Casting the Dice
Page 22
“He’s supposed to be home.” Hal, his younger brother, stood behind him on the middle riser of the front steps.
A curtain twitched.
Jack waited. When nothing more happened he strode to the edge of the porch. A used toilet decorated the weedy strip leading to a rusted car up on blocks in the back yard. A chain link fence bounded the property, low enough to hurdle. “He could be doing a runner out the back.”
For some reason hordes of criminals were skipping their court dates this September, giving him and his brothers’ Big Easy Bounty Hunters a truckload of business. Could be the heat. Could be the constant threat of hurricanes. Could be some misalignment of the stars. But nothing excused criminal behavior.
“I see him,” Hal yelled from the opposite side of the house.
Jack pounded down the steps and raced after him to the back fence. “Where?”
On the other side, a skinny man in a red T-shirt looked back and stumbled over some crab grass.
“Stop.” Jack hollered. “Don’t make this hard.”
Hal vaulted the fence. The skip glanced over his shoulder again and charged through a wooden side gate. The commotion brought the neighbor lady to her screen door.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Jack made a mat of the honeysuckle vines on the fence and hoisted himself over. “Gotta catch a criminal. Have a good day.”
He rushed after his brother and stopped. At the opposite end of the side yard, their skip disappeared through another gate, but a snarling dog stood in their way.
Jack liked dogs fine, just not ones with sharp teeth and a bad attitude.
A wire structure stood next to the house. Jack jumped over the animal and ran to the cage. By the time he had the cage door unlatched, the canine was rushing after him and went straight inside. Hal secured the door, and they raced out to the sidewalk.
Hal pointed down the street. “Red shirt.”
They cornered the fugitive three blocks later next to a drugstore dumpster. Hal pinned his arms behind him, and Jack clamped on the cuffs. “John Harley Schmidt?”
“That’s not my name.”
“Then you must have gotten a face implant.” Jack showed him his booking photo and flashed his warrant. “You’re under arrest.”
The skip put up a fight, flinging feet and curses left and right, but between the two of them, they got him into Jack’s Cherokee and down to central lockup before the sun set.
Half-hour later, Jack dropped his brother at the house and was on his way to the levee for a run when his cell rang.
“I need to ask a favor.”
“Anything.” Jack pulled to the curb and tugged the elastic from his ponytail, ready to listen to what Martin Howell, the bail bondsman who employed Big Easy Bounty Hunters, had to say. He owed the man his life, after all. “Just say the word.”
“I need you to keep an eye on a potential skip so you can nab him as soon as he’s a no-show. I don’t know why I bonded him because I got a gut feeling he’s going to flee.”
Jack ran a hand through his damp hair. “Who is it?”
“Name of Wes Crain. He’s a nationally-known music promoter. Judge wanted to set an example and made his bond high. It would pay a good bounty.”
“The money’s not an issue. If you need me to do this, I will.” Jack opened the glove compartment and confirmed he had a GPS tracker. “Give me his address.”
Jack parked in the shadows of a live oak a few minutes later and scouted the layout. Crain’s house occupied a corner lot on upper St. Charles Avenue. Evening rush hour traffic roared along fifty feet away, but on this side street, all was peaceful.
On the way he’d had one of his brothers research Crain’s vehicles. The man owned a Lincoln, and one with his license plate occupied his drive. Bingo.
A dark-haired woman, late-twenties, came out the mansion’s door with a big shoulder bag and headed to the unoccupied compact Chevy on the opposite curb. Jack rested the GPS tracker on his thigh and moved deeper into the shadows to wait.
A sedan whipped off the avenue, passed him and the woman and stopped. A scruffy hippie type burst from the passenger side, rushing toward the woman with a hand in a pocket.
Jack knew exactly what to do, and it had to be done immediately. There was no time to even glance toward his cargo space with his ballistic vest.
The junkie thrust his pocket forward, the muzzle of a gun outlined against the material. He was reaching his other hand for the shoulder bag when Jack rushed up. “Let me see your gun.”
The kid swung the muzzle his way, right on cue. “You can give me yo’ money, too.”
“Hey, I know you, don’t I?” Jack frowned as if searching his memory and eased a hand into his pocket to find the loose bills he always carried. “What would your grandma think if she saw you robbing someone right now?”
The junkie stared, his mouth hanging open. The hand reaching for the bag dropped to his side, but he held the gun steady. Aimed right at Jack’s heart. “That’s who I need the money for. Her meds, ya know. She got to have her meds.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
Confusion flashed across the kid’s sweaty face. “I did.”
His leg jittered, though, and he checked over his shoulder at the running car.
Jack eased in front of the woman and tossed forty dollars to the ground. “There should be enough money there, but first I want to see your gun on the sidewalk.”
“I don’t have no gun.”
Exactly. “I need to see what you have. Put it down.”
The kid’s hand came out of the pocket with a glass bottle he tossed onto the lawn.
“Go get grandma’s meds and stay away from drugs.”
“I don’t do drugs.” The kid scooped up the bills and raced back to his open door.
Within seconds, the car had vanished. The air cleared of exhaust, and the tension meter returned to zero.
The woman stared at him, black lashes making her blue eyes appear even larger against her pale face.
He slid his gaze over hair streaked with purple to a pretty mouth, vaguely aware of the loose white blouse and jeans hugging shapely legs. “You all right, ma’am?”
She nodded, still obviously shaky. “W-why didn’t you arrest him?”
“I’m not a police officer.”
Any longer. Which suited him to a T. But he still ran toward the trouble instead of away.
“You just have a death wish.”
“Not to my knowledge, but I’ve seen the fake gun in the pocket trick a few times.” He lifted his chin toward the Chevy. “This your car?”
“Yeah.” She clicked a key fob, and the car lights flashed.
“I’ll wait here until you get your doors locked. Take care driving home.”
Also by Sue Ward Drake
Hear No Evil
About the Author
Award-winning author, Sue Ward Drake, loves using her experiences living in a farmhouse in Greece and her years in the French Quarter as fuel for her stories as often as possible. She writes thrillers and romantic suspense and speaks at conferences on writing suspense and disabilities. For news of the next thrilling Big Easy Brothers romantic suspense, visit SueWardDrake.com.
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