Deadly Bounty: SCVC Taskforce Romantic Suspense Series, Book 11 Read online

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “Me either, but it might be fun to pit her and Alison against each other if they’re both after me.”

  Her attempt to lighten the situation went over like a lead ball. “We should pull the plug on this operation.”

  “You haven’t even asked Alison anything pertinent yet. Joe, this is our chance. You’re probably the only person who can get past her armor.”

  She heard a heavy sigh. “All right. Stay in the car. I’ll see what I can do, but if anything else happens, I’m out of here. We’re out of here.”

  “I’m fine,” Sam insisted. “This girl is an amateur. We can handle her. It’s Alison we have to be careful with.”

  Sam slowly slipped out of the compartment, staying hidden from anyone who might be looking her direction.

  The night was dark, clouds obscuring any light from the moon and stars. As she peered over the seats and dash, she could see the man in the Buick had his driver’s window down, his hand flicking a cigarette to get rid of the ashes. Was this the uncle?

  Had to be. She couldn’t see his face as it was hidden by shadows. Sam stroked the Taser and decided the tracking device had a new purpose. Carefully opening the rear passenger door, she slipped into the sandy gravel.

  The opposite side of the sports bar gave her cover to move to the front lot, where she clung to the deep shadows as she went from vehicle to vehicle. She was closing in on the Buick.

  The man had backed into a space near a palm tree and away from the lights. She slowly crept forward.

  Her heart raced and she forced it to slow down, her breathing to even out. Alison was the big fish here, but she wanted to know who this man was, and why he wanted to talk to her.

  She guessed he might be a bounty hunter, like Joe, or someone looking to score the reward money on her. Either way, the girl was trained enough to help him.

  Figures, Sam thought. She continued into a mess of scrub brush directly behind the car and sat there for a moment, deciding whether she was really going to risk this.

  Convinced she needed more intel on these two, she was about to sneak forward to reach the underside of the trunk, when she heard him say, “I told you, don’t let Cahill see you.”

  Sam’s heart jumped into her throat, at first thinking he was talking to her, but then she realized he was speaking to the girl once again.

  His voice was hoarse, as if he had laryngitis. “I mean it, Sorscha. Alison either. She’ll have a fit.”

  Alison! She was in on this. Of course.

  Kyle’s neighbor was a plant. But why? And how long had this Sorscha been keeping tabs on the guy? Was the ‘uncle’ in the car the male neighbor she’d met that night who’d pretended to be Sorscha’s boyfriend?

  Joe had recommenced his discussion with Alison, but Sam’s mind was spinning, not listening to them. She crept forward and ever so gently attached the tracker as the man continued to lecture Sorscha on being careful. At closer range, she thought he sounded almost familiar.

  Slipping back into the scrub brush, she silently released the breath she’d been holding and regained her composure. After a moment, she stayed bent at the waist as she hurried past the other cars toward the shadows on the far side of the building.

  Unexpectedly, she heard Joe in her ear demanding her attention. “Sam! What are you doing? What’s going on?”

  “Why aren’t you talking to Alison?” she hissed quietly, slowing.

  “I’m at the bar getting her a drink. Talk to me.”

  “The girl and her uncle are apparently working with Alison. I’m not sure who he is, but it’s possible he was posing as a college co-ed the other night. He’s got a cold or something, so I don’t recognize his voice. None of this makes sense, but he mentioned Alison’s name. She is behind this, and she had them watching Kyle’s.”

  “I told you to stay in the car. Look, we can figure out who those two are and why they’re pretending to be students later. It’s too dangerous, we’re not messing with them, or Alison, any longer tonight.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. This new wrinkle was something she needed to think about. “I’m heading back to your car.”

  “Good.” She heard the relief in his voice. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure the man in the car hadn’t moved, she was relieved to see he was too busy smoking to notice her.

  “I’m going to take Alison her drink, then I’m coming out,” Joe said.

  Lightning flashed, closer now, and illuminated the man’s face. Sam sucked in a breath.

  What the…? Holy shit.

  Rushing along the rear, heading for the shadows that would take her to Joe’s car.

  It couldn’t be. Not him.

  Her thoughts were too tangled, a dozen different pieces of the puzzle beginning to fall into place. As she crouched to scoot up to the passenger side of Joe’s car, she heard the crunch of gravel behind her and whirled.

  Holy shit was right.

  Sorscha stood there, smiling, a gun in her hand. “Well, hello there.”

  She raised it and aimed right at Sam.

  19

  Joe set Alison’s drink on the table. He was done with this.

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing,” he said to the woman seated in the booth looking innocent, “but I’m not participating.”

  She opened her red lipsticked mouth to say something, her brows squeezing together in a frown, but in his ear he heard Sam say “I’m in trouble, Joe.”

  Everything in him froze.

  He didn’t wait for Alison’s response. “Don’t move. I’m on my way.”

  He jetted for the door, impatiently weaving through the growing crowd. A waitress carrying a tray of beers stepped in front of him and he barely missed her, shifting to his left…and into the path of a patron.

  The young, preppy-looking kid jumped at the same time and knocked into her, sending her and the tray flying.

  A table of two couples ended up wearing the beer, the crash of breaking glass cutting through the din. Shouts rang out. Joe didn’t wait, and jetting for the door once more.

  A hand seized one of his arms, and he found it attached to a half-drunk bald guy who’d been at the bar. “Seems like you’ve got some cleaning up to do, son,” the guy said.

  Get to Sam. Get to Sam.

  Instinct took hold. Joe slugged the guy in the gut. Not hard enough to hurt, but it made the bozo release his grip.

  Two steps forward, and Joe realized he had the entire bar’s attention. People yelled, “stop him!” More volunteers rising to their feet to give chase.

  Another hand landed on his forearm and he wheeled to punch whoever it was, but found himself looking into the face of Alison. “Joe, what the hell? What’s going on?”

  He had no intention of answering, and as various men started to close in, he shoved her away. Turning for the door again, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

  Bam!

  His ear exploded with the noise.

  Gun.

  Sam!

  Bolting forward, he was tackled by two older guys, who looked like they’d been Marines in their day. He jerked out of their grips, and heard Alison shout from behind him, “He’s a federal agent. Let him go.”

  Why was she lying on his behalf? No time to speculate, and the Marines backed down.

  The bouncer had taken up residence at the entrance, a massive roadblock. Unmoving, he offered a blank expression, and stood casually with his hands interlaced.

  The guy’s black skin gleamed under the bar’s lights. As Joe rushed forward, the bouncer smiled, revealing a missing tooth. Three hundred pounds, Joe estimated. Most of it muscle.

  Without warning, a younger version of the veteran Marines leaped in his way and took a swing.

  Joe dodged left, the blow grazing his shoulder. He used the guy’s momentum to spin him off, into another table.

  People gasped and shouted. The bouncer continued to smile, blocking his way to Sam.

 
Alison come up behind him, shouting at the bouncer. “Get out of the way, moron!”

  A losing proposition to go head to head with the guy, but he’d taken down similar sized men, on the run and who had nothing to lose. The trick was to outsmart them, not try to outfight them.

  Joe’s pulse beat a hard tempo, his drive to get to Sam overwhelming everything else. “You have a federal fugitive in your parking lot,” he told the guy, resurrecting his FBI persona. “Get out of the way or I’ll hold you and this bar responsible for letting her escape. You’ll find your ass in prison for the next ten years.”

  Smiley grinned harder and stepped forward. “Is that so?”

  Joe threw a punch at the guy’s face. As he attempted to deflect it and dodge out of the way, Joe raised a booted foot and kicked him in the gut. The big man hardly budged, but Joe followed that up with a second kick to the knee.

  Bone snapped and the bouncer nosedived into the hostess station, knocking it over and scattering the woman standing there.

  Joe hit the door and flew onto the bar’s wooden front porch, scrambling to the end closest to the gravel drive on the side.

  Just as he vaulted the railing, he heard Alison call. “Joe! Wait!”

  Landing on the gravel, he found himself spotlighted by car’s headlights. It sped by, nearly running him over. The front bumper nicked him as he lunged out of the way, his shoulder slamming into the side of the building.

  Ricocheting off, Joe landed on hands and knees. Gravel dug into his palms, but he didn’t feel it. Adrenaline pumped hard in his veins. Fear chased it. Bounding up, he ran for his BMW, calling Sam’s name at the top of his lungs.

  As he skidded to a stop next to the car, the darkness was thick, the silence of the night heavy back here. The sickly light from the rear exit barely illuminated anything, but he caught sight of disturbed gravel.

  A struggle. He could see it. His already tense belly cramped hard. Jerking out his cell, he turned on the flashlight and shone it around, stopping when he found a puddle of dark liquid soaking into the gravel.

  He crouched down and touched it. Blood.

  Sam’s blood.

  Alison ran up behind him, having removed her heels. “Holy hell,” she said, eyeing dark liquid. “What happened?”

  He rounded on her, but then looked toward the bar’s front parking lot. “Who the fuck was that?”

  “In the car? No idea. Some drunk?”

  Behind the Beemer’s trunk, something glinted in the grass. He found Sam’s burner phone lying there. Snatching it up, he yanked the driver’s door open.

  As he jammed the keys in the ignition, the passenger side flew open and Alison slid in.

  “Get the hell out of my car. Now!”

  “They took a right,” she said, pointing toward the main road. When he didn’t move, she waved the finger. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

  He didn’t have time to argue. Sam’s life was on the line. Growling under his breath, he shoved the car into drive, gravel spraying as he put his foot on the gas and took off.

  20

  Sam was in a fog. Sounds came as if far away—footsteps, low murmuring, crying.

  Her tongue and throat burned, the tingle of chloroform in her nose. She swallowed hard and peeled her eyes open a few centimeters, seeing a dirty wooden floor her head was laying on.

  For several seconds, she floated in the fog, allowing the rest of her senses to come online. Heat, sweat, a dustiness and empty echoes filtered in.

  “She’s awake,” a female voice said.

  The sound was still so distant, and as Sam craned her neck to try and glance in that direction, sharp pains shot through her body.

  Her hands were secured behind her, the arm she was lying on stinging with pins and needles from lack of blood flow. Her left leg burned, radiating lances of white-hot agony from her knee.

  Sorscha came into view, kneeling and looking her over. “Good, we can wrap this up.”

  Sam tried to spit out a curse, but her mouth and tongue wouldn’t obey. Rage burned in her belly and she manage to grunt, “You shot me!”

  The woman grinned. “Couldn’t let you run, now, could I?”

  Someone had wrapped Sam’s knee, and along with assessing the rest of her aches and pains, she realized the normal weight of the earbud was gone.

  Bad news. She had no way to contact Joe now.

  The sobbing increased, drawing her attention past her feet. The room was nearly devoid of furniture. A single, cheap floor lamp lit the space. Beyond where she lay, a woman was tied to a chair, duct tape over her mouth.

  As more brain cells fired, Sam forgot the pain, the bitter taste on her tongue. Anxiety racked her and she struggled to sit up. Her head was too woozy, and vertigo sent her to the floor again. “Hetty?”

  Her voice came out strange, ragged. Hetty let go another strangled cry.

  Sorscha had shot her, and her so-called ‘uncle’ had chloroformed Sam after he’d wheeled up in his car.

  She’d been on her knees at that point, thanks to the bullet that had grazed her left one, and Sorscha had stepped forward and tased her.

  Bitch.

  Sam had fallen over in the gravel, and Frank had jumped out to throw her in the backseat. Sorscha had vaulted into his spot and they’d taken off like a bat outta hell.

  Paralyzed, Sam couldn’t fight Frank and the chloroform, but she remembered her boss’s face hovering over hers with a sad smile.

  Her rotten luck—not only had Alison been the worst of the worst, Sam now realized Frank was too.

  Her boss. He’d betrayed her.

  Even now, her mind bent and tried to wrap around that fact.

  Now, he came into view, staring down at her. “Sorry about this, Samantha.”

  Sorry? “How could you?” Glancing around urgently, she attempted to figure out where they were, how Frank had gotten Hetty. “You know I didn’t bomb that parade.”

  “Oh, I know, but you’re too damn smart for your own good.”

  The room, while nearly empty, reminded her of another she’d been in recently. The layout of the door, the windows, the smell.

  Kyle’s.

  But this wasn’t his apartment. She saw a worn wooden staircase to the right. Next to it, an entryway that led to a kitchen.

  Sorscha leaned against the frame there. “How do you want to lay it out?”

  Frank swiveled to look at a spot behind Sam. It took everything she had to follow his gaze, rolling herself over on to her cuffed hands. Sharp pain ran up her arms, but her stomach bottomed out when she saw Dec in a similar chair and position as Hetty.

  While Hetty cried, Dec glanced at Sam with wild eyes. He was trying to say something, but the duct tape over his mouth blocked it. He rocked, exerting himself to move closer, and Sam whispered, “Oh god, Dec. I’m so, so sorry. Hetty…”

  Frank, with his slight build, and short graying hair, came more fully into view as he walked to a dilapidated coffee table and hefted the bat lying there.

  Dec’s weapon of choice.

  Frank turned in a lazy circle, keen eyes glancing at Sorscha, Sam, then the others. “We have to make it seem as if she was living here, in this lower part of the duplex.”

  His gaze went to the door, flicked to Sam, as he spoke to his supposed niece. “These two,”—he used the bat to point to Hetty and Dec—“were staying here with her. You notified me you saw her, so I came to talk Samantha into turning herself in. There was a gunfight. Sam and her friends were killed, but they managed to knock over a candle, which started a fire, and bye-bye evidence.”

  “But I’ll get the reward, right?” Sorscha asked.

  “You can’t do this,” Sam pleaded. “Please, Frank. I don’t know how you got involved in all of this, but we’ll work together and figure it out. Let Dec and Hetty go—they haven’t done anything. They don’t even know who I really am.”

  He gave her that sad smile. “Wish it was that easy, kid. You really were a good agent.”

  �
��Why?” She hoisted herself into a half-sitting position. Her head swam, the bitterness on her tongue making her want to gag. “Why are you doing this? Are you the one who set me up?”

  He twirled the bat in his hand. “I didn’t start it, but you know how it is when you love someone—you’ll do anything for them. Kinda like Cahill putting his life on the line for you.”

  Love? What the hell was he talking about? “Who are you covering for?” But as soon as Sam asked, understanding dawned. “Tell me it’s not Alison.”

  “Crazy woman. She got under my skin. This plan was concocted years ago—I honestly thought we were just making stuff up. Thinking about different scenarios to help her climb the ranks. You know, playing ‘what if’ while we were both stationed in Bumblefuck, Arkansas.”

  He looked serene for a moment, as if remembering happier times. “She felt completely unappreciated, and simply wanted somebody in the Bureau to recognize her talents. Guess I never thought she’d actually carry out any of these ideas.”

  “What ideas? The bombings?”

  “She’s mental.” He made a twirling motion near his temple with one finger, then looked at Sam as if she would understand. “Adamant she wanted fame. She screwed up, and then you started figuring things out. Downward spiral from there. Instead of accomplishing a big win and having the Bureau reward her for it, she ended up fired because of you.”

  “She did that to herself. If she’d done her job—”

  He gripped the bat and swung it in an arc in the air as if taking a swing at a ball. “With this, I’ll get her reinstated. Things will go back to the way they were, and she’ll get that promotion she wanted. I’ll have helped her attain the fame she so desperately craves.”

  Oh my god. Alison was worse than Sam had anticipated. And Frank? He knew the bitch was crazy and was willing to kill to help her.

  Throat tight, her mind raced with ways to get out of this—or at least Hetty and Dec. They were her first concern. Then Joe. Keep him talking. “And Kyle? Why kill him?”