by Jenna Night
THREE
Daisy’s eyes felt sore and gritty, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore. Not at the moment, anyway.
It was morning, shortly after sunrise. Twenty-one hours since she’d received the video showing her mother being held captive. She’d already checked her phone several times looking for news updates about her mom or any communication from the sheriff’s department, but there was nothing new.
Last night had brought a fitful combination of nightmare-riddled sleep and agonized wakefulness drenched with worry. Daisy had prayed. A lot. She knew her mom would be praying, too. While weathering an emotional storm that reminded her of how she’d felt after her father was killed, she’d repeatedly reminded herself that the situation now was not the same as it had been back then. Her mother had not been killed. She was alive. Daisy was determined to believe that until someone could prove otherwise.
The experience with her father’s death had taught her she could lean on her faith and take action at the same time. That’s what she had to do now. She already had a plan. She was dressed and ready to resume the hunt for the lowlifes who’d kidnapped her mom.
The cops would be covering the roadways and airport in their search, as well as tracking any electronic activity like credit card or cell phone use. Daisy figured the best way for her to start hunting for the fugitives was to go back to the point when she’d first realized they were almost within her grasp. From there, she might be able to develop new leads on where the kidnappers might go or what they might do next.
She’d left a real estate office just moments before finding out that Shannon had been kidnapped. Prior to that, she’d spent days visiting hotels, motels and real estate offices that rented vacation properties. Yesterday morning, Jill at Mountain Lakes Realty had recognized a photo of Beau Daltrey. She said he’d rented a house from her, but he’d used a different name. When Daisy asked for the address of the property and if she could see his rental application, Jill had gotten nervous and said she needed to talk to her boss before giving out that information.
At her request, Daisy and Alvis had waited outside while Jill made the call.
And then the awful texts had started arriving on Daisy’s phone and she and Alvis had left.
This morning Daisy wanted to go back to the realty office. She was determined to see what information Daltrey had offered in his rental application. He had no doubt lied for the most part, but maybe he’d accidentally given some truthful piece of information she could use to track down him and his criminal partner.
Once she found the location of the rental house, she would search it for clues the men might have left behind. She would look around even if the owner refused to give her permission. She’d figure out a way to get inside. If this were a normal situation, she’d do things by the book. But when Daltrey and Bunker grabbed her mother, this stopped being a normal pursuit.
She had told Sheriff Russell everything she knew yesterday, including the lead she’d uncovered on where the hit men had been staying for the last couple of weeks. Thanks to the sheriff, she now knew the exact address of the property. Odds were good that some member of law enforcement had already been out to search the house. A couple of more bounty hunters wandering through it looking for clues the cops might have overlooked shouldn’t be that big of a problem at this point.
Determined to get some useful work done today, Daisy snapped her handcuffs and pepper spray onto her belt, slid her gun into her holster and grabbed the daypack that functioned as a purse as well as a storage case for her electronic tablet. She opened her door, quietly stepped out and shut it behind her. She stared at Martin’s closed door across the hall, trying to decide what she wanted to do about him.
Having Martin by her side made her feel better in the midst of this horrible situation. A lot better. He was smart. He was competent. She could trust him with her life. He had depth, but he was also often the first person in a tense situation to say something to lighten the mood. He was a man of faith.
For all of those reasons, and more, working with Martin triggered some very inconvenient emotions.
Martin had stayed safely tucked in the realm of “my brother’s friend” for years. And then things had changed. At least for Daisy. About a year and a half ago, Martin had come to Jameson to visit for a week when Aaron was home on leave. And for some unknown reason, Daisy found herself feeling something toward Martin that was definitely a “more than a friend” vibe.
She’d been caught off guard by it. Stunned. She couldn’t keep her eyes off Martin when they were in the same room. And they were in the same room a lot because he was staying at her mom’s house. She’d caught herself grinning at him for no particular reason. When he smiled at her in return, her heart had actually fluttered in her chest. It was mortifying.
After the second full day of embarrassing giddiness, she’d begun to wonder, “Why not Martin?” She’d reached a point where she was looking to settle down, get married, raise a family. And she knew Martin was a good man. So, she’d flirted with him a little. Subtly, she’d thought. Instead of welcoming her overtures, he’d seemed terrified. And he’d started putting the maximum amount of space between them every chance he got.
It was insulting. And she’d felt like a fool. But okay, fine. Martin didn’t want to be more than friends.
Daisy had been disappointed, but she’d accepted his apparent decision. And so, they’d remained friends. With one small hiccup. Daisy couldn’t get rid of that “more than a friend” feeling for him. And she couldn’t tell if that was clouding her judgment on the case they were working right now.
Would it be better if she and Martin split up and followed separate leads, looking to uncover more answers faster? Or was it smarter and more reasonable for the two of them to work together as a team?
Martin’s door opened. He stood at the threshold, smiling at her, dressed and looking like he was ready to get rolling. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Daisy responded, while an unwelcome flutter of delight tickled the center of her stomach.
He crossed his arms and slowly leaned his lanky frame against the doorway.
Daisy had a moment when she couldn’t quite catch her breath.
“I heard your door open and waited for you to knock,” he said. “After a while, I thought you might think I was still asleep. I wanted to make sure you didn’t go out looking for your mom without me.” The smile on his lips faded slightly, and the expression in his eyes turned more solemn. “Wherever you’re going today, I’m going with you.” He shifted his weight and his smile disappeared. “It must have been a rough night for you. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“I’m fine.” She didn’t want to talk about how she slept or how her night was. She was sick of wallowing in her feelings. What she wanted to do was get to work finding her mother. She told him about her plan to search Daltrey and Bunker’s rental house.
“Sounds like a good idea.” He nodded in agreement. “I’ve read up on Daltrey and Bunker and studied their photos.”
“Good.”
“And I talked to Cassie a few minutes ago. She said Harry and Leon are willing to come over and help.”
“Thank you.” Harry Orlansky and Leon Bragg were excellent bounty hunters who worked with Martin at Rock Solid Bail Bonds. “Hopefully we’ll have some leads for them to chase down very soon.”
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs from the third floor caught Daisy’s attention and she turned to see Millie, who stopped when she was halfway down the staircase.
“You two come up and have breakfast with Alvis and me before you go anywhere.”
Daisy shook her head. “Thank you, but we don’t have time.” She was already feeling guilty for taking time to sleep while her mother was in danger.
“I thought you’d say that. I’m making breakfast burritos. We’ll roll one up and you can take it with you.” Millie crossed he
r arms and shot Daisy a defiant look. “You’ve got to eat something so you’ll have enough energy to take care of business today.”
“She makes a good point,” Martin said. “When’s the last time you had a meal? Breakfast, yesterday? Let’s eat something. We can make it quick.”
“All right.”
They followed Millie up the stairs.
The moment Daisy stepped inside the apartment and got a good whiff of the scent of freshly cooked scrambled eggs mixed with green chilies and cheddar cheese, her stomach growled loudly. Martin had been right. It had been twenty-four hours since she’d last eaten. Worry and fear for her mom had deadened her appetite. But now her body demanded that she take care of it. She glanced toward the kitchen and saw Alvis pouring coffee into two thermal mugs sitting on the counter. Back in the living room, the Carters’ big fluffy tabby cat, Reggie, sat perched on the top shelf of a bookcase, the tip of his tail twitching. At the bottom of the bookcase, a homely, big-eared, one-eyed pup who looked remarkably like a baby Yoda yipped excitedly.
Alvis had recently come across the puppy, Bowie, at the county dump, where the little dog had been abandoned. Bowie was in love with Reggie. Most of the time, Reggie stoically tolerated the puppy. When he’d had enough adoration, he climbed up out of reach. Millie hushed the dog, and after a couple of more yips, Bowie was finally quiet. But his gaze remained locked on the cat.
“We might as well sit down to eat,” Martin suggested to Daisy. “It won’t add that much more time.”
“And it’ll give me a chance to update you on who’s helping with the search for your mom and those two losers from Miami while you eat,” Alvis said, bringing over the mugs of coffee. “I know I can’t physically keep up with a demanding chase anymore, but I can still help out in other ways.”
Millie carried over a plate with an egg-filled burrito each for Daisy and Martin. Salsa was already on the table. Alvis and Millie sat down to resume eating the burritos they must have set aside when Millie had gone to invite Daisy and Martin for breakfast.
Daisy spooned salsa over her burrito and dug in. After a few bites, she began to feel stronger.
Alvis explained that he had reached out to all of his and Millie’s bounty hunting connections last night in one big email blast, asking for help in the search for and safe return of Shannon Lopez, making it clear that right now the capture of Daltrey and Bunker was a secondary goal. They couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that Shannon and the bad guys had somehow snuck past the cops and gotten out of town. They could be anywhere. So, contacting people across the country to ask for help made sense.
As Daisy and Martin finished their breakfast, Alvis recounted whom he’d heard from and passed along their offers of prayers and help. Several of the respondents expressed their outrage, believing that the kidnapping of one bounty hunter’s mother in an attempt to force her to end her pursuit of a target was an attack against all bounty hunters. And that made it personal for them.
After Daisy was done eating, she stood and expressed her thanks to Alvis and Millie for everything they’d done to help her and her mom. The couple brushed aside her expression of appreciation as completely unnecessary.
Millie refilled the travel coffee mugs and set them on the table ready for Daisy and Martin to grab on their way out. Martin cleared his and Daisy’s dirty dishes from the table.
Feeling revitalized, Daisy picked up her coffee mug and headed for the door with Martin close behind her. Bowie seemed to think he was going, too, and got underfoot. After nearly stepping on him, Martin reached down to swoop the pup out of the way and handed him over to Millie.
Alvis caught Daisy’s gaze just before she walked out the door. “Together, we’re going to find your mom. I know we will. Everything will be okay.”
“Thank you.” Daisy wished she could feel as certain as Alvis sounded. While she and Martin clattered down the two flights of stairs to the bottom floor, she couldn’t help thinking about the times when pursuits had gone wrong during her years of bounty hunting. Hunts for the bad guys did not always turn out well. Some people were never found. That was a sad fact. She thought of her mom and choked back the tears, reminding herself to stay focused on the task at hand. Right now, she needed to find some kind of clue to let her know where to look next for her mom and the kidnappers.
* * *
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information that can help you,” Louis Stringer, owner of the QuickStop convenience store, said to Daisy. His tone was curt, and he immediately turned away from her.
Martin watched him as he returned to sweeping the floor in front of the popcorn machine. The heavyset man moved stiffly and looked tense. Part of successful bounty hunting included paying attention to body language, and Martin could tell that something was definitely wrong here.
He turned his gaze to Daisy, taking in the expression of surprised disappointment etched on her face. She shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Martin knew that Louis had been willing to help Daisy when she needed information—for a price—since the early days of her bounty hunting career. He’d been at this location in the older part of town for years and he had a pretty good idea of what went on in the neighborhood. But just now, after Daisy had shown him pictures of Beau Daltrey and Ivan Bunker and asked if he’d seen them in this part of town, he’d refused to help her. Wasn’t even willing to pretend to help her. Not for twice the money she normally offered him.
Louis had continued sweeping and was now several feet away. Maybe he was out of earshot. Maybe not. “I don’t have time for whatever game he’s playing,” Daisy snapped. “My mother is in danger. I’m going to go find out what his problem is.”
“Wait.” Martin lightly rested his hand on her shoulder. She glared at him and he dropped his hand. And then he gestured toward the exit. When she stayed stubbornly in place, he walked out the door ahead of her, hoping she’d follow. And she did.
“What?” Daisy demanded after the door closed behind them and they were standing in the parking lot.
Martin took a breath. He understood her impatience. His heart ached when he thought about the fear and pressure she was dealing with. But giving in to that impatience right now was not going to get her what she wanted. “Leaning on Louis too hard might make things worse. You’ve got a good working relationship with him and you don’t want to ruin that. Maybe he’s worried that someone will see him talking with you. Daltrey and Bunker are stone-cold killers. Louis has a right to be afraid. Let’s walk away for now. You can call him later. Maybe he’ll feel safer talking freely over the phone.”
Daisy blew out a puff of air. Her face was reddening with anger and frustration. “Something is obviously going on in this part of town and I want to know what it is.” She gestured at a beauty salon down the street. “Having Louis refuse to help us like that right after Janis practically ran us out of her hair salon when we tried to show her the photos of Daltrey and Bunker has got me unnerved.”
Daisy and Martin had come to this part of town asking questions based on what they’d discovered during their search at the fugitives’ rental house.
Jill at the realty office, appearing pale and apologizing profusely for whatever help she’d unintentionally given the thugs, had handed over a key to the property without argument when Daisy and Martin had shown up as soon as they opened. The rental house, a chalet-style structure on the western edge of town with a view of the dramatic Spruce River Gorge, hadn’t been a marked crime scene. The cops had already been there and removed the items they’d wanted to inspect more closely, so Daisy and Martin had been able to poke around at will.
There wasn’t much of interest inside the house. But the trash was still in the containers outside. Daisy and Martin had dug through it, looking for possible receipts, printed maps, notes that had been jotted down, anything that might tell them something useful. At first, their ef
forts hadn’t looked promising. But then, near the bottom of the heavy green container, Daisy had found a small pizza box from Rizzoli’s and a plastic bag from Your Family Store. “These businesses are nowhere near here,” Daisy had said. “They’re both on the east side of town. Let’s go visit them and see if they can tell us anything.”
Rizzoli’s wasn’t open for business early in the morning, but people were inside getting things ready for the day. The employees who let them in were friendly, but they hadn’t been able to offer any help and they didn’t recognize the mug shots Daisy showed them. The small box she had found in the trash can was used to hold pizza when it was sold by the slice, she was told, so there wouldn’t have been an order for it. That was a disappointment since she and Martin had hoped to find a useful clue—like maybe a phone or credit card number—that could help them in their hunt.
One interesting thing that Martin noted while they were there was that the small pizzeria had a pay phone. That was unusual. And that might have been why Daltrey or Bunker would have come here. They could make or take calls on a phone that could not be connected to them personally. Maybe they stayed in contact with their Miami mob bosses that way.
The manager of the restaurant was willing to provide what limited video footage they had only to law enforcement, not to bounty hunters. Daisy texted a summary of what they’d learned to the sheriff. It was not exactly a hot tip that would get a deputy roaring to the restaurant in a patrol car, but maybe the information would eventually turn out to be useful.
After that, they’d gone to Your Family Store, a small shop with a little bit of everything from fishing gear to knitting supplies to inexpensive children’s toys. It was an older, run-down building that appeared to stay in business by catering to people who wanted to shop locally or maybe didn’t want to make the trip to the big box stores in the newer part of town. Nobody inside the store recognized the photos Daisy showed them. The manager there also was not willing to show the store’s security surveillance video to bounty hunters.
