by Jenna Night
She started hurrying toward her SUV, Alvis right behind her, while mentally beating herself up for being so foolish. She realized now that she might be in over her head pursuing two professional killers who were this calculating. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her from doing everything she could.
“When the cops get here, tell them I couldn’t stay,” she said to Alvis as she pulled her key fob out of her pocket. “But I’ll come into the police department to give a statement later.”
Alvis shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You need to stay here.”
“I’ve got to go.” Daisy slid behind the wheel of her SUV. She needed to leave before the police rolled up and detained her.
“What exactly do you think you’re going to do?” Alvis snapped.
“I’m going to keep hunting them.” She connected her phone with her vehicle’s hands-free device. “First, I’m going to call them and see if they respond. Then I’m going to do anything and everything I can think of. I’ve got to find them before they hurt my mom.”
She hit the gas and drove away.
* * *
Martin Silverdeer barreled toward Jameson driving a bit over the speed limit. The thing that kept him from flooring his truck’s gas pedal was the realization that he could get pulled over and then it would take him even longer to get to Daisy.
He had to get to Daisy and make sure she was okay. He was desperate to make certain Shannon Lopez was safe, as well. Mrs. Lopez was like a second mother to him.
Shortly before Martin’s senior year of high school, when his parents were going through yet another round in a series of ceaseless—and sometimes violent—clashes, Martin’s great-aunt Rachel and great-uncle Oliver had suggested he get out of Stone River, Idaho, for a while and come stay with them in Jameson, Montana.
He’d jumped at the chance, and had quickly made friends at school with Aaron Lopez, who brought him home to meet his family, including his kid sister, Daisy.
Now, ten years later, Martin couldn’t possibly put into words what he felt for Daisy. It was a combination of so many different emotions. It was also the one single reality of Daisy being Daisy. She was quick-witted and funny, brave and determined, understanding and compassionate.
Their relationship was complicated. She was his best friend’s little sister. Plus, he and Daisy had a history of friendship and he was afraid of messing that up if he acted on the romantic feelings he couldn’t help having for her.
Aaron Lopez had joined the military right out of high school. He was a career United States marine who spent a lot of time serving overseas. The night before Aaron initially left Jameson to report for basic training, he’d asked Martin to look after his mom and sister while he was away. Not that he thought they were incompetent. Far from it. They were both strong women. But Aaron was aware that the world was a dangerous place. And that people needed to look out for one another.
Ten years later, Martin still took that request seriously. And when he’d gotten the call from Daisy’s boss, Alvis, telling him about the kidnapping and what had just happened at the rec center, Martin had felt his heart nearly drop to the floor. He’d told his own boss at Rock Solid Bail Bonds, Cassie Wheeler, that he had to leave the office immediately and why. She’d waved him out the door and told him to let her know if he needed any help.
Martin was nearly at the end of the two-hour drive from Stone River to Jameson when his phone rang. It was Cassie. “The cops are searching for Daisy right now for questioning,” she said as soon as Martin answered. “I’ve gotten calls from the Jameson PD and the Beckett County Sheriff’s Department asking if I know anything that could help them find her.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have any information for you to pass along to them,” Martin said. And even if he did have information, he would keep it to himself. At least until he talked to Daisy. This was a dangerous situation on many levels right now. He was afraid some overexcited cop might put Daisy in harm’s way in their haste to find her and take her into custody. Because if he knew Daisy, she wouldn’t make it easy for them to stop her from doing her best to rescue her mom.
“Martin, I know how much you care about Daisy,” Cassie said. “It’s obvious by the look on your face and the tone of your voice anytime you talk about her. But I’m warning you to be careful. You don’t know what you’re walking into.” She sighed. “People change. Even people you know. Or think you know. They’ll do things that will surprise you.”
He understood what Cassie was implying. That maybe Daisy wasn’t the upright, trustworthy person he thought she was. But he knew better than that. In fact, he believed in her enough that if he’d handled things better, if he’d been able to shake off the fear that he might turn out to be like his parents, he would have proposed to her a long time ago.
There’d been a few weeks a couple of years ago when Daisy had flirted with him, but instead of flirting back, he’d frozen up in fear. And the same fear still haunted him.
What if he was like his parents? He didn’t lose his temper and get violent like they did. He never would. That was a commitment he’d made to himself in his early teens, and he’d stuck to it. But fear triggered by the realization that he didn’t actually know how to make a relationship work had sunk its roots deeply into him. Kept him from taking a chance at letting their relationship turn into something more than friendship.
He couldn’t stand the thought of being a disappointment to Daisy. Or ruining things between them. But he could love her from a distance. And hide his feelings. Although he apparently hadn’t done a very good job of hiding them from Cassie.
“I’ve tried to call Daisy multiple times,” Martin said. “She won’t answer. I’m in touch with Alvis. He’s been trying to talk to her and she isn’t answering his calls, either. He says thanks to people overhearing the police radio traffic about the person shot and killed at the rec hall, and then gossiping about it on social media, rumors are flying around that Daisy was actually the shooter. Some fool started speculating that she’s turned into a vigilante in order to rescue her mom.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cassie said.
Martin sighed heavily. “The police have posted statements on their own social media accounts trying to squash the rumors. Maybe it will help eventually. But right now she needs my help, whether she knows it or not. I’ll call you when I have an update.”
He disconnected and called Daisy’s number. It went to voice mail, just like it had all the other times. Once again, he left a message, making it clear he knew what was going on, only this time he didn’t hide his frustration. “I’m almost to Jameson,” he snapped. “I haven’t called your brother yet to tell him what’s going on, but if I have to, I will. I’m here to help you. Whatever it takes. Call me back. Now.” He was banking on her tendency to withhold bad news from Aaron. In her brother’s line of work, being distracted could get him killed.
A minute after he disconnected, his phone rang. It was Daisy.
“Tell me where you are,” he said when he answered, too scared for her safety to bother with a polite greeting.
After a few seconds of silence on her end, he tried again. This time he spoke a little more calmly. “It’s just me,” he said. “No one else is listening in. I’m not trying to corner you. I need to see you. I need to understand what’s going on.”
“They’ve got Mom,” she said, sounding both defiant and fragile at the same time.
The sharp pain in his heart at the sound of her voice made it hard for him to breathe. “We’ll get her back.” He forced himself to sound calm. “You and me. Together. Tell me where you are.”
“I’m at the Acorn Valley Mall,” she said. “Daltrey and Bunker, the bail jumpers from Miami who have Mom, should be here in just a few minutes. I called them and told them I’d trade myself for my mom’s freedom.”
Martin felt the blood drain from his face. “You c
an’t do that.”
“Of course I won’t actually do it,” Daisy responded, with the exaggerated patience she often used when she was mildly annoyed with him. “But I can pretend I will. Alvis always says, ‘Work with what you’ve got.’ That’s sound advice. And right now, what I’ve got is that Daltrey and Bunker think I’m stupid.
“I realize now they wanted me to find them up by Lake Dillon. They included the recreation hall in the video they sent me so I’d know where they were. They knew I’d be too afraid for my mom’s safety to call the cops. And they knew that if they could get me there, with a dead body on the scene, I’d be so tangled up dealing with the cops that they could get away. They took a chance, and it paid off for them. They know there are rules bounty hunters have to play by if they want to stay on the good side of law enforcement and remain in business. Like reporting dead bodies as soon as they find one. And remaining on the scene.”
Martin was already in the middle of the town of Jameson. He turned into the mall parking lot. “You’re on the bad side of the cops right now, Daisy. We’re going to have to get that straightened out. But, first things first. Where exactly are you?”
“Behind the movie theater.” The theater was in a separate building on the edge of the mall complex. “Park your rig close to the stores and then walk over here on foot. You can hunker down out of sight in the back seat of my SUV, and hopefully the bad guys won’t know that you’re here. I haven’t seen them, so I don’t think they’ve arrived yet.”
“Copy that. Be right there.” He parked, then grabbed the bottled water and protein bars he normally kept in his truck.
Much as he wanted to run to her, Martin made himself walk over to the movie theater so as not to draw attention to himself. He could see Daisy watching his approach through her front windshield.
“Hey,” he said after opening the door, glancing around to make certain no one was watching, and then climbing in. He quickly lay down on the back seat. “You all right? You injured?”
“I’m worried about Mom,” Daisy said dully, sounding as if she was in shock. He couldn’t blame her.
“We’ll get her back. Here, I brought you something.” He passed a bottle of water and a protein bar to her. She tossed the bar onto the passenger seat beside her, but she uncapped the water and took several long swigs.
“So, what’s the plan?” Martin asked.
“A straight exchange. They drive up. They both hold on to Mom as they let her out of their vehicle and walk toward me. I walk toward them. They let go of Mom and grab hold of me. That’s it.” She took a sip of water. “I didn’t have time for a fancy plan. I’ve got a gun. I’ve got my martial-arts training. I figured I’ll come up with some genius move on the fly.”
Ah, the Daisy Lopez bravado. Sometimes it got her out of jams. Sometimes it made things worse.
“Well, now that you’ve got me here to help, what’s the new plan?” Martin asked.
“Once my mom’s in the clear and they’re holding on to me instead of her, we take them down. You pop out of the SUV. They’ll be surprised. I pull out my gun and take on whoever is on my right. You take the other one.”
A highly risky plan, but they were backed into a corner right now with few options.
Daisy’s phone chimed. “No,” she muttered. And then much more forcefully she said, “No, no, no.”
Martin’s gut clenched. Something was obviously wrong. “What’s happening?”
“I got a text from the thugs we’re chasing. They want to do the exchange in a different location.”
Martin’s heart sank. A last-minute change made the situation more unpredictable. And much more dangerous.
TWO
“Maybe they saw me when I walked over here,” Martin said from the back seat, where he was still trying to stay out of sight. “Maybe that’s why they’re changing the exchange location.”
Daisy took a quick look at her surroundings while fighting a sensation of deflating hope that she’d ever see her mother alive again.
She’d already lost her father to a hit-and-run driver when she was seventeen. Determined that the unknown offender would be brought to justice after the official police investigation had grown cold, she’d made it a point to visit every auto body repair shop in the county on a regular basis in the months following the accident to remind the mechanics to stay on the lookout for a vehicle with a distinctive front grille. She brought along photos of her dad’s damaged pickup truck showing the imprint from the grille so the mechanics would have a clear idea of what to look for.
A little over a year after the fatal accident, thanks to an employee at an auto body shop who tipped off the police, the hit-and-run driver was caught. And Daisy realized what she wanted to do for a living. She wanted to track down people who thought they were above the law. She believed in forgiveness. But she also believed that people needed to take responsibility for their actions.
Like now. Beau Daltrey and Ivan Bunker needed to face their murder charges out of Miami, plus new charges of kidnapping her mom and murdering Jimmy Nestor.
At the Acorn Valley Mall, Daisy had parked with the theater building on her right and a vacant lot dotted with clusters of trees on her left. There were no vehicles directly in front of her SUV or behind it. There were no movie patrons milling around since it was a weekday, and there were no scheduled movie showings until later this evening.
“I don’t see anyone watching us,” she said to Martin. “And if they did see you arrive, it’s too late to hide that fact now. You might as well sit up front with me.”
In an instant, he was in the seat beside her. Martin often moved like that, fast and light on his feet. Daisy’s early bounty hunting experiences had gotten him interested in the profession and he’d turned out to be a natural at it. Cassie Wheeler had hired him and helped him hone his skills. On the occasions when Daisy had bounty hunted with him, she’d seen him outrun every fugitive who’d tried to flee from him. Often, he approached his target so stealthily that the person never saw him coming.
Martin reached across from the passenger seat and lightly squeezed her upper arm. “We will rescue your mom,” he said, looking at her with dark brown eyes filled with strength and compassion.
Daisy nodded, and then quickly turned away as tears began to sting her eyes. Seeing Martin again released a painful feeling of reassurance. Like the burning sensation when warmth returned to a nearly frozen extremity. Having him here tempted her to let go for a moment and surrender the fight to hold back her fear and terror over possibly losing her mom. Martin would have her back. She could trust him absolutely. Especially when facing a life-or-death situation. Like now.
But this was not the time to give in to her feelings. Especially when those stubborn emotions, unchecked, tended toward something beyond friendship. Martin was not a settling-down kind of guy. As long as she’d known him, he’d never been involved in a serious romantic relationship. She knew he dated, but he’d never talked to her about wanting a serious relationship with a woman. Any woman. And there was no reason to think that would change.
She turned to him. “Thank you for coming.” She patted his hand where it gripped her arm and he dropped it back to his lap. “I’m texting them a reply.” She typed out “What now?” and sent it.
“This whole situation is so odd,” Martin said.
Daisy watched him look around, appearing to momentarily focus on the clusters of trees, the only places where anyone could possibly hide and not be in plain sight. “Why didn’t Daltrey and Bunker just get out of Jameson? Or hunker down and stay out of sight for a while? Why all the drama?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Daisy stared at her phone, anxiously waiting for a reply to her text. She’d gotten a lot of texts and phone calls from people over the last couple of hours but she’d ignored them. Things had started spiraling out of control when she first got the video of her mo
m, and they just kept spiraling. She had no idea how she was going to straighten things out with law enforcement. She’d deal with all of that later. Rescuing her mom was where she needed to focus her thoughts right now.
“The obvious conclusion is that we’re not dealing with our normal, run-of-the-mill bounty who’s running in a blind panic.” Daisy looked up at Martin. “Daltrey and Bunker have a strategy, and the foundation of that strategy is confusion. That’s what I think. They want to keep me and the cops off balance until they can make a clean getaway.
“They had been hunkering down in Jameson for about five weeks when I came across enough evidence to convince me that they were here, and I started hunting them in earnest. I almost had them. They know that if they stay, I will capture them.” She nodded at Martin. “Or some other bounty hunter will. Or maybe the cops. I imagine they realize by now that it would have been smarter for them to try to hide in a big city.
“I think they’re willing to exchange my mom for me because it gets them a hostage for leverage if they end up having to negotiate with the cops, and it means they have one less determined bounty hunter tracking them. If they try to drive out of town right now, there’s an excellent chance the Montana Highway Patrol will intercept them. Even if they steal a different vehicle, they’ll still have to stop and get gas for it. And by now their pictures are posted at gas stations all over the region,” she continued.
“My guess is that they want to get everyone running in circles, and then maybe they’ll make a break for it. Or maybe this is all meant to buy them enough time for their organized crime cronies to show up and help them out.”
There were so many possibilities.
Most of Daisy’s bounties weren’t exactly geniuses. They’d stay out of sight for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, and then they’d fall back to their old habits. They’d go back to visit their friends or family, or return to their favorite restaurant or bar, and Daisy would nab them.
