Marton, Dana (2 page)

She wrote down the address. Within twenty minutes she was at the door of the
third-floor condo, ringing the bell.

Murphy opened the door, undressed save his blue jeans, unshaved, eyes
red-rimmed. He shaded them against the glare of the hallway light.

“I’ll help you,” she told him. “On one condition. We catch the bastard, we
bring him in. I want him to spend a good long time rotting in prison before they
put him out of his misery. I want to make sure he has time to regret what he’s
done. And one more thing,” she said after a brief pause. “As long as we’re
working together, I’m the boss.”

Cameron eyed the woman in the hallway, stood aside, motioned for her to come
in, and followed her to the living room.

The place looked as if things had been tossed about. A couple of small things
were broken. A hole gaped in the wall next to Vicky’s entertainment center. He
didn’t apologize for the mess. Let her think what she wanted.

He could think of nothing but getting his hands on the man who’d killed
Vicky.

“We start now?” he asked as he pulled on a clean shirt from his bag next to
the pullout couch.

“I’m ready when you are. Montana doesn’t require a permit. I’ll list you as
an agent for my business. That should be enough. You have a gun?”

He nodded and stepped into his shoes.

“I’m sorry about your sister, Mr. Murphy —”

He cut her off with a motion of his hand. “Just help me find the man.”

“That’s the idea.” She remained standing. “We find him, we bring him in. This
is a high-profile case; the media will be all over every little development. You
cross the line — I’ll lose my business. That won’t make me happy.”

He hadn’t thought someone as small and feminine could sound that ominous. He
simply grunted in response as he tucked his gun behind his back and walked out
the door.

In the parking lot, there was a small argument over whose car they would
take. She won.

“So where do we start?” he asked once he was in the passenger seat, hating
it.

“I already put the word out. Somebody somewhere knows something. We go back
to my office and see what came in so far, split up the work.”

She burst out of the parking lot with a speed that had him reaching for the
dashboard, cutting into traffic in front of a tour bus with fearless precision.
He was used to military vehicles and off-roading. She wasn’t half bad in city
traffic.

Her cell phone rang and she glanced at the display, handing it to him. “It’s
Jack. You talk to him. See if he has something new to say,” she said and
proceeded to turn the two-lane road into three.

He pushed the speaker button for her benefit. “Murphy. What have you got?”

“Another name. Jenny Peltier. No address, though — the boys are still working
on that.”

“How close a link is this to Fowler?”

“Very.”

“Anything we can do with just a name?” he asked after he hung up.

Mia smiled. “As soon as we get to my laptop,” she said, “prepare to be
amazed.”

“I hate stakeouts.”

Mia bit back a grin at the way Cameron’s voice dripped with disgust. “Embrace
it. It brings results.” Not that the last three days hadn’t gotten to her, too.
Cameron Murphy was…a man with a strong presence.

“I say we go in there and find a way to make her tell us where the bastard
is.” He was vibrating with impatience.

At least he was talking more. In the beginning, his dark silence had filled
the car, heavy with the weight of his grief and anger.

“No. We wait.”

“This is a waste of time. As long as you’re working for —”

“I don’t work for you.” She said the words slowly and with emphasis. “I’m
letting you help me. You have a vested interest in catching Fowler, just like I
do. You have a military background that might come in handy if your hotheaded
impatience doesn’t ruin everything first. And you’re one of Jack’s friends.”

His bottomless dark eyes were steady on her face. “You agreed to work with me
because you need help with Fowler and you wouldn’t admit it to any of your
bounty hunter buddies.”

She shrugged and didn’t deny his words. Fowler was a big catch. She didn’t
want to owe that big a favor to anyone. Once Fowler was in jail, Cameron Murphy
would be gone, their business with each other finished. Not that she believed he
meant it when he’d agreed to the whole “capture alive” plan. At some point she’d
need to work on that.

The small electric device on the console came to life with a hiss of static.

“She’s getting a call.” Cameron put on his earpiece.

Mia followed his example and listened to a familiar exchange. “Neighbor.”

Jenny Peltier’s neighbor was out of state, but called to check on his cats
twice a day.

“You didn’t forget Chaucer’s on a diet, did you?”

“He’s doing good, Bobby. I’m talking care of them.”

“Okay. Sorry. You know how I worry. I hope they haven’t been fighting.”

They went on like that for a while.

“Doesn’t sound like they’re planning a conspiracy.” Mia pulled her earpiece
once Bobby had finished worrying and finally hung up.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere. I say we go in and talk to her.”

She took in the look in Cameron’s eyes. He was definitely ready for action.
Kind of sexy, God help her. What had she been thinking? There had to be a
million other men out there she could have chosen as a partner.

“We wait,” she said. “According to my sources, Jenny and Fowler are tight.
Budding affair or something. Sooner or later, he’ll come to her, or she’ll go to
him. We go in now, we ruin everything.”

“Urhm.” He grunted, tried to stretch his long legs in her small car, then
gave up after a few seconds. “Fine. We’ll try your way again today. But if it
doesn’t work, tomorrow we do it my way.”

As boring as daytime stakeout seemed, nighttime surveillance was the pits.
The world slept while you stared at a black window for hours on end. Still, Mia
wasn’t going to whine about it like some rookie.

Speaking of which, Cameron was slumbering in his seat next to her. She didn’t
have the heart to wake him. He’d seen a couple of sleepless nights lately. His
sister’s death had been hard on him. He hadn’t grieved yet, at least not that
she’d seen. Instead, he bottled up all that rage inside to fuel his revenge.

She knew too well how dangerous that was, the mistakes people made when
acting out of emotional pain. And it wasn’t just his life at stake but hers,
too — as long as they worked together on the acquisition. She couldn’t let her
guard down. Not for a moment.

He grunted in his sleep and tried to adjust his body into a more comfortable
position.

Whoever had said that men looked as innocent as little boys when they slept,
hadn’t met Cameron Murphy. He reminded her of a giant black panther. His
powerful body radiated strength that she could appreciate — one hunter admiring
another.

The light in Jenny Peltier’s apartment came on. Mia put the binoculars to her
eyes, but couldn’t see anything. The light went out. Maybe the woman had just
gone to the bathroom. Then the light came on again. Maybe she was signaling to
someone.

“Cameron.” Mia reached over to touch his shoulder.

In the next second she was halfway across his lap, her hands pinned to the
dashboard behind her.

“Cameron.” Instinct had her say his name again instead of fighting back. With
the position they were in, it would have taken him little effort to snap her
neck if she forced him into action before he was fully awake and realized she
wasn’t the enemy.

A harsh breath exploded from his lungs as his hands gentled, ran down the
side of her arms. “Vicky,” he said into the darkness and crushed her to him. “I
had…bad dream.”

His chest was wide and hard with muscle, the heat of sleep radiating through
his clothes. The sensation jolted her, brought out a response that was as
untimely as it was inappropriate. She pulled away. “Cameron, it’s —”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. He’d finally awaken fully.

“Sorry. I thought…” He let his head drop back and let her go.

“It’s okay.” She looked away, unsure how to respond to the glimpse of
vulnerability he allowed her.

They didn’t know each other well enough to offer any meaningful comfort even
though her heart went out to him.

A small movement caught her eye by the buildings across the parking lot.

“There she goes.” She refocused immediately and turned the key in the
ignition.

After three days of waiting, Jenny Peltier was finally on the move.

“Sorry about that, earlier,” Cameron said as they followed Peltier’s white
Chevy down the boulevard at a comfortable pace.

“No big deal.” Mia let another car come between them, but didn’t fall too far
back. Truth be told, if she had to get crushed against someone’s chest, she
didn’t mind it being Cameron’s. For a wounded bear, he wasn’t half bad to work
with. “You were asleep. I’m sure you don’t normally grope the members of your
team.”

“You should see my team,” he said with a flat smile, then his face darkened
again. “Ex-team.”

“You quit?”

“I needed time. They couldn’t give it to me.”

She knew a little of his background from Jack, and decided not to pry
further. It had to be hard to lose everything: the last of his family, his
career, his friends on the team. And he seemed to be replacing what he’d lost
with such a consuming hate for Fowler…if he wasn’t careful, he would lose
himself, too.

“Killing Fowler won’t bring your sister back,” she said. “It might not even
make you feel all that much better.”

“I’ll live with the disappointment.” He looked straight ahead. “Why do you
want to spare the bastard? You can’t tell me you don’t think he deserves to
die.”

“A thousand times over,” she said. “I’d still rather bring him in. A bounty
hunter thing, I suppose.” She shrugged. “To us, bringing in an acquisition dead
means we failed in some way. The first goal is always to capture alive. If I
have to make a kill, it means something has gone wrong. I didn’t pay enough
attention. I didn’t plan for everything.”

“Pride of the trade?” He glanced over.

“Something like that.”

“Don’t you ever want to —”

“Punish? It’s not my job. I enjoy the hunt. I enjoy the success of getting
paid. Of course, it’s never been personal.”

She tried to put herself into Cameron’s shoes. What someone she loved was a
victim? Could she kill in cold blood? She’d taken a man out before in
self-defense. It hadn’t given her any sleepless nights.

But to kill an acquisition after he was captured, after he was rendered
harmless and defenseless, went against the bounty hunter code — a set of
unwritten laws that governed men and women like her. “Revenge is a two-edged
sword. It cuts the one who wields it as well as it cuts the one it’s aimed at,”
she said.

“You’re too young to be this wise.” He gave her a half smile.

“You’re too smart to live for revenge.”

“We bring him in?” He said the words with reluctance.

“We bring him in.”

“But if he tries anything funny…”

“His ass is yours.”

“I’ll be all over it,” he said, and it sounded like a promise he intended to
keep.

“You think it’s Fowler?” Mia asked as they watched a tall, wiry man get out
of his ancient Jeep in front of a 24-hour Laundromat and slide into Peltier’s
car.

“Doesn’t fit the description.” Cameron examined him through binoculars. “Of
course, he could have altered his appearance.”

“I’ll run his plate.” Mia was already on her cell phone. “A friend of a
friend.” She flashed a grin at his questioning look.

She was growing on him. At first, he resented the hell out of working with
her — needing anyone’s help — on principle. He was used to being in command and
she would have none of it, made it clear at every step that this was her
operation, her reputation on the line.

But he did need her. She knew the ropes; she had the connections. Following
his own gut would have most likely landed him in jail before he’d accomplished
anything. They made a damn fine team. Not that he would ever admit it to her.

“Raymond Fleming,” she said as she hung up with her contact. A satisfied
little smile stretched her full lips into a sexy line.

Another good thing about her, that. She was easy on the eyes: soft black
hair, deep blue eyes, curves that got themselves noticed even when a man was
hell-bent on not noticing. She had all kinds of roundness in memorable places.

He focused his mind on the job. “Is he in the militia? Jack would know.”

She was already dialing. “Hi. Mia. I wouldn’t have woken you, but your buddy
Cameron wants to know what you have on a Raymond Fleming.” She waited.

“I bet he’s swearing,” Cameron said.

“He’s calling in on his other line. And he’s a gentleman — he never swears in
front of me,” she responded, then talked into the phone again. “That’s all?
Okay. Thanks. Will do.”

“What did he say?”

“Fleming is in the MMFA, but that’s about all the information they have. No
known address for the past four years, same as Fowler.”

He swore. Screw Jack the gentleman.

“It’s not as bad as that,” she said, all patience. “We are collecting
threads. Until now, we had only one line leading to Fowler, now we have two.”

He supposed they could look at it like that. “If they split, I take Fleming,
you follow the woman.”

“You’re sexist,” she said. “It’s not an attractive quality.”

“You think you could take him?”

“I could take them both, but that’s not the point.”

“I’m not. Sexist,” he said after a minute, thinking that she was probably
right about being able to handle whatever came her way. “I’m just not used to
working with women. There aren’t any in Special Forces. Growing up, I was a big
brother. I was supposed to protect my sister.” He fell silent. God, he had sure
failed at that.