Hot on the Trail

by Vicki Tharp

  Moose smiled at her, the kind of smile the cat gives the mouse as it bats the prey between its paws, its sharp nails sheathed until it tires of the game.

  “What’s your name, doll?” He raised a hand to brush the hair off of her shoulder, and she slapped it away. Jesus Christ. She was going to get them both killed.

  “I’m not your doll.” She bent over and hit the cue ball with a solid blow. The balls at the other end scattered with a loud crack, sending two striped balls into opposite corner pockets.

  Heavy brows shadowed the man’s eyes, and his grin spread behind his thick, dark beard with one of those expressions Quinn didn’t like the look of. Particularly on a man looking at Jenna—the look a man gets when he accepts a challenge.

  She brushed past Moose to set up her shot, sending Quinn a look that said, Your turn.

  “You must be Moose,” Quinn said, trying to steer the conversation. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Moose stared at Quinn over the top of Jenna’s warm beer, then took a sip. No confirmation. No denial.

  “My partner told me about you.” Quinn bobbed his chin toward the parking lot. “The one who owned the Mustang.”

  “Partner.” Moose downed the rest of the beer in two large swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of one giant paw. “What kind of partner?”

  “He was procurement. I’m distribution.” Quinn didn’t have to say what he procured and distributed. With a guy like Moose, Quinn figured it was understood that the “what” wasn’t coffee beans or Beanie Babies.

  Jenna had cleared half the table before Quinn got a turn. He lined up. A short shot into the side pocket. “Only, the dumbass ODed on me. What the fuck am I supposed to tell my guys when the supply runs dry?” Quinn banked the five ball into the far corner pocket. “Last fucking time I partner with a junkie.”

  Jenna sucked in a breath, the words, and the cold, angry delivery, hitting her as hard as they had Quinn. He refused to look at her. If he did, he’d have a hard time keeping it together. You’re playing a part. The words are meaningless.

  They weren’t.

  They sliced.

  They diced.

  They nicked his heart. He’d given voice to his fear, letting perhaps a bit of the ugly truth spill out.

  What if Kurt had been using again? What if Kurt had killed himself?

  No.

  Someone had to believe in Kurt. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Quinn owed him that much.

  The next shot, the cue hit low and to one side. He missed the number two ball and scratched. Damn.

  “Why were you looking for me?” Moose finally swallowed the bait.

  “Kurt had said if we wanted a man who could meet our supply demands, you were the one to talk to.” Quinn was talking out of his ass, but Moose pulled the balls out of the pockets closest to him. Jenna retrieved the others. “I would need samples to test the quality, of course.”

  Moose picked up a cue and started racking the balls at the end of the table. “Your partner did that.”

  Bingo! Holy crap. They’d found Kurt’s supplier.

  Quinn leaned on his cue, acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. Like he wasn’t talking to the guy who might have murdered his friend. “Yeah, well, he’s dead, so now you deal with me.”

  “Who says I want to deal with you?” Moose walked around the table and placed the cue ball in position. When Moose broke, the crack of the balls sounded like bones breaking.

  “You wouldn’t still be here if you didn’t,” Quinn said, giving the animal his best right, buddy? smile.

  Despite the way the balls had exploded across the table, none of them fell in. Quinn lined up on a stripe, a hair short of the corner pocket. Moose picked up the ball. “Not you. Her.”

  “Stakes?” Jenna tapped Quinn’s thigh with the cue and took his place.

  “I win,” Moose said, with cold humor in his eyes as he looked at Quinn, “I buy your woman a drink. Alone.”

  “That’s not—”

  “And if I win?” Jenna leaned across the table and lined up for the shot, flashing her cleavage at Moose beneath the V-neck of her shirt.

  If Quinn was smart, he’d grab her hand and drag her from behind enemy lines. Far, far away. Someplace safe, like Fiji, where Moose couldn’t find her.

  “I give you the samples.”

  * * * *

  Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me” blasted through Cruisers’ speakers, the twang settling in her bones, filling her with a bravado and a bit of that outlaw spirit. If she lost this game of pool to Moose, she owed him a drink, but if she won, they might catch a lead. Matching those samples to the drugs found in Kurt’s system might help tie Moose to Kurt’s death. Jenna held out her hand for Moose to shake. “Deal.”

  Moose’s hand engulfed hers. Ann Darrow to King Kong. “I like her,” he said to Quinn. “She’s got balls.”

  She leaned over again and aimed. Her hand trembled again.

  It’s no different than playing Quinn.

  Yeah, right.

  Spending a night with Quinn was more of a win than a loss.

  If she lost to Moose, he got to buy her a drink, but she didn’t believe that was all the man wanted.

  And with only Quinn there to stop Moose, things could get ugly fast.

  The front door opened as Jenna took her shot. The daylight distracted her, and her shot spun off to the right, missing all the balls.

  She set a hip against the table, the cue in both hands as she leaned against it. Five men walked in. Not as enormous as Moose. Not as bad, but close. Jeans and boots and leather and tattoos. All muscles and meanness.

  Moose straightened. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Someone killed the jukebox, and Jenna’s ears rang in the silence.

  “Without your boys with you,” the guy with the bull ring through his septum said, “anything we damn well want.”

  The Bull stepped toward Moose, his gorillas flanking him on either side. Then the Bull’s eyes caught hers, and he stopped. “Who’s this?”

  Moose wielded his cue like a sword, the tip resting an inch from the Bull’s chest. “Ah, ah, ah.”

  Quinn stood in Jenna’s peripheral vision, his cue over his shoulder. Derek Jeter waiting for the 3-2 home-run pitch.

  Quinn gave Moose a look. One of those looks men give each other in acknowledgment of a favor owed. Moose gave Quinn a nod back, and they both stepped in front of her until all she saw was the Bull’s face and nose ring above their shoulders.

  “Isn’t that cute,” the Bull said, to his goons. “They think they can protect her from me.”

  The goons stepped forward. Moose stepped back. Quinn shot him a what-the-fuck? look. “You want her?” Moose said. “Go ahead.”

  The Bull sent his men ahead. Moose stopped the first man with a hand on his chest. “But El Verdugo wants this one for himself.”

  El Verdugo? The Hangman? A fuse on her heart lit. The rate skyrocketed until her pulse pounded in her ears, at her throat. Her breath caught, and her knees went weak, and she leaned on her cue for support. El Verdugo. The leader of the cartel that had nearly killed Boomer and Sidney.

  The men glanced back at their leader. Not many people dared to mess with the man who hung people for entertainment like it was his own personal movie channel.

  “You need to leave.” Moose’s words came out with a deceptive calm. A sharp contrast to his firm fists and bunched-up biceps.

  “What I need,” the Bull said, “is for you to give me my money.”

  “No.”

  “Or the girl.”

  “No.”

  “Not gonna happen.” Quinn tightened his grip on the cue.

  The mention of El Verdugo might have slowed the Bull down, but it didn’t look like it was going to stop him.


  “Take her,” the Bull said.

  The goons spread out. Jenna eased back. The rear exit was only three feet away. But she couldn’t leave Quinn. Three against five was better odds than two against five. She glanced around the rest of the bar, expecting someone to come to their rescue. Or at least to call the cops. But all eyes were on them. No one made a move to help.

  No one dared.

  “Go.”

  Jenna didn’t know who said it first, Quinn or Moose. The word echoed in her head.

  She didn’t get the chance to quibble before Moose and Quinn shifted, giving her a clear shot out the back door.

  “Go,” Quinn repeated, his tone low and lethal. “Now.”

  That time, she didn’t hesitate. She ran. Out the back door, sprinting out into the bright sun. Her eyes watered, and she held her hand up to shield her eyes from the glare. Tripping in a pothole, she stumbled around the corner, going down on one hand and knee. The gravel gouged her knee and skinned her hand, but she shoved up and ran for the Mustang. She didn’t stop until she was safely locked inside with the engine running.

  Glancing at the building, you would never know a fight was raging on the inside. But she knew. She could still hear Quinn’s grunt of pain in her head as he’d taken a hit. The cussing. The slap of fist against skin.

  The cheers from the crowd.

  She dug into her pocket for her cell phone. With fumbling fingers, it took her three tries to dial 911.

  * * * *

  Cruisers’ back door slammed closed behind Quinn. It might as well have been the starting bell at an underground cage fight.

  Five against two. Crap odds. But he didn’t have to win. He just had to buy Jenna enough of a head start to run to the Mustang. Quinn rushed the first guy headed after Jenna.

  He plowed his shoulder into the guy’s gut with a thump and a loud oomph, and drove him into the next goon, their combined momentum sending all three of them to the ground. They crashed in a tangle of punching fists and kicking legs.

  Quinn landed a solid blow to an even more solid jaw. Pain exploded up his right hand, the fingers going numb for a flash. He straddled his opponent, taking two short jabs to his kidneys, but as close as he was, the power wasn’t there despite the fact that the guy had biceps as thick as thighs. He probably bench-pressed buses for fun.

  As it was, Quinn would be lucky not to be pissing blood for the next week.

  Another guy moved in on him. A kick to Quinn’s knee, another to his abdomen, and Quinn tasted breakfast from two weeks ago. He rolled away and regained his legs. His left knee buckled, then held.

  Moose was off to his left annihilating his attacker, landing blow after sweetly brutal blow. The massive dump of adrenaline kept some of Quinn’s pain at bay, but he’d be paying the piper—in bumps and bruises and blood. Quinn’s lungs burned, air rasping in and out, his heart beating, battering his lungs, his ribs, until they bruised.

  A goon clambered to his feet, and Quinn floored him with a devastating kick to the groin, landing so hard that the guy’s descendants would be talking soprano for generations.

  Two down. Three to go.

  With his attention turned, Quinn was blindsided with a roundhouse kick to the side of his face, spinning him around and knocking him to his knees. His brain rattled in his skull, his teeth sliced his tongue, and his vision went wonky. He tasted blood.

  Lots of blood.

  He spat and shook his head, the stars refused to fade, but Quinn caught a blur of movement, the long, arching swing of a bat—Babe Ruth swinging for the fences. Only this ball was bigger. No way the guy would miss Moose’s head.

  “Watch out!” Quinn hollered at Moose. Quinn’s vision tunneled, and his strength started draining away. With a roar, he lunged at the guy wielding the bat. Quinn’s left knee gave way, but he managed to ram a shoulder into a knee and wrap his arms around a booted leg like a starved anaconda.

  The bat slammed into Quinn’s solar plexus. Air whooshed out of his lungs, his skull smacked the floor, and what remained of his vision went black. Warning bells clanged in his head, then nothing—

  Global.

  System.

  Failure.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Quinn woke in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Once doctors determined nothing was broken, and that he was free from brain bleeds, the deputy didn’t waste a nanosecond cuffing and stuffing him into the cruiser for a not-so-scenic trip to the Lincoln County Jail for interrogation. Now he and Moose shared a holding cell with a drunk and a bewildered businessman with one too many speeding tickets.

  The drunk laid out on a bench and snoozed, reeking of cheap booze. The suit picked a far corner and curled in on himself. Quinn hardly blamed the guy, the way Moose glowered at the man as Moose took a seat on the hard bench next to Quinn.

  Besides pissed, Moose’s expression was hard to read beneath the bruising and the swelling and the taped nose. A plastic surgeon could afford to retire if he ever got his hands on that face.

  In the fine cracks on Quinn’s fingers, the blood had settled deep into his skin, requiring more than the cursory pass under the faucet at the hospital to wash it off.

  Quinn rubbed at his tender sternum where the bat had connected, the front of his shirt stiff with dried blood, most from his tongue. He was lucky he didn’t have any cracked ribs. He would hate to have to explain to his CO how he’d gone to a funeral and come home broken.

  “You pussies are lucky the cops showed up when they did.” One of the guys they’d fought, the one who looked like his face had gone two rounds with a meat grinder, paced in the cell next to theirs.

  “Can you believe this guy?” Quinn said to Moose, loud enough for the other guy to hear. “Two of his buddies are in the hospital, and we’re the pussies.”

  “When we get out of here…”

  Quinn stopped listening. His tongue throbbed, and every time he talked it bled a little. He wasn’t wasting a single red blood cell on that asshole by talking to him.

  “Thanks for that.” Moose bumped his chin toward Quinn’s chest. “He’d have killed me with that bat.”

  “It’s all right.” With his tongue swollen, Quinn sounded a lot like Daffy Duck. “Always wanted Louisville Slugger tattooed on my chest.”

  “I owe you one.” Moose didn’t stick out his hand to shake. He wasn’t that kind of guy, but even through Moose’s facial swelling, through the blood in the whites of his eyes, Quinn knew he meant every word.

  Quinn nodded. He wasn’t in the habit of collecting favors, but he also wasn’t the kind to turn them down, either.

  They sat in silence, long enough for the adrenaline to drain from his system and his eyes to grow droopy with fatigue, until curling up on the cold concrete floor seemed as inviting as a thick feather bed.

  The drunk hadn’t moved. The suit sat in the corner, rocking back and forth, his hands fisted in his hair as if he’d lost his mind. The poor SOB probably had never been in trouble in his life.

  The holding cells reeked of that artificial flower smell. The county must have stock in Febreze. Beneath that was the stench of old sweat, stale urine, and unwashed bodies.

  “Got a problem,” Quinn said. The pain in his tongue had settled into a dull throb, but when he spoke again, his tongue bled like he’d been hooked by a Russian trawler, and the coppery taste made him nauseous.

  Moose spread his large hands, indicating the cell in general. “No shit.”

  “Beyond the cell. You really know the Hangman?”

  Moose cut him a suspicious look. “Why you askin’?”

  “You think I’m a snitch?” The more Quinn’s tongue swelled, the more he sounded like a toddler learning how to talk. “After the strip search, you know I’m not wearing a wire.”

  Moose looked at him, his gaze penetrating even through the swollen eyelids. Quinn’s scalp
pricked. Damn, Quinn was glad he wasn’t lying.

  “No.” Moose glanced around the cell, but no one paid them any attention. Even the guys from the cell next to them had settled into a post-beating stupor. “No snitch would take that kind of beating for me.”

  “I did it for the girl.”

  “You stayed longer than you had to.”

  Quinn shrugged. He’d never backed down from a fight in his life. The biker bar didn’t seem like the place to start. Besides, five against one? He didn’t care how big or bad Moose was, they would have killed him. Still, from what he knew and had heard, Moose was far from a good guy, and Quinn damn well better not forget it.

  “With my man dead, I need to find a supplier.”

  Moose leaned in, stale beer on his breath. “Drugs, weapons, or women?”

  Women?

  The outer door to the holding cells opened. Moose leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Goodman,” the deputy said, “you made bail.”

  Moose stood, with a flash of a smile.

  “How do I contact you?” Quinn said under his breath.

  “I’ll find you.”

  * * * *

  Jenna sat in the chair next to Quinn in front of St. John’s desk back at the Elk Creek Sheriff’s Office, feeling like she’d been called to the principal’s office. Her father leaned one shoulder against the wall, and crossed his boots at the ankles. Hank had come so fast when she’d called that he hadn’t even taken the time to remove his spurs. If you didn’t know him, you’d think he was calm, relaxed.

  He wasn’t.

  Jenna wished Mac had been feeling well enough to come along. Without Mac there as a calming influence, Hank vibrated with that same boiling energy he’d had when he used to catch her trying to sneak back into the house after an all-night barn party.

  Only this wasn’t high school, and for once, that energy wasn’t directed at her, but at Quinn. Bad enough that Quinn had never been good enough for Jenna. Quinn could have been as rich as Bill Gates, as smart as Stephen Hawking, and as philanthropic as Warren Buffett, and Quinn still wouldn’t have been enough man for Hank’s little girl.