The Huntress

by Dorothy McFalls

  “Vega,” Grayson repeated the name, letting the idea sink in. He really didn’t want her anywhere near Atlanta. She was too intelligent, which made her dangerous. By holding Fiona hostage, he was nearly begging for Vega’s interference though. Fortunately, whether he liked it or not, he held the upper hand. If he played the game real careful, he might just be able to dupe Vega into joining his team.

  The very challenge of it excited him. “Good idea, Matt. I’ll start planning something.”

  Fiona shook her head back and forth vigorously, her terrified doe-eyes widening.

  * * * *

  Tyree Robinson’s family lived in the Ford Historic District of Dearborn. Their cozy home on Nona Street was one of the first houses built for Ford employees in the early nineteen hundreds. The streets were plowed clean, the yards fastidiously landscaped. The area broadcasted an air of stability and security where the dangers of illegal drug trafficking could easily be overlooked.

  It was creeps like the elusive Finn Kayne who brought the real world to their doorsteps. Vega parked in front of the Robinson’s two-story clapboard home, painted a friendly yellow with pale green trim. Though the Christmas decorations had been removed, the houses still reeked of holiday cheer. White smoke puffed from the chimneys. Snow banked in gentle mounds around the front entranceways. Vega could almost picture families gathered around the fireplace, singing songs while the mother was in the kitchen brewing something sweet and warm to drink. This neighborhood was the carbon copy of the cute holiday village her mom displayed under the Christmas tree.

  The inside of Tyree’s house didn’t disappoint. Mrs. Robinson offered Vega a cup of hot cider and homemade cookies while ringing her hands in despair over her missing child. From her, Vega learned that Tyree’s best friend, Candice, lived just a few doors down.

  Candice, like most frightened teens, kept her mouth shut. She didn’t know anything about Tyree...not in front of her parents, anyhow. Besides, Tyree was a tough girl. She could take care of herself.

  By the time Vega left Candice’s house, the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees. A brisk wind swirled powdery snow down the silent street. Vega walked into the wind back to her jeep, hoping Tyree had found someplace warm to stay the night.

  There really wasn’t anything more she could do right now to find the girl. She’d laid the groundwork. This was where patience took over. It took time for information to bubble up. Tomorrow morning she’d be back on Candice’s doorstep.

  Candice knew how to find Tyree. Of that, Vega was certain. She hadn’t acted worried about Tyree because she believed her safe. Tonight, the seeds of doubt Vega planted were going to grow and shake the girl’s confidence. As long as she confronted Candice before she got the chance to run to a peer for advice, she’d have Tyree safely back into custody before noon.

  Her thoughts were still with the green-eyed, perfectly coiffed beauty queen, Tyree, when she returned home. Tired and slightly distracted, she didn’t notice anything wrong until she was almost on top of her front door. Not that she would’ve run from trouble, no matter the size of the package.

  A halo of bright security lights shone on Butch as he leaned against Vega’s apartment door. His arms cinched across his chest, holding himself against the biting cold. Seeing him here, at her door, surprised her. He wasn’t the type of man who’d come crawling back so quickly.

  She stopped several feet away and pushed her keys back into her pocket.

  “What do you want?” she asked casually.

  “To apologize. I admit I was trying to use you this afternoon. I shouldn’t have used you.” He studied his boots when saying that. It weakened his sincerity. A man who couldn’t look her in the eye was a man hiding something.

  “I was using you, too,” she said. “We’re square.”

  Surprise showed all over his face. “Using me? How?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.” She thumped his chest. “Go home Butch. I’m not going to let you in tonight.” She’d had enough of lust and unfulfilled desires for one day. The only thing she wanted to do in her bed was sleep...and hopefully avoid those pesky erotic dreams.

  “Wait.” He grabbed her arm and twisted it.

  Vega stared daggers at the hand that held her and wondered just how much of that arm of his she should remove while prying him off her. Butch must have read her intent. His hand flew off her faster than if he’d touched white-hot steel.

  “Wait,” he said again. This time the word gentled into a request instead of an exacting demand. “Let me explain.”

  The bruise on his jaw had darkened over the past few hours. The injury must have been fresh when she first saw him at Skip Tracers that afternoon. He looked rather pitiful, beat up and sulky.

  “I’m waiting,” she said.

  He paced the length of the apartment’s covered walkway. The growing wintry wind howled past him. A lonely wanderer, no one could play the part better.

  “I want that information you’ve got on Grayson Walker,” he said. “I need it.”

  She expected he’d say something like that. Grayson had killed Butch’s partner and had tried to do the same with her. Naturally, Butch itched to tear Grayson’s head off.

  “I can’t let you blow Skip Tracer’s chance at collecting the two hundred thousand dollar bounty. My feelings for you aren’t that soft.”

  Butch’s pacing had brought him within arm’s reach. He grabbed Vega’s shoulders. “My feelings for you are that soft. I can’t tell you how worried I was about you.” He gave her a shake.

  The bullet wound piped up, reminding her exactly where on her shoulder Grayson had shot her. Butch’s thumb pressed directly on the stitches. She twisted free and held up her hands, warning him not to try that again.

  “I’ve fallen for you, Vega. I can’t think of anything else but you and me.” He started pacing again.

  “And Grayson Walker,” she added for him.

  “He’s the key.” Butch stopped again. This time he was too far away to grab her. “I get Grayson and collect the two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Yes?” Something in his tone didn’t sit right.

  “Don’t you see? We can use that as seed money to start our own company. Polsen and Polsen we’d call it.”

  “Polsen and Polsen?”

  “Your mother would never bother you with one of her infernal eligible bachelors again. You’d be off the market, baby.”

  “What are you saying, Butch?” He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. What had happened to a relationship without emotional strings?

  Oh, God. Was she about to get tripped up?

  He sank to one knee and held out a small black box. He did what every girl dreams of happening once in her life—pried open the lid. The diamond ring nestled in the box’s velvet interior sparkled in the apartment building’s security floodlight.

  “I’m saying, we should get married.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Vega closed the apartment door and tossed her keys onto the kitchen table. She’d refused the ring and left Butch out in the cold.

  “I’ll think about it,” she’d said.

  There was a dusty bottle of whiskey somewhere in the back of a cabinet. She dug around for it until her fingers curled around the bottle’s neck. Poisoning her body with alcohol was a rare occurrence. She had too much respect for her health to abuse it regularly.

  But, on occasion, she made allowances. A stiff drink might wash some of those sticky emotional strings away. She still couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  Butch wanted to marry her. Worse, she was tempted to accept.

  Before pouring herself a glass, she dialed Fiona’s number. Although her sister may not have the instincts of a street-toughened bounty hunter, she did have a good ear. The line rang a couple of times before switching over to the same message Vega had heard earlier. Fiona’s phone was still switched off.

  She left a brief message, telling Fiona to call no matter the hour.

>   Fiona would follow your example if you were to marry and have children, her mother had said. The words burned in her mind. Fiona was innocent, green. If she stayed in the bounty hunting business, she’d either get hurt or be forced to transform into a different person—into someone hard and cynical, like her.

  Perhaps her mother was right. Hell, even Jack had been hinting that she should marry.

  Marriage—it wasn’t an ending or a curse. And it wasn’t as if she pictured herself being alone forever. She poured herself a healthy glass of whiskey and promptly drained it.

  “Now children,” she said aloud and gazed at her kitchen, distorted through the crystal glass raised in her hand. “That’s a different question all together.”

  The thought of spending her life—her happily-ever-after—with Butch prompted a tight shiver to run down her back. She poured herself a second serving of whiskey. It took two tries to get to the bottom of the glass that time.

  “Ever after with Butch?”

  She slammed the glass onto the table. The room wobbled...or perhaps she did. That was enough alcohol for the night. She screwed the top on the bottle and left it sitting on the middle of the table.

  Good Lord, she thought as she dragged herself to bed, was she ready to accept such a life sentence? Did she really not deserve better?

  Did she really not deserve to be loved?

  * * * *

  That night, erotic dreams of Grayson attacked her with a force she’d never felt before. She woke up feeling battered, drained, and more than a little shaken. The need to capture him and drag him back into the courts had escalated. He’d eluded her, become a black mark on her perfect record.

  By Jack pulling her from the assignment, she really had no hope of wiping that mark away...unless she agreed to work with Butch.

  But she would tackle one problem at a time. Her first responsibility was to rescue the beauty queen, Tyree Robinson.

  She opened her eyes. A renewed sense of clarity hummed through her taut body. She rose and reached up over her head, stretching like a lazy cat. The day in front of her would be busy. She planned to find Tyree and give Butch a definite answer.

  A half hour later, she took Michigan Avenue to Dearborn to talk with Tyree’s friend again. The traffic was snarled. Her jeep’s ancient engine shivered in the icy morning air.

  As she drove she called Butch.

  “I’m not saying no,” she said as a greeting.

  “Good.” He sounded far too sure of himself.

  “I’m not saying yes, either.”

  “You will.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Butch probably believed that overconfidence of his was an endearing trait.

  “I’m going to talk to Jack,” she said, after a long pause.

  “Jack?” Butch grumbled. “You’ll just be wasting your time with Jack. He won’t want to lose you and will tell you a thousand times why this thing between us is a bad idea.”

  Perhaps that was exactly why she was going to Jack.

  “Jack won’t let you go after Walker. I’ll make it possible for you to track him down. I’ll make it possible for you to show Jack just how capable you are.” And that was exactly why she had called Butch. The opportunity was just too tempting.

  “Perhaps we can form and partnership, find Grayson, and discuss marriage afterwards?”

  “Of course, baby. Anything you want.”

  “Let me talk to Jack first. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.” She hung up before Butch could say anything to make her change her mind. Besides, she had a teenage kid in trouble that reached way over the girl’s head, still to find.

  * * * *

  “Jack!” Vega called down the hall at Skip Tracers.

  He waited for her to catch up but looked pretty impatient about it. His briefcase was tucked under his arm and a stack of files filled his hands. “I’ve got appointments with three bonding companies this morning. I don’t have time to hear how you’ve managed to turn a beauty queen assignment into something deadly.”

  “I haven’t...I mean I won’t.” Candice, the beauty queen’s best friend, had reluctantly given over where Tyree’s boyfriend, the drug dealer, might be found that afternoon. Seemed he’d been the one to convince Tyree to run away from home. There should be no problem with the pick-up. “I’ll have the girl home before dinner.”

  “Good.” He started for the door again.

  Vega caught his arm. “Butch made a proposal last night that I’m seriously considering accepting.”

  His expression fell. “What kind of—wait, I don’t want to talk about this in the hall.”

  She followed him to his office and took her regular chair. Jack chose to stand. He crossed his arms and scowled.

  “I suppose Butch wants you to help him go after Walker.”

  She propped a leg across her knee. “As a matter of fact, he does. I’ve got quite a reputation, Jack...and some charm. I could easily lure the contract away.” Not that she really wanted to. That was one reason she wanted to talk with Jack first.

  “Butch has been itching to go into business for himself for several years now. He’s money-hungry, you know.”

  “I know.” She felt like she knew Butch inside and out.

  Jack leaned forward, his gaze trying to pin her to the chair. “And unpredictable.”

  “You don’t need to tell me.” She gave him a little smile. “It’s all Mom’s doing, you know. She’s the one who wants to see me married.”

  “Married?” He threw his hands in the air. “And I thought you were running away from Skip Tracers because I was keeping you from Walker.” He settled down long enough to catch his breath. “I can’t believe you’d turn your back on your family and go work for Butch just to escape your mother’s lectures. Leaving won’t make her give up on you.”

  She just had to tell him right out, though the thought of marriage to Butch still put a sour lump in her throat. “You don’t understand, Jack. Butch has asked me to marry him—to be his partner in business and in life.”

  “Oh.” He actually paled.

  “I haven’t agreed...yet. I’m tempted.”

  “Do you love him?” Jack asked in a whisper-soft voice.

  The question propelled her to her feet. “That’s really not important,” she said, and started for the door. A good bounty hunter always knew when to retreat.

  “I’m not asking as your supervisor, Vega. But as your uncle who loves you like a daughter. Do you love Butch?”

  She shrugged.

  The buzzing of the florescence light in the ceiling was the only sound in the room for several minutes. She was not about to dig herself into a hole by talking too much.

  “Your father wouldn’t approve,” he said at last.

  She smiled at that. “Mom won’t either. Guess there’s no chance you’d hand me Grayson Walker as a bribe to keep me at Skip Tracers?”

  He didn’t even pretend to consider the idea. “Not with you less than one hundred percent, Vega. I won’t be the one to get you killed.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Just like her father, his lack of faith in her ripped her up inside. Maybe Butch couldn’t give her love. But he could offer her the kind of acceptance she’d been searching for. She opened the office door. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

  She was halfway out of the office when Jack’s intercom buzzed. “Jack, you’ve got an urgent call from Atlanta,” his secretary said, not sounding at all flirty, which was enough to make Vega step back in and close the door behind her.

  “Fiona?” she asked as the blood drain away from her head.

  Jack picked up the receiver. He didn’t speak a word, which was even more distressing than his secretary’s flat tone.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he said after listening to the person on the other end of the line for far too long. It wasn’t a plea but an order carrying the threat of death behind it.

  Vega reached over the desk and switched on the phone’s speaker.
/>   “Bring the cash to the men’s bathroom just outside the Atlanta Cyclorama.” She recognized Grayson’s voice immediately. “Come alone or she’s dead.”

  “Let me talk to her,” Vega said.

  There was a long pause. She thought he might have disconnected. “Vega.” There was a grin in his voice. “Your sister doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

  “Bastard, if you touch her—”

  “I would worry instead how she fell into my clutches.”

  The line went dead.

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  Jack ignored her. He’d dialed the phone and was waiting for an answer.

  “I’m going with you to Atlanta, Jack. I know this guy. I know we can trap him.”

  “Run a trace on the last call to come to this number,” he said, still ignoring her.

  She couldn’t stand it. She felt close to jumping out of her skin. No matter what Jack said, she’d be on the next plane to Atlanta. She planned to tear Grayson into little pieces and toss the mess to the local cops. No one touched her sister.

  Jack dialed a second number. Vega, too wound up to sit, paced his office while cursing Grayson under her breath.

  He had the chance to kill you twice, but he didn’t. The intruding thought did nothing to settle her nerves. She wanted her anger. Wrapping herself up in the raw emotion empowered her.

  She caught no more than snatches of the conversation Jack was having with the Atlanta PD. Her complete focus had shifted to the future, to her confrontation with Grayson.

  Jack finally hung up the phone. “You’re not going to Atlanta with me,” he said. His tone was calm and sounded terribly final.

  “The hell I’m not! He’s got my sister.”

  Jack sighed. “Yes, and he said if you came to Atlanta, he’d kill her. You’re not coming.”

  Oh God. She could picture far too clearly Fiona’s body lying lifeless in a casket. And Fiona’s death would be entirely her fault. “What does he want?”

  She sank into the closest chair, focused on a spot on the rug, and tried to calm her racing thoughts.

  “He doesn’t give us much time. I have to be in Atlanta this evening with fifty thousand in cash. I can do it, no problem. And the police will be there to scoop up Walker once Fiona is safely out of the way.”