“And I hope you’re not trying to back out of your earlier identification of Destiny Jones inside that house,” Spencer told her. “Or sending my people into a dangerous situation on nothing but a fishing expedition.”
“My best friend’s a cop,” she said, figuring that Brie counted as a best friend since she was really the only friend who’d made the effort to stand by her. Even if Sierra’s desperation to pay off Ice Veins, along with her need for secrecy, had made it harder than ever for her to really be there for anyone just lately. “I’d never, ever do that—or anything I thought might come back on Ace.”
Spencer’s serious blue eyes studied her, but she didn’t waver for a moment.
“All right, then, Ms. Madden,” he said, giving her a subtle nod she took to indicate a truce between them...at least for the moment.
From inside her car, Sierra watched as the female officer with the darker ponytail, the same petite woman she’d spotted peering into her Camry earlier that morning, trotted up, her rifle pointed downward. All four convened before two of them, Donovan and the female officer split off and headed behind one of the neighbors’ houses, probably to cover the rear of the targeted address.
Precisely two minutes later Spencer and the plainclothes officer both headed up the street to approach the front of the house, which Sierra couldn’t see at all from her vantage inside the car. But no one had been assigned to watch her, and she felt that familiar tingle of anticipation, a fizzing itch in muscles eager to get out there and be part of the takedown. Her father’s hunting instinct, as he’d liked to call it when he went out looking for the bail jumpers whose bounties fed them...and his gambling habit.
So she stepped out of the car—just to stretch her legs, of course, not to defy a direct police order. Once standing, she strained her neck and ears, catching the pounding at a front door, the deeply authoritative, “Police! Open up!”
Followed minutes later by a faint sound—one Sierra had only heard because she’d strolled to the end of a nearby walkway—of the female officer calling, “Sarge, the back door’s open, but the red van’s still in the—We’ve got a runner! White male, vaulting the rear fence! Donovan and I are in pursuit!”
Adrenaline pumping though her system, Sierra warned herself to get back to the car, stay clear of the situation, where she could end up, at worst, shot, or arrested for interfering with a police action. Sighing in frustration, she dutifully returned to her vehicle...
But Spencer hadn’t said a thing about remaining parked there, so she decided, with that fizzing itch inside her growing, to circle the block, just to offer an extra set of eyes and ears well versed in tracking fleeing suspects. And to call in to dispatch anything she spotted that might constitute a threat to officers or lead to the escape of—
Right there, between a hedge of red-berried pyracantha and a stone retaining wall near the corner, Sierra caught sight of a movement, along with the waving of the shrub’s canes, whose wickedly long thorns were notorious for piercing skin and catching clothing. That has to be him. The runner the cops are after, she decided as she parked along the curb as close as she dared and pulled out her phone.
Before she could dial, the runner broke cover—not the male in the Cardinals cap, as she’d expected, but Destiny herself, her platinum pixie cut partly hidden by a black watch cap and an oversize chambray work shirt serving to obscure her small, neat figure. She was cutting diagonally past Sierra’s hood as she sprinted across the street.
Unwilling to let her get away, Sierra popped open the door, the surge of fresh adrenaline propelling her past the flare of pain in her ribs as she vaulted after the bank teller. Thanks to the bank teller’s poor choice in footwear—a pair of sky-blue spike-heeled pumps—Sierra gained on her quickly, shouting, “Hold it right there! Freeze! Fugitive recovery!” just as the blonde wobbled to the opposite curb.
Whirling around with her honey-brown eyes flaring, Destiny turned to frown at Sierra before her painted nails dove for her rear pocket. Fearing she was reaching for a weapon, Sierra stepped in, twisting her body, and popping the blonde’s midsection with an upper cut that knocked Destiny out of her heels and sent her tumbling to the ground.
Kneeling beside the gasping, sputtering woman, Sierra quickly confirmed that Destiny had been going for a cell phone rather than the gun that she’d imagined.
Thrashing in her attempts to rise, Destiny recovered breath enough to cry out, “H-help! Let me go! Police!”
“Just stay down, woman, or next time I won’t pull my punch,” Sierra said, pressing on her shoulder to keep Destiny from flailing about and injuring herself. Once she’d zip-tied her captive’s wrists, she followed the direction of the teller’s desperate gaze and sighed to see Sergeant Colton stalking her way, looking mad enough to arrest her, along with Destiny, on the spot.
Oh, snap.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay inside your car?” he demanded. “This is a police action to recover a material witness, not time for an amateur to interfere with our operation.”
“A simple thank-you would suffice,” Sierra grumbled, wondering if the man imagined she routinely caught fugitives as some kind of hobby. “Or maybe you’d have preferred that I allowed her to keep right on running, wasting your officers’ time and possibly putting them in harm’s way, when she practically ran out in front of my car, trying to escape?”
Pushing herself into a sitting position, Destiny complained, “This woman struck me! Did you see her? I—I want her arrested for assault!”
Sergeant Colton swung an even harsher look in the teller’s direction before saying, “Before you make any decisions about that, Ms. Jones, I think we need to have a long, hard talk about the company you’ve recently been keeping—”
“And I think you might want to check out, too,” Sierra told the officer, “what she was up to at that bank where she was working. Because from the way her coworkers and her manager acted when I started asked questions earlier, I have to wonder exactly what an audit might turn up.”
* * *
The following afternoon, two jailers escorted Ace from the infirmary, where he’d been stuck since the judge had denied his bail after the prosecutor had successfully argued that a wealthy man who’d already run once was the very definition of a flight risk.
It still hadn’t sunk in that he would remain behind bars until his trial, that the only way he could hope to meet Nova and the grandchild she was carrying for the first time would be inside a jailhouse visiting room.
As the shame of it seeped through him, Ace realized that something was up, since neither guard had answered his question about where they were going. But the look the two men passed between themselves triggered a tightening in his gut. One that warned that he had more bad news coming.
“Is my lawyer here again?” he persisted, confused since Michael Seaver had told him yesterday he would be tied up in court this afternoon. “Or is this the family visit I’ve been promised?”
After weeks of separation, he was desperate to see a familiar face and hear the latest news firsthand—and to know that at least some among his family members were still speaking to him. Desperate enough that he was willing to swallow his pride and allow them to see the same man who’d once represented Colton Oil wearing expensive hand-tailored suits, designer silk ties and Italian leather shoes sporting the latest in bright orange jail garb and what was beginning to resemble a ragged beard. At least he was moving more freely now that the bulky dressing on his wound had been replaced with lighter bandaging.
“Didn’t they tell you in the infirmary where they’ve been keepin’ you all by your lonesome like some kind of rock star?” the younger of the two guards asked, his disapproval palpable over what he clearly considered special treatment. Even though at the present time, the county’s small jail had no other prisoners in need of the infirmary. “It takes at least forty-eight hours for your visitors’ list to b
e approved. If we can get to it.”
Ace’s heart sank, but he didn’t respond to the taunting tone, the clear effort to get a rise out of him. Instead, he thought about the names he’d added to his list, including Sierra Madden’s. Part of him hoped that none of them would show up, would see him humbled like this. Another part of him feared exactly that.
“I ever tell you,” the taller of the pair, a scowling man, asked his partner, “how I was all set to start a job for Colton Oil once? Hard, dirty work, but honest, with good benefits and the kind of paycheck a man can be proud to take home to his family.” His glittering, dark eyes were set deep beneath the shelf of a high forehead.
“Yeah, I think you did.” His frog-faced younger cohort smirked in Ace’s direction. “But why don’t you go ahead and refresh my memory, Pete? I’m sure that Mister Bigtime CEO here would just love to hear that story.”
Ace felt his stomach clutch, though nothing about the guard had struck him as familiar, no more than the name Pete rang any warning bells.
“I was all set to start in a few days,” Pete said, scowl deepening. “They just needed me to come on in and fill out a little paperwork. And that was when the boss man—this same fine fella we have before us right here—puts a stop to things. Calls the Human Resources lady and tells her my rusted-out pickup is parked in the space marked off for his fancy imported sports car.”
“If you’re going to tell the story,” Ace said, stopping to stare back a challenge as the incident came back to him, “maybe you ought to tell it right.”
“You got something you want to say, prisoner?” the guard said, pulling his baton out of a holster as his small eyes glittered with menace. “Because I’m not your daddy, and you’re not skulking around the office with a loaded gun.”
Bruised and stitched up as he was already, Ace should have kept his mouth shut. And maybe he would’ve let the jackass tell his story his way had it not been for the crack about his father’s shooting. And the fact that Ace had never had any patience when it came to lying bullies. “I was just going to say,” he said, raining down the full weight of an authority he no longer had any claim to, “you left out the part about how Colton Oil security cameras caught you sideswiping my administrative assistant’s car on your way in—the first brand-new car she’d ever bought in her life—after you’d stopped along the way for a few celebratory slugs from that flask you had on you.”
Scowl deepening, the tall guard raised his baton high to strike, but instead of flinching, or turning a shoulder to block the inevitable blows, Ace stood there, saying, “Go ahead, man. Do what you want, if it makes you feel any better. Heaven only knows you can’t make me feel much worse.”
Lowering the stick, Pete sneered, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Seein’ me lose this job, too, when we march you in to meet with the DA and your lawyer, and those others, all black-and-blue and bloody?”
“I’m meeting with the—” Dread coiled cold and oily in Ace’s stomach. Were the charges against him about to be upgraded? Had any chance to make things right with the only father he had even known—or to get to know his daughter—passed him by forever?
“Don’t get too cocky, though, Colton,” the tall guard warned, “because the minute you’re out of there, we’re taking you straight to the general lockup—”
“After we’ve had a little talk with a few of our favorite troublemakers about the way you’ve been talkin’ about how you don’t want to be associated with broke-ass trash like them,” his frog-faced younger colleague added. “And then we’ll both get busy catchin’ up on all that paperwork we’ve let pile up just lately. Maybe we’ll even get around to seein’ to your visitors’ list—if there’s anything left of you to visit.”
As the two men shared a chuckle, Ace smothered a sigh, wondering if there was any chance that Sierra could possibly make good on her promise to free him from his nightmare—or any hope he could survive it long enough for the real truth to come to light.
* * *
Ace was still shaking two hours later when his attorney walked him out through the jail’s rear sally port and into the bright spring sunshine.
“You all right? You should be walking on air now, what with all the charges against you being dismissed.” A tall man in his late fifties, Michael Seaver led him toward a long, black Escalade with tinted windows in the rear of the parking lot. Dressed as usual in an expensive, slim-cut suit and designer glasses, he grinned as if he’d expected this outcome all along, even though they both knew that at their most recent meeting, the outlook had been far grimmer. “Instead, you look about ready to fall over. You feeling okay? Or are your injuries still—”
“I’m healing fine,” said Ace, wearing an oversize sweatshirt with a pair of cheap, ill-fitting denim pants and canvas shoes he’d been issued for the unexpected release. “I’m in shock, that’s all. I can’t believe I’m walking out of here, a free man, and that—is that...?”
His attention was captured by Sierra, a sight for sore eyes in her silver hoop earrings and jacket over form-fitting jeans and soft, gray boots. A breeze stirred her long, red-gold hair as she raised her hand in a muted greeting from where she was standing near the Escalade.
When their eyes met, the warmth of her smile loosened the tightness inside his chest enough for him to breathe again.
She’d kept her word after all, he understood, earned her finder’s fee and then some. And more than that, she’d elected to come here in person, to meet him at the gates of hell.
“You know this woman?” the attorney asked as she approached.
“Not as well as I’d like to,” Ace admitted, his mouth going dry at the perfect combination of beauty and athleticism in her movement.
Seaver gave a snort of amusement. “I see your recent troubles haven’t affected your good taste in ladies.”
“Too bad they’ve made me the last man on the planet any sensible woman would want to get tangled up with.”
“Never say die, man,” the attorney fired back. “Never say die.”
“You must be Ace’s mouthpiece,” Sierra said as she drew within earshot. “I’m a friend. Sierra Madden.”
“Ah, the famous bounty hunter.” Seaver scrutinized her with a look of frank admiration before he offered her his hand. “Yes, I understand you are a very good friend to the defense indeed.”
A wicked smile lit her eyes over their brief handshake. “Don’t let it get around. I’d hate to ruin my reputation as a heartless mercenary.”
“Thanks, Michael,” Ace said. “I’ll be going with Ms. Madden now.”
“You’re sure?” The attorney’s gaze flicked to his shiny black Escalade. “I did promise your sister I’d bring you straight to the family compound.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Counselor,” Sierra said with a nod toward Ace. “I’ve been in touch with Ainsley, and we’ve agreed we’ll be meeting up at eight at Ace’s condo in town.”
“What about right now? I’m sure he’d love to get back home to the Triple R and his loving family.”
“Don’t you think Ace deserves a little time and space to get looking and feeling like himself again, eat a solid meal on neutral ground and shut his eyes without looking over his shoulder for a change?”
“Of course,” Michael was quick to agree. But he darted a questioning look at Ace nonetheless. “I just wanted to make sure this is all right by my client.”
“If it was any more all right,” he said, both relieved and touched by Sierra’s consideration of how ill prepared he’d been to dive into the emotional tumult of an immediate reunion, “I’d be kissing this woman on the mouth right here and now.”
Seaver grinned. “Just don’t be late or your sister will be blowing up my phone with calls and texts. And we both know what Ainsley’s like when she drops into full protective mode.”
Cracking a smile, Ace shook the man’s
hand. “I won’t be late. I promise. I’ll even turn my phone back on—they returned it to me on the way out—once I’ve had the chance to charge it.” He wouldn’t promise to switch on the ringer, though. The thought of coping with what he suspected would be scores, or maybe hundreds, of notification tones from all the calls and messages he’d surely missed was enough to break him out in a cold sweat.
Once Seaver had climbed into his Escalade, Sierra showed Ace to a different car than the one she’d previously been driving, an older Chevy with Arizona tags. But Ace didn’t have it in him to ask what had happened to her damaged Camry, or where she was driving him as she turned away from both the ranch and his personal downtown condo.
All he could manage was, “I still don’t know what I’m doing here instead of getting my head caved in about now by a couple of choice inmates while the guards look the other way.”
She winced. “Sounds like a good time. But didn’t they explain it to you inside? Why the charges were dropped?”
“Dropped for now, pending further evidence. I did catch that part. I’m afraid that after that, though,” he admitted, “the rest was drowned out by the roaring in my ears and the pounding in my chest. So I have no idea how you pulled off this miracle.”
“Don’t give me too much credit,” she said, using one hand to wave off his statement. “The whole thing was a team effort.” She described her visit to Destiny’s bank, along with how the manager had escorted her out after she’d started asking questions about the missing teller. “So after I found Destiny shacked up with her boyfriend, whom Spencer told me was a serious drug dealer, I suggested that the police start digging into her activities over at the bank.”
“I did catch something about financial crimes,” Ace recalled, noticing Sierra’s frequent glances at her mirrors and how carefully she’d been checking every parked vehicle they passed. “But what’s any of that got to do with Destiny’s testimony against me?”
Hunting the Colton Fugitive Page 9
