Colorado Manhunt

by Lisa Phillips

  She’d also tracked down her dad, intending to get the child support money he’d never paid. Not for herself, but for her mom. Only that had not led to the moment of triumphant resolution she’d hoped for. He’d passed away three years before she’d found him.

  Satisfied that no one had followed them, she walked around her SUV, paying particular attention to the front and rear bumpers.

  “Looking for a tracking device?” Jason asked.

  “Yes.”

  Jason dropped down and scooched himself under the car. Lauren squatted beside him and watched as he used the flashlight app on his phone to check the undercarriage. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary under here,” he said before climbing back out.

  She grabbed a canvas bag from the SUV that she kept packed with a change of clothes and some basic toiletries just in case. Anything could happen when she was chasing a bail jumper, and she liked to be prepared.

  They walked through the garage, following the directions to a covered walkway that would eventually lead to the main entrance and the hotel lobby.

  “So, the skip tracing led to bounty hunting?” Jason asked as they walked, picking up their earlier conversational thread.

  “Yeah. Sometimes the bounty hunters that worked out of the office needed a little extra help. A fresh face to walk into a restaurant and make sure their target was still in there. Someone to knock on the door of a house and pretend to be delivering flowers while getting a quick look inside. That sort of thing. Eventually, I got hooked. It was exciting, it paid well, I was good at it and it felt like meaningful work to me.”

  “How does your mom feel about you being a bounty hunter?” he asked as they approached the registration desk.

  Lauren sighed. She knew her mom worried about her and would be thrilled if she switched to a more mundane career. “She tells me it’s my right to live my life as I see fit.” Her mom was aware that some of the people Lauren tracked were dangerous and she liked to remind her that it was just a job and that it was not worth dying for, so she shouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.

  They reached the registration desk and were able to get rooms across from each other on the same floor.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Jason said after they’d gotten their key cards and walked away from the desk. “Do you want to get something to eat in one of the hotel restaurants?”

  “I think I’ll just relax in my room and order room service,” Lauren said. Right now she wanted sleep more than anything.

  Jason nodded. “I understand. I’ll see you to your room. And then I think I’ll get something to eat.”

  A tired laugh slipped out of her. “I think I can find my room on my own.”

  “I have no doubt of that,” he said, following her into an elevator car. “But I’d like to do it, anyway.”

  He had nice manners. She liked that in a man. Not that it mattered whether she liked him or not. Because it didn’t matter. Not at all.

  The elevator stopped at their floor, and he walked with her to her room. She unlocked the door, pushed it open, stepped inside, then turned to him. “We can sleep in. No one’s going to be at the bond office tomorrow morning before ten.”

  “I’ll be here at your door at nine thirty.”

  “Okay. Good night.” She shut the door, threw all the latches and then walked over to the bed. She only had enough time to drop her bag and kick off her shoes before falling face-first onto it. The last thought on her mind as she fell asleep was about Jason and his brother. For Jason’s sake, she really hoped they’d find Matt before it was too late.

  * * *

  The Gold Standard Bail Bonds office was located in a strip mall along with a barbershop, a thrift store and a coffee shop.

  “I’ve never been in a bail bond office before,” Jason said as they got out of Lauren’s SUV. He paused and looked around to see if anyone had followed them on the drive from the hotel. It didn’t seem likely, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “It’s like any other kind of office,” Lauren said, also looking around. “It’s not a steady parade of creepy thugs coming through the door. Some clients, like your brother, are choosing the life of a career criminal, and to them the whole process is a normal part of doing business. Some clients are decent people who have made a bad choice, and they regret it. Some are actually innocent of the charges against them. People who work in this business aren’t judges. We work with the justice system, carrying out decisions that have already been put into place. If an actual judge says somebody has the right to get out of jail if they put up a bond, then they have that right.”

  Nobody pulled into the parking lot behind them. None of the cars rolling by on the street slowed down so the driver could take a closer look at them. Having a legitimate reason to be paranoid triggered a few of the old feelings Jason had experienced when he first returned home after spending what felt like a lifetime in combat. A little bit of that old edginess was there. And wariness. The compulsion to assess everything ahead of him as a potential trap had kicked in, too. Considering the situation, that might be a good thing.

  “I think we’re safe,” he said.

  “I think so, too. Come on inside and meet everybody.”

  He followed her into the office, noticing the loud beep of a security system as they walked through the door. The people working here might strive not to be judgmental, but they were vigilant. He could appreciate that.

  “So, kid, you’re getting a little excitement on this Cortez case, huh?” A man who looked about sixty, with the deep tan of an outdoorsman, got up from an office chair and wrapped an arm around Lauren’s shoulder, giving her a side hug. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Al, this is the man I told you about on the phone. Matthew Cortez’s identical twin brother, Jason.”

  Al removed his arm from her shoulder and shook hands with Jason as she completed the introductions. The guy had a pleasant smile on his face, but the expression in his eyes was sharp and assessing. Jason could see Al’s gaze linger above his left eye, checking for the scar his brother had, and seeing it wasn’t there.

  “Al and his wife, Barb, own Gold Standard Bail Bonds,” Lauren said.

  A blonde woman seated at a desk got up and walked over to them. “Hi, I’m Barb Lathrop,” she said. “This is a first for us. Working with identical twins.”

  Jason didn’t know what to say in response to that, so he just smiled and said, “Nice to meet you.” He realized identical twins weren’t common, but he’d been one his whole life, so sometimes the big reaction got tiresome.

  “Come on back and have a seat.” Barb gestured toward an area beyond the front desks where a sofa was set up across from a couple of easy chairs. “Let me grab Matthew’s file.” As she headed toward a desk, she called over her shoulder to Lauren, “Kevin wanted me to tell you he’s sorry he can’t help you out with this case. His dad is stable, but he’s still in the hospital and they’re running a few more tests.”

  The exact nature of the relationship between Lauren and her partner, Kevin, was none of Jason’s business. Still, he couldn’t help wondering about it. Just how close were they? She’d let him know she wasn’t married. She hadn’t said anything about a boyfriend.

  Barb came back carrying a manila file and handed it to Lauren. Lauren started flipping through it. “Matt Cortez has gotten bonds before, but not through us,” Barb said. She pointed to a sheet of paper from a yellow legal pad that was tucked inside the folder. “I jotted down a few notes just in case we needed them later.” She glanced at Jason. “After we get somebody out of lockup, we like for them to come by so we can meet them. That’s when we take a picture and try to gather a few personal details outside the scope of their formal application in case we need to track them down later. I started doing this job way before everything went digital. Sometimes it’s faster and easier for me to h
andwrite notes.”

  She turned her attention back to Lauren. “I’ve got a description of the clothes he was wearing and the vehicle he arrived in. I tried to chat with him a little, get an idea of where he was going after he left here, but Matt didn’t say much. Neither did the guy who was with him. The cosigner on his bond.”

  “Who was the cosigner?” Jason asked. It was likely one of the criminals Matt hung around with. Maybe it was one of the men trying to kill him. It was possible that that was the motivation for bailing Matt out. They’d wanted him set free so they could kill him.

  “Tony Santiago,” Lauren said. She looked up at Jason. “Does that name ring any bells?”

  Jason shook his head. “No.” He turned to Barb. “This is the man who put up the cash to keep my brother out of jail?”

  “No, not cash. Collateral. A restaurant.”

  “Santiago’s Restaurant and Cantina,” Lauren read from the screen of an electronic tablet Al had handed to her.

  “Yep,” Al said. “I sent you the specifics on this yesterday.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you could check your email a little more often.”

  “You’re right. I will,” Lauren muttered.

  “If Matthew isn’t recovered and turned in to the police, we get to take possession of the restaurant and sell it to get our bond money back,” Al said to Jason.

  “This is clearly the best place to start looking for you brother again.” Lauren reached out and rested her hand on Jason’s forearm. It was a small gesture, but her touch helped. It grounded him. And reminded him that he was not alone in trying to untangle the dangerous mess his brother had gotten himself into.

  He lifted his gaze to look into Lauren’s brown eyes. It felt like something passed between them, an understanding. Like this was no longer just a business arrangement for her, which was what it had been after the shooting in the diner parking lot. Maybe she was starting to genuinely care about Matt’s welfare and not just about earning her bounty recovery fee.

  He broke off his gaze and looked away, not quite certain what the emotion was that he felt. Gratitude, maybe.

  “Nobody wants to be forced to give up their business because somebody they vouched for on a bond skipped a court date,” Lauren said. “I don’t care how close of a friend he is. So we’ll head to the restaurant. See if this Tony guy is there, or if somebody can give us his home address. Because I’m certain Tony will want to help us.” She smiled at Jason, and his heart did a stupid little flip in his chest. “Let’s go,” she added.

  They headed out to her SUV. Once he was buckled in his seat and Lauren pulled out into traffic, he glanced at the screen of his phone. He’d called his brother again earlier this morning and gotten no answer. And Matt had not called him back.

  The deeper he got into the search for his brother, the less any of the information he was gaining made sense. And the more Jason worried that the search might be putting him into even worse danger. Fear for Matt’s safety rippled through his gut, and the thought crossed his mind that maybe he didn’t really want to help get Matt arrested, after all. Maybe the way to keep his brother alive was to let Matt disappear like he obviously wanted to.

  But he knew as soon as the thought crossed his mind that he couldn’t do that. Matt had to be brought to justice.

  FIVE

  Santiago’s was a beautiful new two-story building designed to look like the residence on a hacienda with a red tile roof, a painted tile mosaic on the floor in the foyer and heavy, dark wooden tables and chairs in the main dining room.

  “Matt told me the money he gave me to invest in the restaurant was earned legally,” the majority owner and manager, Tony Santiago, said to Jason. “When he got released from his first stint in lockup, he stayed sober and worked hard for a little over a year. He was living with a roommate, paying modest rent, and he saved up a fair amount of money. He told me he wanted to invest it before he blew it on something stupid.”

  The thought of his brother getting out of prison and doing well only to fall back into his old ways again made Jason feel sick. And a little bewildered. Why was Matt determined to ruin his life?

  Jason had been overseas when Matt’s life of crime started. Why hadn’t Matt reached out to him if he needed money or some other kind of help? Jason would have come through for him. Did Matt not know that?

  He glanced at Lauren. She returned his gaze and raised her eyebrows slightly, as if she were questioning Tony’s story. He couldn’t blame her. His brother was a known criminal with known criminal associates. They couldn’t assume that Tony was telling them the truth.

  “Man, you really do look like your brother,” Tony said, shaking his head. “It’s amazing. He told me he had a twin, but I didn’t realize you were identical.”

  “I don’t know how much this building and everything in it is worth, but it’s obviously a lot,” Jason said. “Why would you put it up as collateral for a bond to get my brother out of jail? Why take that risk?” Matt’s legal occupation was long-haul truck driving. Even if he’d saved every penny he earned for a year and a half, he couldn’t have invested that much money in the restaurant.

  Tony crossed his tattooed arms over his chest. He was a few years older than Jason, probably midforties, and the lines on his face and slight bags under his eyes gave him the appearance of a man who’d lived a hard life.

  “Santiago’s started as a tiny restaurant with twelve tables. I’d wanted to open my own place for a long time, but I didn’t have much cash set aside, and my credit history wasn’t exactly stellar. If your brother hadn’t helped me out back then, at the very beginning, I would not have been able to open for business.” He glanced down for a moment, cleared his throat and then looked Jason square in the eye. “I have been blessed. Business has been great. I’ve obviously been able to upgrade. And here we are.

  “Matt told me to keep reinvesting his share of the profits into the business rather than paying him. He never asked for anything. Not until he called me from lockup a couple of weeks ago and told me he’d gotten arrested again. Accessory to murder.” Tony sighed deeply and shook his head.

  “What did he tell you about the events that led to the accessory-to-murder charges?” Lauren asked.

  Jason held his breath, not certain he wanted to hear the answer.

  Tony shrugged. “He said his real crime was being stupid. That he didn’t know what was going to happen that night. That he was a thief and sometimes a hothead, and he might have been involved in a few things that weren’t exactly legal, but he wasn’t a murderer.”

  “That’s it?” Lauren asked. “That’s all you know?”

  “Look, we’ve known each other for a long time, but in the last few years I’ve been working a lot of hours at the restaurant, and I’m raising a family. He called and asked me for help. I figured if a judge had set bail for him, then he had the legal right to get out of jail. Innocent until proven guilty, right?”

  “And he repaid the favor by jumping bail,” Jason said flatly. He was worried about his brother, but he was also angry. Matt was disrupting so many lives, putting people in danger, and apparently he didn’t even care. He deserved to be tracked down and locked up. At least until he got his head on straight. “Can you tell us anything that would help us find him?”

  “He mentioned he was spending time in Boulder.”

  “Is he staying there?” Jason asked. “Do you have an address?”

  “He just mentioned it in passing. He and I used to go there on weekends before I got married, hoping to meet college girls. He eventually moved there for a while. He said he’s been back there recently, catching up with some old friends. I don’t have an address for where he could be staying.”

  “Did he mention any names?” Lauren asked. “Or talk about places he liked to hang out? A favorite bar or restaurant, maybe?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Cou
ld you give me the names of the places where the two of you liked to spend time back when you used to go to Boulder together? Maybe the names of people you used to hang out with?”

  Tony rattled off the names of some bars and restaurants, and Lauren jotted them down. When it came to individuals, he could offer only a few first names.

  “Thanks for your time.” She handed him a business card. “Please call me if you hear anything from him.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  “And if anybody else comes around asking about him, it would probably be a good idea to call the police,” Jason added. “Some of Matt’s criminal cronies are looking for him, and they’re pretty dangerous.”

  Jason scanned the restaurant parking lot as he and Lauren stepped outside. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

  “I suspect that the people who are after your brother are doing the same thing we are,” Lauren said, walking beside him. “Checking out all the places where Matt’s known to spend time. Assuming Tony was telling us the truth about Matt’s connection to Boulder, they’ll likely look for him there, as well.”

  Jason sent up a silent prayer. Please, Lord, help us find him first.

  * * *

  “I know this is an old-school technique, but it works,” Lauren said to Jason twenty minutes later as they walked into an office services and shipping store a few blocks away from Santiago’s.

  When she’d first brought up the idea of having flyers printed with Matt’s picture on it, Jason had looked at her like she was crazy. “Digital pictures are good, but not always better,” she continued. “Sometimes a printed picture, something somebody can tuck into their purse or pin onto a corkboard, is more helpful. If a target sees his picture posted in a store window, that can be motivation for him to turn himself in.”

  “But won’t having his picture posted all over Boulder let the bad guys know that’s where we think he is and so they’ll focus their attention there, too?”