Wanted by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  Of course, the daydreams were substantially different now.

  She brought me the list, and I folded it twice and stuck it into an inside pocket of my coat. Frances and I chatted about her grandson, who was gay, and her worries that he’d never find a nice guy and settle down.

  “What about you?” She tapped the side of her nose. “Now’s the time. Get out of this bounty hunting stuff before it turns you bitter. You’re in the prime of your life, but you’re not getting any younger.”

  “I’m twenty-four!”

  “Which isn’t as fresh as twenty-one.”

  I stared at her, open-mouthed. Frances wasn’t mean, but she spoke her mind, which meant she was always saying something that made me want to slit my wrists. She’d told me once that because my parents were divorced, I didn’t have good guidance. Frances believed that women needed to focus on trapping a man through whatever means necessary so they could settle down and start squeezing out kids. Ostensibly this was based on her regrets about not sleeping with some guy when she was twenty. He then proceeded to bed and finally marry a woman he didn’t love. He’d died young, but not before confessing to Frances that she was the love of his life.

  It would have been heartbreaking if it were true, but Mary Lou, who had retired the year before, confided to me that Frances had eloped with her high school sweetheart the week after graduation and that they’d had a long and happy marriage until his heart attack.

  “I’ll have you know that I have a date tonight,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you’re bribing me with cookies? You want me to give you advice?” She wiggled her drawn-on eyebrows, and I had to bite the inside of my mouth to stop from cracking up. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Henry Heigh. Doubt you know him.”

  She looked at me as if I were crazy. “Why wouldn’t I know him? And why on Earth are you going out with a guy like him?”

  Uh-oh. “What’s wrong with Henry?”

  “What’s wrong with him?” she repeated, her tone making it clear that the question boggled her mind. “He’s handsome, I’ll admit that. A real charmer when he wants to be. He’s like gum.”

  I frowned. “Sticky?”

  “You ever chew five-cent bubblegum? That’s Henry Heigh. Looks appealing, but pretty soon the fake color and flavor fade and your jaw hurts. Smart girl with those nice green eyes? You can do better than him.” The phone rang, and she went off, shaking her head in dismay.

  It was official. My choice of date made lonely old women feel sorry for me. Though if she had known about Corbin, she would probably fall to her knees and beg me to marry Henry before he got away.

  I waved goodbye, then drove to the office to write my report on the night before. The reports made me crazy. My father had come up with this four-page form, and if I didn’t get it filed within 24 hours, he would do something unfair, like misplace my next paycheck for however long it took me to comply with procedures.

  If I complained, which I didn’t do anymore because I made sure to fill out the damned forms, he would say something flippant about how he thought we were an office that didn’t respect rules.

  Yes, my dad was kind of a dick. In his defense, he’d succeeded in a difficult business. Had to respect that, but I still daydreamed that he’d retire to Mexico sometime soon.

  No one else was in the office, which wasn’t unusual for a Saturday morning. Kat had gone through another breakup which meant she’d be calling out of work for a few days and moping around the house. Rob would likely arrive after lunch. He would argue that he came in right after he finished breakfast. And we would both be right.

  Perhaps if I lived in a nice, overpriced condo, like Rob did, and not in a dark, dank and depressing—but affordable—hovel, I’d spend more time at home, too.

  I finished filling out the last form and tossed it onto my dad’s desk instead of sticking it in the file. Dad would want to know that we were splitting the bounty with Heigh. It had been a good negotiation on my part, but my father would probably think that if I were a man, I could have wrestled Henry for it.

  Time for my reward. I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and pulled out the list, unfolding it slowly.

  There he was, still in the top position. Corbin Lagos. Considered armed and dangerous. Speaks four languages. May be using an alias. Quite probably out of the country. Wanted for murder, conspiracy and theft. 30 years old. Blue eyes. Dark brown hair. 6’3”.

  It was always a bit surreal to see him reduced to a handful of words. And his eyes weren’t blue. They were an alarmingly vivid blue-green that could turn a woman’s panties sopping wet at fifty paces.

  When I went after Corbin, I hadn’t gotten the full list of his crimes, just the name, a black-and-white picture, and the bounty amount. “Various crimes,” it had said.

  There was no new information, which I already knew because I had a crappy, slow computer at home that I used to look up the list daily. Same photo, too. “You haven’t aged a bit,” I said. I slid the paper back into my pocket.

  The door opened and Rob walked in, his nose and ears Rudolph-red from the cold. “Who were you talking to?”

  “None of your beeswax.”

  He stomped the muddy snow off his boots, adjusted his glasses, and trudged to his desk. “You get Jones last night?”

  “Kinda. Henry Heigh was there.”

  He frowned. “Oh, that guy. Shouldn’t he be retired?”

  “He’s not that old,” I said, sounding a little too defensive.

  Rob didn’t respond because he didn’t give a crap, but the damage was done. My soft spot for the underdog was starting to kick in, though. Now I couldn’t cancel the date without wondering if I was being shallow. Rob looked through the messy pile of papers on his desk. “Damn. I can’t find my—”

  “No.”

  “But I didn’t even—”

  “Exactly. Do your own work.” I put on my coat and went out.

  My dad was in the parking lot. His bloodshot eyes briefly met mine, a dour smile tightening his lips. I couldn’t help but notice that the T-shirt under his unzipped parka was stretched drum-tight over his midsection. He’d permanently put on a bit of weight each time he remarried, but until recently he’d carried it well. I worried about his arteries. Martha, the current and hopefully final wife, called him her big teddy bear. She liked to cook him huge slabs of meat, and she handed him a beer when he walked in the door after a long day at work. My mother, on the other hand, had taken up running when she remarried, and only ate organic foods with ingredients she could pronounce.

  “Rob’s here,” I said as we passed.

  He patted his dark curly hair, which was now shot with gray. “I can see his car,” he said. He managed to make it just condescending enough where I felt stupid, but not so much that I could call him out for being a dick.

  Anyone else would have worried that he’d gone too far, but not my father. It wouldn’t even cross his mind that I was upset. I drove off without another word.

  After picking up groceries for the week, I went home. I added the Most Wanted list to the stack. It was turning into a real Corbin Lagos shrine. All I needed was a black candle and some chicken blood, and I might be able to summon him.

  Hm. I wondered if any modern day bounty hunter had tried black magic to track a fugitive. Knowing how superstitious some of them were, it wouldn’t surprise me.

  Even though I had absolutely no intention of bringing Mr. I-don’t-put-out-on-the-first-date home, I found myself cleaning. After two hours, the place looked different, though not necessarily better. With the bags of recycling and trash taken out—a real chore in the winter when the landlord didn’t bother to shovel the icy concrete walkway to the back of the building—what might have been a small but passably livable basement apartment was revealed in all its hideous splendor.

  I thought about Corbin’s house. Or whoever’s house it was. If I didn’t mind accepting comfort of shady origins, I could have stayed
there as long as I wanted. It was large and sunny and perfectly decorated.

  It was time to shower and meet my platonic date.

  Henry wore tight, faded black jeans and a windbreaker with a bulky, cable-knit sweater underneath. “Don’t you have a coat?” I asked, though I had to admit he looked sexy in a rugged, outdoorsy way.

  He smiled. “I’ve never been bothered by the cold. My family’s Scandinavian.”

  “Is that Latin for polar bear?”

  He gave me a puzzled look. Note to self. No bad jokes for Heigh.

  The hostess came to seat us, and Henry insisted that we get one of the tables in the window. “I want everyone to see how pretty my date is,” he told her with a wink.

  I managed not to roll my eyes. The hostess walked away, and Henry leaned over, sending a whiff of expensive but tasteful aftershave in my direction. “Hope I didn’t embarrass you. The other tables get banged into a lot. Sitting here, you don’t have people walking past every thirty seconds.” Flashing that incredible smile, he opened his menu. I mentally added one point to the “considering this a date” column.

  The food was as yummy as I remembered. I didn’t eat out much. It was pricey, and I had a list of things I didn’t like. Luckily, Chinese food agreed with me, which was strange because most people said that you couldn’t know what was really in it. Things like that tended to freak me out. But veggie fried rice and a greasy egg roll were too delicious to pass up.

  Henry handled his chopsticks expertly, like they were extensions of his graceful fingers. I would have given him another point, but then it occurred to me that he picked that restaurant because he wanted to show off. Showing off chopsticks skills? That would be negative ten points. Not that I was seriously considering him as boyfriend material. It was more of a self-evaluation. What did I want in a man? A relationship? Or maybe not a relationship so much as lots of fucking one hot, attentive lover. In that case, it was good to know about Henry’s nimble fingers.

  By the time I finished my Mai Tai, I was starting to enjoy myself. It wasn’t the drink—which probably contained, at most, an eyedropper of alcohol. Henry was easy to talk to. He gave thoughtful answers to my questions, and he asked questions of his own, but he always backed away when I was reluctant to talk about something. Like my nonexistent dating life, for example.

  “How often do you go after the big bounties?” I asked.

  He helped himself to a bite of my fried rice. “I’ve had a few,” he said, “but generally, they’re too expensive. By the time you get done paying everyone off…” He shrugged. “And the government expects quite a bit of proof. If you bring them in, they stall. If you pass along a tip, they figure a way to screw you out of it.”

  “What was your biggest bounty?”

  “Enzo Funetti. I was part of Mundo Trackers then, but he was mine.”

  “No way! I remember hearing about that on the radio after the sixth grade spelling bee.”

  “Sixth grade? How can you be so sure?”

  “It was the only year that I qualified for Regionals, and my brother asked if I could spell Funetti. I can’t believe you were the one who caught him. He tried to jump off a bridge, right? I always imagined you catching him at the moment he let go. Like in a movie.”

  “Tackled him before he made it to the railing. I’m surprised you remember something like that.”

  “I was completely obsessed until I hit puberty. Even my dolls carried handcuffs.” The words slipped out before I could consider them. In the silence that followed, Henry and I looked everywhere but at each other, neither voicing the sudden awareness of the discrepancy in our ages. I didn’t have a bias against older men thanks to an obsession with James Bond movies. And Henry was sophisticated and charming. He even projected a little of that amused, world-weary cynicism.

  A beeping sound almost made me jump out of my chair. “It’s my watch,” he said, pulling up a sleeve to reveal a hulking plastic contraption. “I’m wearing it ironically,” he said, standing.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Gotta feed the meter. Order something for dessert, and we’ll share.”

  I toyed with the laminated menu in the middle of the table and tried to have a serious talk with myself. Henry was nice, and despite what Frances seemed to think, not at all boring. I wasn’t attracted to him, though I’d heard that sometimes that comes later.

  Under different conditions, would Henry have me blushing and squirming in my chair?

  Henry returned, his ears and nose completely red, the rest of his face shockingly pale. “Windy out there. What’d you pick?”

  “Red bean ice cream, but the waiter didn’t come by.”

  “Great choice. You have good taste.” He instantly flagged down the waiter, who mumbled something as he rushed by.

  I slowly tilted my head, considering. Henry was attractive. He seemed stable. Logical. Trustworthy. “You ever kill anyone?”

  He leaned an elbow on the table and propped his head on it. “Yes.” Despite his casual demeanor, tension thickened his voice. “When I was a police officer.”

  I blinked. “You were a cop? I didn’t know that.”

  “Not surprising. It didn’t last long.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “I was helping my brother study for the police exam, and somewhere along the way I realized that it might be a good career for me.”

  “I meant the shooting.”

  “Oh.” He smiled. “Sorry, I was distracted. First date with a pretty girl can do that to a man.”

  Gulp. Luckily, the waiter returned, and Henry ordered two scoops of green tea ice cream. I didn’t bother to tell him that I’d wanted red bean.

  “I didn’t shoot anyone. It was a car chase. The suspect lost control, went through the windshield. He was only seventeen. A nerdy kid who carjacked a classmate on a dare, though we didn’t know that detail until later. When I got to him, the side of his head was bashed in like a partially deflated soccer ball.” Henry fell quiet.

  The waiter placed a silver dish of ice cream between us.

  “That’s hardly your fault,” I said.

  Henry shook his head, blinking away the memories. “I sat with him until the ambulance arrived. He regained consciousness only once, and he was terrified. Every millisecond of that is engraved in my memory.” Henry handed me a spoon. “I shouldn’t have been chasing him. I was a rookie, headstrong and out to prove something. There was disciplinary action, more of a slap on the wrist, but I knew I was wrong. I had nightmares.”

  “That’s heavy.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. I was only twenty-two at the time. Not equipped to deal with something like that. If I’d gotten therapy, I might have made it. Instead, I quit. I don’t like to talk about it,” he said. “Ask me something else.”

  “How old are you?”

  He smiled uncomfortably and looked at his hands, and I instantly felt bad.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” I added quickly. “Was just curious.”

  “Forty-six.” He looked up at me, loneliness and hope warring in his eyes.

  “Oh. I thought you were thirty-eight or so.” Geez. He was only five years younger than my parents. That was not a pleasant connection for so many reasons.

  “I do 150 pushups every day,” he said, flashing his dazzling smile.

  Feeling guilty, I leaned over the table to squeeze his arm. “Wow.” I wasn’t exaggerating. He had serious muscles underneath that sweater, and even though I still wasn’t attracted to him, my body was warming. When I looked up into his brown eyes, I felt my cheeks heating and quickly glanced away.

  “Had a six-pack until two years ago. The secret is low body fat. You can do all the crunches in the world, but if you’ve got fat on your gut, no one will ever see that muscle. Wanna arm wrestle?”

  Laughing, I pretended to slam my arm on the table. Without any hesitation, Henry wrapped his fingers around mine, his hand surprisingly warm. How long had it been since I touched a man who wa
sn’t a deadbeat? Not since Corbin.

  “Ready. Set. Go!” He slammed my arm back before I had a chance to try.

  “Rematch, cheater.”

  By the time we finished dessert, I was glad I’d come out. Henry probably wasn’t the love of my life, and he definitely wasn’t coming home with me for the night—I wasn’t quite ready to abolish Corbin in that way—but he wasn’t a bad guy. Plus it was nice to talk to someone who already knew the business.

  We stood in the vestibule while I wound my scarf around my neck. “Thanks for dinner,” I said as he walked me to my car. “If someone was going to poach my bounty, I’m thrilled it was you.” I smiled warmly, opened the door, and slid inside.

  “Likewise.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek before I could react, then he closed the door and stepped back.

  Hm. Maybe he didn’t feel sparks, either. In which case… in which case, I had a new friend.

  I liked that idea. Audrey. Not a popular woman, but at least she had a male friend who wasn’t a relative. They could put it on my tombstone and it would be true.

  When I arrived home, I didn’t look at Corbin’s phone. I knew I would in the morning, but just once I wanted to fall asleep without feeling like a pathetic little girl pining for someone who had forgotten all about her.

  Henry called me on Wednesday. “Looks like I’m free this weekend,” he said. “Remember that Russian movie I told you about?”

  “Sure,” I found myself saying. We made plans to see it the next night, and when Henry offered to pick me up, I agreed. He wasn’t exactly a stranger, and given that I hadn’t heard from him since Saturday, I felt confident that we were on the same wavelength.

  He rang the doorbell exactly on time. He wore a long, sophisticated wool coat. His hair was a little messy. Overall, he looked good.

  “Come in,” I said, opening the door. “Gotta do something really fast. Three minutes.” My brother had misplaced some information and needed me to forward my copy.