Bound to the Bounty Hunter (9 page)

He’d said there was Sophie the PI and another Sophie, and in a way he was right. But there was way more to Harlan Franco than he let on. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel.

Talk about the whole pot-kettle thing,
but I wouldn’t mind finding out about this side of Harlan.

“The man has more layers than an onion,” she murmured.

If the equipment stayed a little longer at the playground, it wouldn’t be hurting anyone. She could extend the bet while she explored
this
side of Harlan that she wanted to know.

Purely for professional reasons
.

After exiting the garage, she’d taken care of the shopping for dinner, sticking to the busiest stores she could find. As far as she could tell, there’d been no tails.

She’d taken the freeway home, arriving to find Harlan’s car in her driveway. The smoldering African-American dude, the hot Viking, and the man of the hour stood in a group, not hugging, but looking like they wanted to rip something apart. As she pulled in behind Harlan’s car, three pairs of pissed-off eyes swung in her direction.

Guess the person they want to rip apart is me
.

Chapter Eight

Sophie plastered on a perfected happy smile that made her cheeks ache and exited the car.

“Howdy folks.” Key in hand, she walked to her front door.

At the scowl on Harlan’s face she unwrapped the memory of the man at the soup kitchen and let it envelop her, before she carefully stored it away and took a satisfying breath.

“Why the hell did you ditch Zeb?”

“Oh, is that the hottie’s name?” She turned and shot Zeb a sunny smile. “Nice to finally meet you.”

Zeb grinned.

Harlan practically threw open her front door before she’d turned the handle.

“Why’d you ditch Zeb?” His words could grate steel.

“Because…” She lifted her chin.

“Because?” A cold glint transformed his eyes to cyborg blue.

“Because you can’t keep ordering me around and expecting me to do what you want.” Sophie swept past him into her kitchen, heaving plastic shopping bags onto the neat-as-a-pin counter. “I wasn’t tailed. I checked. I don’t need you in my life 24/7. I am a trained private detective. I’m not a client.”

She eyed the sparkly sink that could be used as a mirror. Towels were folded on the counter ready to be distributed by her into respective drawers. Mail sat in tidy stacks sorted by content.

Sophie sighed and flicked the top utility bill onto the counter.

A tick worried his left eye.

“Where’d you go?”

“Out and about.” She leaned against the fridge door, a magnet in the shape of a dog digging into her back. “Where were you?”

“In the office. Working lunch.”

“Really? You didn’t leave your office. Just worked through?”

Nothing moved on his face.

“Yep.”

I wonder if he had a meeting at all
.

He advanced until their breaths clashed.

“You can’t ditch the detail. This is about—”

She pushed up higher on her feet until they were impossibly close, her temperature rising. “This is about me not being one of your ‘yes master’ girls and doing what you say.”

“Fuck, Sophie, you’ve got to listen to me.” Harlan swept his hand through his messy hair, making it messier and sexier. “I’m out this afternoon.
Please
don’t ditch the detail.”

“Is it Thor?”

Confused eyes cut to hers. “Thor?”

“Yeah, Thor. The hot, blond Viking he-man you’ve got on your staff.”

He rubbed his chin. “I assume you’re talking about Israel?”

“I don’t know his name, but don’t send him.”

“Why?”

“He’s distracting,” she lied.

He stood there a moment, looking like he wanted to hog-tie her.

“I’m out, I’ll see you tonight,” he said.

“Whatever,” she said on a long breath.

After Harlan closed the door behind him, Sophie prepared the lamb and vegetables for tonight, then set the timer on the oven. When she walked back into the kitchen, rosemary, garlic, and her secret herb ingredient, sage, would fill the room, and the roast would be falling off the bone.

“Time to get to work, Pong. I need the distraction and the money.”

Pongo waddled along beside her to her desk. She opened a manila folder and reread her case notes, looking for something she’d missed.

Suzie West, also known as “Slow-Screw Suzie,” had hit the jackpot when she’d met her husband-to-be while working as a lap dancer in Vegas. A VP for a large accounting firm, Jim West had fallen hard for Suzie and treated his new wife like a queen.

Beth had been born a year after leaving Vegas, and Suzie had packed a bag and walked out on her husband and daughter six months later. In a note, later verified as authentic, she’d asked to be left alone. Jim, her heartbroken father, tried to do his best for his daughter, but he became a shell of a man who passed when Beth turned eighteen. Now twenty-five, Beth was searching for her mother.

So far, no one by the name of Suzie West née Jones with a matching birth date had been registered as dead in the state of Colorado. She’d sent out requests with the woman’s birth date to other states. Results were trickling in, none of them a hit so far. She was still in the process of contacting Suzie’s known friends and family. So far, nothing. This wasn’t going to be an easy case, and Sophie’s gut feeling told her that she might not be delivering the good news her client hoped for.

Sophie stood in a large, warm, messy room. Books, some upside down, were crammed into a bookcase. Magazines crowded a table. A multitude of framed photos dotted the walls showing a couple with their arms entwined, laughing.

Sunlight poured through the window and captured what looked like an art project of stained glass, sending spears of green, orange, and pink colliding in a waterfall of color down the opposite white wall. Sophie’s socked feet scrunched on the faded beige carpet.

Love and memories filled the room. She could almost taste the joy of Christmas Day, the dried-out turkey on Thanksgiving and the laughter that gravy would fix it all. The sadness that Beth didn’t have a mother around to share the joy of her first child. The room was wrapped in the fabric of family.

Something pulled at Sophie’s heart. A twinge that if things had been different, if her father’s cons had been found out sooner, they would have stayed in one place, and she could have had a little slice of this pie.

Don’t let anyone in, Buttercup
.

Her father’s words floated unwanted into her head, and she pushed them straight out.

Beth walked into the room, wiping her hands down her legs. “I thought she’d never go down. I’ve been up since four trying to figure out why she won’t stop crying.” She smiled uneasily. “I think if you can survive the leaky boobs, evacuated body fluids, and not go insane, it must get easier, right?”

Sophie stared at Beth, having no words, the whole female dynamic still lost on her. Beth stood in front of her, her dark eyes smiling, hair ratty in a messy bun, T-shirt over black leggings, purple crescents under her eyes. She looked back into the room she’d walked from. The lines melted from her eyes.

“She’s the reason I wanted to find out what happened to my mom. Now that my daughter’s in my life, I feel like there’s this box in my past that isn’t checked off, and I get fixated on it.” She hugged her torso.

“I know,” Sophie said, a wry smile touching her lips.

Beth’s head tilted to the side, observing Sophie. “Yeah, I think you do.”

A clock somewhere in the house counted down time.

Beth waved her to sit down.

Sophie perched on the edge of her seat.

Beth starting folding laundry, her face wistful. “It wasn’t the big picture stuff I missed, I don’t think. It was the little things. Mother and daughter day at school. Poor Dad, he sat at the back, mortified. I envied girls having a mom around to tell them that putting Vaseline on your face to make it sparkly, which you’d read in a magazine, probably didn’t mean half an inch worth. Or the fact that it’s pretty water-resistant. Not what you’re going after on a first date.”

“Handing your father a note from your PE teacher that you need a bra?” Sophie pressed her hands to her cheeks. “My father looked like he’d rather have an up close and personal with Satan than try and pick out a bra.” She smiled. “Luckily a woman with a measuring tape spotted me. The next thing I knew I’d been ushered into a cubicle and measured. She helped me pick out a selection. She patted my shoulder, hugged me, and smelled of rose petals.”

Beth’s face melted. “Yeah, it’s the little things. Like your mom knowing what brand of pad and tampon to get without having to write specific instructions for your dad, which is torture no teen should have to go through.”

“Or knowing not to flush five tampons at a time when you can’t figure out that stupid “how to insert them” diagram, then tell your father you’d blocked the toilet.”

Beth laughed. “Or what everyone else is wearing in school. The cool shoes or the specific brand of jeans. By the time I did get them the trend had shifted and yet again I rocked the has-been look.”

Sophie smiled, lost in a watercolor memory. “Or having something girly on your birthday. Something pretty for your hair or a strawberry lip gloss instead of a practical book on growing herbs.” Sophie grinned. “Call me the Cilantro Queen. I can grow that sucker anywhere.”

Beth put her hand over her mouth, her eyes dancing. She walked to an iPad and stroked her finger across the glass, showing a beaming older couple holding a baby swaddled in a blue blanket.

“My husband was raised by his grandparents, who aren’t around anymore. His parents have been in and out of rehab for years and have no interest in getting clean. My dad’s gone…that’s why I’m doing this. If anything happened to me, I want Hannah to have a family tree. Some sort of roots.”

Sophie nodded and, when Beth didn’t continue, she carefully prodded. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

Sophie startled at the raw emotion that twisted Beth’s features before she ironed them flat.

“If she’s still alive, I want to know why.” Beth paused, her voice quivered.

An uncomfortable knot tightened in Sophie’s chest. Her fingers went to rub the ache away.

Beth cocked her head. “You think you’ll have this one day?”

Sophie automatically shook her head and pressed a manufactured smile onto her face.

That would mean letting someone in and allowing him to see the real me.

Beth stared out the window. “I couldn’t imagine not having Hannah in my life. I could never up and leave her. I know this sounds weird, but I often wondered if my mom left because of me. It’s kind of haunted me. My dad never got over my mother leaving. He always said he hit the Vegas jackpot when Suzie came into his life.” She pushed a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. “He never moved on. I kind of always thought it was my fault.”

Beth stretched. Her daughter wailed and, on cue, a stain formed on her shirt. She hurried from the room and returned with her daughter, whose mouth turned toward her mom’s chest.

“Boobs are a go.” Beth settled in a rocking chair and started feeding her daughter, rocking back and forth, humming quietly. She closed her eyes and a spasm rolled across her face. She opened her eyes and grimaced. “Letdown. Gets me every time.” A small fist rested on her mother’s breast as if in triumph. Dark eyes held her mother’s, her face almost fierce until her little features softened as her belly filled.

Beth looked at Sophie and smiled, and realized with a start she’d been staring.

“I’ve got a bit to go on.” Sophie gathered up the files, her face hot, and placed the papers in a folder.

Beth sung softly to her daughter.

Both mother and daughter looked entranced.

Wistfulness and longing filtered through her in a warm wash.

Did my mom sing Hush Little Baby
to me?

She shrugged off the loneliness that swirled around her like a mist of talc.

“I’ll be in contact in the next few days and let you know what I find.” Sophie hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder.

Beth looked up. Hannah’s chubby fingers wrapped around her mother’s thumb. “I know you need a retainer up front. I’ve saved two hundred dollars, which is in my purse. It’s on the kitchen counter, if you could bring it over.”

Two hundred would stock her freezer with some legs of lamb, Titus’s favorite expensive stinky cheese, and Sally’s favorite triple-churned, salted caramel ice cream and pay back another person from her father’s list. Sophie eyed the stack of bills on the counter that rivaled her own and the nearly empty box of generic-brand diapers sitting under a changing table.

“Don’t worry about the retainer, I’m good,” she lied. “I’ll send you the bill later.”

Beth closed her eyes and, when she opened them, they glistened. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Sophie cleared her throat. “I’ll do everything in my power to find out what happened to your mom.”

“I know you won’t let me down.”

…

Harlan wiped his plate clean.

Sophie could
cook
.

The lamb had been tender, the potatoes with crispy skins and fluffy innards. Carrots that didn’t make him want to barf as they usually did. Buttery corn sweeter than he’d ever tasted. Earlier he’d quietly gone through Titus’s cupboards and noted the empty shelves. Groceries would be delivered tomorrow.

The four of them sat at a small table, which fitted them snugly. Sophie’s warm thigh pressed against his. A thick white tablecloth with square creases covered aged wood. A framed black-and-white photo of teenaged Titus and Sally, their cheeks pressed together laughing at something off-camera, dominated the wall. A polished mahogany cabinet that held the same china as on the table sat underneath the photo.

With a smile and a twinkle in his eye, Titus turned out to be a master interrogator. He’d hire the bastard tomorrow. Harlan had deflected questions about his youth and his parents. He’d then tried to steer the conversation to neutral topics, to no avail.

Sally, who called Harlan by the name of Pat, was convinced he was her long-lost cousin who’d come for a visit but had neglected to bring his sister, Wednesday. Sally had pressed her powdery cheek to his, reminiscing about the time they’d visited Yosemite and he’d eaten a whole container of Cool Whip. The next minute she’d shrunk from him, tears in her silver eyes. Titus had excused himself and guided her out of the room, a nod in Harlan’s direction. Getting old blowed, but getting older and not having a clue who you were sucked.

Sophie excused herself to clean the dishes and headed into the kitchen. Harlan checked his watch. In another forty minutes Sophie would be heading for Pipe’s, leaving him to search her place. Then he had a videoconference with Petrov, followed by a surveillance job with Arabella. He had depressingly little in the way of facts to tell Petrov, except that Sophie
was
being followed, and he genuinely felt in his gut that they meant to do her harm. Zeb still ran angles on her father. All they had was a small string of people scattered around the country who’d come forward after the prayer for cash failed. They’d stayed on the move and the law couldn’t touch O’Connor—who didn’t actually promise rain, cures, or finding true love. O’Connor took donations rather than charging for his services—even if they had caught up to them. Prayer was what it was, the power of hope.