The Huntress

by Dorothy McFalls

  She mentally kicked herself. This seedy bar was not the kind of place where she’d willingly hook up with a man. And Grayson was certainly not the kind of man who could give her the happily-ever-after she never really wanted in the first place.

  He’d murdered his best friend, she reminded herself. But still, when she withdrew her hand, she could not deny the pang of regret in her chest. Surprising really, her emotions rarely intruded into her professional life.

  He stared at her, looking just about as startled as she felt. His soft brown eyes weren’t nearly as sharp as the man’s she had seen in her file photo. Exhaustion had taken a toll. This was a man who had not slept a full night in months. He was nearing the end of his rope.

  She’d have to take extra care with him.

  “At least walk me out.” She glanced toward the back exit. “I don’t want to have to fight off any of these bar beasts tonight. Not on Christmas Eve.”

  He shrugged. “Guess it wouldn’t be right to leave you alone. Come on.” He pushed up from the table and waited for her to follow.

  She looped her arm around his and easily directed him toward the back exit. He held the door open as she stepped out. The air was damp and sharp from the winter cold, a refreshing change from the smoke-filled bar.

  “Oh,” she said with a mock shiver. “Is it ever cold!” She waited for him to close the distance. He wasn’t much taller than she was. She’d guess that he had a few inches on her. Still, she’d clearly felt the strength in his arm muscles, and wasn’t about to take any chances with him.

  The heavy back door slammed against its frame, leaving them in near darkness. She could hear, better than see, the scraping of footfalls as he approached.

  Her heart still insisted on feeling a vague tenderness toward him, damn him. He was a killer, she reminded herself.

  Vicious. Heartless.

  She’d made it a point to memorize the crime scene photos. Gruesome had been an understatement.

  “I know who you are, Grayson Walker.” It wasn’t her job to judge him. She just needed to deliver him back to the justice system. “I know what you’ve done.” She raised her gun. She’d do well to remember he’d already killed one bounty hunter. “It’s time to return to Atlanta and face responsibility.”

  She heard him suck in quick a breath. “Tommy said you smelled like a cop. I should’ve believed him. Since when does a cop look like she belongs on the cover of a fashion magazine?”

  He didn’t seem to notice the gun in her hand, a weapon that could easily leave several gaping holes in the center of his chest. Or if he did notice, he didn’t care. He walked casually toward her, arms spread wide.

  “I’m more dangerous to you than the police, Grayson. I’m a bounty hunter. I don’t get paid unless you get captured.”

  He laughed in the darkness, a rather pitiful sound. “The fourth one, I believe. I wonder what makes you think you can succeed where those other brainless goons have failed? Are you planning to seduce me into surrendering?”

  Without warning, he lowered his head and tackled her, tossing her to the ground as if they were playing a game and she was holding a football not a loaded pistol. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs. Grayson could remain where he was, straddling her torso, his hands pinning her arms, for the moment. She tightened her hold on the pistol he was working so doggedly to wrench from her grasp.

  Pulling in a deep breath to calm her muscles and focus her strength, she visualized her first move. Her first approach, her attack, was crucial since everything that would follow would be born from instinct.

  “Hope I didn’t hurt you, sweet,” he whispered in her ear. “I just couldn’t give you the chance to shoot me.”

  His lips curled into that killing smile. “You are really very pretty.”

  Those eyes of his, eyes she’d memorized from the photo posted in her office, were nearly hypnotic in the darkness. He leaned forward. She heard his breath hitch. “I haven’t had a woman like you in...” His lips covered hers. She could taste the raw hunger in the forced kiss.

  “Sorry,” he said, ripping away.

  “Get off me or I’ll really hurt you.”

  He laughed. He actually laughed.

  In a fluid move, she twisted to the side, upsetting his balance, and pushed against the asphalt to propel herself up.

  He tumbled to the ground.

  He didn’t stay down long. She swung her fist, hitting his jaw as he sprang back to his feet. She didn’t need brute strength when he was so obliging in connecting his face to her fist with such force. She stood back and watched as he staggered, tripping over a cypress knee that had grown up through the broken asphalt.

  Her fingers produced one of the two pairs of handcuffs she carried in her jacket pocket. Capturing him, a former Special Ops officer, seemed far too easy.

  He stared up at her dazed, his eyes hazy and unfocused.

  “You put up a good chase, Grayson.” She locked a metal ring over his left wrist.

  He let out a light groan as she rolled him over onto his stomach. With her knee pressing onto the center of his back, she reached for his right arm.

  His hand shot out and captured her wrist as strongly as his left wrist had been ensnared in the trap of the handcuff.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” he said gruffly—which was really a funny thing for him to say since she still had him on his stomach with his face pressed into the pavement.

  She held his left wrist with her left hand. He held her right wrist in his right hand. She wracked her brain while trying to remember which side he favored.

  “I’m left-handed,” he said, startling her. He yanked his arm out of her grasp and swung with incredible speed back and up, slapping her in the face with the metal handcuff still hooked to his wrist.

  She reared back, unwittingly giving Grayson an opening. Before she realized what he was doing, he’d snagged her pistol and twisted around to point it at her.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” She wasn’t ready to let him win that easily. She lunged for her gun. The barrel flared red in the darkness as it fired. The force of the bullet’s impact at such a close range sent her flying. She hit the ground with a heavy thud.

  Great, just great. Braving a backwoods medical facility to be sewn up by a doctor, who probably doubled as the local veterinarian, was not her idea of a pleasant Christmas.

  Her shoulder burned, and her arm had already turned painfully numb. Gulping air, she focused all her energies on Grayson. It took everything she had to hug her throbbing arm to her chest and charge him. She prayed he wouldn’t have time to take careful aim and fire again before she could knock the gun from his grasp. She had nothing to lose. He’d already killed one bounty hunter, and she had no doubt she was about to be next.

  She staggered—the back wall of the bar must have just collapsed—surely, that was a wall that had just fallen on her.,

  Clutching her splitting head, she sank to her knees.

  “Damn.” Was the last sound she heard.

  * * * *

  “Damn,” Grayson cursed again. The pistol slipped from his fingers and clattered against the pavement.

  He stood transfixed, staring at the beautiful hellcat lying unconscious at his feet. Her dark blond hair shimmered in the smoky, yellowed light streaming through the back door. The light created an eerie halo around the bounty hunter.

  Tommy towered over her, the baseball bat from the wall resting against his shoulder. “She wouldn’t have stopped fighting you,” he said, giving his head a shake.

  Grayson reluctantly agreed. He’d seen how that glazed look, a look of unrelenting determination, had turned her beautiful cornflower blue eyes wild. She’d crossed over the line and made the decision to fight him to the death.

  “I shot a woman,” he whispered.

  “Never mind her,” Tommy said. “There’s something wrong with a woman who looks like that and chooses to do a dirty job like this. You’d done her a favor, if’n you ask me.”

&nb
sp; Tommy was probably right. But still, he didn’t like shooting women. Killing a man felt different, like he was a warrior championing some cause. Hurting women just made his stomach roil.

  He knelt down beside her and peeled open her leather jacket. Blood oozed steadily from the gaping wound. He applied the weight of his hand to the nearest pressure point while fumbling around in her coat.

  Tommy gave him a queer look. “Now are you gonna tell me what happened between you and Greg or do I have to keep guessin’?”

  Grayson grunted. He wasn’t ready to talk about the angry words, the deep red blood, and the overwhelming guilt...

  “Your decision.” Tommy sounded wary. Perhaps nervous even. “You go on, get out of here. I’ll take care of this and talk nice and sweet to the cops too.”

  In no mood to let anyone clean up after him, Grayson ignored the offer. He found a tiny, silver cell phone in an interior pocket in the bounty hunter’s jacket and dialed 9-1-1.

  “Fetch me a dish rag or something I can use to slow the bleeding. The bullet blew its way through her shoulder,” he said to Tommy while waiting for confirmation that an ambulance was indeed on its way.

  His friend shrugged and disappeared back into the bar.

  Grayson stared at the bounty hunter’s too beautiful face, darkened and frighteningly motionless. “Don’t you go and make me feel guilty about you, too. You picked this fight with me.”

  She was lifeless, her breathing too shallow. She was going to die—just like that last one. How many women would he have to kill before he dropped straight into hell?

  “Go on with you now. Get.” Tommy startled Grayson. He’d returned with a pile of relatively clean dishrags in his meaty hand. Sirens echoed through the dark swamp, only adding urgency to Tommy’s warning.

  He couldn’t stay any longer, not unless he wanted to be taken back into police custody.

  He plucked the bounty hunter’s wallet from her pocket. “This should buy me some time,” he said. He opened the supple leather wallet. Vega Brookes, her driver’s license read. “They won’t figure out my identity until they figure out hers.”

  Tommy nodded.

  There were several hundred dollars in the wallet. Good. That should help him, too. He slipped the wallet into his pocket.

  “I’ll make this up to you somehow,” he said as he tucked her gun into his pants and trotted toward a path that led directly into the swamp, the handcuffs still dangling from his wrist. “Well, maybe not...”

  Chapter Four

  “Vega,” a shadowy voice called to her.

  “Dad?” Vega struggled through the darkness. It’d been ages since she’d seen him. Why had they lost touch? “Dad?”

  Someone was pushing on her shoulders, keeping her pinned to the ground.

  “Vega!” the voice said sharply.

  She blinked. The room was dim. The early morning light was pushing its way around a drawn shade.

  “Oh...Jack,” she said as soon as her uncle’s lean face eased into focus.

  “Don’t sound so eager to see me.” A big, fat smile slid across his lips. He leaned in close. His face blurred as Vega’s eyesight struggled to keep up.

  She glanced around the room, a rather modern hospital room. Slowly, as if on a shaky foundation, her memory returned.

  “Walker?” She bolted up. Pains sparked both in her arm and in the back of her head. She sank back onto the bed.

  “He’s long gone by now.” Jack shook his head and looked damned guilty about something.

  She didn’t have it in her mind to question him, not while her eyesight still insisted on swimming in and out of focus.

  “Merry Christmas,” a new voice sang out. “I see our Jane Doe is awake.”

  A female doctor sauntered into the room. A green elf hat perched on the top of her head. She flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights. The hospital room glowed stark and bright, feeling painfully sharp to Vega’s sensitive head.

  “I’ll need to update your name on this,” the doctor said. She pulled a metal-encased file from the hook at the end of the bed, flipped it open, and clicked a ballpoint pen three times before scribbling something into the file. “Sheriff Townsend contacted me this morning, letting me know who you were. We don’t get many Jane Doe’s around here. You sure stirred up a bit of excitement in town. I’m Dr. Jane Kilpatrick, by the way.”

  Jack stepped back and gave Dr. Kilpatrick room to roll a stool up beside the bed. They murmured greetings in a manner that told Vega the two had already met—which didn’t surprise Vega. Jack probably raised quite a fuss the moment he stepped into the hospital. His fuss-raising ability was legendary, especially when one of his hunters was in need.

  Dr. Kilpatrick wasted no time before shining a viciously bright penlight into her eyes. “Good, good.” She checked the huge lump on her head and probed the gunshot wound paining her shoulder.

  Vega tried to lay still, passive, breathing deeply while she let the doctor do her job.

  “What? No questions about whether I’d be called away to birth one of the farmer’s cows?”

  Cows? She didn’t know the first thing about cows.

  Dr. Kilpatrick laughed. “This one sure went on and on last night, convinced I was the town veterinarian,” she explained to Jack. Vega didn’t remember any of that. “I’m not a veterinarian. I’m a fully qualified M.D. I can show you my diploma if you’d like.”

  Vega blushed. “No...I believe you.”

  Dr. Kilpatrick laughed again and pushed back from the bed. “You lucked out with the bullet wound. Only minimal tissue damage. You have a pretty good concussion from that blow to the head. We were worried about that lump back there most of the night, but I think we can breathe easy now. You look good, considering.”

  Vega listened, half-dazed as Dr. Kilpatrick and Jack continued to discuss her health.

  “Jane Doe?” she asked, cursing her mind’s snail-pace. “Why call me Jane Doe?”

  Dr. Kilpatrick frowned for a moment. “Well, yes,” she said. “You came in without any identification.”

  “I had called Sheriff Townsend, an old friend,” Jack explained. “Warned him you’d be in town on a job. When a Jane Doe showed up at the hospital, he contacted me.”

  “Jack.” Vega shook her head and immediately regretted it. “I believe you must have an old friend in every police department across this country.”

  Jack scratched his stubbly chin. “I suppose I do.” He turned back to the doctor and laid on his charm. The old dog, he was flirting with her. “When can I get Vega on a plane back home to Detroit?” he asked after smearing Dr. Jane Kilpatrick with a healthy serving of compliments.

  “Wait just one minute,” Vega said while struggling to push herself up. “I’m not going anywhere...not without Grayson Walker chained to my arm.”

  Both the doctor and Jack gave Vega a look that made her wonder if she was about to be told she had no more than six months to live.

  “Don’t pursue this one, Vega. Go home. Heal. Perhaps even find a nice stable man to marry, and have children. That would make your mom happy, you know. Besides, you’re no longer assigned to Walker,” Jack said much too quickly for Vega’s nerves.

  “Who is, then?”

  Jack hesitated.

  Her heart shuddered. “Who?”

  “No one...yet.”

  “Then why that look, Jack? What’s up?”

  “Fiona.”

  “Fiona?”

  The length of silence that followed could have been measured with a calendar.

  She laid in the bed huffing as her anger built.

  “Fiona?” she repeated, nearly leaping off the bed. “My sister?”

  Dr. Kilpatrick rushed back to the bedside. “You really must try and lay still, Miss Brookes. Your stitches are liable to rip out.”

  Vega laid back into the soft pillow, letting the excruciating pains in her head and arm feed her anger. “She doesn’t have the experience I have, and” she swallowed hard, “and look wh
at happened to me.”

  “What could I do?” Jack asked, spreading his arms wide. “She was close to spitting nails after she heard what had happened to you. There was no stopping her from taking the next plane down here. I couldn’t very well tie her up, could I?”

  “Mom’s probably ready to kill you, isn’t she?” she said, conceding that once Fiona set her mind to a task, there was really no turning her attention. “Christmas day, and both of her daughters are in the field because of you.”

  “Yep,” Jack said. He sank into a chair and pulled a hand through his silvery hair. “I don’t know if Gillie will ever invite me over to your house for dinner again. And I so love her fancy shrimp cocktails.”

  * * * *

  For half a day, Vega stayed in the sterile hospital bed, worrying about Fiona playing bounty hunter and wondering just how Grayson had managed to get the better of her. And, she wondered, what had he done with her gun? Her dad had given her that Glock 9, had pressed it into her hands on his deathbed. “You’re strong for a girl,” he’d said to her, the last words he’d uttered in this world.

  What care would Grayson take of that gun?

  She stared at the bright ceiling and worried until she teetered on the verge of madness.

  A call from Snitch pushed her over the edge. “Just dug up a nasty bit of information on that fugitive of yours. He killed a woman,” Snitch’s metallic voice crackled a bit. “He wasn’t Special Forces, but a professional killer for the Army’s Intelligence Support Activity, the ISA. Had been working deep in the bowels of the illegal drug trade in Colombia, his team was given orders to assassinate a drug czar—all off the record kind of stuff, of course.”

  “Of course,” Vega said, her mind reeling. Fiona was out there with a professional assassin?

  “Your boy pulled the trigger and shot an innocent woman through the chest in order to kill his target—a Carlos Briceno.”

  “Shit. He’s determined. What did the army do? Kick him out?” she asked.

  “Nope, gave him a commendation. Of course, that was the official report, though this Briceno guy was a pretty huge thorn in our government’s side. He controlled a solid pipeline of drugs into the US. But your fugitive did walk away from the ISA after that assignment. The three other men in his team left the army with him. Can’t find out why he quit. Perhaps he was drummed out. Or guilt? I came across a communiqué a week before Carlos Briceno’s assassination. Your Grayson Walker was requesting a visa for Mirna Catanzaro, the very woman he ended up shooting. Said he planned to marry her. Can you believe it? He’d planned to marry this Mirna, and then when she got in the way—bam—he killed her. What a jerk.”