Bounty Hunter Ransom

by Kara Lennox

  “Anyone could have followed you. Don’t you ever check your rearview mirror? I practically tailgated you the whole way over.”

  Jeez. How unobservant could she be?

  “You were right, I got spooked,” she said, defeated. Arguing with Beau would get her nowhere. “Patti got a phone call from some creep. Apparently she owes him some money.” She clenched her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “But there’s no reason anyone would be after me. I figured once I was away from the house, I’d be fine.”

  “So what did the caller say?” Beau prodded her.

  “He said he was coming after her to get his money, and Patti would know what would happen if she disappointed him. Something like that.”

  “How much money does she owe this guy?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, but it must be more than I could come up with easily, or she would have asked me for it.”

  “What about her father? Or her brother? They’ve both got plenty of money.”

  “I doubt she would ask, and even if she did, I doubt either one of them would lift a finger to help. She’s hardly spoken to Uncle Wayne or David for years.”

  “But if she believes her life is in danger…”

  Aubrey looked pensive. “I should check with them, I guess. She had a will drawn up recently at Uncle Wayne’s firm, though that doesn’t mean she dealt with her father or brother directly.”

  Beau sat up, abandoning his lounging-tiger pose. “Let’s get back to the phone call. Did the guy threaten you or Patti?”

  “Not in so many words. That’s the same thing Lyle asked.”

  “So you already called the cops. That was going to be my next suggestion.”

  “For all the good it did. Lyle’s the one who advised me to get out of the house for a while until all this blows over. He said he’d try to track down the caller.”

  “They always say that. I’ll lay you odds he never traces the call.”

  “What have you got against Lyle, anyway?”

  “He’s a lousy cop, that’s all. The business that Gavin got caught in—”

  “Don’t talk about Gavin to me.”

  “Lyle was in it up to his eyeballs,” Beau continued, glossing over her sudden anger. “But no one could prove it.” And then the jerk had gotten a promotion. Life wasn’t fair.

  Aubrey got up and paced. Beau caught a whiff of her fragrance, perfume, or maybe just shampoo or lotion. Whatever it was, he liked it—way too much. He’d thought Aubrey Schuyler was long out of his system. But seeing her again had reawakened cravings that really weren’t useful at the moment. In fact, they’d never been useful, except to distract him from sleep on lonely nights.

  “If some guy was threatening Patti, why didn’t she call the cops?” he asked, following Aubrey with his eyes. She moved nice. He liked the play of muscles beneath her snug denim shorts, and the way he could see her shoulder blades whenever she lifted her mass of curls off her neck.

  “She doesn’t want the police involved, and I don’t blame her. After all her arrests and whatnot, she has no reason to feel good about cops. Anyway, social services keeps a close watch on her, and she’s worried they’ll take her baby away from her.”

  “Maybe they should.”

  “No,” Aubrey said fiercely. “Patti doesn’t deserve that. She’s grown up a lot since you last knew her. She’s off drugs, working and paying her bills. She’s trying really hard to be a good mother, and she loves Sara. It’s just that her past is catching up with her.”

  “A past is a pretty hard thing to escape,” Beau said. Then he sighed, hating what he was about to say. “You want me to try to track down that phone call for you?”

  “Lyle said—”

  “Lyle might or might not get around to it. Besides, he has to follow certain rules, protecting privacy and all that. I don’t.”

  “You can do that? Trace a call?”

  “Not me, but Lori Bettencourt. Her father was one of the founders of First Strike.”

  “Glenn Bettencourt? The one who was killed last year?”

  “Yeah. Lori’s father didn’t want her anywhere near the agency, but now that he’s gone, she’s there every day, begging for scraps. Ace—he’s the guy in charge now—got her started skip-tracing. She was a quick study, and pretty soon she was on the payroll. She already had a background in computers, but now she can rival any hacker out there. She’ll find out who made that call.”

  “Let’s make it happen, then.”

  “One rule, though.”

  Aubrey sighed. “I knew this was too easy.”

  “If I help you out, you do what I say. No more staying in sleazy motels with crummy locks and a clerk who could be bought for a pack of cigarettes.”

  “What alternative do you suggest?”

  “We’ll work out something. Maybe you could stay with Lori.”

  Aubrey wrinkled her nose at that, but she didn’t object.

  “Bring your bag, you won’t be coming back here. But we’ll leave your car, on the off chance it’ll throw someone off the scent.”

  Aubrey looked as though she wanted to object to the way Beau had suddenly taken control, but again, she didn’t. She must be plenty scared, Beau thought grimly, to throw in her lot with him and let him call all the shots.

  Once they were in his car, Beau put the top down. The sun’s full heat beat down on them, but it was worth it because he got to watch out of the corner of his eye as Aubrey tried to control her windblown curls.

  “If you’re able to track this guy down, what will you do with him?” she asked. “Will you turn his name over to Lyle?”

  “Hah! No, I’ll handle him myself. Once he realizes he’s not dealing with defenseless women, that you and Patti have an ex-cop on your side, he’ll be a bit more patient about getting his money.”

  “Do you really think so?” Aubrey asked hopefully.

  “Sure. The guy sounds like a bully, and bullies run and hide when anyone stronger than they are comes around.”

  Aubrey flashed him a grateful smile, and it just about melted his insides. When was the last time Aubrey had actually smiled at him?

  Hell, he really needed to pull his mind out of the past. Aubrey had been his first real crush, the first girl whose opinion of him had ever mattered. She’d just turned fourteen, and she was all legs and budding breasts and lips that were unconsciously pouty. He’d casually mentioned to Gavin he might like to take Aubrey out, now that he had a driver’s license and an old wreck of a car. Gavin had pushed him up against a wall and threatened to kill him if he so much as looked at his sister. It was the first time Gavin had ever directed his temper toward Beau, and it had unnerved him. Not that he was afraid, exactly. He probably could have beat Gavin to a pulp. But he didn’t like seeing that side of his buddy, his best friend. Rather than provoke that sleeping beast inside Gavin again, Beau had limited himself to covert looks at Aubrey—and an active fantasy life. There were plenty of other girls who wanted to ride in his car, he’d reasoned.

  They rode the rest of the way in silence, and Beau forced himself to focus on Patti’s predicament. He’d known Patti well when they were kids, all of them hanging out together. As Gavin Schuyler’s best friend, he’d been treated practically as one of the family, and he had always been welcome at the Schuylers’ house as well as at the Clarendon home—a mansion, really. Wayne Clarendon came from old money, and he didn’t hesitate to flaunt it.

  Once Beau left the police force, though, his relationship with Gavin, and hence the entire family, had grown tense, and he hadn’t seen much of them after that. What he did remember of Patti, though, was a weak, self-indulgent young woman prone to histrionics and a master of manipulation. Aubrey had always been vulnerable to her cousin’s hijinks, because Aubrey was kind and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

  Everyone except him.

  Aubrey had said Patti was more mature now, but Aubrey tended to see the best in everyone, even when it wasn’t deserved. Why she
wanted to believe the worst about him was no mystery—he’d shot her brother, after all. But he wished she’d cut him a break.

  Beau wheeled the Mustang into a parking space in front of a run-down shopping center in one of the worst parts of town.

  “Why are we stopping here?” Aubrey asked with some alarm.

  “This is it.”

  Aubrey followed his gaze to a tattered blue awning that featured First Strike in barely discernible white letters. Next to it was the image of a coiled snake, ready to strike. The office itself was housed in perhaps twenty feet of storefront, with steel bars covering windows streaked so dirty she couldn’t see a thing inside. On one side was Bloodgood’s Pawn Shop. On the other was Taft Bail Bonds.

  She made no move to get out of the car.

  “Aubrey, what’s the holdup?”

  She shook herself. What had she expected, anyway? Beau Maddox wasn’t Remington Steele. “Coming.”

  Inside it was worse than Aubrey had feared. The office was bigger than it appeared from the outside, narrow and deep. A battered reception desk sat near the door, unoccupied at the moment, but a half-full bottle of Dr Pepper sitting on it indicated the occupant wasn’t far away. A couple of other desks were arranged haphazardly around the main room, all of them messy but currently unused. In one corner was a home gym—a weight bench and a couple of machines with torn, blue-sparkle vinyl upholstery. The floor was partially covered with nasty blue indoor-outdoor carpeting, except where the concrete floor showed through huge rips and holes. The walls had been flat white once upon a time. Now they were dingy with fingerprints and God-knew-what.

  A huge garbage can near the exact center of the room was full to overflowing with beer bottles and pizza cartons. Several beer bottles were strewn about the rest of the place as if it were a decorating statement. The acoustic tiles on the ceiling—the ones that weren’t missing—were stained and crumbling, and the ancient fluorescent light fixtures bathed the entire nightmare in anemic blue light.

  One wall was entirely covered in Wanted posters. Several of the scary faces peering out from those posters had darts protruding from them.

  “This place is completely gross,” Aubrey couldn’t help saying. “How can you stand working here?”

  Beau smiled and shrugged as he looked around. “I don’t spend much time here, really. Hey,” he called out, “is anyone here?”

  A door in the back opened and a striking woman close to Aubrey’s age appeared. She was tall, slender and large-breasted, but ultracasual in a snug black tank top, low-slung camouflage cargo pants and flip-flops. Her honey-blond hair was cut in a short, no-nonsense style, and she wore little if any makeup, which in no way detracted from her very feminine appearance.

  She smiled at Beau. “Sorry, I was just in the bathroom,” she said without embarrassment. “Ace isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for. Who’s this?” She turned her winning smile on Aubrey.

  Aubrey liked this woman immediately. She held out her hand. “Aubrey Schuyler.”

  “Lori Bettencourt,” the other woman said, gripping Aubrey’s hand firmly. “I know this place is disgusting, and I apologize. But I told Ace when I came to work here that being a maid wasn’t part of my job description just because I’m the only woman. I clean up after myself and I try not to look at the rest. Though I do carry around a big bottle of Lysol.”

  Aubrey found herself smiling back. “I like your attitude.”

  “Actually,” Beau said, “I’m not looking for Ace. I’m looking for you.”

  “Really? Need some help with a takedown?” she asked hopefully.

  Aubrey watched Lori closely, trying to figure out if there was anything sexual between her and Beau. Not that it should matter. She didn’t give a rat’s behind who Beau slept with, she told herself sternly. But she found she was relieved when her radar didn’t pick up any sexual undercurrents between the two, though they obviously liked one another.

  “Aubrey got a threatening phone call. I want you to trace it.”

  Lori looked disappointed. “Just a phone call? Piece of cake.” She led the way to the desk farthest back from the front door, on which sat what looked to be an ancient computer with half its guts hanging out. But once Lori fired up the machine, Aubrey could see it was endowed with a powerful CPU and lots of state-of-the-art software.

  Aubrey gave Lori her phone number and the approximate time of the call, then left her alone to do her thing.

  “Is it legal, what she’s doing?” she asked Beau, who’d decided to pass the time by doing a few chin-ups on a bar that was part of the home gym.

  “Beats me. I don’t care, long as she doesn’t get caught.”

  That was typical, she thought, frowning. Beau seemed to have lost any semblance of a conscience once he’d left the police force. She reminded herself of that as she forced herself to stop watching his bulging biceps as he lifted his weight up and down in a seemingly tireless set.

  The door from which Lori had emerged opened again, and a robust-looking man in his fifties appeared. “Hey, Lori, you want to do a—” He stopped when he spotted Beau. “Maddox. You find that Langford kid yet?”

  “I’ve been checking out the day-care centers,” Beau replied, sounding unconcerned. “Nothing yet.”

  The older man’s eyes locked on Aubrey. “Who’s this?”

  “Aubrey Schuyler. Lori’s tracing a call for her. Aubrey, this is Ace McCullough. He owns the agency.”

  Ace McCullough grinned, revealing two even rows of very white teeth. “Schuyler, Schuyler. Why does that name sound familiar?”

  “Gavin Schuyler’s my brother.”

  That seemed to be enough explanation. Ace quickly changed the subject. “Lori, will you be done pretty quick? I have an easy takedown, and I thought you might want to come with me.”

  Lori’s eyes lit up with something Aubrey could only describe as yearning. “This won’t take long,” she assured Ace. “Don’t go without me.”

  Beau finally tired of his chin-ups. Though he was hardly breathing hard, he did have a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He picked up a towel that someone had slung over a barbell and wiped his face and neck with it. Aubrey shuddered to think about where that towel had been, or how long it had gone without seeing the inside of a washing machine.

  “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Beau asked Ace in a soft voice. “With Lori, I mean. Glenn really didn’t want her here. Anyway, she’s just a kid.”

  “She’s twenty-seven, hardly a kid,” Ace countered. “I don’t want to dishonor Glenn’s memory by going against his wishes, but Lori’s got bounty-hunting in her blood. If I hadn’t taken her in, she would have gone to work for some other agency—or worse, she’d have tried working on her own. At least if she’s working here, I can train her right, and keep an eye on her. And you have to admit, her computer skills have come in handy.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Beau said grudgingly.

  “Right now, I’m only letting her do the easy take-downs. This one’s an old lady with parking tickets who missed her court date, probably because she’s senile.”

  Beau smiled. “Doesn’t sound too bad, though I once had a senile little old lady pull a Luger on me.”

  The two men laughed, but Aubrey didn’t join in. The thought of the kind of danger Beau put himself in every day was intimidating. At least as a cop, he had the full weight of the law behind him and plenty of backup just a radio summons away. By his own account, when he’d been on the force he’d never even fired his weapon, or been fired at.

  As a bounty hunter, his job was far riskier. Every day he went looking for trouble. She just didn’t understand why anyone would submit himself to that much risk. The Beau Maddox she’d known wasn’t an adrenaline junkie.

  Aubrey returned her attention to Lori, who was scribbling something down on a piece of paper. Lori looked up.

  “Bad news. The call came from a pay phone.”

  Chapter Three

  Beau
cursed softly, and Aubrey sagged with her own disappointment. Finding the guy who’d assaulted her and threatened Patti wasn’t going to be easy. But she realized she would never feel completely safe until the guy was behind bars, and Patti and Sara were home where they belonged.

  “I wrote the pay phone address down,” Lori said. “It’s not far from here, if you want to check it out.” She walked over and handed the piece of paper to Beau with the location of the pay phone. Then she looked at Ace. “Just let me get my stuff, and I’ll be ready.”

  Aubrey was about to say thanks and slide on out of there herself. But her car was still at the motel.

  “It’s only a few blocks,” Beau said. “We can walk over and have a look. Chances are our guy lives or works close by. The information might help us narrow the search if we get any more leads on this scumbag.”

  When Lori returned from her desk up front, she wore a bulletproof vest. She had a Mace canister in one of the loops of her cargo pants, and an impossibly huge gun secured at the small of her back.

  “Put a shirt on over that vest,” Beau said, looking as if he had to struggle to keep from laughing. “You might as well be wearing a neon sign over your head, Bounty Hunter In Training.”

  Lori shot him a dirty look, but she did as he suggested.

  Once they were back outside, Aubrey was relieved to be breathing fresh air again. “I don’t know how she stands it,” she said to Beau as they set out to find the pay phone.

  “Lori? How she stands what?”

  “That place you work at. It’s repulsive. Might as well be working in a men’s locker room. I’m surprised there wasn’t dirty laundry all over the floor.”

  Beau only grinned. “You didn’t see the back room. Or the kitchen. It’s enough to make a health inspector faint.”

  “You sound almost proud.”

  “Hey, it took us years to get that place to such a high degree of disreputableness.”

  Aubrey gave up. Men were disgusting. She should probably be glad she hadn’t yet married one. Maybe she never would.