Hell on Heels

by Carla Cassidy

  She didn’t care about the fee that she’d have earned for delivering Wesley Baker. Money wasn’t the reason she’d gone into this business in the first place. What bothered her more than anything was Luke’s assessment that she was in over her head.

  By the time Mary had worked her magic, Chantal had managed to put Luke Coleman out of her mind. She left Mimi’s feeling rejuvenated. After a fast lunch at a nearby restaurant, she headed for Big Joey’s to see whose mug shot had made it to his wall of shame.

  Big Joey’s Bail Bonds was located in downtown Kansas City, three blocks from the city square that held the court house, the police station and various other government buildings.

  On top of the flat, one-story business, a neon sign—as gaudy as that on any Vegas casino—flashed, despite the brightness of the afternoon.

  At this time of the day the heat radiated up in fierce waves from the blacktop parking lot, intensifying the scent of motor oil and rotting garbage that permeated the area.

  Chaos ruled the front office. Chantal had never been in the place when the desk wasn’t littered with mounds of papers and fast-food wrappers, the phones weren’t ringing off the hook and the scent of burnt coffee, sweat and fear didn’t saturate the place.

  A large bulletin board sporting mug shots of the people who had jumped bail and not made their court appearances covered one wall. Skips, as they were referred to in the business, were the people Chantal and her fellow bail-enforcement agents hunted.

  Monica Hyatt sat behind the only desk in the room and she waggled two fingers in greeting at Chantal as she continued talking into the phone. As usual, she wasn’t the only one in the room.

  Two other bounty hunters played cards at a table in the corner and a pizza-delivery boy stood impatiently waiting for somebody to pay him for the pizzas that teetered precariously on the edge of Monica’s desk.

  “Hey, Carol,” James Walker, one of the card players, greeted her. “Heard Coleman trumped you Saturday night.” He and Brian Cooke, the other card player, laughed.

  “I’m glad you two are so amused,” she replied and walked over to the wall to see if any new photos had been put up since Friday when she’d last been in the office. There were two and she pulled a notepad from her purse and wrote down their names and all the pertinent information about their crimes.

  “Honey, I’d never have done anything like that to you,” James said.

  Chantal raised one of her blond eyebrows to gaze at the older man. “James, you’d cuff your own mother and bring her in if you thought a fee was involved.”

  She turned back to Monica and motioned toward the inner-office door. “Is he in?” she mouthed. Monica nodded and indicated she should go on in. Chantal knocked on the door, then pushed it open.

  Big Joey Barlow stood less than five feet tall and weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, but he had the attitude, the aggression and the guts of a man four times his size. The biggest mistake people made with Joey was to underestimate him because of his stature.

  “Just turn yourself in, Pete,” Joey said into the phone as he gestured Chantal into a chair in front of his desk. “If I have to send one of my people after you I can’t guarantee things won’t get ugly.”

  As Joey alternately cajoled and threatened whoever was on the receiving end of the call, Chantal sank into the chair opposite the desk and waited.

  In the eight months that Chantal had been working for Joey she’d found him to be a generous, kind man unless you crossed him, then all bets were off.

  “Just get your ass in here,” Joey yelled into the receiver, then slammed it down and grabbed a bottle of antacid tablets from the desktop. He popped two of the chalky tablets into his mouth and chewed feverishly.

  “Some days I think I should get out of this business, sell it and spend the rest of my days living on a beach somewhere and sipping drinks with those pretty little umbrellas stuck in them.”

  Chantal smiled at her boss. “You’d go crazy with boredom within a month and use one of those umbrella toothpicks to put yourself out of your misery.”

  He laughed. “You’re probably right. This business is in my blood.” He reared back in his chair and gazed at her with his intelligent brown eyes. “So, you in here to bitch?”

  She frowned. “Why would I bitch?”

  “Two words. Luke Coleman.”

  Chantal sighed in exasperation. “What did the man do? Take an ad out in the paper?”

  “He came in here Saturday night and explained to me what had happened so I’d have a heads-up if you had a beef.”

  Chantal bristled with irritation. “I’m not a crybaby or a tattletale. I’d had no intention of even mentioning it to you,” she replied.

  “If I thought you were either, I wouldn’t have hired you,” Joey replied.

  “I just wanted to check in. I see we’ve got a couple of new glamour shots on the wall.”

  “Yeah, mostly penny-ante stuff.” Joey pulled a big cigar from his top desk drawer. He stuck it into his mouth, but didn’t light it. “I’m much more interested in a phone call I got a little while ago from my source close to the DA’s office.”

  Chantal leaned forward. “About what?”

  Joey frowned and his eyes narrowed, giving him a dangerous look that only a fool would fail to see. “According to my source, Marcus Willowby failed to make his noon check-in with the authorities.”

  Chantal checked her watch. “But that was over an hour ago.”

  “Nothing official has come down. His lawyer is supposedly on top of it. He’s sure it’s nothing more than a monitor glitch of some kind.”

  “You’ll let me know what you find out?”

  “Honey, if that pervert tries to skip out on me, I’ll call in every bounty hunter I know, every marker I’m owed, to see that bastard’s balls tied to the highest tree.” There was a soft menace in his tone, a menace that made her believe all the rumors she’d heard about him.

  Joey leaned back in his chair and his frown deepened. “I didn’t feel good about this from the very beginning. I should have told them to go to another bail bondsman.”

  “Why did they have to use a bail bondsman at all?” she asked. “I thought the Willowbys had more money than Trump.”

  “Just because you got a lot of money on paper doesn’t mean you have a lot of ready cash. Willowby was arrested on a Saturday night and apparently he couldn’t get his hands on ready cash right away. He didn’t want to spend a minute in jail so he contacted me. And now this.” He scowled.

  “Has any of this made the local news?” she asked as her thoughts shifted to Belinda. If her friend got wind of this, she’d be beyond distraught.

  “I don’t know, but I’d doubt it, since nothing official has been announced yet.”

  Chantal stood. “I’ve got to run. Let me know as soon as you know anything about Willowby.”

  “Will do,” Joey replied.

  Minutes later as Chantal drove toward home, she thought of the man who was her boss. Rumor had it that years ago Joey had been engaged to a beautiful woman. A week before their wedding she was killed by a drunk driver who had half a dozen DUI arrests on his record. Joey went crazy. He hunted the man down and three days later beat him to death with his bare hands.

  Joey went to prison for ten years. With his physical stature alone, prison should have been hell for the man, but Joey had not only survived, he’d thrived. He’d come out of prison with a zeal to right the wrongs of his past, and thus Big Joey’s Bail Bonds was born.

  Before Chantal had gotten into bounty hunting, she, like so many others, had a romanticized view of the business. She’d thought bounty hunters were honorable men fighting for justice and righting the wrongs of an inadequate legal system.

  In truth it was a business shadowed with darkness. Perhaps there were some honorable men, but there were also men drawn to bounty hunting by their own propensity for violence and power and control.

  By the time she pulled into her driveway her thoughts we
re back on Belinda. She knew the emotional investment Belinda had in seeing Marcus Willowby tried and convicted for his crimes. She also knew Belinda had no support system other than Chantal.

  Belinda was the cliché of the poor little rich girl. She had no siblings and her parents had always been more interested in traveling than in their only daughter. Belinda had been raised by a variety of nannies and had never connected with the people who had given her life.

  Sometimes Chantal thought Belinda had been drawn to her because of the relationship Chantal had with her own parents. Katherine and Sam, while he’d been alive, were loving, caring people who always had time for their only child.

  Belinda had loved spending time at Chantal’s house when they’d been growing up, and she’d mourned the death of Sam almost as deeply as Chantal and her mother had.

  Chantal and Belinda had spent many hours discussing the differences between their parents. Belinda insisted that she thought it was because her parents had been born wealthy and Chantal’s parents had made their money.

  Inside the house, Chantal went directly to her office. She sat behind her desk and turned on the television with the remote control. She channel-surfed, seeking any news report on the Willowby trial.

  Since the case had gone to the jury late Friday afternoon. Marcus wouldn’t have been required to show up in court today unless a verdict had come down. However, he was required to wear a monitoring device and check in with the authorities at specific predetermined times during the day and evening.

  There could be a hundred innocent reasons why he had missed his noon check-in or there could be one reason why he hadn’t…and that was because he’d run.

  When she found nothing on the news, she turned on her computer and went to the Web site devoted to the trial. It was run by a group that identified itself only as Women Against Rape and had sprung to life the day after Willowby had been arrested.

  The headline across the first page read: Willowby on the Run?

  The provocative headline wasn’t substantiated by the blurb beside it, which indicated only that Willowby had missed a check-in and his lawyer had assured the authorities it was some sort of technological glitch. She shut down the computer, picked up the phone and dialed Belinda’s number.

  Margaret, the Carlyles’ housekeeper, answered the phone on the second ring. “Hi, Margaret, it’s Chantal. Is Belinda there?”

  “Ms. Belinda is resting.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Belinda to nap during the day, but Chantal needed to speak to her friend, needed to find out if Belinda had gotten word about Willowby. “Could you get her on the phone? I really need to speak with her.”

  “Just a moment.”

  Chantal tapped her sculptured nails on the top of her desk as she waited for Belinda, hoping that her friend hadn’t seen the Web site, had no idea that there was even the most remote possibility that Willowby had fled the jurisdiction.

  “Ms. Chantal, I can’t get her awake and there’s an empty pill bottle next to her bed.” Margaret’s voice held a frightening urgency.

  “Call 911 and tell them to take her to St. Luke’s! I’ll be there as soon as possible.” Damn. The minute Big Joey had told her about Willowby’s missed check-in, she’d been afraid that Belinda might get word of it and do something stupid.

  Chantal jumped out of her chair, grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

  As she drove to St. Luke’s Hospital, her heart beat a frantic rhythm. This wasn’t the first time Belinda had done something stupid. Twice before she’d taken an overdose of pills.

  “Damn it, Belinda,” she murmured. The thought of losing her created an ache inside Chantal’s chest. Belinda was more sister than friend. Belinda was the keeper of secrets, Chantal’s partner in joy and sorrow and she couldn’t imagine not having her best friend in her life.

  By the time Chantal arrived at the hospital, Belinda had already been taken into the emergency room. “I’m here for Belinda Carlyle,” Chantal said to the receptionist.

  “And you are?”

  “Her sister, Chantal.” She knew the only way to get information was to pose as an immediate family member.

  “If you’ll just have a seat in the waiting room I’ll let them know you’re here.”

  Chantal sank into one of the chairs and tried to still the rapid beat of her heart. Thank God she’d decided to call Belinda. She prayed they had found her in time.

  “Nine-hundred-count sheets, anything by Armani, chocolate-covered strawberries.” As the stress built up inside her, she began her mantra beneath her breath.

  She wanted to wring Belinda’s neck, kick her in her butt, and pull her against her heart and make her swear she’d never do anything like this again.

  What if Chantal hadn’t called her? What if Margaret hadn’t gone into the bedroom? What if…what if…Those kinds of thoughts could eat you alive.

  It was a little over an hour later that she was allowed into the emergency-room area where a doctor told her they had pumped Belinda’s stomach and he’d summoned a mental-heath associate to speak to her.

  “May I see her?” Chantal asked.

  He nodded and motioned toward exam room seven. Chantal hurried into the enclosure to find Belinda with her head turned toward the wall in the semi-dark room.

  “Belinda, it’s me.” Chantal sat in the chair beside the bed and reached for her friend’s hand. Without turning her head to acknowledge Chantal in any way, Belinda released a deep, heart-wrenching sob and squeezed Chantal’s hand.

  For a long moment they remained that way, neither of them speaking, their hands clasped tightly together. Every woman, no matter what her age, needed a best friend in her life. Men were great for sex and opening difficult pickle jars and a few other things, but only another woman could understand the complexities, the joys and sorrows of being a woman.

  It was Belinda who finally broke the silence. She turned to look at Chantal, her face pale and her eyes dark and haunted. “He’s going to get away. I knew he’d never be punished. I knew somehow he’d escape.”

  “Belinda, you don’t know for sure what’s going on. Nobody does. They think it might be some sort of monitoring malfunction.”

  “Bullshit.” The word exploded from her as tears filled her eyes. “He’s going to get away with it just like he did years ago. There’s no monitoring malfunction. He’s running and he has the money and the means to run where nobody will ever find him, where he’ll never have to face up to the lives he’s destroyed.”

  She jerked her hand from Chantal’s and half rose in the bed. “Don’t you understand? It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. If I’d done the right thing years ago then none of those girls would have been raped. That bastard would have been in jail a long time ago.”

  She fell back to the bed and shook her head wearily. “At least they were drugged when it happened. They were unconscious and don’t remember the smell of his breath or the feel of his hands or the things that he said.”

  “What things did he say?” Chantal asked. In all the times they had spoken about Willowby, Belinda had never gone into the details of the rape that night in his mansion.

  She chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes feverish. “Sometimes I can’t get his voice out of my head. At first he didn’t say anything, he just grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bathroom. Before I even understood what was happening he was pulling up my skirt and yanking down my panties.” She drew a deep breath and released a sob.

  “Belinda…you don’t have to…”

  “No, I want to talk about it. Maybe if I talk about it I’ll be able to forget it.” Once again she reached for Chantal’s hand and grabbed it painfully tight. “I was so shocked, I didn’t even fight him. He shoved me back against the sink and it was over almost before it began. I started crying and he looked at me like I was nothing, like I was dog shit that he’d accidentally stepped in.”

  She shivered, as if the devil himself had grabbed her soul. “I remember as clearly as if it
happened yesterday, that look in his eyes, then he said, ‘You won’t tell.’ I told him I would, but he said nobody would believe me, that I was a fat girl with zits and he’d tell everyone I came on to him and it was nothing more than a pity fuck on his part.”

  A rage of indignation swelled in Chantal and for a moment speech was impossible as the anger swept over her.

  “The awful part was that I knew he was right,” Belinda continued as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I was fat and I did have bad skin and he was the handsome, popular Marcus who could have any girl he wanted.”

  “I can’t take those ugly words out of your head, Belinda,” Chantal said softly. “But you know you didn’t deserve what he did to you.”

  Belinda sighed and swiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’d rather be dead than know he’s out there raping more women, destroying more lives.” She turned her face to the wall once again.

  “Belinda, that’s not going to happen,” Chantal said vehemently. “He’s not going to get away. If he runs, then I’ll find him. Have you forgotten that that’s what I do? I swear I won’t let him get away.”

  Once again Belinda’s hand gripped Chantal’s and she turned her head to gaze at Chantal once again. “You promise?”

  “Pinky promise,” she replied, a term from their youth. “And you need to make me a pinky promise.”

  “I know, I know. I was stupid.” She released a tremulous sigh. “When I heard that he’d missed his check-in, I just felt the deepest, blackest despair I’ve ever felt in my life.”

  “Then you should have called me,” Chantal replied. “Because I can’t imagine my depth of despair if I didn’t have you in my life.” It was true. She couldn’t imagine not having her best friend in her life. “He’s not worth it, Belinda. He’s nothing but scum.”

  Dusk had fallen and night was only minutes away when Chantal finally left the hospital and headed home. She was exhausted. The afternoon had been a mental roller-coaster ride and all she wanted to do was go home and curl up in her bed.