Chapter Three
Emma wasn’t wearing her hooker look tonight, the suck-in-the-horny-male trick her mentor, Booth Childers, had taught her. Booth was an older guy, ex-military, mostly retired from the fugitive recovery business by the time she’d met him at the Hide and Seek.
Silver-haired, still a handsome man at sixty-five, Booth loved to sit at the bar and tell war stories about his days as one of the country’s top bounty hunters. Emma loved listening to him. Booth said he liked her spirit, eventually took her on as a protégée and agreed to help her learn the trade.
He’d been a huge help to her until a month ago, when he’d had a stroke. With no family in the area, he didn’t have a lot of support. Emma went by the retirement home where he was recovering as often as she could, had gone by yesterday afternoon and was glad to see how fast he was improving.
“I got a lead on Vance,” she’d told him after they had chatted for a while, both of them sitting in overstuffed chairs in Booth’s small studio apartment looking out on the grassy, parklike setting beyond the window.
Booth Childers was another of the few people who knew she was hunting Rudy Vance.
“What’s his name?” Booth asked, only half his mouth moving. One of his arms didn’t work right, and one of his legs, but he was going to therapy and doing better every day. Emma figured he’d be manhunting again, or at least telling tales about previous arrests in no time.
“Felix Biggs.”
Booth made a kind of whistling sound through his teeth. “Bad hombre,” he said.
“I got his name from Skinner Digby.” She couldn’t stop a grin. “Brought him in last night.”
“Good work.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t mention Luke Brodie. Booth knew him, surely knew his reputation with women. He would be full of advice she didn’t want or need.
“When you going after Biggs?”
“Digby says he’ll be at the Polo Club Monday night, says he’s chasing some woman who works there.”
“You’re just asking questions, right? He doesn’t have a warrant?”
“No.”
“How you planning to get him to talk?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to play it by ear.”
“You might want to take some backup.”
“I’m not going there to arrest him.”
“Maybe not, but still—”
“I’ll think about it.” It wasn’t going to happen. She had spent months training and been successful in bringing in a number of skips already. Emma had every confidence she could handle talking to Felix Biggs on her own.
“Any advice on how I should go in?” she asked.
“Yeah. I know the Polo Club. Bunch of druggies and lowlifes. Place like that, you need to keep a low profile. Don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself. They serve alcohol so you can’t go in armed. Carry your Mace.”
“All right. Anything else?”
“Be better if you could get to him outside. If you play it that way, don’t hesitate to let Biggs know you’re carrying.”
“Okay.” She was licensed to carry concealed and she knew the rules. She kept a little .308 semiauto in her purse and she was a damned good shot. She’d planned to leave the gun in the car, along with her powerhouse Glock 19. She’d carry the Mace, just like Booth told her. The man was a pro. She’d do whatever he said.
They talked a while longer, Booth making her promise to call to let him know how the op went down.
Op. She was getting used to all the military lingo the guys used. There were other women in the business, of course, but most of them specialized in tracking and locating, not making the capture. Skip tracers made a living from debt collection, repossession, finding deadbeat parents, missing heirs, any search that paid a fee.
Except for a lady named Michelle Gomez. The four-foot-eleven-inch, hundred-pound lady from Lockhart, Texas, was a world-renowned bounty hunter. Stumbling on an article about her in Wired magazine, Emma had become convinced she could learn to be a bail enforcement agent like Michelle, that she could develop the necessary skills to find Rudy Vance.
Emma left the retirement home and drove by the Polo Club that afternoon, just to scope the place out, get a feel for what she’d be facing when she returned. It was a rough joint in a rough part of town. She understood Booth’s warning.
It was ten o’clock Monday night when she pulled her older-model white four-door Mazda hatchback into the parking lot of the Polo Club and backed into a space so she wouldn’t get trapped if she had to leave in a hurry.
Instead of her short skirt and low-cut sparkly silver top, she was wearing worn jeans, a navy-blue T-shirt, and hiking boots. She’d pulled her dark hair into a ponytail and crammed it up under a blue-and-white Seattle Mariners baseball cap. As small as she was, she looked more like a teenage boy than a woman.
A can of Sabre Red, police-strength pepper gel spray in a flip-top can, rode in a holster strapped to her belt next to her bail enforcement badge. Her .308 was in her purse on the floor of the passenger seat. Her Glock rode handily under the driver’s seat.
Emma got out of the car, pulled a lightweight Windbreaker on to cover the badge and Mace, and headed into the bar.
* * *
It was happening again. Luke couldn’t fucking believe it. The kid he’d seen walking into the bar hadn’t been a teenager at all. It was Emma Cassidy. Even the Windbreaker she was wearing couldn’t hide a first-class set of tits.
He could not f-ing believe it. Sitting at a table in the back of the room, irritated she was getting in the middle of his pursuit again, to say nothing of a potentially dangerous situation, he leaned back in his chair and watched her.
She was looking for the woman, Lila Purdue, who Skinner Digby had mentioned. When a voluptuous blonde sashayed out of the back room in a pair of jeans so tight you could count the dimples in her ass, Luke figured Emma had found her.
They talked for a while. Emma said something, smiled, and flashed her bounty hunter badge, and, amazingly, the blonde boomed a laugh.
Figuring he might learn something useful, Luke shoved up from his chair and moved close enough to hear, careful to stay out of sight.
“I just need to talk to him,” Emma said to Lila. “He’s not wanted for anything. I just need him to answer a couple of questions. You think you could get him to talk to me?”
“You came here all by yourself to get Felix Biggs to rat on one of his friends. If I was wearing a hat, I’d take it off to you, Emma. You are truly something.”
Luke rolled his eyes. She was something all right. A major trouble magnet.
“So what do you think? Can you get him to give me a couple of minutes?”
Lila cocked a hand on her hip. “Felix has the hots for me. He’d do anything I ask for a piece of ass. Trouble is I got no inclination to give it to him.”
“I can see where that’s a problem.”
The blonde gave Emma the once-over. “You got a real nice little body yourself, honey. How bad do you want the information?”
For the first time Emma looked uneasy. “I’m pretty picky about who I sleep with. How about money?” She pulled out a roll of cash. “I’ve got five hundred dollars. How much information will that buy?”
Luke groaned. Bad move in a place like this. Emma had just made her first real mistake. Except for the mistake of wading into this pigswill joint in the first place.
The blonde glanced around nervously, thinking the very same thing. A big lumberjack of a guy came up off his bar stool. The short, barrel-chested guy next to him did the same. A big black dude with a shaved head parted the curtains and walked out of the back room.
Emma’s gaze went to the men, then back to the blonde. “So I guess we aren’t going to make a deal.”
“Oh, honey, I wish I could help you, I really do. My best advice is to give Ivan there that roll of bills and get your pretty little self out of here.”
When Emma stuffed the roll of bills back into the pocket of her jeans, Luke cursed softly. The money wasn’t worth what these guys were planning to do.
Emma just smiled. “No answers, no money. Tell Felix I’ll see him another time.”
Turning, she started for the door. When Ivan stepped in front of her, all six foot five inches of him blocking her way, Luke had to give her points for moxie.
“You’d be wise to let me pass,” she warned, craning her neck to look up at him.
“That so?” said the black guy from behind her. A foot wider than she was, he clamped his arms around her, flashed a leering grin over the top of her head. Emma stepped to the outside and backstopped his knee, knocking the guy off balance, then she shoved him so hard he crashed into a table and landed on the floor.
Luke felt a shot of admiration for Emma and a jolt of heat that went straight to his groin. Why watching her take that big bastard down should turn him on he had no idea, but he couldn’t look away.
Emma started again for the door, but Ivan stepped in front of her. Her hand moved so fast Luke almost missed it. Down to the snap on her Mace, can up, spray in bozo’s face, and run like hell for the door.
Luke couldn’t stop a grin as she raced outside and the door slammed behind her. Chaos ensued in the bar, giving him time to slip out the back and make his way around to the parking lot.
The bad news was by the time he got there, three long-haired, bearded lowlifes in black leather jackets had Emma pinned against the side of her car. The lady had already taken down three grown men—true, they were drunk, and her small statue had fooled them and given her an edge, but still ...
Luke figured it was time to level the playing field.
* * *
Emma was scared. It hadn’t happened a lot during her brief career as a bail enforcement agent, but she was scared right now. So far she’d been able to hold her own, but that was about to change.
She’d almost made it to her car and the Glock beneath her seat when the three stooges from hell had grabbed her and pinned her against the car door. Her ball cap went flying. One of them dragged the scrunchie from her hair, letting her curls fall in a messy tumble around her face. Her heart was beating like crazy and her mouth was dry as dirt.
She had to suck it up and soon.
“Let go of me,” she said with cool authority, or at least hoped that was the impression they got.
“You hear that, Badger? She wants you to let her go.” The men guffawed in unison.
Badger leaned over her, pinning her with his body. “I thought you was a boy till I seen them pretty boobs. We gonna have us some fun tonight, lady.”
Unfortunately for Badger, he bent over as he laughed. Emma twisted, shoved, jerked her knee up, and slammed it into his privates, just the way Len had taught her. Badger let out a yowl that could be heard for miles and collapsed to his knees, grabbing his crotch and gasping for air.
Emma bolted, only made it as far as the trunk before stooge number two stepped in front of her and grabbed both her shoulders to block her way. Emma did an Inside Rolling Elbow, arms bent outside her body, jerked her right elbow up, and slammed it into his face. His nose crunched and blood sprayed all over the front of her Windbreaker.
Nausea rolled through her and she froze. It was one thing to practice self-defense, another to actually see the results of what she’d done.
The instant of hesitation cost her. She hadn’t realized the guys from the bar had poured out into the lot and formed a circle around them.
“You’re gonna pay for that, lady,” stooge three said, big and brawny with an ugly scar down the side of his face that made her nausea return. “Strip her out of those clothes,” he said to the others. “Let’s get this party started.”
Emma made a sound in her throat.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Her legs were shaking. Emma sliced a glance toward the sound of the deep male voice. Luke Brodie stood behind the circle, a big semiautomatic pistol casually gripped in his hand.
“The lady’s with me. Let her go.”
Back on his feet, Badger shifted nervously. “We didn’t know she was yours, Luke.”
Stooge three carefully released his grip on the front of her Windbreaker, brushed off a piece of lint that didn’t exist, and took a step backward.
“No harm done,” Luke said with a hint of Texas accent that said where he was from. “Emma can be a real handful. You can see what I have to put up with.”
The men chuckled uneasily.
Luke jerked his head up, silently commanding her to move toward him. Emma clamped down on the urge to run in the opposite direction and walked a step at a time over to where he stood outside the circle that now faced in his direction.
“Get in the Bronco,” he commanded, and though she would rather have driven her own car back, she didn’t argue, just gave the lot a quick perusal, spotted his battered old Ford SUV, and walked toward it.
By the time she had closed the door and settled herself inside, Luke was behind the wheel.
“Put on your seat belt,” he growled, strapping his own on and surprising her. Since when did a macho bounty hunter wear a seat belt? Of course she always did.
When the Bronco shot backward, spinning its wheels, she realized what a smart move it was. The car fired out of the parking lot and shot off down the street at supersonic speed.
“Luke, I really appreciate—”
“Don’t talk. Don’t say a single word.”
“But—”
“Not a word, Emma.” He swore foully, making Emma’s face heat up. “I can’t believe you went into a place like that by yourself.”
“I needed to talk—”
“Did you hear what I said? I’m hanging on by a thread here, Emma.”
Luke was really mad. She wondered if she should be frightened, though her image of him didn’t see him as an abuser of women.
Luke turned the corner and the car slowed a little. She figured that was a good sign.
“What did you think was going to happen when you went in there tonight?” Luke asked, though she had a hunch he didn’t really expect an answer.
“Actually I was doing pretty well until I pulled out the money. I didn’t handle that right. I’m pretty new at this. I should have made the offer in private. I should have—”
“Stop right there.” Luke pulled the car over to the curb and shoved it into park. “There were a dozen things you should have done, Emma, starting with staying away from the Polo Club and forgetting about Felix Biggs.”
“He was supposed to be there tonight. You helped me get the name. What did you think I was going to do?”
“I was hoping you weren’t crazy enough to go after him alone.”
She frowned. “Wait a minute. What were you doing there?”
“Biggs has information I need.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God. You weren’t helping me question Digby the other night. You were getting information for yourself!”
“What, you thought I was just being Mr. Nice Guy? I’ve got a job to do. I do what it takes to get it done.”
Emma felt like crying. She had idolized Luke Brodie since the first story she’d heard about him. How could she have been so wrong?
Then she thought about the way he’d looked standing in the parking lot, like an avenging angel come to her rescue. “You saved me tonight. You could have just gone your own way and left me there.”
Those amazing blue eyes zeroed in on her face. “I might not be the man you thought I was, darlin’, but I’d never leave a woman to deal with that kind of scum by herself.”
She felt better. She wasn’t wrong about Luke. He was the best of the best. He’d saved her butt tonight. She owed him and she wouldn’t forget it.
She thought of Biggs and her lost opportunity. Disappointment slid through her and her lips curled down in a pout. “I didn’t even get to talk to him.”
Luke slammed a hand down on the steering wheel. “No, and you aren’t going to. Whatever skip you’re chasing isn’t worth being raped or killed. You get me?”
Emma sighed. “I get you.” But she needed to talk to Biggs. She and Lila had kind of hit it off. With the right persuasion, she had a feeling the woman would help her.
“My purse is in my car. I left it unlocked in case I needed to make a quick getaway.”
Those blue eyes sliced her way again.
“The thing is my weapons are in there. You think those guys will steal them?”
“No. They think you’re mine. They won’t touch your stuff.”
“Yours? As in your girlfriend?”
“I don’t have girlfriends.”
“What then? Your night’s entertainment?”
He pulled the Bronco back out into traffic. “I guess so.”
Emma rolled her eyes and leaned back in the seat. They thought she was spending the night with Luke. Having hot sex with manwhore Luke Brodie. For all the money in Vegas she wouldn’t admit to the little zing that zipped the length of her body.
“Where are we going now?”
Luke slowed and pulled a U-turn, started back toward the bar.
“We’re going back to the Polo Club?”
“You need to get your car, right?”
“Seriously? You want to butt heads with those guys again?”
His mouth edged up. He had the sexiest mouth she had ever seen. God, she wished she hadn’t noticed.
“We aren’t going in. We’re going to surveil the place, see if we can spot Biggs—something you should have done instead of going inside without backup.”
“We? You’re going to help me again?”
“No. I just don’t want to have to drive you home, then drive all the way back. You’re here. You can just sit tight until I finish what I came here to do.”
“Talk to Biggs.”
“Not tonight. Not after your little episode in the bar. If I see him, I’ll track him to wherever he’s roosting at the moment.”
“Good idea.” Emma leaned back in the seat.
Luke pulled up at a stoplight and his attention swung back to her. “Let’s get something straight: I did you a favor tonight. That’s it. We’re done. I’m tracking a skip and you aren’t involved.”
“Who is it?”
He hesitated. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve got the contract. I’m looking for Rudy Vance. He’s a—”
“I know who he is,” she said, unable to keep the edge out of her voice.
The light turned green. Luke started driving. He rounded the block two times before finding a place to park where he could watch the bar without being spotted.
He turned off the engine and reached behind his seat, pulled a pair of binoculars out of a satchel, and looped the strap around his neck. He tossed her a radio. “You know how to use this?”
She nodded. “Booth showed me.”
“Booth Childers?”
“Booth’s been helping me. He’s kind of my mentor. Or at least he was.”
“Yeah, I heard. Too bad about that.”
“He’s doing better.”
“Booth’s a good guy. If you’re serious about the business, you do what he tells you.”
She just nodded.
“Watch the front door. I presume you know what Biggs looks like.”
“Of course.”
“Fine, you see Biggs, you give me a heads-up on the radio. Whatever you do, do not get out of the car.”
He was gone before she could reply. Emma watched him as he walked away. He was wearing jeans again, tucked into the same knee-high moccasins he’d had on before, each of his footsteps carefully placed. Wide shoulders filled out the dark green Henley stretched over his hard-muscled frame. There was enough moonlight to notice the sun streaks in his short, brown hair.
Emma forced herself to concentrate on the front door of the Polo Club. With any luck, Biggs would eventually show up. They would wait him out and follow him to wherever he lived and she would get the answers to her questions.
Emma smiled. Bounty hunting was a whole lot easier when you were working with Luke Brodie.