Red Sole Clues

by Liliana Hart

  “Maya. Her name is Maya.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Jack dropped Fred back on the ground and started running. “Vargas, I need a ride to Hope Springs. I’ve gotta talk to an elf.”

  Chapter Seven

  Vargas drove, while Jack worked the phone, dialing the wolf’s contact list. Vanessa didn’t answer. Her dad still didn’t answer his phone, either. Jack called the sheriff and sketched out the details of what they’d discovered, and the sheriff kept saying “I’ll be damned,” and “Maya cleaned our house last month before Thanksgiving,” like that mattered.

  “I need to know her address,” Jack said, finally losing patience. “And can you meet us there, or even get there first? We’re still—” He looked at Vargas.

  “Twenty minutes out,” the wolf said grimly, pressing down even harder on the accelerator.

  “Twenty minutes out,” Jack repeated to the sheriff. “Vanessa was going to go talk to Maya, and now she’s not answering her phone. Sheriff, if this rogue wolf, Marvin, already shot one person over ten grand, he’s not going to hesitate to shoot another.”

  “I got that,” McConnell growled. “I’m more than a half hour in the other direction, though. Maya lives in the little green house next to the old elementary school. Tell Alec, he knows how to find it. I don’t have a deputy in town with the experience you’ve got, Shepherd, so I’m going to authorize you to go in, but you’d better be damned careful. If anything happens to that girl—”

  “Got it,” Jack said, ending the call. He didn’t give a damn if the sheriff authorized him or not; he was going in after Vanessa.

  “We’re going in after Vanessa,” Vargas said. “You are not on your own.”

  Jack snarled at him. “Now you’re a mind reader, too?”

  “It wasn’t hard to read,” Vargas said sardonically. “Chapter One: Do Gooder Goes to Utah.”

  “Fine. We’re going in. Just don’t screw this up.”

  Vargas pressed the gas pedal to the floor, pushing the truck up to 110 mph. “She’s my woman, Jack, although she doesn’t know it yet. I’d give my life for her.”

  Jack shook his head. “Then slow the hell down before we’re both giving our lives right here on the damn road, which won’t do Vanessa or her father a bit of good.”

  It was actually only fifteen minutes later when Vargas pulled the car off the road and parked. They got out of the car, and Jack scanned the area.

  “The elementary school is right around that curve, and the green house is just beyond it,” Vargas said. “I didn’t want to pull in there, tires squealing, and give them the chance to kill Vanessa and her father before we can get into the house.”

  Jack shook his head. “Good plan, but it doesn’t make any sense that Marvin and Maya would still be there.”

  “Except for the fact that Vanessa’s not answering her phone,” Vargas said.

  “Except for that,” Jack said grimly, knowing there was another reason why the Clarks might not be answering their phones, but not wanting to say it.

  “I’ll walk down the road, whistling and acting slightly drunk. They don’t know me, and I look a hell of a lot more harmless in this shape than my other one. You shift to wolf and sneak around the back,” Jack said.

  Vargas nodded. “Sounds like a plan. See you there.”

  Jack took off at a moderate pace, hands in his pockets and pretending to be the kind of idiot who’d go for a walk on a country road just before sunset in freezing weather. It wasn’t all that hard; he just channeled some of the criminals he’d met over the years. Seemed like something that moron Fred would do, come to think of it. He passed the schoolhouse and, sure enough, there was a little green house, with a little green car in front of it, its trunk and doors hanging open.

  Vanessa’s truck was parked right next to it.

  The screen door to the porch banged open, and a bearded man wearing a red parka, jeans, and boots walked out carrying a suitcase in each hand. Before he’d taken three steps toward the car, he caught sight of Jack and froze.

  “Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh,” Jack belted out, putting a drunken wobble in his voice. “Something something something, laughing all the way.”

  The man, whom Jack was guessing must be Marvin, dropped the suitcases and started toward Jack. “Who the hell are you?”

  Jack smiled vacantly, wishing he could drool on command. He needed to stall, so he could give Vargas time to go in through the back and find Vanessa and her dad. So he pretended to stumble into the man and took a big sniff while he was close, confirming his suspicions.

  This was, without a doubt, the same wolf who’d hidden behind that Christmas tree in the town hall. Almost certainly the man who’d shot Ray Clark, too, since Jack could smell gunshot residue and a trace of blood on him.

  Jack wanted to beat the man until he was crying on the ground like his friend Fred, but he needed the signal from Vargas first.

  “Merry Chrishmas, friend,” Jack slurred. “Wonderful day for a walk. M’wife tossed me out of the house to sober up, don’t you know it.”

  Marvin whipped his head left and then right, scanning the road. “No, I don’t know it. And I don’t know you. I don’t know you, and I don’t like that you just happened to walk by here right now.”

  Jack forced his eyes open as wide as they’d go and peered owlishly at the man, who was as tall as Jack and carried a lot more muscle, at least as a human. That didn’t worry Jack, though, because, hey. Tiger.

  But he still couldn’t hear any sounds from Vargas, which was starting to worry him.

  “Why? What’s wrong with now? Is Santa coming?” Jack bellowed out a laugh and pretended to almost fall over.

  “Look, asshole, I don’t have time for this,” Marvin growled, pulling a gun from behind his back.

  Right at that moment, Jack heard the back door of the house slam open.

  “Wait!” Jack shouted at Marvin, who was startled enough that he actually froze for a second.

  “I’ve got them,” Vargas called out from inside the house. “All clear.”

  “Okay, we’re good,” Jack happily told the startled thug who was holding a gun on him.

  Then he exploded into action and took Marvin down. He remembered not to crush the gun, because it was evidence, so he just kicked it several feet away from the now-unconscious man.

  Vargas opened the door and walked out, supporting an older man who had Vanessa’s dark hair and eyes. She followed close behind until they were through the door, then she put an arm around her dad on the other side.

  Jack crossed the yard to the trio. “Mr. Clark, I’m guessing? Are you okay?”

  The man nodded, then grimaced. “Damn scalp wounds bleed like crazy. That man was hiding behind the tree, and he jumped out and shot me, then hustled me out the door into Maya’s car. They brought me here and tied me up, so I couldn’t get away while they packed up. I think they just wanted the ten thousand bucks, but I surprised them by coming in early when I decided to skip lunch with Vanessa. Nobody else was in the place, since it was a holiday, so they would have gotten away clean—”

  “If not for those pesky Clarks,” Jack said, grinning.

  Vanessa grinned back at him, catching the Scooby Doo reference, which made Alec scowl, but Mr. Clark just looked confused.

  “Well. Right. Then Vanessa showed up to talk to Maya, who has the backbone of a jellyfish. She started acting squirrelly, which made Vanessa suspicious, and I heard my daughter out in the front room and managed to work my gag loose and yelled. The loser boyfriend—”

  “Marvin,” Jack said.”

  “Marvin,” Clark continued, not missing a beat. “He decided he needed to tie up Vanessa, too, and maybe kill us because we could identify him.”

  Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Because it never occurred to either of them that we knew who Maya was and could identify her, too.”

  Jack looked around. “Where is the deceitful Maya, by the way?”

  “I tied her
ass up,” Vanessa said triumphantly. “And I enjoyed it. Teach her to touch my dad.”

  Clark beamed at his daughter, and so did Vargas, and Jack was very relieved to hear the sound of sirens.

  “The sheriff is on his way,” he told Vanessa.

  “And I called an ambulance,” she said.

  Her father immediately started to object, but she was having none of it. “It’s not every day you get shot in the head, Dad. Give me an early Christmas present by not arguing about going to the hospital to get checked out.”

  Everything seemed to happen at once, after that. The sheriff and the ambulance got there at the same time, and Jack briefed McConnell on what they’d learned and what had happened. The prisoners and the evidence were collected, and Jack gave the sheriff his phone number, in case he had any questions later. Then McConnell took off, presumably toward the jail, and Jack wondered what he should do next and how he was getting back to his bike.

  Vanessa, standing next to the ambulance, said something to the EMTs and then looked around for Jack. He nodded and walked over.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” she said, looking up at him with those fine, dark eyes.

  “You don’t have to thank me at all. Consider it a Christmas gift,” he said, smiling a little.

  “More like a Christmas miracle,” she said. “Do you—I don’t even know where you’re headed, but would you like to spend Christmas with us? We’d be very glad to have you.”

  Jack was almost tempted, but he had business in Dead End, and he’d delayed going home for long enough. Besides, there was a certain alpha wolf staring daggers at him right now.

  Just to mess with Vargas, Jack leaned over and kissed Vanessa on the cheek. “Thanks for the invite, but I have to go. You might ask the wolf, though. He’s nuts about you, and I wouldn’t have made it here in time without him.”

  She glanced over at Vargas, who looked ready to march over and try the heart-ripping-out trick on Jack. “Really? Alec? I guess it would only be the right thing to do, after he helped and all… Right now I need to go with the ambulance, though.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll drive your truck back into town and get my bike, then,” he said.

  “Oh, that would be great. Just leave the keys with Donna at the diner, if you would,” she said, digging the keys out of her pocket and handing them over. “It’s been nice to meet you, Jack Shepherd. I hope there’s someone who is nuts about you wherever you’re going.”

  “I doubt it. But, as the sign said, Hope Springs…”

  The peal of laugher he’d surprised out of her was a lovely sound, better than Christmas bells, and probably the only Christmas present he was apt to get. Jack waved to Vargas, fired up the truck, and headed out.

  From Hope Springs to Dead End. Hopefully that wasn’t a metaphor for his life. And had he learned anything from all of this?

  Watch out for Santas? Beware of small-town diners? Never order the mayonnaise and pineapple sandwich? Nah. Life was better without lessons, anyway.

  When he pulled up to the diner and parked, though, Jack started laughing. He’d thought of something, after all.

  Stay away from women wearing red-soled shoes.

  The End

  About the Author

  Alyssa Day is the pen name (and dark and tortured alter ego) of author Alesia Holliday. As Alyssa, she is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, and she writes the Warriors of Poseidon, League of the Black Swan, and Cardinal Witches paranormal romance series, in addition to her new Tiger’s Eye Mysteries paranormal mystery series. As Alesia, she writes comedies that make readers snort things out of their noses, and is the author of the award-winning memoir about military families during war-time deployments: Email to the Front.

  She has won many awards for her writing, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award for outstanding romance fiction and the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal Romance novel of 2012.

  Alyssa is a diehard Buckeye who graduated summa cum laude from Capital University Law School and practiced as a trial lawyer in multi-million dollar litigation for several years before coming to her senses and letting the voices in her head loose on paper. She lives somewhere near an ocean with her Navy Guy husband, two kids, and any number of rescue dogs. Please visit Alyssa at her website, follow her on Twitter (she’s very chatty there!), or on Facebook (warning: dog photos regularly appear).

  Thank you!

  Thanks so much for reading my book! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

  Newsletter! Would you like to know when my next book is available? You can sign up for my new release e-mail list at www.alyssaday.com.

  Review it. My family hides the chocolate if I don’t mention that reviews help other readers find new books, so if you have the time, please consider leaving one for Dead Eye.

  Try my other books! You can find excerpts of all of my books at www.alyssaday.com.

  Books by Alyssa

  THE TIGER’S EYE MYSTERY SERIES

  Dead Eye

  Private Eye

  Evil Eye

  Lori Ryan

  HONOR AND PROTECT

  Heroes of Evers, Texas

  Copyright © 2016 Cara Shannon

  Chapter One

  Lily Winn didn’t doubt herself very often, but right about now seemed like a damned good time to start. She’d seen plenty of birds flap their wings in a blind panic against the bars of a cage, their fear palpable and real. She was sure if she could crack open her chest and peek at her heart, that’s what it would look like right now. Clattering against the bars of her ribcage trying to make a run for it. When her friend had called and told her she suspected there might be illegal dog racing happening in the area, Lily’s bright idea to go poking around abandoned farms or ranchland in the area surrounding Evers, Texas had seemed brilliant.

  She gripped the empty dog collar and leash she carried in her fist as a cover story and glanced around the property, debating just how stupid it was to step out into the clearing. Probably very. When she’d parked her Jeep out on the road and hiked in, she’d figured anyone stopping her would buy the story about looking for a lost dog. She was dressed for a hike, with khaki shorts, hiking boots, and her honey-blonde hair pulled back in a braid. She knew people saw her as the typical “girl next door” and she hoped that innocent look would play to her advantage here. The collar and leash were well-worn from use around her clinic. She thought the story would make a convincing one.

  Now she wondered if anyone she ran into might shoot first and ask questions later. She hadn’t lived in Texas very long, but her impression was that many of the natives around here might not spend a whole lot of time chatting up a stranger on their land. They’d shoot first and fast and without a lick of warning.

  If she hadn’t heard the whimpering just then, she might have remained frozen long enough to convince herself to turn back. If there was one thing Lily knew, it was the sound of an animal in pain. And it was the one thing she could never turn her back on—an animal in pain. Any animal.

  With one final glance around, she stepped out of the woods and into the clearing that surrounded the old barn and its rundown corrals. The place looked abandoned, just as she’d been told. She hoped so. Because she didn’t think she’d be able to carry off the lie about looking for her dog at this point. Not while her voice was shaking. Heck, her whole body was shaking.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, she chanted in her head as she pictured all of the horror movies with heroines who went into the dark room after hearing a noise no matter how much Lily yelled at the screen. No matter how stupid and foolish she told them they were, those horror movie chicks stepped forward into certain danger. As she was doing right now. Great. She was the stupid girl in the horror movie doing what everyone with half a brain knew you shouldn’t.

  Each breath sounded in her ears, jagged and raw, as she crossed the open space between corrals, moving toward the barn. Toward the
source of the dog’s cries. Closer and closer. Praying the barn was empty. Praying no one would pop out any minute. Or worse, simply shoot from where they stood. No, surely they would warn her first. Right?

  She stopped in her tracks, listening to the sounds around her, blocking out the rasp of her own labored breathing. It wasn’t the hike in that had done this to her. Even though it had been a half mile or more, she was fit. She’d taken it at a good clip. But this was fear, plain and simple. Maybe the bad guys wouldn’t hear her gulps of air? Maybe it was only in her head.

  The dog’s cries came from around the side of the barn, drawing Lily’s focus back to her goal. She edged toward the whimpering, creeping closer to the corner of the barn. If there was someone around that corner, she hadn’t a clue how she’d handle that. She had no weapon. Nothing but her empty dog collar and leash and her cell phone shoved in her back pocket. The smart girl—the one who was still alive at the end of the horror movie—probably would have called for help. She’d have backed away and gone out to the car to wait for someone else to arrive.

  But who would Lily call? She didn’t have many friends in town. She’d relocated to Evers to take over her grandfather’s veterinary practice when he retired. He was housebound now after suffering a stroke. With her efforts to bring the practice up to date, she hadn’t so much as poked her head out of the office.

  She’d only met Mary Greene, who had warned her about the dog racing, because Mary brought rescue dogs into the clinic for discounted shots and spay and neuter. They chatted in the clinic but hadn’t gotten together yet outside of it. She suspected Mary devoted most of her time to her full-time job and her rescue efforts. She likely didn’t socialize all that much either.

  It’s not like Lily could call the police and tell them she needed help for a whimpering dog. They’d laugh at her. So, heart still pounding against the bars of its cage, she eased around the corner of the barn.