by KD Jones
Stay alive, find the murderer, clear my name.
Chapter 4
Beeping from her phone woke Elsa from her light sleep. She was reaching for it when Kalen spoke.
“It’s Isaac. He thinks he found a lead for us at the transit station.”
She shoved the covers off. Kalen was already dressed impeccably in a pinstripe business suit, hair gelled back smooth as glass, and he was adding a pair of sunglasses to complete the ensemble as she watched. He looked anything but a bounty hunter at the moment. Yet, he was just as dangerous as any of the bounty hunters they worked with.
Getting up, she grabbed her leather pants and top. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
Elsa changed into her clothes and quickly pulled her hair into a ponytail. Fortunately, she didn’t wear much makeup other than lipstick, unless she had to go undercover for something that required it. She walked out of the bathroom ready with one minute to spare.
Stuffing her clothes in her bag, she slung it over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said to Kalen, walking toward the door. When they were in the hallway, he took her bag from her.
“I’ll load our bags in the car, since it’s already waiting for us. You go check us out.”
“Fine.”
They took the elevator down to the lobby. Kalen carried their bags outside while she went to the front desk to pay and check out. She glanced over as one of the TV monitors showed an image of a shoot-out between the authority and someone in a black SUV. The SUV got away. The authority must be furious about that. The interview with a witness caught her attention.
“This is Megan Tanner reporting to you from Level Four, where an incident occurred last night. I’m here with a witness.” She turned to the person next to her, who kept glancing nervously between her and the camera. “Please tell us what you saw in your own words.”
“It happened kind of fast. I saw some guy with a hoodie walking up the street late last night. He didn’t look like the regular type that lives out here on the streets, that’s what caught my attention at first. Then this black SUV came rolling down the street, it almost stopped, the passenger window rolled down and I saw something come out. I heard gunfire and ducked into the alley. The guys in the SUV were shooting at the guy with the hoodie. Then an authority patrol car showed up to chase the SUV and the guy in the hoodie ran off. It was crazy.”
“Can you describe the guy with the hoodie or the people in the SUV?”
“Like I said, I didn’t get a good look, I was on the other side of the street. There was no license chip that I could see.”
The news reporter turned back to the camera. “The authority has declined to give a statement at this time. Sources with the authority have told us that surveillance feeds on this street are being reviewed. We’ll update you with more as the case unfolds.”
Elsa had a feeling that the guy in the hoodie was the perp they were after. The timing between this and Isaac’s lead seemed a little too coincidental. But who was after him, if it wasn’t her and Kalen? She quickly paid the bill and headed out the front entrance. Kalen had the rental packed.
“We’ve got a problem,” she told him, getting into the passenger’s side.
“What’s going on?”
“I just saw the news channel. There was a shooting on Level Four. Someone in a SUV shot at someone walking on the sidewalk with a black hoodie.”
“You think it’s Roberts?” Kalen asked.
“I do. I just have this feeling that his life is in danger.”
“Are you sure it’s not some kind of sympathy you feel for this guy?”
She glared at him. “I don’t know him and have never met him so I’m not emotionally involved. My instincts have never been wrong.”
“Well then, we better find him before he gets himself killed.”
“What did Isaac say?”
“He hacked into street surveillance and thinks he spotted him going to a transit station...on Level Four.”
She gave him an I told you so look before checking the blade in her boot sleeve. Taking her phone out, she texted Isaac.
“Who are you texting? Your boyfriend?”
Where the hell had that question come from? “I’m texting Isaac to check into the news report.”
“So you broke up with your boyfriend?”
She glared at him but didn’t respond.
“Your silence is answer enough. I guess Toby—”
“Thomas,” she corrected him.
“I guess Thomas couldn’t handle your career choice,” Kalen commented.
“Are you trying to pick a fight with me? Because it’s working.”
“Jagger told me he’d been getting complaints from the other bounty hunters I work with that I do not engage enough with them.”
“Picking a fight with someone is not what Jagger meant by engaging with people.”
“I don’t know why anyone would say I don’t engage. I speak with my partners like I do with you. I go to conferences, career day at local schools, and I’m usually the one that deals with the media. But I thought I could try to be more…personal in my conversational topics.”
She gave him an assessing look. “Maybe it’s just the way you talk to people. Try not to act so...high and mighty.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “This coming from the ice queen of bounty hunters?”
“I’m not cold, I’m reserved.”
“I think we get along because we’re so much alike.”
Elsa snorted and then paused. “Oh...you’re serious?”
Kalen pressed the button for the auto driver to kick in and let go of the wheel. He turned to face her. “Of course I’m serious. I think we have similar ways of seeing a situation, we both have class and style, and we’re both protective of our privacy.”
“That’s true.” He did have a point, but surely he thought they got on each other’s nerves as much as she did.
“I like to think we’re friends as well.”
And now she just felt awkward. Was he coming on to her? “Uh...Kalen, we are friends and we do work well together but...that’s all there is between us.”
He blinked in surprise, then burst out laughing. “I wasn’t implying…”
“It sounded like it,” she said, laughing in relief, too.
“See, this is why I don’t engage.”
“I agree. Minimal engagement is probably best to avoid misunderstandings.”
“If Jagger asks you whether I…”
“I’ll tell him you were very engaging.”
“I would greatly appreciate it,” Kalen said as he took the steering wheel controls back over.
Elsa couldn’t help but smile at his proper speech. Kalen was always so reserved and in control, and she knew he tended to only date women that were conventionally attractive and didn’t challenge him in any way. He needed to find a girlfriend who shook up his control and made his life a little messy.
“About your boyfriend…”
“I thought you just agreed on minimal engagement.”
“Just saying, it’s his loss.”
She nodded and looked away, keeping her cool appearance. Thomas had been a mistake. Elsa had met him at the gym. He was impressed at first when she told him what she did for a living. He was an officer working for the authority. It should have been a perfect fit. Unfortunately, the way her cases took her away for days to weeks at a time were too much for him to deal with. They’d had a huge fight about a month ago.
“Why do you have to go? There has to be someone else at the bounty hunter agency who can go off world. Why does it have to be you?”
“Thomas, it’s my job and I happened to be the one who helped process this application. It would look bad if I don’t take the case.”
“Then quit. You don’t need a job like that. You’re too pretty to doing such a dangerous job.”
“Really? Do you think I should stay at home barefoot and pregnant?” Not a lot of people believed in that anymore, but there wer
e some cultures that did expect their women to be protected and coddled.
“You’re putting words into my mouth. That’s an ancient belief. I just think that there’s a more suitable job out there for you.”
“I have to go to work.” Elsa picked up her purse and walked to the door.
“If you leave, I won’t be here when you get back.”
She’d held her emotions in check as she opened the door and walked out. The tears didn’t fall until she had gotten into the taxi shuttle. Her species were thought by many to be emotionless and cold, but it was the far from the truth. Elsa felt deep hurt and disappointment. But then she mostly just felt angry at how Thomas could be such an ass about her job. Truthfully, they’d had other problems, too, but she’d been trying to overlook them. Thomas liked to go out with his friends after work, for example, while Elsa preferred being at home when she was off. They really hadn’t been very compatible. It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that things ended the way they did. It still hurt, though. She really could have done without Kalen bringing it back up now, no matter how good his intentions.
Kalen drove the rental car to the car lift station to transfer between levels. Once they reached the fourth level, Kalen drove the car out of the lift and onto the main street. “The local transit station isn’t too far ahead.”
“Why would he go there? Those kinds of buses are only good for transportation on this level. They’re too big to fit in a auto lift,” Elsa commented.
“He’s desperate, we both know that desperate criminals make idiotic decisions.”
She turned to look out the window in thought. It was true that most of the perps they chased after made stupid mistakes. This one—Felix Roberts—seemed different. He wasn’t really stupid, after all; he was a doctor.
“We’re here. Let’s go get our perp,” Kale said as he parked the car.
She was reaching for the door handle when he stopped her.
Kalen put his hand on her arm. “Wait.”
“What is it?”
“You’ve got a similar look to Roberts’ dead wife.”
“Yes, we’re both blond. That makes us twins,” she said sarcastically.
He reached for the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a large pair of dark sunglasses. “Put these on, they’ll camouflage most of your face. And let your hair down straight.”
“You’re serious? You want me to try to look like the man’s dead wife?”
“If he’s here, it might draw him out.”
Sighing, she reached for the glasses with one hand while pulling her ponytail out with the other. “I don’t think it’ll work, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to try.”
“I’ll give you a ten-minute head start before following you in. Don’t react to me at all.”
“Got it.” She shook her hair out to cascade down her back.
“From a distance, you do resemble her. If you see him, don’t stare directly at him, keep your face tilted at an angle.”
“I’m ready.”
Chapter 5
Felix should have left the transit station hours ago, but he’d made the mistake of falling asleep. Now, more people had filed into the station, and he really should have felt safer, surrounded by so many people. The surveillance cameras would have a hard time identifying him. Instead, he had a bad feeling that something was about to happen. He’d felt the same thing when he pulled into his driveway and saw the authority cars. He wasn’t paying attention and bumped into something...or someone.
“Watch it, asshole!” a man in his twenties said, shoving Felix back.
He stumbled back. “Sorry,” he mumbled but the guy he had bumped into was already gone. As he adjusted his backpack, his eyes caught on a woman entering the station.
As if in slow-motion, he found himself watching and then following in the direction the woman walked. His heart nearly stopped. Bridgette? It couldn’t be. Her blond hair fell down in waves and the light seemed to catch each strand, making it shine. She was moving differently, with more confidence and purpose, but still so alluring. It couldn’t be her, but he needed to see her face to be sure.
Moving closer while still keeping enough distance between them that he wouldn’t be spotted was difficult, and it wasn’t getting him close enough. Just as he moved almost parallel with her, she would turn and move in a different direction. All he needed was one good look at the woman’s face. His head told him it was impossible, it couldn’t be Bridgette, but his heart hoped that it was, that she wasn’t really dead after all. That he could possibly go home and return to his life. He refused to focus on was what it would actually mean if she was still alive—betrayal.
The woman moved toward the hallway that led to the bathrooms. He should just let her go, turn away and escape while he could, but he had to know. Just as they entered the hallway, the woman turned to face him, making him stop abruptly.
“Are you following me?” the woman asked. Her voice was low and smooth, and it made him feel warm all over. It was definitely not Bridgette’s whiny, nasal voice.
She removed her glasses and he was frozen in place by her gaze. Her eyes were a striking pale blue he had never seen before. There was intelligence in her gaze along with something else, a spark of recognition perhaps.
“Sorry, I mistook you for someone else.”
He took a step backwards but bumped into someone behind him. He turned to find a polished businessman standing there. “Oh, excuse me…” When he tried to move around the man, he couldn’t. The man was deliberately blocking him. A sense of dread filled him.
“Look, if this is your girlfriend, I just mistook her for someone I knew. My mistake.”
“It is your mistake, Mr. Roberts,” the man said.
That sense of danger increased. “Who are you?”
“You got him?” the man asked, looking over Felix’s shoulder.
He tried to turn around but his arms were abruptly being pulled behind his back firmly. He heard a clicking sound and then he couldn’t move his arms at all.
“Yes. He’s ready to go,” the woman behind him said.
He glared over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
She gave him a smile. “Mr. Roberts, we are taking you to the authority for questioning in the murder of Bridgette Roberts.”
“You’re officers?” he said doubtfully, looking pointedly at their lack of uniform.
“Bounty hunters, actually,” the man responded. He turned to the blonde. “I’ll bring the car to the front entrance. Can you handle him on your own?”
“Of course I can. Give me your jacket before you leave. I don’t want to draw attention to the cuffs.”
The man rolled his eyes but took off his pinstripe coat. Personally tailored, if Felix was any judge. “Don’t get it dirty.”
“God forbid,” the woman commented dryly.
When the man left, Felix felt the woman put the coat over his shoulders. She seemed relatively sympathetic. Maybe he could plead his case. “Look, I don’t know who hired you, but I didn’t kill anybody.”
“That’s what they all say. ‘I didn’t do it...I was framed...it was someone else, I swear.’” The woman poked him between the shoulderblades and he couldn’t help but move forward, though not too far. The electric handcuffs prevented him from moving away from whoever held the keys, something he knew from television, though he’d never expected to experience it firsthand.
“Please listen, I really am innocent. Someone is framing me for Bridgette’s murder and I think they’re trying to kill me as well.”
“Well then, the safest place for you would be with the authority. Let them finish questioning you, clear your name, and find the ones who really killed your wife.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“That’s not for me to say.”
“If you and your partner would just listen to me for a moment…”
“You’ll have plenty of time to talk all you want—at the authority.”
He t
urned to look back at her. How had he ever confused her with Bridgette? This woman was so strong and sure of herself. Sure, she had curves and a fit body, but it was her eyes that kept drawing him in. The intelligence there was intriguing.
“I’m telling you, I’ve been attacked multiple times. Someone doesn’t want me to make it to the authority.”
“Well then, it’s your lucky day. It’s my job to make sure you get to the authority safe and sound. When we go outside these doors, Kalen will have a car waiting for us. The back door will be open. Get in and slide over.”
“You’re going to sit in the back with me?”
“Yes, it’s protocol when we’re using vehicles that aren’t outfitted to deal with perps.”
He frowned. “I’m a doctor, not a perp.”
She stopped right before the door and turned him to face her. “Look, I really do hope you are innocent, but you’ve got to accept some hard truths right now. You have to know your career is going to suffer, even if you can prove you didn’t do it.”
God, he didn’t want to face that right now, but he appreciated her being honest with him. “I guess it was stupid to run like that.”
“People don’t always make the best decisions when things go to hell.”
He snorted. “You’re telling me. One minute I’m having dinner with my wife to discuss our divorce, the next thing I know I am being hunted for her murder.” He looked off into the distance, remembering everything that happened. He was surprised that the bounty hunter gave him that time. A few seconds later, she motioned for him to move forward.
“Come, Kalen is waiting.”
*****
Elsa didn’t know why she felt bad for the guy. When she told him that his career as a doctor was probably over regardless of he was guilty or not, it wasn’t to be cruel. She was just telling him the truth. His story was all over the news, and his employers would be hard-pressed to keep his patients from losing confidence in him. She wasn’t in the medical field, but she had to imagine that trust between a patient and their doctor was crucial. The look on his face in that moment was revealing. She gave him a second to pull himself together. Moving forward, she opened the door so he could walk out first, then followed behind him.