Chaser (Jinx Ballou Bounty Hunter Book 1)

by Dharma Kelleher

  I stepped back into the kitchen and found Conor and Jake arguing about soccer.

  “You ready to go?” I asked.

  Conor nodded.

  “Leaving already, sis?” Jake gave me a hug.

  I kissed his cheek. “Sorry, bro, got fugitives to catch.”

  “Keep her out of trouble, man,” Jake said.

  He and Conor gave each other a fist bump. I said goodbye to my folks and Jake.

  When we stepped outside the front door, a full-sized black Hummer idled on the other side of the Gray Ghost. A hissing sound came from between the trucks, like air leaking out in short bursts. “What the hell?”

  I ran behind the Gray Ghost and spotted a heavyset figure in a black hoodie between the vehicles. He ducked into the Hummer and shouted, “Go, man! Go!”

  The Hummer’s wheels squealed as it peeled out down the road. I chased after it for half a block, but it was gone. I put my hands on my knees, sucking air into my oxygen-starved lungs. Was this Volkov? Had he tracked me down somehow? My body shook with anger and fear in equal measure.

  When a hand pressed on my back, I whirled around with fists flying and caught Conor on the side of the head. I stopped myself before driving my knee into his groin.

  “Oy! At ease, soldier!” he joked, rubbing his temple.

  “Sorry, I . . .” I took a deep breath, trying to slow the pounding in my chest.

  “It’s all right. Ya get a plate number?”

  “I . . . yeah, it was LZ6 . . . um . . .” I struggled to picture it, but my mind went blank. “Crap, can’t remember the last three.”

  He put an arm around me. “Don’t worry, love. You all right?”

  “Just winded.” And pissed. And worried. “What were they doing?”

  Conor looked at me, grim faced. “You’re not gonna like it.”

  We walked back to my folks’ place, and I saw it in bloodred paint. The words Trany Faggit were spray-painted across the side of the Gray Ghost. The two driver’s-side tires were flat. “What the hell? Geez!”

  “So disappointing,” Conor said, shaking his head. “Ya’d think if they were going to vandalize someone’s ride, the silly buggers would learn how to spell.”

  “So not funny.” I glared at him.

  Jake came running out of the house. “Everything all right? I heard shouting and tires squealing.”

  I pointed at the side of my Pathfinder. “I’m okay. Can’t say the same for my truck.”

  “Damn! Who did this?”

  “Probably someone who read that damn article,” I said. Someone like Milo fucking Volkov. “Not sure how they tracked me to Mom and Dad’s.”

  “You want me to call the cops?”

  I thought about it. I needed to get to Becca’s. It was already Sunday afternoon. I only had another two days to find Holly. At the same time, I was worried the vandals might come back and do something serious to our folks. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s just that I got someplace to be.”

  “Leave it with me. I got a friend with a paint-and-body shop near Fifty-Ninth Avenue and Bethany Home Road,” Jake said. “I’m sure he can fix this for you. He owes me a favor for some work I did for him last year when a monsoon damaged his roof.”

  “What do I drive in the meantime?”

  Jake held out his keys. “Take mine.”

  “Yours? How will you haul lumber and equipment?”

  “I can handle being without it for a few days. Worse comes to worst, I’ll borrow Dad’s truck.”

  I gave him a squeeze. “Thanks, man.”

  “’Course, you’ll owe me.”

  A twisted smile spread across my face. “I knew there’d be a catch. Look, I’ll pay you when I get paid on this next job.”

  “I don’t need your money. You’re gonna work it off.” He smirked. “By the way, what ever happened to that Diamondbacks jersey I loaned you?”

  “Um, didn’t I give it back to you?” I asked. If I returned it with the collar sliced open, he’d never do me another favor.

  “No, you definitely did not.”

  “Huh, I’ll check around my place.” A serious concern chased away my levity. “Jake, when the cops get here, see if they can keep close watch on Mom and Dad, will ya? I’m worried whoever tagged my truck might come back.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, bro.” I hugged him. “And for God’s sake, tell them you’re gay. Before they set up poor Virginia Gottlieb, whoever she is, on a date that leads to nowhere land.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t think. Just do.”

  “Let me get my stuff out of my truck, and you two can head out.” He hustled off toward his Dodge Ram pickup. I grabbed my gear from the Gray Ghost.

  Moments later we swapped keys, and Conor and I drove to Becca’s.

  Becca answered the door a moment before I touched the doorbell. “Wow! Somebody really did a number on you.” Her energy level sounded low.

  “Yeah, you could say that. How’d you know we were here?”

  Becca offered a weak grin and pointed at a small white device mounted above the door. “Camera sends a feed to my tablet when the motion sensors are tripped.”

  “I should get something like that for my folks.”

  “They having problems with prowlers?” She led Conor and me to her dining room table on which sat three computer screens surrounded by a debris field of computer parts, empty cardboard boxes, dirty dishes, and discarded snack wrappers.

  I cleared off a chair and handed her the surveillance video thumb drive from the motel. “Just some asshole stalking me and spray-painting bigoted graffiti on my truck. I’m worried they may go after my folks.”

  “Boy, you pissed someone off.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. Say, listen, you think you can run these plate numbers for me?”

  “Plate numbers, plural?”

  “One for the van Holly’s riding in. Another for the asshole who vandalized my truck.”

  “Sure.” She opened an app on her computer and went through a series of mouse clicks and keystrokes. “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Motor Vehicle’s server is down for maintenance right now. I’ll try them later.”

  I gave her the license plate information I had for the two vehicles. “Any luck with the phones?”

  “I tried pinging Bonnie’s phone, but it’s off the grid for now. But not before calling one of those burners, which popped back up.” She pulled up a map on her computer, showing a red blinking dot at the Burton Barr Central Library , north of downtown Phoenix.

  “Is it near the library or in the library?” I asked. The last thing I needed was to have to go scouting around five floors.

  Becca zoomed in. “Hard to tell. Here, give me your phone.”

  “My phone?” I unlocked the screen and handed it to her.

  She clicked away, then handed it back to me. “It’s installing a locator app.”

  “Like the one you put on Conor’s and my phones before?”

  “The one I put on before will let you track each other’s phones. This new app will locate any phone based on a number. It’s accurate to within about five feet.”

  “Damn, I’m glad you’re on my team.”

  “Don’t get caught with that on your phone. Its legality is questionable.”

  “Good to know. Can we take a look at the surveillance footage?”

  Becca inserted the thumb drive into her desktop and pulled up a listing of six video files Miguel had saved on it. “Which one should I start with?”

  “The one called Elevator,” I replied.

  She opened the file, and the video began playing.

  “Go to sixteen hundred hours.”

  She zoomed ahead, and there was our guy, staring up into the camera in his shades. “Hello, Moto!” Becca said with a tired grin. “He’s kinda cute.”

  “Any chance you can run facial recognition on this bloke?” Conor
asked.

  “The sunglasses don’t help, but we might get some partial matches that could narrow it down. It’ll take some time.” She did a screen capture and uploaded the image to an online app.

  “How much time?” I asked.

  “This app compares the image against the major federal databases and Interpol. Should have results by tonight or tomorrow.”

  I sighed. “Becks, I need it right away.”

  “What do you want me to do, Jinx? Pull the answers out of my ass? It’ll take as long as it takes. I should be in bed. I really don’t have the spoons for this.”

  “Sorry. Get me what you can when you can. I’m sorry I got upset.”

  “No worries. I’ll call you when I have something else.”

  “Thanks, Becks! You’re the best.” I hugged her and turned to Conor. “All right, let’s go track down that burner at the library. See what we can find out.”

  33

  It was a short hop from Becca’s house to the Burton Barr library, a five-story building of glass and steel. The parking lot was filled with vehicles, as it often was on weekends. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted someone pulling out of a space. The truck’s dash said it was a hundred and five degrees outside. The less I had to walk in this heat, the better.

  I checked the app Becca had installed on my phone. “The burner shows as being on the library’s east side. Guess we’ll have to go floor by floor until we find it. Let’s gear up.”

  “Just leave the weapons behind,” Conor said.

  “Aw, you’re no fun,” I said with a smirk. I pulled the revolver from my ankle holster and locked it in the glove box along with my Ruger.

  When we reached the courtyard in front of the library’s entrance, I checked the locator app again. According to the map, the burner phone wasn’t in the building but about ten feet from it in the courtyard.

  “It’s right here,” I whispered to Conor, comparing the map to my surroundings.

  A dozen or so people sat on the low retaining walls on either side of the front door—a mixture of homeless people, college students, and skaters. Behind them, lantana, cacti, and other desert-tolerant plants grew in a xeriscape garden.

  “So where is it?” Conor asked, looking over my shoulder.

  I zoomed in as much as possible, then glanced at the people sitting along the north wall. “It appears to be one of them.” I nodded in that direction.

  We approached cautiously. Several people looked up, including one guy in his twenties with a hipster haircut, wearing a torn black hoodie. How he wasn’t melting from the heat in that hoodie, I’d never know.

  As soon as my gaze met his, he charged us and knocked me on my butt, sending my phone clattering to the ground. I regained my feet and hauled ass after the hipster. I had no idea who this wiseass was, but clearly he was involved. I wasn’t going to let him get away.

  He ran east past the employee lot and cut south toward Margaret T. Hance Park. I chased him over a small decorative wall lined with shrubs, then over a field of sun-scorched grass, turned west, and followed a paved walk toward the Central Avenue overpass.

  I was starting to lose steam when he tripped and tumbled onto the hard surface. I grabbed hold of his hoodie, pinned him on his stomach, and cuffed him. “Gotcha!” I said between gulps of air.

  “Get off me, you bitch. I ain’t done nothing.” He struggled to escape.

  “Where’s Holly?”

  “Jinx! Jinxie, stop!” Conor came up panting.

  “I don’t know anyone named Holly.”

  “Jinx, let the lad go. He’s not our guy.” He held up my phone. There was no red dot where we were. The red dot was still back by the library’s entrance.

  “Aw, crap.” I uncuffed the guy. “How come you ran?”

  “None of your damn business.” He stood up, examining a bloody hole in the elbow of his hoodie. “Shit. See what you did?”

  “Sorry.” God, I hate being wrong.

  The kid flipped me a double bird as he backed away. “Kiss my ass, you stupid bitch.”

  “Well, that could have gone better.” I fanned my face on our walk to the library. “Geez Louise, could it get any damn hotter?” My head was throbbing again.

  Conor handed me my phone when we reached the library courtyard. The people sitting on the walls had cleared out. I guessed our little stunt was too much drama for them. But the burner phone was still showing here. “This doesn’t make any sense. Where’s the goddamned burner? No one’s here.”

  I looked on the other side of the north wall into the flower bed and caught a reflection of something shiny. I reached down and picked up a black-and-silver flip phone.

  “Clever girl!” Conor clapped me on the back.

  “Yeah, but who had it?” I tried to recall the faces of the people sitting on the wall, but it was a blur.

  “No tellin’.”

  I opened the phone and pulled up the call history. I recognized Bonnie’s phone number on some earlier calls, but there were different numbers on the more recent ones. I was tempted to punch the numbers in the locator app, but I had no idea who they might belong to. Wouldn’t do us any good to go chasing after dead ends. “Maybe Becca can get something off the call history that can point us in the right direction.”

  We returned to my brother’s pickup, and I cranked up the AC full blast. As I put the truck in gear, my phone rang. I put it back in Park and checked the caller ID, hoping it was Becca with more leads.

  Instead, it was my friend Izzie Quiñones, owner of a women’s bar called L Street on Camelback, just east of Twelfth Street. Izzie’s wife, Chelsea, was a friend of mine from the Phoenix Gender Alliance.

  “What’s up, Izzie?”

  “Remember those flyers you dropped off a week or so ago, looking for Mandy Tipton?”

  Another one of Liberty’s fugitives. She’d jumped bail on charges of theft and trafficking in stolen property. “You know where she is?”

  “Sitting at my bar, throwing back tequila shots, and getting uglier by the minute. You want this chick, come get her. Otherwise I’m cutting her off and calling her a cab.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “Good, ’cause she’s chasing away all my regulars. Sunday afternoons are slow enough as is.”

  “Be right there. And thanks for calling.” I hung up and tossed the phone to Conor. “Change in plans, babe. One of Liberty’s fugitives is getting shit-faced at my friend Izzie’s bar.”

  Conor chuckled. “That makes two so far. Big Bobby’s going to have a shite fit. Ya sure he’ll pay ya?”

  “He better. Even if he doesn’t, I doubt he’ll pay Fiddler, and that’s its own reward. Because screw Fiddler.”

  “Aye! Screw Fiddler!”

  34

  I pulled up to L Street’s front door. “Wait here,” I told Conor. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Ya don’t want me to come in with ya?”

  “Izzie’s not too fond of men in her bar.” I shrugged. “Besides, I think I can handle a drunk. You can cuff her once we get outside, if you like.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I walked inside past a rack of queer-friendly magazines by the door. The Pink Trinket’s “Singing Mammogram” played on the sound system, and the hoppy scent of beer filled the air.

  Izzie stood behind the bar with a blond mullet haircut showing darker roots, particularly on the shaved sides. Her black cutoff T-shirt read I Kiss Girls in lavender letters. I figured she was in her mid-to-late forties.

  “’Sup?” she asked.

  “Someone called for an Uber ride?”

  Izzie grinned. We’d played this game before. She pointed at the hunched-over brunette a couple of seats over. “Hey, Mandy, your ride’s here.”

  Mandy raised her head. She had a drawn face and track marks on the inside of both elbows. She opened her eyes to a squint. “I didn’t call for no ride.”

  “Sorry, chica,” Izzie said. “Gotta cut you off, and you’re too drunk to drive
. I want you to get home safe.”

  “Cut me off? Shit! I ain’t drunk. Goddamn, bulldagger.” She started to slide off her barstool.

  I caught her. “Easy there, princess. Let me get you home. I won’t even charge you for the ride.”

  Her face was inches from mine. She looked up at me and smiled. “You won’t? You’re kinda cute, you know it?”

  I forced a smile despite the wave of tequila breath and the cigarette smoke assaulting my nostrils. “Thanks. Come on. I’ll help you into my truck.” I gave a quick glance to Izzie and mouthed “Thank you.”

  I pushed open the door, and the furious summer heat rushed us like a flash fire.

  “Damn!” Mandy flinched and almost slipped out of my grip. “So hot.”

  “Don’t worry. I left the AC running.”

  She turned to me, giving me a drunken seductive look. “No, I mean you, sweetie. You’re hot. I wanna take you to bed.” She put an arm on my shoulder and leaned in, or fell, to kiss me.

  “Sorry, sweet cheeks, I’m taken.” I spun her around and opened the back door of Jake’s pickup truck. Conor slipped behind her and snapped the cuffs on.

  “What the hell?”

  “Mandy Tipton, you failed to appear at your court date. Your bail bond agent hired me to return you to custody.” I tried to help her into the truck, but she started to buck and kick away at the step.

  “I ain’t going back to jail. You said you were taking me home.” She snapped her head back and caught me on the nose. I once again saw stars as a shock wave of pain traveled through my skull.

  “Fuck!” I grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face against the side of the truck.

  “Ow! You’re burning me.”

  I pulled her away from the hot metal, slightly, but kept my grip on her. “Settle down, or I’ll put you face-first on the pavement. You understand me?”

  She stopped struggling and hung her head and sobbed. “Please don’t send me back to jail. I didn’t do nothing. I just needed money.”