know who brought it in.”

  “Who?” Jenna asked.

  The girl looked at Quinn when she answered. “Guy by the name of Gil Goodman. Most folks call him Moose.”

  “What’s he look like, besides big?”

  “Dark hair. Full beard. Black dragon tat on his right forearm.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “Usually he finds you. If you’re unlucky that way.”

  Quinn gave the girl a look. The same look he’d used to keep Kurt in line. Most of the time it was…had been…effective.

  “Fine.” She gave them a no-skin-off-me-if-you-die kind of shrug. “Some biker bar outside of Murdock. Cruisers, I think. And Moose doesn’t pawn his own stuff. He pawns payments.”

  “What do you mean?” Jenna slipped her hand into his. He wasn’t sure she realized she’d done it.

  “Moose sells drugs, among other things. If you don’t have the cash, he’ll take whatever you have that he can hock. Tools, guns, your sister.” Her eyes flicked to Jenna. “Your girlfriend.”

  Quinn heard Jenna swallow. Hard. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, be careful.”

  He paid the ransom for Kurt’s gun. At the door, he turned back and asked, “What day was the gun brought in?”

  The girl checked the ticket. “Saturday.”

  Jenna squeaked, and Quinn gently pushed her out the door. She leaned back against the brick façade between the pawnshop and the cleaners next door. “Saturday,” she said. “Kurt died the night before. He used his gun to buy the drugs.”

  “No.”

  Jenna set the bag with the gun on the ground, took both of Quinn’s hands in hers, and pulled him close. “Look at me.” When he did, she said, “He went back to using. I know it’s hard to accept, but we have to face the facts—”

  “What facts? All we know is that Kurt is dead and”—Quinn glanced around and lowered his voice so people passing by wouldn’t overhear—“and that some dealer had his gun.”

  “Exactly.” Jenna’s voice softened into the same soothing tone she used to calm the horses. It didn’t work so well on him.

  She didn’t get it. And he couldn’t explain it to her. He just had this…this certainty deep in his gut that he was right, despite everything that said he was wrong.

  He cupped her cheeks and pressed his forehead to hers. “I know you have your doubts, but if you can set them aside, for Kurt, for”—he almost said us. He pulled away—“for now, and see this through, it would mean a lot to me.”

  She didn’t answer right away. Quinn’s stomach knotted and twisted back on itself. “Okay,” she said at last.

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  The knots, the twists, the anxiety, eased. Gravity lifted, making him lighter, freer. He didn’t think; he just held her head and kissed her, pulling back almost immediately. He started to apologize, but one look at those green eyes and he knew she didn’t want an apology. Holy hell. He’d missed those lips, that hitch in her breath, that—

  “Quinny?”

  His sandwich did a backflip on a smoldering mattress of ketchup-covered fries. He tore his eyes from Jenna’s lips and glanced to his right. “Hello, Mother.”

  He stepped back. His mother and father stood on the sidewalk, a plastic bag full of clothes slung over his father’s shoulder. His mother pulled him into a hug he had a hard time returning. His father didn’t shift the clothes or offer a hand.

  Quinn bobbed his chin at his father. “Dad.” Jenna linked her fingers with his and gave them a squeeze. The sandwich somersaulting in his gut settled down. To his parents, he said, “You remember Jenna Nash.”

  “Good to see you again, Jenna.” />
  “You, too, Mrs. Powell, Mr. Powell.”

  His father scowled. He’d always blamed the Lazy S for losing his only son to the Marines. Not that it wasn’t true. Mac and Boomer had opened his eyes to the world beyond dirt and cows and day after day in the saddle.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were home?” his mother asked.

  Before he ginned up a believable excuse, his father said, “You flying yet?”

  “No. Soon.”

  “It’s about time. When you fall off a horse—”

  “I didn’t fall off a horse.” Quinn’s contempt slipped its leash and ran free with a snap and a snarl. “My helo crashed.”

  “And you were the pilot.” Not a question. A bold accusation.

  “I was clear—” Red-hot anger boiled Quinn’s blood as if his cooling system had taken a stray round. He’d already been green-tabled by the FFPB. He wasn’t defending himself to his own father, as well. He turned his attention back to his mother, jabbing a finger at his father’s chest. “That’s why I didn’t tell you I was home.”

  He leaned in and pecked her on the cheek. It wasn’t his mother’s fault his father was an asshole.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “C’mon,” Quinn said as he took Jenna’s hand and dragged her back to Main Street. “I need a drink.”

  Jenna jogged to keep up with Quinn’s long stride. “Slow down.”

  At the corner, they crossed at a diagonal. A horn honked, a car skidded to a stop, and Quinn slapped his hand on the hood. Jenna waved an apology. The driver flipped her the bird and screeched his bald tires as soon as they were clear.

  “Quinn? What the heck? You’re gonna get us both killed.” Jenna pulled her hand free when they’d made it to the other side.

  Quinn kept walking, his angry strides chewing up the ground faster than a piranha through a guppy.

  At the Mustang, Quinn said, “Get in the car, Jenn.”

  “Not until you calm down.”

  He yanked the driver’s door open. “I am calm.” If most of the paint on the Mustang’s roof hadn’t already been gone, Quinn’s tone would have stripped it bare.

  All those warm fuzzies that had flooded Jenna’s belly when Quinn had kissed her earlier froze solid. “If you’re gonna feed me that much bull, I’m gonna need a good steak knife to go with it.” She held out her hand. “And the keys.”