The Huntress

by Dorothy McFalls

  She found her sister resting in a sunny spot on a lounge chair next to the hotel’s glassed-in pool.

  “This Grayson’s accomplice?” She held the photo of Matt Lockler in front of Fiona’s nose.

  Her sister snatched the picture and sat up. “How’d you do that? I didn’t even give you a description.”

  “I work.” Vega took the picture back and left Fiona with her mouth still gaping.

  So, Grayson had teamed up with Matt Lockler? Track down Matt and find Grayson. At least that was what Vega was banking on happening.

  “Jack.” She found him in his hotel room packing up his things. “I need you to get me a contract on a certain bounty jumper. Problem is, he’s been on the run for three years.”

  Jack frowned at that one. “The bonding company must have already settled with the surety company. They won’t want anything to do with us.”

  Vega held her ground. “Tell them I’ll do it for free.”

  Jack quirked a brow and gave her a Vega’s-lost-her-mind-again look. She tried to ignore it.

  She handed him the photo of Matt Lockler and explained his connection to Grayson. “I’d like to legally take him into custody...just in case Grayson isn’t still with him.”

  Jack nodded. “I should be able to work something out.”

  * * * *

  Atlanta, nearly forty degrees warmer than Detroit in the dead of winter, shared the Motor City’s dependence on the automobile. The amount of traffic on the road at three in the morning surprised Vega. She steered her rental, a brand new gas/electric hybrid Ford SUV she’d paid a premium for, onto the interstate and picked up speed to match the racecar pace of the traffic.

  Whoever said the southern lifestyle was slow must have never driven in Atlanta. Vega laughed silently at the thought. She felt too damn smug and didn’t care to do anything about it.

  Grayson had returned to Atlanta for a reason. Vega could feel it in her bones. He wanted to prove something. Perhaps he wanted a confrontation with her. Fiona’s kidnapping was a set-up, a ploy to pull Vega closer.

  Well, she’d give him what he wanted.

  No more games, damn it.

  He’d played her but good, acting like he respected her abilities, like she was his equal, or perhaps even a little better than him, a trained Special Ops officer.

  Oh, a girl could fall for such compliments, especially one as hungry for them as Vega. He was ever so clever. He didn’t even overdo it with his words. How he conveyed his respect for her with his actions drew her in faster than any compliment.

  But she could match his cleverness.

  Grayson would never suspect she’d be able to connect him with Matt Lockler or that she’d be able to figure out so quickly where he and Matt had holed up.

  Bounty hunters relied on the element of surprise. Late night raids that woke the unsuspecting fugitive from a deep slumber often guaranteed Vega the upper hand. Matt and Grayson should be no different. Everybody sleeps.

  She left Fiona sleeping soundly in her bed, tossing from side to side. She didn’t hear Vega slip out of the hotel to make the dead of night drive to Vine City, a revitalizing community near the Georgia Dome.

  Earlier in the day, she’d spent several hours driving through a variety of similar communities, talking with the people on the street. Making friends by handing out liberal amounts of green. Even those with very little street knowledge knew of Matt Lockler. The visibly insane tended to make strong impressions on a community.

  “The bastard slapped me upside my head for nuthin’,” an angry muscle-bound man, with a scowl certified to make a baby scream, told her that afternoon in exchange for a hundred dollar bill. “Crazy son o’ bitch packs enough firepower to bring down an army. I ain’t goin’ tell him nuthin’. I just kept on walkin’ like nuthin’ happened.” Only a madman would consider crossing a mammoth like this guy. “You get that one off the streets and we’ll make you some kind of saint in Vine.”

  The muscle wasn’t the only one who gladly ratted out Matt’s crackpot crib—as everyone on the streets called it.

  She found the building just a few blocks from Martin Luther King Street, deep in the heart of Vine City where renovation and decay clashed in an all out war. She parked a few houses beyond the apartment building and walked back to it, keeping a keen eye open for surprises. There was no doubt she’d found the right place.

  Fiona had given quite a thorough description of where Grayson and Matt had held her captive. In fact, Fiona’s description had helped Vega narrow down which neighborhoods to search. Her keen eye for details had saved them at least two days of investigations.

  The apartment building was as dilapidated as Fiona had described. No one inhabiting the singed hull with four walls and most of a roof paid rent. Though, by the glow from the windows the apartment building appeared filled to capacity. On such a chilly night, the residents living without the convenience of electricity would have to build fires to stay warm. Vega zipped up her leather coat and nudged the front entrance door open with her boot. The Beretta in her right hand was loaded and ready. The metal against her skin felt natural, though the weight of the pistol was wrong.

  She longed for her father’s Glock, with its perfect balance and familiar grip. She wondered if she’d finally get it back tonight as she climbed the stairs and passed a pair of addicts who stared blankly in her direction. The building was quiet...unnervingly so. She kept her senses alert.

  Grayson wouldn’t be expecting her, not this soon. But cockiness could get her killed. She expected a trap in order to avoid being blindsided by one.

  Matt lived in the apartment on the third floor. The windows on that lofty level were mostly still intact. She figured residents of that choice floor had to fight for the privilege.

  Fiona had described Matt as loony, but harmless. Vega hadn’t met Matt, but harmless? The harmless didn’t live in the choice spots in abandoned buildings. They just didn’t.

  Fiona might be good with details, but her instincts definitely needed sharpening.

  The eerie silence in the halls was broken by a raging argument on the third floor. The raised voice carried down the grimy, pitch-black hallway.

  “I said no! No, no, no!”

  No one in any of the other apartments bothered to stick a nose out a door and investigate the noise. It would have shocked Vega is someone had in this crime infested environment. She could have a shoot-out with Matt and Grayson while screaming at the top of her lungs for someone to call the authorities and not rouse anyone’s interest.

  Of course, that was how she preferred her pickups. Interference, both by residents trying to help or hinder, could put Vega in a dangerous situation. Even a well-meaning civilian could give Matt or Grayson an opening to escape...or worse, attack.

  Vega had been told that Matt’s apartment was the fifth door on the left. The apartment numbers had long been removed. Many locks were gone too. Makeshift bolts and padlocks secured several of the rusty, metal doors.

  “Listen to me! Just listen to me! No, no, no!” The one-sided argument continued to fill the hall.

  Vega stood outside Matt’s crackpot crib and counted the doors again, hoping she’d made a mistake. The raging argument sprung from the other side of this pockmarked and bullet-hole riddled door.

  With certified copies of the bail-bond for both Grayson and Matt, proving they’d surrendered their civil rights in exchange for being granted bail, Vega could legally blast down the door and rush in with fists ready. But she preferred to use a little finesse.

  Instead of breaking down the door, she drew out the professional lock-pick kit she’d taken off a cat burglar a few years back and silently unlocked the door.

  The quarrelling inside the apartment continued without pause now. Vega opened the door a crack and peered into the dim interior. A nude man—smaller than Grayson—with his back to her waved his hands in the air while shouting at the top of his lungs. He appeared to be alone.

  She opened the door wide
and walked into the room. This Matt wouldn’t notice a herd of elephants marching through the room, or perhaps that was what he was noticing. Whatever he saw, it upset him fiercely.

  “Matt Lockler,” she said in a tone perfected from years of listening to her father, “you are under arrest.” The simple statement subdued ninety percent of the fugitives Vega captured.

  Matt, of course, chose to be extraordinary. He spun around. The fact that he stood with all his attributes showing didn’t affect him in the least. His slim, naked body certainly didn’t shock Vega. She’d seen everything.

  Matt swung at her. He wasn’t a natural hand-to-hand fighter. He telegraphed his punch with his shoulder before his hand even closed into a fist. Vega easily deflected the blow with her left arm and followed through with an elbow jab to the face. A jump-kick to the chest brought him to his knees.

  His lower lip had split open. A few drops of blood got lost in the matted rug. “Gray had said you were better than my pretty one,” he gasped for the air the kick had knocked from him. “Don’t think that she could floor me soundly.”

  She locked the cuffs on his wrists and a second pair on his ankles so he couldn’t get up and cause havoc while she searched for Grayson, or at least clues to where he might have gone.

  With the Beretta in one hand and a high-beam flashlight in the other, she poked her head into the bedroom. Several rats and a hoard of cockroaches scattered.

  “You won’t find him there,” Matt said. Vega shined her flashlight in his face. He lowered his head on the rug and began rubbing his cheek against the stained fibers. “You won’t find him at all.”

  Grayson had already fled? How had he anticipated that she’d find him so soon? What was making her actions so damned obvious?

  “If you cooperate with me, Matt, I might not have to kick you until you’re blue.” It was an idle threat that sometimes worked. In Vega’s estimation, beating up the bail jumper caused more headaches than solutions. “Where did Grayson run to?”

  His smoky eyes blinked several times in the blinding light. She knew he couldn’t see anything but that disorienting white light. He wasn’t supposed to see anything.

  The blindness didn’t seem to bother him. Matt pulled himself up into a kneeling position. “He killed a woman once you know. Shot her straight through the heart.”

  Vega didn’t want to hear about Mirna in Colombia, not now. She considered stuffing a sock or something in his mouth.

  “He loved her, too. But he killed her in front of all of us. Didn’t flinch while doing it, either. That was in South America, you know.”

  Anything suitable Vega found on the floor was too filthy to stuff in his mouth. It would just be inhumane. “If you can’t tell me where he is, just shut up.”

  “Bothers you, don’t it?” A crooked smile formed on his lips, starting the bottom one to bleeding again. “He’s a killer. He wants to kill you, too. I can tell, you know. I can see people’s feelings—like colors.”

  Vega tossed aside a pile of automatic rifles stacked in the living room and pried the lid off a box of explosives powerful enough to flatten this street as well as the one beside it.

  “He shot that woman in South America and got a medal. I tried the same thing and ended up in a mental hospital. I suppose you have to love the women you kill to get rewarded.”

  She left Matt in the living room as he contemplated ways to trick a woman into loving him, and found her way to the kitchen. A piece of paper, folded in half sat like a tent on the chipped linoleum-topped table.

  Her name boldly printed on one side.

  Grayson had been expecting her to show up.

  Her heart stopped. It would be just her rotten luck to step into the middle of a trap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Vega froze where she stood and stared at the note while searching for trip wires. One small blast could create a chain reaction, detonating every live explosive in the apartment. In the living room alone there were boxes stacked on boxes, filled with what appeared to be a wide selection of highly volatile materials.

  “Vega?” a thin voice called from the other room.

  Fiona? How in the hell?

  “I’m in here,” Vega called back. She holstered the Beretta. “Don’t move around too much. I might have stepped into the middle of a trap. No telling what Grayson has rigged with all this stuff.”

  “Told you he’d be expecting you. Makes me glad I decided to follow you.” Fiona’s voice grew a little louder. “I’ll find some clothes for this one. We can’t bring him to the police station naked like that, can we?”

  “Pretty one!” Matt screamed. “My pretty one has come back!”

  “Don’t let him out of those cuffs without me in there,” Vega called back. Her gaze remained glued on her name blazed on that folded paper.

  He’d known she’d be there.

  She took a cautious step forward, almost expecting the floor to collapse under her. When her foot hit solid vinyl, she crossed the room to the table and picked up the note.

  “My sweet adversary,” the intimate script nearly leapt off the page and purred. “I’ve missed you. Found it hard to believe you gave up on me. I’m thrilled by your renewed interest. Keep me on my toes and watch your back.”

  The note was left unsigned.

  Like a cat that had just cornered a rat, he wanted to bat her around for a while before biting off her head.

  His sweet adversary, indeed.

  She crumpled the paper and stuffed it into her pocket. Grayson must be nuttier than his buddy. Not once had a quarry doubled back to face off with her. She was the predator, not the prey...never the prey, in fact.

  “Interesting,” Fiona said her voice right in Vega’s ear.

  Startled, Vega just about hit the greasy ceiling. “Did you find something for Matt to wear?” she asked when her heart began beating again.

  “Always cool as a criminal, Vega.” Fiona clucked her tongue. “You can stand there staring down at me with that sneer plastered all over your face, but I know you. Something on that paper bothers the hell out of you.”

  Vega brushed past Fiona without giving her the satisfaction of a denial and returned to the living room. “The clothes, Fiona?”

  Her sister huffed and pointed her flashlight toward a heap on the floor.

  “Show me what you’re carrying.” Vega held out her hand.

  Fiona frowned.

  “You’re armed, I can see the bulge.”

  Fiona pulled out a large Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum and handed it to Vega. The kick alone from firing such a weapon would toss Fiona on her butt.

  “Good Lord, what were you thinking?” She had to wonder about her sister sometimes. “Have you even tried to fire this monster?” She handed Fiona the Beretta and pocketed as much of her sister’s revolver as would fit into her coat.

  “Keep the bead trained on his forehead and the flashlight beam in his eyes,” she instructed. “I’m going to help him get dressed now.”

  Fiona held the beam of light steady. Vega could only guess her sister did the same with the Beretta. “How will I know when to shoot?” Fiona asked. Matt shouted out a string of profane protests and squirmed against the handcuffs, making the job of unlocking them twice as hard.

  “Don’t you dare pull that trigger unless I’m unconscious and well out of shooting range.” Vega pushed a shirt into Matt’s hands. “Put this on.”

  * * * *

  The next morning Vega set out early to question Grayson’s childhood neighbors with Fiona tagging along like a hungry puppy.

  “I should get half the fee,” Fiona said in the car. Vega took her eyes from the road for a moment to glare at her.

  “I helped you pull that poor, confused man off the streets. He was a hazard to himself with all those guns and explosives,” Fiona pointed out. “Now he’ll get the psychiatric care he needs. I should get half the reward.”

  “Okay,” Vega said when Fiona showed no sign of giving up.

  “H
ow much?”

  “Nothing.” Vega shot a smile Fiona’s way. “It was a freebie. Jack set it up for me.”

  “Oooo...what a waste of my talent.” Fiona sank a few inches in the seat. “I don’t understand why we’re questioning these old neighbors of Grayson’s, either. I’ve already been here. I’ve already talked to them. Every single one. They don’t know anything.”

  “They might.”

  That stopped Fiona short. She was surprisingly quiet for the rest of the three-hour drive to the small town of Millville in southern Georgia, which suited Vega just fine.

  She needed to think. Grayson had anticipated her last night. Certainly he didn’t lure her to Atlanta intended just to taunt her? There had to be a reason.

  By interviewing friends and neighbors who knew Grayson when he was growing up, she hoped to gain a deeper understanding of his patterns. Experience had taught her that when placed in a stressful situation, such as running from the law, people tended to fall back on instinctual behaviors forged at a very young age. By learning how Grayson behaved as a child would open a window to anticipating his actions now.

  Fiona should understand that. Vega didn’t feel like she was stomping on her sister’s toes. Well, maybe just a little.

  Millville, Georgia reminded Vega of one of those new retro communities, a throwback to the 1950s where the houses hugged the sidewalks, large live oaks shaded the streets, and children biked to the school adjacent to downtown where the town hall served as the central focus. Only this community wasn’t retro. The houses, though well cared for, were all much older than Vega was. Behind the town’s pride and charm hid snatches of poverty in the empty storefronts, the ancient rusty stands at the ballpark, and in the rural neighborhood a mile outside town limits.

  Grayson’s family lived in this rural neighborhood, his father surviving just five years longer than his mother, who died at the early age of forty-nine. Luckily, many of the neighbors enjoyed better health and unlike the younger generation, lived in the same house for a lifetime. Vega and Fiona talked with five former neighbors who’d known Grayson when he was growing up. They heard generalities about him as a boy, nothing really useful.