Running away from bounty hunting just because of a little danger wasn’t something that her father would ever do, or something she would do. “Lock me out Jack, and I’ll just go somewhere else. I’m not going to stop bounty hunting. It’s who I am.”
His frown deepened as he squeezed the bridge of his nose, but he didn’t argue.
“So?” She decided to press her luck. “You going to give me a new assignment or do I have to beg again?”
He studied the stacks of files still littering his desk. He pulled a few out and looked at them before settling on one. “Don’t complain about this one,” he said, handing the thin file to her. “I would’ve given it to you no matter what had happened down south in that swamp. This one requires a woman’s gentle touch.”
She took the thin file. Tyree Robinson, the heading read. Jack wasn’t done punishing her for the scare she’d given him by getting hurt. He truly cared about her. She didn’t doubt that for a moment, so she decided she could put up with this crap for however long he needed to dish it out.
“Get out of here,” he said with a brisk wave toward the door. “And be damned careful.”
* * * *
Tyree Robinson, a high school honor student from Dearborn, had been arrested for drug possession. Heroin, in fact, which meant Tyree was probably a lost cause. Her trial date came and went a week earlier. She’d run away from home the day of the trial. Vega planned to visit her family in person, of course. Talk with them in a nice, calm voice and try to pry a little bit more information from them, though families rarely knew too much in these cases.
Fortunately, high school aged bond jumpers weren’t too clever. Scared, a kid generally holed up somewhere where she’d feel safe, often hiding out at a friend’s house; a friend the parents never seemed to know anything about. More often than not, the drug supplier. Certainly not the kind of kid an honor student would invite to her parents’ house for dinner.
Because of the legwork involved, she figured this assignment would inevitably take her just about two days.
No reason to delay. Vega shoved the paperwork back into the folder. A stray scrap of paper slipped from the file and fluttered to the floor.
It was something Vega had overlooked.
She scooped up the paper, a column torn from a newspaper. A grainy photo of Tyree smiling, her hand raised in a wave, accompanied a brief article. “Tyree Robinson Crowned Miss Motor City,” the headline read. A jeweled tiara sat at an awkward angle on top of Tyree’s head.
“Great, just great. A freaking beauty queen. No wonder Jack wanted me to have this one.”
“What’s this about beauty queens?”
Her head snapped up. Butch quirked a blond brow and grinned. “Jealous of beauty queens, Vega?”
“Hell, no.” She jammed the article back into the file folder and zipped up her backpack. Butch had never popped up at her office before. He called; they’d arrange a meeting.
The last time she saw him, he’d surprised her at her apartment, she reminded herself. She hadn’t called him since that night. He hadn’t called her.
“Been a while,” she said, leaning back in her desk chair. “You’ve got one hell of a bruise on your jaw. Some fugitive get the better of you?”
He smiled good-naturedly, which wasn’t at all in his nature, and stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. “Heard you got a hole through your shoulder. Bumps and bruises are just part of the game.”
Pain rippled down her arm at the reminder of the injury. She pushed the sensation away. “Guess so. I’m okay, but it’s not something I intend on letting happen again.”
He leaned against the closed door and watched her with those assessing blue eyes of his. His battered cowboy hat tipped forward when he leaned his head back. “I would’ve called, Vega.” She felt like she was being sized up, her fitness weighed. “I’ve been out of town. Just got back this afternoon. I’m glad to see you’re healing up—physically and mentally.”
He let the word “mentally” linger in the room, as if there was some note of doubt in his head about her mental fitness. Did he really think one blow to her ego would cause her to crumble?
“This bullet is no different than getting sucker punched. I should’ve seen it coming.” She shrugged defensively. “I will next time.”
“Good.” His smile flattened out. He propped his boot against the door, striking a lazy pose. “I’m not here to grill you. Not unless you want me to.”
“What do you want, Butch?” As if she needed to ask. Some guy sucker punched him. He was bruised and probably angry about it. What he wanted was a rough tumble with someone who could take it.
“Come back to my apartment with me.” The vein in his neck jumped as his pulse picked up a beat. “For the rest of the day.”
“I don’t know.” She thought about the kids she needed to interview and Tyree’s family fretting after their daughter’s safety. One missed afternoon wouldn’t bring the girl home any sooner. Today’s work would only lay the groundwork for tomorrow.
She could swing by Dearborn that evening...after Butch had had his fill. She wasn’t about to say no, not when her body had been screaming for sex for days now.
“My apartment,” she said, wanting Butch to take her in her bed. That’s where the erotic dreams lived, in her bed. That’s where she needed her lust satisfied.
“Sure,” he agreed. He opened the door and took a step out. “Ready?”
The phone rang just as she finished packing up her things. “I’ll catch right up.” She reached for the receiver on her desk.
Butch growled and didn’t have the good manners to give her a moment of privacy.
“Yep?” Vega said and gave Butch a hard glare.
“Snitch here,” the metallic voice on the other end of the line sang. “Just a quick question. The man you wanted tracked, his name Finn Kayne?”
“Yep, Finn. That’s what he’s going by.”
“Hmmm...”
“What?”
“Must be a new name. There’s nothing.” Snitch sounded irritated by that.
“Okay, I understand.” Vega was ready to hang up. With Butch standing there devouring her with those wolfish eyes, her body wanted nothing to do with chasing down some new drug dealer.
“Wait.”
Vega waited.
“Pay double the fee and give me a couple of more days and I’ll get something. I promise.”
“Sure.” The two hundred dollars she got paid for bringing in Brian Wright was going to cover Snitch’s fee with fifty dollars to spare. Double the fee would mean she was paying for Snitch’s search out of her own pocket. Still, the money seemed worth it. If Finn Kayne was the new man calling the shots in Detroit, she’d do well to learn everything she could about him.
“Don’t worry about Fiona,” Snitch said quickly.
“Fiona?” That stopped her heart.
“She’s been trying to get to your computer files. I won’t do it for her, and the way I’ve set up your firewall, no one else can touch them either.”
“I’ll kill her,” she said without much heat, not able to help respecting Fiona for trying such a conniving trick.
“Sisters.” Snitch’s metallic laugh crackled.
“Ready?” Butch bit off when Vega hung up the phone.
“You sure know how to woo a woman, Butch.” She punched his arm and gave him a push toward the door. Good thing his skills in bed far outweighed his lack of skills outside of it, she thought. Otherwise, she would’ve sent him on his way alone.
The elevator was empty when they stepped in. She kept her gaze trained on Butch like a hawk following her prey as the doors slid closed. The tension in the air tasted heavy, sharp. They both wanted what he had to give. Mindless, thoughtless sex.
He wasted no time. He crushed Vega against the metal wall. She savored every rough curve he had to offer when he parted her legs and dipped down to thrust the bulge in his pants against her crotch, letting her know just how much he wa
nted her.
He covered her hand when she reached out to the round button for the first floor and pressed her fingers against the smooth plastic. The elevator jerked into motion, jostling her. He grabbed her hips and raised her into the air so that her legs opened wide to curl comfortably around his waist. He took her lips, kissing her with a madman’s abandon, playing games with her tongue that sucked her breath away. He drove his pelvis against her over and over, shaking the elevator and threatening to break through the many layers of clothes while keeping her pinned to the wall—an interlude to what he intended for her in her own bed.
Her heart skipped an excited beat.
He lowered her to the ground and stepped away a moment before the elevator doors slid open. She grinned at his perfect timing. A small crowd of businessmen and women stood waiting just on the other side of the door on the first floor.
“Excuse me,” he said, all business-like and brushed past them. Vega gave the group a friendly nod and followed.
“Finn?” he asked not a beat later. “What’s your business with him?”
He lacked the manners to pretend he hadn’t been listening to her conversation with Snitch, which Vega decided to use to her advantage.
“Just trying to find out who he is and what I need to watch out for. What do you know about him?”
Butch grunted. He was trying to avoid having to answer.
“You know something,” she pressed. “Spit it out.”
That’s how it was between them. They could be humping like rabbits one moment and talking nothing but business the next. The ease with which they slipped from one role to the next felt comfortable. There were no emotional strings anywhere in sight to trip her up.
“He’s bad news,” he said finally. “Keep your distance. In his world, you’re either working for him or you stay the fuck out of his way.”
“He’s importing illegal drugs, right?”
“That and whatever else the law doesn’t want on the streets. Guns, prostitutes, you name it, he’s wiggled his finger into it somehow.”
“Oh...one of those,” she said. Finn stunk of organized crime. Ford had said they thought he was part of something big—nationwide even. There must be some new crime boss pulling the strings somewhere and looking to wrench operations from the local troublemakers.
“One of those,” Butch agreed. “Only bigger.”
No matter how relentlessly she pushed him, he refused to elaborate. She hardly expected him to though. Butch liked to play with his cards held close to his chest, which meant very little sharing.
They each drove their own car to her apartment. Along the way, she tried to reach Fiona on her cell phone to ream her out for trying to convince Snitch to steal her computer files. Fiona’s voice mail picked up. The phone had been switched off, a cheery recorded message informed her.
Vega wondered about that only briefly. It wasn’t unusual for Fiona to switch off her phone when she wanted a break. When she finally reached her sister, she planned to explain, in firm tones, why she should never allow herself to become unreachable while on assignment.
Traffic moved swiftly on the Chrysler Expressway. In less than twenty minutes, she’d parked her jeep in front of her apartment building. Butch pulled his beat-up Crown Victoria into the open space behind her.
“So, here we are,” he said after barging into Vega’s serene apartment. He assessed the stark black and white interior, not able to understand the careful selection and placement of her furniture, and shook his head. “Damn, I was going to buy you something to liven up this place.”
“You’re lively enough for me.” She dragged her hand along his bruised, swollen jaw. “Does it hurt?”
“Not aching as badly as some other parts.” He flicked a downward glance.
She wasn’t quite ready to dive right into the bed. Her dreams had been excruciatingly slow—inching toward the inevitable but never actually achieving a satisfying conclusion.
That’s what she wanted from Butch—only with the satisfying conclusion—and she wasn’t afraid to demand it.
“Ssshhh...” She pressed a finger against his lips. “Don’t talk.”
Chapter Eleven
“Baby, you’re killing me,” Butch groaned when Vega rolled him over on his back and crawled onto his stomach to straddle him. She covered both of their bodies with the bed’s crisp white sheet. Most of their clothes had long ago been abandoned in the living room. She wore her lace panties, no bra. Butch still had on a grungy pair of jeans. He’d removed his hat and carefully placed it on the bedside table a moment before climbing into the bed.
She kissed his nose. Somewhere between the deep kissing and the creative ways he stroked her, she’d lost interest. The realization hit her like a splash of freezing water. Mindless sex wasn't working. He wasn’t the man she wanted here in her bed.
Mentally, emotionally, she was still back in the swamp pressed up against the cooler while Grayson did his best to fry her brains with a kiss. A kiss she’d never asked for but couldn't forget. Damn it. She wanted Grayson...a man she could never hope to have. Should never have.
She swallowed hard. Delicately getting out of this disaster wasn’t going to be easy.
Butch caressed her shoulder, encircling her bullet wound.
“Grayson Walker,” he said. Like she needed his name on his lips right then.
She pushed his roaming hands away and kissed his bare chest, his muscles rippled underneath her fingertips. “He’s just a man with my gun,” she said lazily, though she wasn’t feeling it. Her mind raced, trying to think up a plausible excuse to get Butch out of her bed without completely ruining their relationship.
“He’s a hard man to find,” he said. He groaned when she shifted her weight over his hips. “A hard, hard man...how...did...you?”
“The usual digging,” she said. She kissed his nose again. It wasn’t as if she found Butch repulsive. He was devastatingly sexy, in fact. His bedroom gaze could pin her to a wall and leave her panting.
“Couldn’t have been the usual digging. Not with him. Bet you could find him again.”
Wait a minute. What was Butch up to? She pushed the sheet covering them aside.
“Why are you here today, Butch?”
He pulled her flush against his chest. “Baby, I’m here because of you. You’ve got the hottest ass anywhere around,” he whispered into her hair and gave her bottom a tight squeeze.
She wiggled off him and wrapped the sheet around herself. How he was acting—far too nice for him—and the loving way he was looking at her, it all came across as contrived. Butch and emotion? The two just didn’t mix.
“I missed you these past several weeks. And I was worried.”
“Uh-um...”
He propped his hands behind his head, making himself comfortable. “A woman likes to talk about these things. Get it all off her chest.”
“Talk?” She picked up his cowboy hat and tossed it at him. “I’m not green. I know what you’re after.”
Butch was literally planning to pump information from her. He expected her to mindlessly create a golden trail to Grayson? The very idea smoldered in her chest. How dare he? How dare he try to use her?
Not that she was surprised. She wasn’t. But that didn’t mean she was willing to let him get away with his dirty ploy. She wouldn’t give him the chance to steal the two hundred thousand dollar prize for Grayson’s capture away from Skip Tracers.
“Get out,” she said.
“Baby...Vega, please.” He tilted his head and smiled in that endearing way that usually turned her legs to jelly.
“There’s no please involved with this, Butch. Get out.”
As she watched him gather his things, dress, and leave, she knew she shouldn’t be angry with him. The only loyalty Butch ever had was to his money. His character, slimy as the mold growing in his refrigerator, came part and parcel with the whole package. Besides, she’d invited him over to her apartment with the thought of using him too.
* * * *
“Don’t poke the hostage.” Grayson twisted a broom out of Matt Lockler’s hands before he could jab the wooden handle into Fiona’s side.
Matt had spent the afternoon circling the chair where Fiona sat bound with nylon ropes and her lips sealed with a single strip of duct tape. He reminded Grayson of a feral dog, anxious to dig his teeth into the juicy morsel held just out of reach.
Grayson tossed the broom aside, sank into a nearby plastic chair, and rubbed his aching temples. Bringing Fiona back to this crazy house had been a mistake. He peeked at her. Her eyes sparked with naked terror and her nostrils flared as she sucked in air. She kept her gaze locked on him, not Matt, glaring at him as if he were the big bad wolf. The girl needed to work on her instincts.
As dead to the world as she was when he’d rescued her, Grayson just couldn’t bring himself to set her down somewhere alongside the road. He’d fought that demon inside himself that had even suggested it. Of course, a hospital had been out of the question, since those places were crisscrossed with security cameras now. Same reason he wouldn’t leave Fiona at a convenience store. Unlike in South Carolina where he’d left Vega, he wasn’t planning on running. Not yet. Not until he had the evidence, he needed to prove that Joshua Whitfield had ordered Greg Harper’s death.
“Could put tape over her eyes,” Matt said. He’d been making all sorts of helpful suggestions the entire day. He ripped a long length of the duct tape from the roll.
“That would be cruel, Matt.” Grayson had tape wrapped over his eyes once in South America. Removing the damned stuff nearly ripped off his eyelids.
“So, can I do it?” Matt persisted.
Grayson stood and snatched the tape from Matt’s fingers. “No, you can’t.” He whirled around to Fiona. She flinched, sinking in the chair as far as her bindings would allow. “What the hell am I going to do with you?” he shouted at her.
“You said her sister…” Matt started to say.
“Vega.” An idea struck a dull chord.
“She pretty, too?” Matt licked his lips. “Get her. We wouldn’t have to share then.”
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