“Be careful. Got it,” he said, resuming his fast pace.
She stopped him again. And this time he glanced at her with a flash of impatience in his eyes.
“You barely know Ray,” she said calmly, looking directly into his eyes. “And you don’t know Holly. This could be a setup for an ambush. This could be some of Matt’s criminal friends deciding to kidnap you or harm you in an attempt to draw out your brother.”
“You’re right,” Jason said. “Good thing I have experience in approaching a potential ambush. And in dealing with the situation when things blow up in my face.”
* * *
“That’s it, up there on the right,” Jason said, relieved to have found this potential connection to his brother. He drew in and exhaled what felt like the first deep breath he’d taken since the night they’d arrived at Matt’s apartment building in Denver and he’d mistakenly thought he was about to see his brother. And he’d gotten shot at instead.
The house was white with green trim. It was small and old, with a pitched roof. The thin layer of crusty snow in the front yard looked churned up. Like people had been walking through it or maybe a dog had been playing in it.
“Do you want to try calling Holly again before we head up to the door?” Lauren asked.
“The first thing I want to do is drive around the neighborhood,” Jason responded. “I want to see if there’s anybody sitting in one of these parked cars on the street watching Holly’s house. Or maybe somebody staged at a point a block or two away where they could respond quickly if somebody inside the house told them we were here.”
“Good thinking,” Lauren said.
Despite the uncertainty of the situation, he felt a grim smile pass over his lips. There was a time when working his way into a potentially hostile situation was something he did all day, nearly every day. When he was in Afghanistan, he appreciated the skill and the instincts and mind-sets he’d acquired to help him accomplish his missions. When he got home, there were countless, anxiety-riddled days when he’d wished he’d never learned those lessons.
Now, here he was. Trying to find his brother and keep Lauren safe while unknown murderous criminals stalked them. It turned out he really did still need those skills, after all. It was true—sometimes you didn’t recognize a blessing until later, when other events or situations fell into place and then you could clearly see it.
He drove up and down streets for several blocks in each direction. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so he only needed to be concerned about whoever was inside Holly’s house. He headed back that way, parking at the curb a couple of doors down so that whoever was in the house wouldn’t see them coming.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked Lauren.
“Of course,” she said. “But try calling her again first. We aren’t the police. She’s got no obligation, legal or otherwise, to talk to us. So as someone with some success at bounty hunting under my belt, listen to me when I tell you we want to be very polite. At least to begin with. We don’t want to come across as a threat. Not yet. Not unless somebody starts shooting at us again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tapped Holly’s name on his phone screen. The call went to voice mail, which was what he’d expected, so he left a message telling her he really wanted to talk to her tonight.
Then they got out of the car and headed up to the front door.
“Don’t pound on the door,” Lauren said as he raised his fist.
He loosened his grip a little, knocked on the door and then stepped aside so he wasn’t directly in front of the peephole.
The porchlight flicked on, and a voice called out, “Who is it?”
Was that Holly’s voice? He couldn’t tell. He’d heard her outgoing message a couple of times, but it was very short.
“I’m Jason Cortez. Matt’s brother. I just called you.”
He heard a couple of locks unlatch. He glanced at Lauren beside him. She wore a pleasant, easy smile on her face. But her right hand hovered near the pistol at her waist.
The door opened, and a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt stood there. Auburn hair spilled around her shoulders, nearly reaching her elbows. Her gaze settled on Jason, and her jaw dropped slightly. “You really do look like your brother.”
“Is Matt here?” Lauren asked, keeping a smile on her face, looking like a friendly neighbor who just wanted to drop off a plate of cookies.
The woman shook her head. “I haven’t seen him around here in months.”
“Holly, I really need to talk to him,” Jason said. “I want to help him. There are people who want to kill him. They’ve taken shots at me because they thought I was him.”
He could see the shock on her face.
A child’s voice called out from inside the house, “Mom, I want mac and cheese!”
“Be right there,” the woman called over her shoulder. Then she turned back to Jason. “I’m not Holly. I’m a single mom, as you can see. I rent a room to Holly because I need the money. Sometimes she stays here, sometimes she doesn’t. I don’t keep track of her whereabouts. Matt’s been here a few times to visit her, but I don’t keep track of him, either.”
“What’s your name?” Lauren asked.
The woman shook her head. “I’m not who you’re looking for. And I’m not getting involved in this trouble with Matt Cortez, whatever it is. He chose trouble when he chose to live the way he does.” She took a step back. “Leave me alone. If you show up again, I’ll call the police.” And then she shut the door.
“Do you think that was Holly?” Jason asked as they walked back to the car.
“I don’t know. I’m sending the address of this house to Barb and asking her to research the name of the owner. I’ll send Holly’s phone number, too. See if you can get Holly’s last name from Ray.”
“All right.”
They sat in the car for a few minutes, sending their respective texts. Finally, Jason pulled the car away from the curb and started down the street. He’d only gone a short distance when headlights appeared in his side mirror. He made a few turns, and the headlights seem to follow.
“Are you seeing this?” he asked Lauren.
“Yes. It looks like someone is following us.”
He passed through another intersection, and this time the car behind them turned.
“Well, maybe not,” Lauren said.
Jason tapped his thumbs impatiently on the steering wheel, feeling disappointed. This whole cat and mouse game was getting tiresome. Maybe they’d managed to stir up enough trouble today to trigger an attack on them. That could mean that they were on the right track. It might be a good idea to stir up a little more trouble before the night was over. And then maybe their search would finally come to an end.
* * *
“This is a good idea,” Lauren said. “Any time your brother spent down here visiting the bars and clubs was probably at night, when things are hopping. So coming back here at night makes it more likely we’ll come across somebody who’s seen him.”
“I figure it’s worth a shot,” Jason said.
And at night, with the darkness and shadows, Jason’s face was a little harder to see. Which meant they didn’t have to worry as much about him being seen and targeted by the thugs who were looking for Matt.
They were back in a stretch of town where there were several bars and restaurants close together. Even out on the sidewalk there were noticeably more people walking around than there’d been earlier in the day.
Jason hadn’t said much on the short drive over. Lauren could tell he was disappointed that their meeting with the woman who may or may not have been Holly had not led to any new information about Matt. She’d reminded him that as soon as Ray got back to him with Holly’s last name they would be able to find an image of her, and then they’d know if that woman was Holly or not.
Maybe that woman, whoever she was,
was too scared to talk to them. Maybe there’d been someone in the house with her other than her child and she was hesitant to talk in front of that person. Maybe some extra motivation in the form of cash would get her to help them out.
They reached the entrance of a bar and grill with a line of motorcycles in front of it and several people dressed in denim and leather hanging around outside. Jason wanted to check it out, because he thought it looked like the kind of place where Matt would feel comfortable.
He pulled the front door open, and the loud thump of classic rock music rumbled out. They worked their way through the bar, talking to patrons and employees, showing them the flyer with Matt’s picture. Lauren got the impression that at least a couple of people recognized him, because their gazes lingered on the picture a little too long or they’d exchange glances with a person they were sitting with, but nobody admitted to knowing Matt Cortez.
They left the biker bar and worked their way through several other nightlife hot spots, following the same drill.
Eventually, they found themselves passing by a sandwich shop. They walked in and talked to the guy at the counter. He looked at the flyer, shrugged and said Matt’s picture didn’t look familiar. They were tired and appreciative of the relative quiet in the shop after hearing so much blaring music in the bars, so they decided to order iced teas and relax for a few minutes. Lauren added a giant chocolate chip cookie to their order for them to share, and they sat at a table.
She broke the cookie in half, took a bite of her share and watched Jason take a sip of tea and look toward the window. They were sitting far from it, at the other end of the shop, but she imagined him holding on to the slim hope that his brother might just happen to walk by.
“Do you have any idea why you and your brother turned out so differently?” She understood it was a very personal question. But at some point today she’d realized that she’d given up any pretense of keeping their relationship on a purely professional level. She cared about Jason. She admired his loyalty and his willingness to take on the responsibility of helping his brother. Even if she couldn’t see any possible way of having a future together with him, she still wanted to know him better.
His broad shoulders lifted and fell as he took a deep breath and let it out. Then he looked at her with those dark brown eyes that appeared so world-weary, yet resilient at the same time. She felt a gentle rippling sensation in her chest, like the soft flutter of wings. She couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t force away the feelings she had for him. She felt comfortable with him. Safe. And she appreciated that he wasn’t intimidated by a woman with her particular type of job skills.
“I’ve spent countless hours wondering why Matt turned out the way he did,” Jason said. “We were twelve when my mom died. In my memory, things were fine with Matt until then.” He looked down and blew out a breath; it sounded almost like a hiss. “But how much can you trust your memories from when you were a kid?”
“That can be tricky,” she said. She’d dealt with that issue herself when sorting out her feelings about her father.
“Our dad started drinking pretty heavily after Mom was gone. He came and went. Couldn’t keep a steady job. Sometimes Matty and I were on our own for days at a time. I did okay in school. I liked to read. Matty didn’t do so well.”
Matty. Jason must have slipped into using a childhood nickname for his brother. It was sweet and so very sad at the same time, knowing how badly things were turning out for Matt. A lump formed in Lauren’s throat.
“He couldn’t go out for after-school sports because there were grade requirements and he couldn’t meet them. And yet, he was a smart guy and a hard worker. Now I wonder if he had some kind of undiagnosed learning disability.”
Jason took a sip of his tea. Then he pulled one of the flyers out of his jacket pocket and gazed at the picture of his twin brother. “So I was at school most of the time for one thing or another. After school I don’t know what Matty did. I just know that by the end of high school, he was already getting into some serious trouble.”
Then he looked directly at Lauren, his dark eyes unusually bright, almost shimmery. “I should have looked after my brother,” he said, his voice ragged. “But I didn’t.”
For a few seconds Lauren’s breath felt caught in her chest, and she couldn’t breathe. Maybe she should not have asked him that question. She certainly had no right to. And yet, maybe this was something he needed to talk about. She already knew he felt responsible for the mess his brother had made of his life.
“You were a kid yourself,” she said. “You couldn’t have been his parent. Not even if you’d thought of it at the time, not even if you’d wanted to.” She reached across the table to place her hand on top of his. He turned his hand over and lightly squeezed her fingers. “You can’t change him as an adult, either. He has to want to turn his life around.”
“I just hope he doesn’t get himself killed,” Jason said. And then his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, and Lauren could see the screen. Matt was calling.
Jason answered, quickly telling his brother that he was in danger and asking him where he was.
“You need to back off.” The volume was turned up on Jason’s phone, and Lauren could hear Matt’s voice. “Leave my friends alone,” Matt added. “And stop trying to turn everyone in Boulder into a vigilante out to get me. You’re making things worse.”
“Worse?” Jason said. “People are out to kill you. They’ve taken shots at me. What have you done?”
There was a pause before Matt said, “I never meant for that to happen. You need to get out of Colorado for a while.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jason shot back. “You need to go to court. I know you’re being charged as an accessory to murder. What did you do?”
“I have a plan,” Matt said flatly. “And you’re messing it up. Butt out.” And then the call ended.
Jason hit disconnect and slid his phone into his pocket. “At least I know he’s not dead,” he said. Then he looked at Lauren. “What next, bounty hunter?”
“We get back to work tomorrow. We keep up the pressure. Obviously, it’s paying off. Matt finally called you back. That’s a good sign. Unfortunately, life needs to get worse for him before it gets better. For someone who lives the way your brother does, that’s just how things work.”
EIGHT
The call Jason had been hoping and praying for came the next night. It was at the close of yet another day spent visiting businesses in town where he and Lauren showed people Matt’s picture and asked if they’d seen him. Nobody admitted knowing anything about him.
Ray had not replied to Jason’s text asking for Holly’s last name, so they weren’t able to search for a photo of her. The house they’d gone to so they could speak with Holly turned out to be a rental with the deed held by a corporation. It would take Barb a little more time to track down the name of the tenant.
And they’d dropped by the bar to talk to Katie again, but she wasn’t there.
It had been a discouraging day.
They’d switched hotels for their second night in Boulder, because it seemed wiser than staying in the same place two nights in a row. Jason wasn’t convinced that they hadn’t been followed after they left the house of the woman who might have been Holly. That vehicle could have picked them up again a couple of blocks over from where it had appeared to turn away. At night, in the dark, it would have been difficult to distinguish it from any other car on the road.
This second hotel had a small coffee bar off to the side of the lounge. Their coffees had just been delivered to their table when Jason’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. “It’s an unknown number,” he said to Lauren as he hit the connect button to take the call.
“Is this Jason Cortez?” a familiar-sounding female voice said. Country music blared in the background.
“Yes, it is. Is this Katie?”
He looked at Lauren, and their gazes connected.
“Matt wants to talk to you here in the bar in exactly thirty minutes.”
Exhilaration swooped through his chest at the thought that he would finally see his brother. And then almost immediately it felt like that soaring sensation crashed into the pit of his stomach. Why was Katie talking to him instead of Matt? Something was wrong.
“Let me talk to my brother,” he said. And then to Lauren he whispered, “Matt wants to meet up.”
“Matt’s not here,” Katie said. “Not yet.”
“Why didn’t he call me himself?” Jason asked, suspicion giving an edge to his voice.
“He told me that things were heating up too much, and that he had ditched his phone because he was afraid the cops or somebody else might use it to find him.”
“Why didn’t he call me on a burner phone?” Jason asked, thinking out loud. So many questions popped into his mind. “How did he communicate with you? And why didn’t he say anything about this to me when he and I talked last night?”
“He just came by here, he gave me twenty bucks to call you and give you the message to meet him, and then he left,” she said with a huff of impatience.
Jason could hear the sound of people cheering in the bar, and it sounded like the general noise was getting louder. Of course it made sense that things would get rowdier in the bar as the night wore on.
“Your brother said he was going back outside to watch and see if anyone was following him. He probably wants to watch you when you arrive to see if you’re trying to trap him or something. All I know is that I called you like he asked me to. Show up or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me. But you’re down to about twenty-five minutes now.” After that, she disconnected.
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