“So, how much did you make off my brother?”

“The money had nothing to do with it,” Beau said, his voice dangerously soft. “I brought him in because he was my friend.”

“You don’t shoot friends in the leg. You should have let him go.”

“He’d never have gotten away, Aubrey. And if the wrong cop had found him, he’d have been dead.” Beau literally had to bite his tongue to keep his temper from boiling over. He knew Aubrey would never believe her precious older brother, half-insane with desperation, had fired the first shot.

“You’ve already made up your mind about me. I’m the bad guy. Nothing I could say would change your opinion, so why bother?” He suddenly realized he was on his feet.

Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him. “Because I don’t want you to be the bad guy.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

We’ve got an intoxicating lineup crackling with passion and peril that’s guaranteed to lure you to Harlequin Intrigue this month!

Danger and desire abound in As Darkness Fell—the first of two installments in Joanna Wayne’s HIDDEN PASSIONS: Full Moon Madness companion series. In this stark, seductive tale, a rugged detective will go to extreme lengths to safeguard a feisty reporter who is the object of a killer’s obsession. Then temptation and terror go hand in hand in Lone Rider Bodyguard when Harper Allen launches her brand-new miniseries, MEN OF THE DOUBLE B RANCH.

Will revenge give way to sweet salvation in Undercover Avenger by Rita Herron? Find out in the ongoing NIGHTHAWK ISLAND series. If you’re searching high and low for a thrilling romantic suspense tale that will also satisfy your craving for adventure—you’ll be positively riveted by Bounty Hunter Ransom from Kara Lennox’s CODE OF THE COBRA.

Just when you thought it was safe to sleep with the lights off…Guardian of her Heart by Linda O. Johnston—the latest offering in our BACHELORS AT LARGE promotion—will send shivers down your spine. And don’t let down your guard quite yet. Lisa Childs caps off a month of spine-tingling suspense with a gripping thriller about a madman bent on revenge in Bridal Reconnaissance. You won’t want to miss this unforgettable debut of our new DEAD BOLT promotion.

Here’s hoping these smoldering Harlequin Intrigue novels will inspire some romantic dreams of your own this Valentine’s Day!

Enjoy,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Bounty Hunter Ransom
Kara Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Texas native Kara Lennox has been an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has made her happier than writing romance novels.

When not writing, Kara indulges in an ever-changing array of weird hobbies. (Her latest passions are treasure hunting and creating mosaics.) She loves to hear from readers. You can visit her Web site and drop her a note at www.karalennox.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Aubrey Schuyler—Even after she is assaulted, the police won’t take her fears for her missing cousin seriously. She’s forced to turn to childhood friend Beau Maddox—the man who shot her brother and sent him to prison.

Beau Maddox—Ex-cop, bounty hunter, Beau believes he might redeem himself in Aubrey’s eyes if he can bring baby Sara home safe.

Patti Clarendon—Aubrey’s flighty cousin has a history of drug addiction. So when she disappears with her baby, Aubrey knows she’s in trouble.

Sara Clarendon—Patti’s six-month-old daughter.

David Clarendon—Aubrey’s cousin vows to move heaven and earth to bring his sister and niece home unharmed.

Wayne Clarendon—Aubrey’s millionaire uncle is dying of cancer. But he’s not so ill that he can’t offer a million-dollar reward for the granddaughter he’s seen only once.

Lyle Palmer—The incompetent detective sees this case as his chance to get his name in the paper.

Greg Holmes—The crooked insurance agent is Patti’s boss, and it’s rumored they were having an affair. How far would he go to protect his secrets?

Summer Deetz—She works with Patti at the insurance agency, and she sure acts as if she’s got something to hide.

Cory Silvan—Bartender at the alternative nightclub where Patti moonlights, he is also Patti’s drug dealer.

Charlie Soffit—Baby Sara’s father is a rough-looking, hard-drinking biker with whom Patti had a rocky relationship.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

“Just please hurry home. I need you real bad.”

Aubrey Schuyler stared at her cell phone. What now? Ever since her cousin Patti had come to live with Aubrey, life had been full of surprises, most of them unpleasant. But today was worse than usual. The phone call had interrupted a faculty meeting, and Patti’s voice had sounded desperate.

Aubrey dared not ignore her cousin’s summons, not when a little baby was involved. Patti tried to be a good mother to six-month-old Sara, but, bless her heart, she had the common sense God gave a squirrel.

As Aubrey pulled up to her sturdy, prairie-style home, she noted that Patti’s battered Escort wasn’t in the driveway. Why on earth would her cousin call Aubrey home, then leave before she arrived? Had the car been stolen? Was that the big crisis?

Aubrey’s bare legs stuck to the vinyl seat as she exited her Jeep Wrangler, and the back of her pale blue T-shirt was damp. She pulled her heavy mass of curly auburn hair off her neck for a few moments, hoping in vain for a slight breeze. But there was none. She dropped her hair, grabbed her keys and headed resolutely for the front door.

It turned out a key wasn’t necessary. Patti had left the front door unlocked again, though Aubrey had asked her many times to be more careful. Payton, Texas, wasn’t the safe little burg it had been during their childhood. The university where Aubrey taught chemistry had grown quickly over the last decade, and the town’s population had exploded.

Aubrey pushed the front door open. “Patti?”

No answer. She headed upstairs and into Patti’s bedroom, which was in its usual state of disarray. Drawers were half-open, clothing strewn over the unmade bed.

Aubrey peeked into the nursery. Sara’s car seat was gone.

Had Aubrey misunderstood the call? As she pondered the puzzle a crawling sensation wiggled up her spine. Something was wrong. Was it an item out of place? A strange odor in the air?

She scarcely had time to think about getting out of the house when the closet door behind her burst open and someone grabbed her with an arm around the neck. She screamed and kicked as panic took over. But her assailant was strong, abetted by his own burst of adrenaline. The arm wedged around her neck was hard and unyielding. She kicked backward, but her attacker avoided the worst of her blows, not that her sneakers would do much damage anyway. His other arm was wrapped around her body, pinning her arms to her sides. He was not a large man, but he knew how to fight. He smelled of unwashed male.

The man was trying to drag her out of the nursery—but to where? Aubrey thought frantically back to a self-defense course she’d taken at the University years ago. Use whatever you have at hand as a weapon. Keys, fingernails, teeth.

That was it. Counting on the element of surprise, Aubrey struck like a snake, clamping her mouth down hard on the man’s forearm, the only part of his anatomy she could reach. She tasted sweat and blood. He rewarded her with a grunt of pain, and his hold on her loosened fractionally. She bent her knees and tried to slide downward, at the same time pushing him off balance.

For a brief, exultant moment, she thought she was going to escape. She lunged for the door just as something whacked her on the head. The first blow merely stunned her. She started to turn so she would ward off the next blow, but she was too slow. The next slam to her head knocked her down, and she was out.

When next Aubrey opened her eyes, she knew some time had passed, but not how much. Her head pounded and her stomach roiled with nausea. She was still on the floor of the nursery. She reached for her face and found it covered with sticky blood.

Oh, God, was she badly hurt? Was he still here? She listened, but all was quiet.

It seemed to take forever for her to sit up and get her bearings. She wasn’t seriously injured, at least she didn’t think so. Just a bump on the head and a lot of blood. A broken lamp on the floor appeared to be her attacker’s weapon. The phone. She needed to call the cops. Where were Patti and Sara? Had they fled from danger, or had some more sinister fate befallen them?

Aubrey pulled herself to her feet and walked unsteadily to her own bedroom. It was trashed. Her jewelry box was empty, her portable TV gone.

And her phone. The bastard had stolen her cordless phone.

Outrage gave her strength. She turned and headed down the hall, down the stairs, still a little dizzy but better with each step. He couldn’t steal the old-fashioned wall phone from the kitchen. She grabbed the receiver and dialed 911. After reporting the incident as calmly and clearly as she could, she stumbled to the sink and threw up. She rinsed her mouth, washed the blood off her face. She probed her scalp and found the source of the blood, a goose egg swelling with a small cut. It felt as if the cut had stopped bleeding, so she went to sit on her front porch and wait for the police. Her older brother, Gavin, had been a cop, and she knew enough to not further pollute the crime scene.

She’d hardly sat down when she heard the low rumble of a car engine approaching. She thought it was the police, until the vehicle pulled into view. It was a souped-up black Mustang convertible, and the dark-haired driver didn’t appear the least bit coplike.

When the car pulled into her driveway she jumped to her feet, heart pounding, and wondered whether to find a weapon or dart inside and lock the door. Then something about the man behind the wheel tugged at her memory. The shape of his broad shoulders, the way he gripped the steering wheel…

She froze, her hand on the doorknob as the man got out of the car and she realized who it was. She relaxed only a fraction. Beau Maddox. What the hell was that son of a bitch doing here?

Her palms went damp and her mouth felt full of cotton as he headed toward her, his motorcycle boots crunching against the gravel. Even as her fury rose, another emotion battled it. The sight of his tall, muscular frame had once made her adolescent heart flutter with anticipation. The hard lines of his face, the eyes like chips of ice, the charcoal hair he was forever pushing out of his face, the gesture remaining even when he cut his hair short for the police academy. All of those things had been burned into her brain with the branding iron of young love.

Well, she didn’t love him now, she reminded herself. She hated him. And her silly physiological reactions were nothing but memory, a bunch of misguided chemicals racing around in her body looking for a neuro-receptor to grab on to.

Her hand dropped from the doorknob and she turned to face him. “What are you doing here?”

“Damn, Aubrey, are you all right? I heard the call go out on the police scanner—”

“I’m fine.” But she wasn’t fine. She was shaken to her center, barely holding on to calm. Her home had been invaded, her security shattered, her cousin and precious baby Sara missing. She could have died. Maybe her attacker had meant to kill her. He could have fractured her skull.

Beau took a step toward her and grabbed her arm. She would have shaken loose, indignant, until she realized Beau was all that kept her from crumpling to the ground.

He guided her to a battered wicker chair on the front porch. “Sit down before you fall down. What the hell happened? Where are you hurt?” He began probing her scalp with surprisingly gentle hands, searching for the head wound. She batted his hands away.

“I’m okay. Apparently I interrupted a burglary in progress. The guy bashed me in the head, trashed my house and left. At least, I think he left.”

Beau’s gaze darted to her front door, and she knew he wanted to go in there and check things out. He’d been a cop for three years. But he’d given up the right to be first at a crime scene when he’d turned in his badge.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “Cops will be here any minute, and you can be on your way.”

“I’m not budging. You need to go to the hospital. Were you knocked out?”

Aubrey’s memories of the attack were a bit fuzzy, but she didn’t think she’d been unconscious for long. “I’m fine.”

“Fine, my ass.” He pulled a bandana from the back pocket of his black jeans and wiped her face with it. Apparently her wound was still oozing blood. “Don’t worry, this is clean. Here, hold it against the cut.”

She did as instructed, only because she knew he was right. She needed to stop the bleeding before the cops arrived, or they’d make her go to the hospital for sure.

“Tell me what happened,” he insisted. “Did you get a look at the guy?”

“No. He came at me from behind. He was white, and I can make an educated guess about his height, but that’s it. Oh, wait a minute.” She thought for a moment. “I bit him.”

“What?” Beau actually grinned. “You tiger, you.”

“Oh, shut up. I did some damage to his right forearm. I remember tasting blood.”

Beau grew serious. “You might have some biological evidence in your mouth. We should swab it out right away, before your own saliva washes away the—”

“It’s no good. I, um, threw up afterward and rinsed my mouth out.”

“Hell.”

Aubrey felt a bit calmer now, and she had to admit she was actually grateful for Beau’s presence. Whatever he’d done in the past, he’d never intended to hurt her, and she knew he could protect her better than just about any man alive. He’d been good as a cop, and was even better as a bounty hunter. Unfortunately.

A squad car pulled up and a young, lone patrolman got out. Aubrey quickly told her story. He looked at her and took a quick tour of the house to make sure the perpetrator was really gone, then called for an evidence team, a detective and paramedics.

“I don’t need the paramedics,” she objected.

“Let them at least look at you,” Beau said.

The cop, who’d ignored Beau until now, suddenly focused his attention on him. “Who are you?”

“A friend,” Aubrey answered quickly before Beau could smart off. He’d left the force with a lot of bitterness. The whole department, he’d claimed, had been riddled with incompetence and downright corruption. Aubrey’s brother had been only a small part of it but Beau’s superiors were unwilling to go after the big fish. Beau had quit in protest.

“And where were you when all this happened?” the cop asked.

“He wasn’t here,” Aubrey said.

“I can answer for myself,” Beau said evenly. He handed the cop a card that read First Strike Bounty Hunters. It featured a logo of a coiled snake and the motto, Code of the Cobra.

“Beau Maddox,” the cop read aloud. “I know who you are. You’re the one who brought in Gavin Schuyler.” He glanced down at his notepad, then at Aubrey, then back at Beau. “Schuyler?”

“Gavin’s my brother.”

“And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop the subject before she gets started,” Beau said, as if she were the one who’d done something wrong.

“Okay, that’s it.” She pointed toward the street. “Go.”

The cop shrugged as if to say, Women. “Better do what she says. She might bite you, too.” The two men shared a look that infuriated Aubrey further. Men were such jerks sometimes.

An unmarked car pulled into Aubrey’s driveway behind the squad car, and a detective with reddish-brown hair got out. He wore a long-sleeved shirt despite the oppressive heat, his tie neatly knotted.

Then she realized she knew him, which wasn’t all that surprising. She’d met lots of men and women from the force when she hung out with her brother and his friends, including Beau, once his very best friend. That seemed a lifetime ago.

The detective was Lyle Palmer. He’d been one of the regulars, along with Beau and Gavin, who hung out at Dudley’s Blue Note after hours. Dudley’s was a cop bar that hadn’t changed one square foot of Formica since the fifties. The cops liked the no-frills atmosphere and the cheap, strong drinks.

Aubrey had spent quite a few hours there, too, during grad school, always hoping Beau would finally notice her. Looking back on it, she found her previous crush on him pathetic. She’d brought Patti with her a couple of times, hoping to get her interested in a higher caliber man than she normally dated. Lyle had taken an instant shine to Patti, but she’d rebuffed his flirtation—rather rudely, Aubrey recalled. Later she’d said there was no way she was dating a cop, especially one that reminded her of Howdy Doody.

“Aubrey.” Lyle treated her to a warm smile. “When I heard your name, I volunteered—” His gaze flickered to Beau, then fixed on him. “Maddox? Might have known I’d find you in the thick of trouble.”

Aubrey recall that the two men hadn’t liked each other, but the specifics eluded her.

“When did you make detective?” Beau asked mildly, not rising to the bait.

Lyle puffed up a bit. “Around the first of the year.”

“Yeah? Whose ass did you have to lick to get the promotion?”

Lyle’s eyes narrowed. “I could make your life miserable, you know.”

Aubrey cleared her throat. “This isn’t helping.”

Lyle returned his attention to her, looking contrite. “Sorry. What the hell happened here?”

So she told her story again, adding little bits as she remembered them, and the patrolman added his two cents before taking off.

“Listen, Lyle, I’m really worried about my cousin Patti. You remember her, right?” She tensed, waiting for a negative reaction. But Lyle remained ultraprofessional.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I was in a meeting when she called me on my cell phone sounding terribly upset. And when I got here, she and the baby were gone, and some guy was in my house.”

“But you say her car wasn’t here when you arrived home?” Lyle asked.

“That’s right.”

“Maybe she knew bad news was on the way and she cleared out ahead of it. She’s, um, been in a bit of trouble in the past.”

Aubrey glanced at Beau, who was still here just to drive her crazy, she was sure. She pleaded with her eyes for him to keep quiet. “Patti has kept her nose clean for over a year, ever since she found out she was pregnant.”

“Is it possible someone from her past has come back to bother her?” Lyle asked, jotting a few notes.

“I suppose. Oh, wait, maybe that’s it! There’s Charlie Soffit, Sara’s father. He’s a low-life biker. He kicked her out when Patti told him she was pregnant, but then he keeps coming around to harass her. But he’s never been violent. I think…well, Patti’s father is rich.”

“I know who Patti’s father is,” Lyle said, which wasn’t surprising. Wayne Clarendon was one of Payton’s most prominent citizens, a descendant of the town’s founder.

“I think Charlie wants a piece of that,” Aubrey continued, “and he thinks he can get it by using Sara.”

“Does he have any visitation rights?” Beau asked.

Lyle shot him a nasty look. “This isn’t your investigation, Maddox.”

Beau shrugged, unperturbed. “Someone has to ask the right questions.”

“Patti got him to sign away parental rights,” Aubrey answered, hoping to distract the two snarling dogs from each other. “But maybe he wishes he hadn’t done that.”

“Sounds like a suspect to me,” Beau said.

Aubrey pointed toward Beau’s Mustang. “Leave!”

Beau held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, fine. Can’t blame a guy for showing a little concern for an old friend.”

“Make no mistake, that is not what I blame you for.”

It suddenly got very quiet, and Aubrey wished she’d kept her mouth shut. But the words were out now. The ones she hadn’t spoken were especially loud. I blame you for shooting my brother.

Beau’s gaze narrowed. “I saved Gavin’s life. But you’ll never understand that because you don’t want to. You’d rather hold on to that tunnel vision that lets you believe your precious brother could do no wrong.”

Beau turned and stomped off the porch and out to his car. He backed up the Mustang, then drove through her yard as the patrolman had, nearly crashing into the crime scene van as it pulled up.

“You’re not really friends with him anymore, are you?” Lyle asked.

She shook her head. “We’ve hardly talked since he left the force. I don’t even know what brought him here today, unless it was morbid curiosity.” She mentally shook herself. She had more important things to worry about than the lingering animosity between her and Beau Maddox. “So you’ll check out Charlie Soffit?”

“Yeah. It’s possible he’s involved.” Lyle flipped his notebook closed and stuck it in his back pocket. “It could be any number of things, including a random crime. Maybe we’ll find some usable prints in the house, or the stolen merchandise will turn up. I’ll need you to make a list of everything that’s missing.”

“I don’t care about that stuff. It’s Patti I’m worried about.”

“I’ll issue a Be-On-the-Lookout for her car. If you don’t hear from her in a day or two, we can start getting worried.”

Aubrey didn’t like that answer. In fact, she thought Lyle was a little cavalier about the whole thing. But he probably saw burglaries and assaults day in and day out. And people were always getting worried for nothing when their loved ones went missing, then turned up unharmed. She’d heard enough cop talk over the years to know that.

In this case, however, she was entitled to worry.

Beau could find Patti and Sara in a heartbeat. Aubrey might not approve of his methods as a bounty hunter, but it was hard to argue with his results. But his services didn’t come cheap, and since assistant chemistry professors didn’t make a ton of money, she didn’t know how she would pay him. Still, she filed the idea away for further scrutiny.

One of the evidence technicians came out onto the porch. “We’re finished downstairs, if you want to come inside where it’s cool,” he said to Aubrey.

She was grateful he’d been kind enough to think of her, but her gratitude ended abruptly when she saw the condition of her living room. Fine black fingerprint powder coated everything.

Lyle followed her inside. “I know a cleaning service that’s pretty good at straightening up after our guys trash a place. I’ll write it down for you.”

“Thanks.”

The phone rang. Aubrey didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but she couldn’t just let it ring. She went to the kitchen and picked up the wall phone, getting black powder on her hand. “Hello?”

“Aubrey. Oh, my God, are you okay?”

“Patti!”

Lyle looked up sharply.

“Where are you?” Aubrey demanded, relief warring with irritation. As usual, Patti had managed to create some drama. “What’s going on?”

“I’m okay. I got out before—”

“Well, I didn’t! Someone broke into the house and attacked me. You knew, and you just let me walk right into it!” The tears Aubrey had been holding at bay came on full force.

“Are you hurt?” Patti asked in a small voice.

“Not seriously.” Aubrey swallowed, getting the tears under control. “Why did you call me home if—”

“I don’t understand. He was after me, not you. Why would he hurt you?”

“Who? Damn it, Patti, who are we talking about?”

“You’ll just get mad if I tell you.”

“I’m already mad. He could have killed me. Is it Charlie?”

Patti hesitated. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay? I just didn’t want you to worry about me. I might not come home for a couple of days. Oh, damn, my batteries are going.”

“Patti, don’t hang up. Tell me who! I won’t get mad, I promise,” Aubrey tried in a last-ditch effort to get Patti to talk. But the connection went dead.

Lyle was listening intently. “Did she say?”

“No.” Aubrey hung up. “But at least I know she’s safe for now, anyway. But this wasn’t just a random crime. Patti said someone was after her.”

“Sounds like you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Aubrey swallowed down her irritation with Lyle. She waited until the cops left, then unearthed her phone book so she could look up the number for First Strike Bounty Hunters, a gesture which turned out to be wholly unnecessary. Beau was at her front door.

She let him in. “How did you know I was trying to call you?”

His eyebrows rose as he entered her filthy living room. “You were calling me?”

“I want you to find Patti and Sara for me. You could probably do it in your sleep.”

He looked around her house, his attentive gaze missing nothing, but he didn’t reply right away to her request. “They sure did a number on your house. The cops, I mean.”

“They were just doing their job. Now, how about if you do your job? Will you take the case or not? I think Patti’s in trouble. She called, but she sounded really strange and she wouldn’t tell me—”

“She called?”

“Just a few minutes ago. She said she was safe, but—”

“Aubrey, I’m sure she’s fine. You know Patti. She’s a drama queen. Whatever’s going on with her, she’s blowing it out of proportion and creating a mystery so you’ll worry.”

“Maybe,” Aubrey said grudgingly. “But she’s changed a lot since Sara came along. She’s more responsible, more considerate. She even has a job at an insurance company. Couldn’t you try to find her? There’s an innocent baby involved.”

“If she hasn’t turned up by tomorrow, let me know.”

Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I get it. There’s no huge bounty on Patti’s head, so it’s not worth your time.”

“It’s not that—”

“Of course it is. Big payoffs are all that motivate you anymore. And since I don’t have anything to offer you—” She broke off when she saw the appraising look in Beau’s eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said in a lazy drawl. “I think you might have something I want.”

Aubrey felt the air rush out of her lungs in a swoosh as her every hair follicle wiggled with awareness. He’d never shown the slightest interest in her before. But the way he was looking at her now, practically…what was that old cliché? Undressing her with his eyes?

She felt a little thrill at the idea that he might want her, but quickly squelched it. The very idea was hideous—trading sex for his professional services.

The corner of his mouth twitched up in what passed for a smile with Beau. “Not that. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

She shook herself. What was she thinking? “What, then?” The question came out a breathy whisper.

“I want you to put the past behind us. Admit that maybe you don’t understand what happened between me and Gavin, and give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“It’s hard to misinterpret a bullet in the leg.”

“It could have been through his heart. He was pointing a weapon at me first.”

“So you say. Forget it, Beau. I can’t forgive you for what you did to Gavin. Not now, not ever.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing more to talk about. I stopped to see if you were really okay, but it appears you are. So I’m out of here.”

As he sauntered away, Aubrey had to bite her lip to keep from calling him back.

Chapter Two

Aubrey couldn’t wait to take a shower, to get the intruder’s feel and smell off of her, to wash the blood out of her hair—and to wash that insane exchange with Beau out of her system. She carefully locked her doors, checked that the windows were secure, then headed for the upstairs bathroom.

A few minutes later, feeling much better, Aubrey decided to tackle the mess the police had made. She could have called the cleaning service Lyle recommended, but the idea of letting more strangers into her house bothered her. This cozy frame house, once her grandmother’s, had always been her haven, her cocoon, in which she could shut out the rest of the world and focus for hours at a time on an obscure chemical equation, or grade papers, or read nineteenth-century chemistry texts, her favorite hobby.

Now she preferred to set things right herself, restoring each object to its correct place, buffing the old mahogany coffee table to a mirrorlike shine.

When she moved into the dining room, which had been converted to her home office, she immediately spotted something odd. A fat white envelope sat in the exact middle of her desk with her name on it. It was in Patti’s writing. How had she not noticed it before?

The envelope wasn’t sealed, and Aubrey opened it and withdrew the contents. The moment she read the first words on the first page, her breath caught in her throat. It was Patti’s last will and testament, drawn up by her father’s law firm and dated only a week previous.

That in itself was weird. Patti had been estranged from her wealthy father for many years. Why had she suddenly felt she needed to go to him for a will? The implications were ominous.

Aubrey scanned the document. Patti had apparently left everything to her daughter. That made sense. But she’d also made provisions for Aubrey to be named as Sara’s guardian. The gesture brought Aubrey to tears, especially given the uncharitable thoughts she’d had about Patti in the last few hours.

“Patti, girl, you better not need this,” Aubrey murmured as she tucked the will into her file cabinet.

The phone rang, startling her. She fumbled with the receiver. “Hello?”

“Do you have the money yet?” The voice was rough and low, and the words sent a chill wiggling up Aubrey’s spine.

“Who are you trying to reach?” Aubrey demanded, though she was pretty sure she knew. Callers often mistook her voice for Patti’s.

“Patti, Patti, Patti. After all that’s been between us, you’re not pretending you don’t know me, are you?” the caller cooed, his voice taking on a whispery, singsong quality.

“This isn’t Patti,” Aubrey insisted. “She’s not here. Who is this?” She checked her caller ID. The number had been blocked.

A long silence followed. Aubrey thought at first the caller had hung up. But then his creepy voice assaulted her again. “Whoever you are, chicky, you tell little Patti something for me. Tell her I’m coming for her. I want my money now. She knows what’ll happen if I don’t get it.”

The line went dead.

Aubrey hung up and immediately dialed the police again, asking for Lyle. She was soon patched through to his cell phone. He listened attentively.

“Did he make any threats?”

“Not explicitly, but dire consequences were certainly implied.”

“We can’t really do anything unless this guy makes a move.”

“What? He already made a move!” Aubrey paced back and forth in front of her desk. “Or did you forget so quickly that I was assaulted?”

“We don’t know it’s the same person.”

“Of course it’s the same person,” Aubrey said impatiently. “Can’t you put a trace on the call? Something?”

“Sure, we can check it out. But he’s probably calling from a cell phone. Meanwhile, is there anywhere else you could stay for a few days?”

Aubrey hated the idea of abandoning her home to the Fates. But she reluctantly agreed she could stay with friends for a couple of days, until Patti came home and this mess got straightened out. She could have her home phone calls forwarded to her cell, in case Patti tried to call again.

“Try not to worry too much,” Lyle said, his voice soothing. “These things have a way of blowing over. These bad guys, they don’t want to work too hard. So if you make things the least bit challenging for them, they move on to greener pastures pretty quick.”

Aubrey was only slightly reassured by Lyle’s words. Sure, he’d been a cop for a few years, and he probably knew what he was talking about. But he wasn’t the one who still had a headache from her last brush with this particular bad guy.

As she packed up a few things, and a load of books to keep her occupied—she wasn’t teaching at all this summer—she considered which of her friends she would impose on. Or she could drive down and stay with her parents, who had retired to South Padre Island on the Texas coast. But she didn’t want to put anyone else in the line of fire. And she wanted to stay close. She wouldn’t rest easy until she saw Patti and cuddled Sara in her arms.

A motel was the answer. She would stay at her favorite little hole in the wall, the Golden Sands, where she’d hidden out when she wrote both her master’s thesis and her doctoral dissertation. She’d had a little problem meeting deadlines back then, and her solution was to push it as far as she could, then check into the motel and write eighteen hours a day until the thing was done, ordering out Chinese food or pizza for every meal.

The motel was only a couple of blocks from campus, near a busy intersection. She requested a room facing Eighth Street, the main drag, where her door would be very visible to anyone passing by. This might even be kind of fun, she thought as she slid her credit card to the multipierced young woman at the front desk. She could turn the air-conditioning up, swim in the tacky little pool out back, watch trashy movies or noodle around with equations.

Maybe if she distracted herself enough, she wouldn’t worry so much about Patti and Sara.

With her maroon duffel bag in one hand and her key in the other, Aubrey coaxed the lock and opened the door. The room was stuffy, but she’d soon remedy that. She switched on the light, turned toward the window unit, then froze.

There was a man sitting on her bed.

She inhaled to scream until it registered that the man was Beau. He lounged against the pillows as if he had a perfect right to be there.

“What—how—what—”

“You’re usually a bit more articulate, Aubrey.”

Instead of trying to push one of the dozen questions she had for him out of her mouth, she folded her arms and stared until the silence became uncomfortable.

“I drove past your house again and saw you throw a duffel in the back of your Jeep,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll admit it, I was curious. Were you spooked? Had you found out where Patti was? I was worried, so I followed you here. If you’re trying to keep yourself safe, you’re not doing a very good job. Any kid with a credit card could break into these rooms.”

“How did you know which room I would be in?”

“I was standing right behind you at the front desk. You never even knew I was there, so I thought I would teach you a lesson.”

“You’ve made your point,” she said, dropping her duffel and sinking into the room’s only chair. She should be furious at his high-handedness—except he was right.

“Anyone could have followed you. Don’t you ever check your rearview mirror? I practically tailgated you the whole way over.”

Jeez. How unobservant could she be?

“You were right, I got spooked,” she said, defeated. Arguing with Beau would get her nowhere. “Patti got a phone call from some creep. Apparently she owes him some money.” She clenched her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “But there’s no reason anyone would be after me. I figured once I was away from the house, I’d be fine.”

“So what did the caller say?” Beau prodded her.

“He said he was coming after her to get his money, and Patti would know what would happen if she disappointed him. Something like that.”

“How much money does she owe this guy?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but it must be more than I could come up with easily, or she would have asked me for it.”

“What about her father? Or her brother? They’ve both got plenty of money.”

“I doubt she would ask, and even if she did, I doubt either one of them would lift a finger to help. She’s hardly spoken to Uncle Wayne or David for years.”

“But if she believes her life is in danger…”

Aubrey looked pensive. “I should check with them, I guess. She had a will drawn up recently at Uncle Wayne’s firm, though that doesn’t mean she dealt with her father or brother directly.”

Beau sat up, abandoning his lounging-tiger pose. “Let’s get back to the phone call. Did the guy threaten you or Patti?”

“Not in so many words. That’s the same thing Lyle asked.”

“So you already called the cops. That was going to be my next suggestion.”

“For all the good it did. Lyle’s the one who advised me to get out of the house for a while until all this blows over. He said he’d try to track down the caller.”

“They always say that. I’ll lay you odds he never traces the call.”

“What have you got against Lyle, anyway?”

“He’s a lousy cop, that’s all. The business that Gavin got caught in—”

“Don’t talk about Gavin to me.”

“Lyle was in it up to his eyeballs,” Beau continued, glossing over her sudden anger. “But no one could prove it.” And then the jerk had gotten a promotion. Life wasn’t fair.

Aubrey got up and paced. Beau caught a whiff of her fragrance, perfume, or maybe just shampoo or lotion. Whatever it was, he liked it—way too much. He’d thought Aubrey Schuyler was long out of his system. But seeing her again had reawakened cravings that really weren’t useful at the moment. In fact, they’d never been useful, except to distract him from sleep on lonely nights.

“If some guy was threatening Patti, why didn’t she call the cops?” he asked, following Aubrey with his eyes. She moved nice. He liked the play of muscles beneath her snug denim shorts, and the way he could see her shoulder blades whenever she lifted her mass of curls off her neck.

“She doesn’t want the police involved, and I don’t blame her. After all her arrests and whatnot, she has no reason to feel good about cops. Anyway, social services keeps a close watch on her, and she’s worried they’ll take her baby away from her.”

“Maybe they should.”

“No,” Aubrey said fiercely. “Patti doesn’t deserve that. She’s grown up a lot since you last knew her. She’s off drugs, working and paying her bills. She’s trying really hard to be a good mother, and she loves Sara. It’s just that her past is catching up with her.”

“A past is a pretty hard thing to escape,” Beau said. Then he sighed, hating what he was about to say. “You want me to try to track down that phone call for you?”

“Lyle said—”

“Lyle might or might not get around to it. Besides, he has to follow certain rules, protecting privacy and all that. I don’t.”

“You can do that? Trace a call?”

“Not me, but Lori Bettencourt. Her father was one of the founders of First Strike.”

“Glenn Bettencourt? The one who was killed last year?”

“Yeah. Lori’s father didn’t want her anywhere near the agency, but now that he’s gone, she’s there every day, begging for scraps. Ace—he’s the guy in charge now—got her started skip-tracing. She was a quick study, and pretty soon she was on the payroll. She already had a background in computers, but now she can rival any hacker out there. She’ll find out who made that call.”

“Let’s make it happen, then.”

“One rule, though.”

Aubrey sighed. “I knew this was too easy.”

“If I help you out, you do what I say. No more staying in sleazy motels with crummy locks and a clerk who could be bought for a pack of cigarettes.”

“What alternative do you suggest?”

“We’ll work out something. Maybe you could stay with Lori.”

Aubrey wrinkled her nose at that, but she didn’t object.

“Bring your bag, you won’t be coming back here. But we’ll leave your car, on the off chance it’ll throw someone off the scent.”

Aubrey looked as though she wanted to object to the way Beau had suddenly taken control, but again, she didn’t. She must be plenty scared, Beau thought grimly, to throw in her lot with him and let him call all the shots.

Once they were in his car, Beau put the top down. The sun’s full heat beat down on them, but it was worth it because he got to watch out of the corner of his eye as Aubrey tried to control her windblown curls.

“If you’re able to track this guy down, what will you do with him?” she asked. “Will you turn his name over to Lyle?”

“Hah! No, I’ll handle him myself. Once he realizes he’s not dealing with defenseless women, that you and Patti have an ex-cop on your side, he’ll be a bit more patient about getting his money.”

“Do you really think so?” Aubrey asked hopefully.

“Sure. The guy sounds like a bully, and bullies run and hide when anyone stronger than they are comes around.”

Aubrey flashed him a grateful smile, and it just about melted his insides. When was the last time Aubrey had actually smiled at him?

Hell, he really needed to pull his mind out of the past. Aubrey had been his first real crush, the first girl whose opinion of him had ever mattered. She’d just turned fourteen, and she was all legs and budding breasts and lips that were unconsciously pouty. He’d casually mentioned to Gavin he might like to take Aubrey out, now that he had a driver’s license and an old wreck of a car. Gavin had pushed him up against a wall and threatened to kill him if he so much as looked at his sister. It was the first time Gavin had ever directed his temper toward Beau, and it had unnerved him. Not that he was afraid, exactly. He probably could have beat Gavin to a pulp. But he didn’t like seeing that side of his buddy, his best friend. Rather than provoke that sleeping beast inside Gavin again, Beau had limited himself to covert looks at Aubrey—and an active fantasy life. There were plenty of other girls who wanted to ride in his car, he’d reasoned.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, and Beau forced himself to focus on Patti’s predicament. He’d known Patti well when they were kids, all of them hanging out together. As Gavin Schuyler’s best friend, he’d been treated practically as one of the family, and he had always been welcome at the Schuylers’ house as well as at the Clarendon home—a mansion, really. Wayne Clarendon came from old money, and he didn’t hesitate to flaunt it.

Once Beau left the police force, though, his relationship with Gavin, and hence the entire family, had grown tense, and he hadn’t seen much of them after that. What he did remember of Patti, though, was a weak, self-indulgent young woman prone to histrionics and a master of manipulation. Aubrey had always been vulnerable to her cousin’s hijinks, because Aubrey was kind and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Everyone except him.

Aubrey had said Patti was more mature now, but Aubrey tended to see the best in everyone, even when it wasn’t deserved. Why she wanted to believe the worst about him was no mystery—he’d shot her brother, after all. But he wished she’d cut him a break.

Beau wheeled the Mustang into a parking space in front of a run-down shopping center in one of the worst parts of town.

“Why are we stopping here?” Aubrey asked with some alarm.

“This is it.”

Aubrey followed his gaze to a tattered blue awning that featured First Strike in barely discernible white letters. Next to it was the image of a coiled snake, ready to strike. The office itself was housed in perhaps twenty feet of storefront, with steel bars covering windows streaked so dirty she couldn’t see a thing inside. On one side was Bloodgood’s Pawn Shop. On the other was Taft Bail Bonds.

She made no move to get out of the car.

“Aubrey, what’s the holdup?”

She shook herself. What had she expected, anyway? Beau Maddox wasn’t Remington Steele. “Coming.”

Inside it was worse than Aubrey had feared. The office was bigger than it appeared from the outside, narrow and deep. A battered reception desk sat near the door, unoccupied at the moment, but a half-full bottle of Dr Pepper sitting on it indicated the occupant wasn’t far away. A couple of other desks were arranged haphazardly around the main room, all of them messy but currently unused. In one corner was a home gym—a weight bench and a couple of machines with torn, blue-sparkle vinyl upholstery. The floor was partially covered with nasty blue indoor-outdoor carpeting, except where the concrete floor showed through huge rips and holes. The walls had been flat white once upon a time. Now they were dingy with fingerprints and God-knew-what.

A huge garbage can near the exact center of the room was full to overflowing with beer bottles and pizza cartons. Several beer bottles were strewn about the rest of the place as if it were a decorating statement. The acoustic tiles on the ceiling—the ones that weren’t missing—were stained and crumbling, and the ancient fluorescent light fixtures bathed the entire nightmare in anemic blue light.

One wall was entirely covered in Wanted posters. Several of the scary faces peering out from those posters had darts protruding from them.

“This place is completely gross,” Aubrey couldn’t help saying. “How can you stand working here?”

Beau smiled and shrugged as he looked around. “I don’t spend much time here, really. Hey,” he called out, “is anyone here?”

A door in the back opened and a striking woman close to Aubrey’s age appeared. She was tall, slender and large-breasted, but ultracasual in a snug black tank top, low-slung camouflage cargo pants and flip-flops. Her honey-blond hair was cut in a short, no-nonsense style, and she wore little if any makeup, which in no way detracted from her very feminine appearance.

She smiled at Beau. “Sorry, I was just in the bathroom,” she said without embarrassment. “Ace isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for. Who’s this?” She turned her winning smile on Aubrey.

Aubrey liked this woman immediately. She held out her hand. “Aubrey Schuyler.”

“Lori Bettencourt,” the other woman said, gripping Aubrey’s hand firmly. “I know this place is disgusting, and I apologize. But I told Ace when I came to work here that being a maid wasn’t part of my job description just because I’m the only woman. I clean up after myself and I try not to look at the rest. Though I do carry around a big bottle of Lysol.”

Aubrey found herself smiling back. “I like your attitude.”

“Actually,” Beau said, “I’m not looking for Ace. I’m looking for you.”

“Really? Need some help with a takedown?” she asked hopefully.

Aubrey watched Lori closely, trying to figure out if there was anything sexual between her and Beau. Not that it should matter. She didn’t give a rat’s behind who Beau slept with, she told herself sternly. But she found she was relieved when her radar didn’t pick up any sexual undercurrents between the two, though they obviously liked one another.

“Aubrey got a threatening phone call. I want you to trace it.”

Lori looked disappointed. “Just a phone call? Piece of cake.” She led the way to the desk farthest back from the front door, on which sat what looked to be an ancient computer with half its guts hanging out. But once Lori fired up the machine, Aubrey could see it was endowed with a powerful CPU and lots of state-of-the-art software.

Aubrey gave Lori her phone number and the approximate time of the call, then left her alone to do her thing.

“Is it legal, what she’s doing?” she asked Beau, who’d decided to pass the time by doing a few chin-ups on a bar that was part of the home gym.

“Beats me. I don’t care, long as she doesn’t get caught.”

That was typical, she thought, frowning. Beau seemed to have lost any semblance of a conscience once he’d left the police force. She reminded herself of that as she forced herself to stop watching his bulging biceps as he lifted his weight up and down in a seemingly tireless set.

The door from which Lori had emerged opened again, and a robust-looking man in his fifties appeared. “Hey, Lori, you want to do a—” He stopped when he spotted Beau. “Maddox. You find that Langford kid yet?”

“I’ve been checking out the day-care centers,” Beau replied, sounding unconcerned. “Nothing yet.”

The older man’s eyes locked on Aubrey. “Who’s this?”

“Aubrey Schuyler. Lori’s tracing a call for her. Aubrey, this is Ace McCullough. He owns the agency.”

Ace McCullough grinned, revealing two even rows of very white teeth. “Schuyler, Schuyler. Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Gavin Schuyler’s my brother.”

That seemed to be enough explanation. Ace quickly changed the subject. “Lori, will you be done pretty quick? I have an easy takedown, and I thought you might want to come with me.”

Lori’s eyes lit up with something Aubrey could only describe as yearning. “This won’t take long,” she assured Ace. “Don’t go without me.”

Beau finally tired of his chin-ups. Though he was hardly breathing hard, he did have a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He picked up a towel that someone had slung over a barbell and wiped his face and neck with it. Aubrey shuddered to think about where that towel had been, or how long it had gone without seeing the inside of a washing machine.

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Beau asked Ace in a soft voice. “With Lori, I mean. Glenn really didn’t want her here. Anyway, she’s just a kid.”

“She’s twenty-seven, hardly a kid,” Ace countered. “I don’t want to dishonor Glenn’s memory by going against his wishes, but Lori’s got bounty-hunting in her blood. If I hadn’t taken her in, she would have gone to work for some other agency—or worse, she’d have tried working on her own. At least if she’s working here, I can train her right, and keep an eye on her. And you have to admit, her computer skills have come in handy.”

“I guess you’re right,” Beau said grudgingly.

“Right now, I’m only letting her do the easy take-downs. This one’s an old lady with parking tickets who missed her court date, probably because she’s senile.”

Beau smiled. “Doesn’t sound too bad, though I once had a senile little old lady pull a Luger on me.”

The two men laughed, but Aubrey didn’t join in. The thought of the kind of danger Beau put himself in every day was intimidating. At least as a cop, he had the full weight of the law behind him and plenty of backup just a radio summons away. By his own account, when he’d been on the force he’d never even fired his weapon, or been fired at.

As a bounty hunter, his job was far riskier. Every day he went looking for trouble. She just didn’t understand why anyone would submit himself to that much risk. The Beau Maddox she’d known wasn’t an adrenaline junkie.

Aubrey returned her attention to Lori, who was scribbling something down on a piece of paper. Lori looked up.

“Bad news. The call came from a pay phone.”

Chapter Three

Beau cursed softly, and Aubrey sagged with her own disappointment. Finding the guy who’d assaulted her and threatened Patti wasn’t going to be easy. But she realized she would never feel completely safe until the guy was behind bars, and Patti and Sara were home where they belonged.

“I wrote the pay phone address down,” Lori said. “It’s not far from here, if you want to check it out.” She walked over and handed the piece of paper to Beau with the location of the pay phone. Then she looked at Ace. “Just let me get my stuff, and I’ll be ready.”

Aubrey was about to say thanks and slide on out of there herself. But her car was still at the motel.

“It’s only a few blocks,” Beau said. “We can walk over and have a look. Chances are our guy lives or works close by. The information might help us narrow the search if we get any more leads on this scumbag.”

When Lori returned from her desk up front, she wore a bulletproof vest. She had a Mace canister in one of the loops of her cargo pants, and an impossibly huge gun secured at the small of her back.

“Put a shirt on over that vest,” Beau said, looking as if he had to struggle to keep from laughing. “You might as well be wearing a neon sign over your head, Bounty Hunter In Training.”

Lori shot him a dirty look, but she did as he suggested.

Once they were back outside, Aubrey was relieved to be breathing fresh air again. “I don’t know how she stands it,” she said to Beau as they set out to find the pay phone.

“Lori? How she stands what?”

“That place you work at. It’s repulsive. Might as well be working in a men’s locker room. I’m surprised there wasn’t dirty laundry all over the floor.”

Beau only grinned. “You didn’t see the back room. Or the kitchen. It’s enough to make a health inspector faint.”

“You sound almost proud.”

“Hey, it took us years to get that place to such a high degree of disreputableness.”

Aubrey gave up. Men were disgusting. She should probably be glad she hadn’t yet married one. Maybe she never would.

The block where the pay phone was located was even worse than the one that housed First Strike. Aubrey spotted several seedy-looking bars, a head shop, an adult bookstore, an adult video store, an out-of-business dry cleaner, a thrift store and a dollar store. Judging from the clientele she saw loitering in various doorways, this was the neighborhood where the more adventurous college students from University of East Texas hung out. If she recognized any of her students here, she was going to call their mothers.

“Hey, my man, what’s happening?” A young African-American man came out of a doorway to give Beau a high five.

“Hey, Junior.”

“You know these people?” Aubrey whispered after they’d passed.

“Some of them. Finding fugitives requires information, sometimes from the less-elevated echelons of society. So I make it a point to get to know these folks. They’ll tell me stuff they’d never tell a cop.”

The pay phone was in use, and it appeared to have a line of young men waiting to use it.

“Is there something special about this phone?” she asked.

“Kids use it for dealing drugs and calling prostitutes,” Beau explained. “They don’t want any numbers they can’t explain showing up on the cell phone bill Mom and Dad pay every month.”

“You’d think the police would do something!” Aubrey said, indignant.

“It’s not against the law to use the phone.”

“They could follow these kids. Find out who they’re buying drugs from. Or selling drugs to.”

“Too labor-intensive. Not enough manpower. Not enough budget. They’d rather spend their time arresting speeders and kids making U-turns at the wrong time of day. Easy arrests that pump up the statistics and fill the coffers.”

Aubrey realized she’d hit a nerve with Beau.

“Besides, if the cops tried to clean up this area, all my good snitches would be gone.” He seemed to enjoy the look of distaste on Aubrey’s face. But then he grew serious. “Look around. See anyone familiar hanging around the pay phone?”

Aubrey covertly studied the faces of the kids. “No.”

“How about any of the businesses around here? Ever remember Patti mentioning any of them?”

Aubrey studied each seedy little bar and bookstore. Finally she saw something that jogged her memory. “That bar over there, the one called Kink?”

“Yeah?”

“I think Patti used to be a waitress there, but it was a while ago.”

“Still, that might be the link we’re looking for.”

“Let’s go check it out.” She turned, but Beau grabbed her arm before she could get going.

“Wait. You know what kind of bar that is?”

“What do you mean? One that serves alcohol, I presume.”

“It’s an S&M bar.”

That stopped her cold. “You mean, like sadism and masochism?”

“I mean, people who dress in leather and studs and stick safety pins in parts of their bodies you don’t even want to think about. Outsiders aren’t welcome, and no one would tell us a thing. I might pass, but you’d stick out like a nun in a cathouse.”

“I beg your pardon. I can pass for sleazy and deviant if I want to.”

Beau just shook his head. “Not you, Squeak.”

“You know I hate that nickname.” Squeak stood for Squeaky Clean. Beau and Gavin had come up with it when she was in junior high, and they’d used it whenever they thought she was being too goody-goody.

“They’re not even open this time of day. We can go back later tonight, if you want. But we’ll have to dress the parts. Lori can probably help us out. She’s got all kinds of disguises.”

“Really.”

“She’s good at undercover work.” Beau took Aubrey’s arm and led her down the sidewalk. “We’ve been standing in one place too long. Don’t want to attract attention.” They headed away from the pay phone.

“Beau, does this mean I’ve hired you?”

“What?”

“Well, you were just doing me a favor to trace the number, and I appreciate it. But beyond that…” She shrugged. “I know you guys charge a fortune for your services. And I don’t have a fortune.”

His face clouded. “You don’t owe me a damn thing. I happen to have some time to kill, that’s all.”

“What about that Langford kid Ace mentioned? Shouldn’t you be looking for him?”

“I’ve been looking for him.” Frustration rose in Beau’s voice. “I have a lead, but I can’t do anything about it until tomorrow morning. Hey, I don’t tell you how to teach chemistry, okay?”

“Fine.” She determinedly walked ten paces ahead of him. Though she was tempted to call a cab and return to her motel, wash her hands completely of Beau Maddox, she knew she’d be a fool to turn down his help while he was willing to give it. If he made her uncomfortable, it was a small price to pay for getting his services for free.

As she turned the corner, she noticed a couple of young women sitting on a car, drinking sodas and talking in loud voices. They wore extremely short skirts, tight tank tops with no bras, excessive costume jewelry, big hair and tons of makeup. As soon as Aubrey realized what she was looking at, she averted her gaze and quickened her step.

Jeez, right here in broad daylight!

“Hey, Beau!” one of the women called out. Aubrey froze and turned around. Sure enough, Beau had stopped to talk with the women. Should she walk on? Should she stand a discreet distance away and wait for him to finish his chat?

Finally she decided she was being silly and judgmental. They might be prostitutes, but she still owed them simple courtesy. She approached the car, and Beau angled his body out to include her in the group.

“Jodie, Erin, this is my friend, Aub—”

“Dr. Schuyler!” the one called Erin exclaimed. “Oh, my God. I had you for freshman chemistry!”

The other girl, Jodie, smirked. “You took chemistry?”

“Well, I flunked.” Erin turned back to Aubrey. “Remember me?”

“Two years ago,” Aubrey said as the memory came to her. “You sat in the back row and slept.”

Erin smiled broadly. “You do remember. What are you doing hanging out with this guy?” She nudged Beau with her foot.

Beau slid his arm around Aubrey. “What, I’m not allowed to have a respectable girlfriend?”

“Nuh-uh,” Jodie said. “I’m your girlfriend, forever and ever. You promised.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Aubrey objected, but in the face of all that overt sex appeal being directed at Beau, she almost wished she could put a claim on him. The feel of his arm around her waist was warm and secure, causing an unwelcome shiver to wiggle up her spine in spite of the afternoon heat.

“Hey, we’re just kidding around,” Erin said, apparently sensing Aubrey’s unease. But Beau kept his arm where it was. Maybe it was a gesture of protection, a sign to these girls that they weren’t supposed to mess with her.

“Hey, Beau, did I hear you were looking for Shelley?” Jodie asked.

Beau shrugged. “Yeah, I was,” he said with seeming disinterest. But the tension suddenly radiating out of his arm and hand was palpable.

“What’s it worth to you?”

“The usual.”

“How about double the usual?”

“How about I tell your brother you’re turning tricks on Chestnut Street?”

“Beau! Okay. Twenty now, and fifty if my tip is good.”

“Sounds reasonable.” He shook her hand, and Jodie adjusted the strap of her tank top. Aubrey realized the transaction had already taken place.

“She’s staying at her aunt’s house, in that new subdivision on Monument Hill. It’s a redbrick house with a broken mailbox.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you know if it pans out.”

“I know you will.”

Beau started to lead Aubrey away, but she hesitated. She looked at Erin, who couldn’t meet her gaze.

“Don’t say it, Dr. Schuyler,” she mumbled. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

When they were a block away, Aubrey finally spoke. “That is so sad. We should be doing something to help them, instead of paying them for tips.”

“Erin’s been dragged off to rehab twice. We can’t force her to change.”

“Like Patti, I guess,” Aubrey said on a sigh. “She didn’t want to change until Sara came along.”

They stopped at a corner for a light, and Aubrey felt light-headed all the sudden. She reached out for a lamppost to steady herself.

Beau looked at her with concern. “When was the last time you ate?”

She had to think about it. She’d eaten a bagel for breakfast, a lifetime ago, and she’d thrown up since then. No wonder she was cranky. “I’m not sure I could eat anything.”

“Sure you can.” He steered her into a pancake house a couple of blocks from the agency. “You can’t do this kind of work without fuel for your brain, not to mention your body.” He nodded to the hostess, then guided Aubrey to a booth in the back. A wispy-haired waitress appeared.

“Your usual, Beau?” She cocked her hip to one side and blushed furiously.

“Yeah. You want a menu, Aubrey?”

“No. Just some wheat toast and hot tea.”

The waitress disappeared, then returned with coffee for Beau and Aubrey’s tea.

“I’m gonna run down to the agency and check on a few things,” Beau said. “I’ll be back before the food gets here. Meanwhile, I want you to get on your cell phone and call everyone you can think of who knows Patti—friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors, former lovers, anybody. See if you can get a lead on where she might be hiding out, or who she owed money to.” He slid out of the booth and disappeared, seemingly confident Aubrey would obey orders.

With a sigh she got out her cell phone and a small address book she kept in her purse. She knew hardly any of Patti’s friends. Though they’d lived together for more than a year—since Charlie Soffit had kicked Patti out of his mobile home—Aubrey knew very little of Patti’s life. But she had Charlie’s phone number. That was a start. And the number at the insurance agency where Patti worked.

First, though, she wanted to call her uncle Wayne. Since Patti had gone to his law firm for the will, he might know something. Besides, she hadn’t talked to that branch of the family in months. Since her parents had retired to Padre, her uncle and cousin David were the only family she had left in town, other than Patti and Sara. Yet she hardly ever talked to them. She’d once been pretty close to David, who was her own age. Back when they were kids, she and David had been the “good kids,” the scaredy-cats who’d tried to keep the others—Gavin, Beau and Patti—from getting into trouble. Now, though, they didn’t have much in common. He’d gone to William and Mary, then law school. They moved in different circles.

She dialed Uncle Wayne’s home number. This time of the afternoon, he would probably be there. He was semiretired from the firm now, only rarely visiting the office.

She was surprised when David answered the phone.

“Aubrey. How in the hell are you?”

“I’m…okay,” she said guardedly, not wanting to blurt out that she’d been assaulted, her home had been burglarized, and that his sister and niece were missing. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“God knows I should be. But…” His voice trailed off. He sounded troubled.

“What is it, David?”

“I probably should have called you. Dad’s not doing too well. He has cancer.”

“Oh, my God, that’s awful! Is he…I mean, lots of people survive….”

“Not this time. It’s all over his body. They’re not even sure where it started. They caught it way too late to do anything. He’s got a couple of months at most.”

Aubrey took a sip of her tea, trying to absorb the terrible news. “You should have let me know.”

“He didn’t want me to. He didn’t want everyone to worry about him. You know how he is.”

“It’s my fault, too. I should have kept in better touch. I mean, a card and a canister of cookies at Christmas…”

“Well, it’s been awkward, with Patti living with you.”

This was true. Patti had a way of putting tension on the whole family, making Aubrey feel like a traitor if she got too friendly with the enemy.

“Could I talk to Uncle Wayne?”

“Um, not right now. He’s sedated. That’s why I’m not at work. He’s having a really bad day. When he’s like this, I don’t feel right just leaving him with the nurse and the housekeeper. In fact, I’ve moved back here to care for him.”

“I’m so sorry.” It was all she could think of to say. David and Patti had lost their mother to lung cancer when they were just teenagers. Aubrey had always believed it was losing her mother so young that had caused Patti to rebel. “I wanted to ask Uncle Wayne something, but you might be able to help me. Patti’s gotten herself in a bit of trouble.”

“This is news?” She could almost see him rolling his eyes.

“Seriously, David. She had a will drawn up at the firm just in the past few weeks. I thought maybe she might have told you or Uncle Wayne what the problem was.”

“She owes somebody some money.”

“Then you know? You’ve talked to her?”

“I didn’t know anything about the will. But I did talk to her. She called here a couple of days ago, wanting to speak to Dad. I didn’t let her—his doctor says he shouldn’t get upset, and Patti can’t talk to Dad without upsetting him. Then she told me she needed some money.”

“You didn’t give it to her, I take it.”

“Of course not. She’s always making up sob stories about how she needs money. This time she said she’d borrowed money from a loan shark, and he was going to put a contract on her life if she didn’t pay him off. It’s not…I mean, it’s not true, is it?” His voice showed sudden concern.

“I think it might be. Certainly there’s a very unpleasant person looking for her. And she’s missing. She took Sara and fled.”

“Aw, hell. Aubrey, I didn’t know, I swear it. She’s cried wolf so many times—”

“I know, David. I don’t blame you.” She told him then about the break-in and the assault, and the spooky phone call.

“Jeez, Aubrey. Are you safe now? You can stay with us if you want. We have burglar bars and a good security system. We had a prowler a while back, a real creepy guy peeking in the windows, and Dad got paranoid. This house is like Fort Knox now.”

“I might take you up on that. So you haven’t seen Patti since you talked to her a couple of days ago?”

“No. I haven’t seen her in months.”

“She might just show up there and try to see her dad. If she does, call me right away, okay?”

“Of course. Hell, I’ll help her if I can. I just had no idea.”

“I know. Give my love to your dad, will you? And tell him I’ll visit soon.”

Aubrey hung up and took another sip of tea. Beau returned just as the food arrived. He had his timing down.

“You okay?” he asked. “You look kind of pale.”

As he wolfed down pancakes, she told him about her phone call with David. Beau was visibly shaken. The Clarendons had been like family to him, once upon a time. “I haven’t been the greatest about keeping in touch, either. You’re not the only one who’s got a bit of a grudge against me.”

A grudge. That was an understatement.

“Your aunt and uncle were always really nice to me,” he continued, “though I suspect they thought I was a bad influence on David.”

“David? No way. He was incorruptible. ‘Squeak’ fits him better than me.”

Beau shook his head, the corner of his mouth turning up in that infuriating almost-smile. “He had you snowed, Aubrey.” But then he turned serious. “I need to check out the tip Erin gave me. You want to help me out?”

“Me?”

“It’s a conservative neighborhood. I’ll be spotted immediately, but you’ll look right at home.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

Beau handed the waitress money for the bill, including a generous tip, and they left the restaurant. “Once we find the house, just go up to the door and pretend you’re a new neighbor. Ask for a cup of sugar or something.”

“I’ll ask to use the phone.”

Beau grinned. “You’re a natural.”

They climbed back into his Mustang. Beau raised the top and turned on the air-conditioning, for which Aubrey was extremely grateful. She normally didn’t mind the Texas heat, but her fair skin would freckle if she got any more sun.

They found the small tract house with the broken mailbox soon enough. Beau parked around the corner. “If someone answers the door, try to peek inside and look for a two-year-old.” He showed Aubrey a photo of a cute towheaded toddler. “If you see the kid or kid’s toys, that’s all I need for now.”

Aubrey couldn’t believe she was doing this, but it sounded easy enough. Anyway, she needed the practice. She was going undercover tonight—at an S&M bar.

A woman in her fifties answered the door. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Rita McMurray.” She had no idea where that name had come from. “I’m moving in a couple of houses down,” she said, pointing vaguely down the block, “and they haven’t connected the phone yet. Could I use yours?”

The woman gave a tight smile. “Sure. I’ll bring you the cordless.” She closed the screen door, but Aubrey got a clear view inside. She looked for any sign of a child and saw nothing. But moments later an ear-piercing shriek rent the air. The child—for surely that’s what it was—was quickly shushed by someone inside.

The woman returned with the phone. Aubrey dialed her office number, pretended to talk to her nonexistent husband, returned the phone and got out of there. She felt triumphant, exultant, as she rounded the corner and got into Beau’s car.

“Yup, there’s a child in there. I didn’t see him, but I heard him. And he was shushed up really quickly.”

“Good work.” He pulled a cell phone from the console and dialed, then gave some terse directions. Apparently he was going to extract the child from the house right now.

In fifteen minutes two more cars showed up. One held Ace and Lori. A man Aubrey had never met climbed out of the second. He was huge, six-three at least, with blond hair cut very short and piercing green eyes. He screamed ex-military.

The three men and Lori conferred on the sidewalk while Aubrey remained in the stifling car. Then the blond man and Ace went up the alley, while Beau walked back down the block toward the front of the redbrick house.

Lori joined Aubrey at the car, leaning in the open window. “Don’t you just hate being a woman sometimes? Those macho jerks won’t let me help.”

The last place Aubrey wanted to be was with the guys right now. “I’ll stay right here where it’s safe, thanks.”

“Come on, let’s watch.”

Aubrey got out of the car, though Beau had told her not to, and she and Lori peeked out from behind a fence. Beau beat on the front door. “Fugitive recovery agent! Open up!”

The door opened immediately and Beau went inside. An interminable amount of time seemed to pass, though realistically it was probably only a minute or two. Then he emerged holding a screaming child. He gave a signal to Lori.

“Come on, that’s our cue.”

Without knowing what she was doing, Aubrey jumped in the Mustang along with Lori, who cranked it up, put it in gear, and skidded around the corner. Beau met the car, opened Aubrey’s door and handed the kid to her. “Get out of here.”

Lori hit the gas.

The child screamed despite Aubrey’s attempts to comfort him. “Is this legal?” she asked Lori. “Just snatching a kid away from his mother?”

“She kidnapped him first.”

“But…she’s his mother.”

“She’s a prostitute, and a junkie. We didn’t take her kid away, the courts did. We’re just enforcing what the court ordered.”

Aubrey wasn’t sure she liked it. That woman could have been Patti. Beau’s career choice seemed morally ambiguous at best. But then, that was her whole objection to how Beau earned a living. He followed the cash—even if that meant betraying his best friend.

Chapter Four

Beau wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing by taking Aubrey with him to extract Christopher Langford from the house. But he’d needed to act quickly. If he’d waited even a few hours, Shelley might have gotten spooked and skipped out with the kid. And he couldn’t think of any place to leave Aubrey where he knew she’d be safe.

He wasn’t sure when he’d decided that protecting her was his job. All he knew was that if something happened to her, he would feel directly responsible.

She might not know it, but he was on the job, whether or not she wanted to pay him. After what he’d done to Gavin, he figured he owed her and her family. The Schuylers and Clarendons had been the prevailing influence on his youth. Lord knew his own family hadn’t done much for him. His mother had died when he was three and his father had spent the next fifteen years drinking himself into a premature grave.

Lori offered to take over little Christopher, return him to his father and collect the reward on Beau’s behalf, and he was happy to let her. Ace was paying her a small salary to handle bureaucratic details, something all of the First Strike agents appreciated. But once Lori was earning enough of her own fees to make a living, they’d all have to do their own grunt work.

“That was…intense,” Aubrey commented once they were alone again. It was getting close to five o’clock, and they sat in his car at a Sonic Drive-In. “I can’t believe we’re just sitting here, drinking root beer. You seem so casual about it.”

“It’s my job. And that was an easy extraction. Shelley and her aunt took one look at me and crumbled. No guns, no chasing.”

“Will Shelley get in trouble?”

Beau shrugged. “Not my problem. If my client wants to press charges, that’s his business. Hey, it’s almost five o’clock,” he said, changing the subject. “Did you say Patti had a job?”

“She works for an insurance agent, answering the phone.” Aubrey was glad to refocus her energies on her own problems.

“Why don’t we pay this agent a visit? We can probably catch him before he goes home for the day. He might be able to tell us if Patti’s had any strange visitors at work, or phone calls. She might have even confided the problem to him, asked him to advance her salary or something.”

“It’s worth a shot, though I doubt she would confide anything in him. She thinks he’s a jerk.”

They arrived at the Greg Holmes Insurance Agency at five minutes to five. It was a small, one-agent operation, affiliated with one of the less prestigious national firms. The office was a bit run-down, but Beau couldn’t exactly criticize the man for his decorating taste, given where he worked.

A plump young woman with a discreet tattoo on her wrist looked as if she were about to leave. She stood behind her desk, putting a yellow camp shirt on over her sleeveless blouse. Her skirt was a bit too short for office wear. In fact, with her brassy bleach job and eye makeup à la Tammy Faye, she could have hung out with Jodie and Erin and looked right at home.

“Can I help you?” she asked, not particularly friendly.

“I’m a friend of Patti Clarendon,” Beau said.

“She’s not here. She lit out of here this morning, no explanation, stuck me with answering the phone when I could be out making calls. Hey, are you cops or something?”

“I’m Patti’s cousin,” Aubrey said. “We’re roommates. I’m a little bit worried about her.”

Beau silently applauded her. She seemed to know just the right tone to strike with this slightly hostile young woman.

“You’re Summer, right?” Aubrey continued. “Patti talks about you all the time. She says you’re really good at handling people when they come in all upset.”

That earned a slight smile from Summer. “People get real wacko sometimes. Usually it’s because they’re embarrassed they’ve wrecked their car.”

Beau found a chair and picked up a magazine. Aubrey was handling Summer just fine. He’d let her keep going.

“When Patti left this morning, she didn’t give you any indication of what was wrong?”

“She got a phone call. She’s not supposed to take personal calls, but she’s got that phone glued to her ear all day. Anyway, after this call, she said she had to go and she’d be gone the rest of the day. Oh, wait, I remember now. She said something about her kid being sick or something, and she had to pick her up from the baby-sitter.”

“I thought you said she didn’t give an explanation,” Beau couldn’t help asking.

“I forgot, okay? I got better things to do than keep track of Patti’s soap-opera life.”

“Why do you think her life’s a soap opera?” Aubrey asked.

“What, are you kidding? You live with her. She’s got that gross-out ex-husband, Charlie—I think he’s a serial killer in training—and she works in a topless bar and she bangs her boss.” Summer covered her mouth. “Oops, I’m not supposed to know that. But if that isn’t a soap opera, what is?”

Beau tensed as Aubrey’s eyes got bigger with every word Summer spoke. Come on, babe, don’t blow it now. Summer was spilling her guts to a perfect stranger. Aubrey really did have a knack for this. But she was going to blow it if she freaked out now.

To her credit, Aubrey managed a smile. “I guess my cousin is a bit colorful. But she’s not as tough as she pretends. She’s in trouble, but I don’t want to call the cops if I don’t have to.”

At the mention of cops, Summer’s expression closed up. “Hey, I don’t know anything. But you might ask Greg. He knows Patti better than I do. Way better, if you catch my meaning.”

The girl was as subtle as an army boot.

“I gotta go. Greg’s in his office,” she said, nodding to a closed door. “He’s got a client with him, and he doesn’t like to be interrupted. But he has to come out eventually.”

Without any further ado, Summer pulled her purse out of a drawer and left.

Aubrey sank into the only other chair in the waiting room. “She was sleeping with her boss?” she said in a low voice, sounding appalled.

“I take it you didn’t know that.”

“Surely Patti would have told me if she had a new boyfriend. Anyway, she thinks Greg is a jerk. And what was that garbage about a topless bar?”

“Some of the waitresses at Kink go topless. Or almost.”

“But she doesn’t work there anymore.”

“Does she spend all her evenings at home?”

Aubrey said nothing for a few moments. “I wonder what else she hasn’t told me.”

Beau stood up and moved behind the desk Summer had just abandoned. “I’m gonna see if Patti left anything helpful in her desk. This is where she usually works, right?”

“Beau!” Aubrey sounded panicky. “You can’t just search her desk. What if Greg Holmes comes out here and catches you?”

Beau already had the desk drawer open. “He’ll yell. Big deal.”

The desk drawer held the usual office supplies—pens and pencils, stamps, rubber bands, paper clips. There were a couple of snapshots of a baby, which Beau assumed was Sara. He tucked these in his pocket. Might be useful later.

The file drawer held an array of untidy hanging folders. None of the labels sounded promising. They seemed to contain client policies. A drawer on the other side of the desk held more personal items. Beau examined and set aside a box of tissue, a bottle of antacid tablets, a couple of alternative rock CDs—and a brown envelope. He pulled out the paper inside.

“What is it?” Aubrey asked nervously.

“Looks like a copy of the document Patti’s boyfriend signed, giving up his parental rights. Was she having trouble with him?”

“Not recently. Besides, that voice on the phone didn’t sound like Charlie, although…I guess he could have been disguising it. The voice was kind of hoarse and whispery.”

The murmured voices inside the office got louder, and the doorknob rattled. Beau quickly closed the drawer and scooted out from behind the desk. He pretended to study a picture on the wall of a clown when Greg Holmes’s office door opened.

“I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know,” said the older of the two men who emerged from the inner office. He wore a suit—cheap and ill-fitting—and sported a determined five-o’clock shadow. His thinning hair was styled in a comb-over.

He vigorously pumped the hand of the other man, who was younger and kind of punk-looking, with ratty clothes and a scraggly beard.

The older man, whom Beau assumed was Greg Holmes, stopped suddenly. “Who are you?” he asked in a startled voice, his beady eyes focusing on Beau.

“Summer told us we could wait here,” Beau said affably.

The punk looked a little nervous. He made for the exit, as if he didn’t want to prolong any conversation with strangers.

“Summer knows better than to let customers sit in here unattended,” he muttered angrily. Beau thought he was rather inhospitable for an insurance agent. For all Holmes knew, they could be in the market for millions of dollars’ worth of life insurance.

“I’m Patti’s cousin, Aubrey Schuyler,” Aubrey said with a smile, extending her hand. “She’s told me so much about you, Mr. Holmes.”

Holmes softened a bit. Who could blame him? When Aubrey turned those liquid green eyes on a man, he couldn’t help but fall in line with her wishes. He gave Aubrey’s extended hand a grudging squeeze. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “She’s been gone all day. I was starting to get worried about her.”

“We don’t know where she is,” Beau said, extending his hand. He introduced himself as a friend of the family. “We were hoping you might shed some light on the situation.”

“Why would I know anything?” Holmes asked, suddenly defensive. “She’s just an employee. I don’t know anything about her personal life.”

Beau thought the man’s reaction was just a bit too emphatic. “People who work together all day long often know more about each other than their own families,” Beau said.

“Look, she answers my phones and does a little typing. I don’t spend significant time with her. I’m much too busy with clients to socialize with the receptionist.”

Beau thought Greg Holmes had just taken a giant step back from I was starting to get worried about her. Maybe he wanted to hide the fact he’d been sleeping with her. He wore a wedding ring.

“She apparently got a phone call this morning that alarmed her,” Aubrey said gently. “We wondered if you knew who—”

“Why would I know who?” Holmes said, even more agitated. “I don’t listen in on my receptionist’s phone calls.”

“Do you have a caller ID?” Beau asked.

“No. What right do you have—”

Beau held up his hands to slow Holmes’s rampage of words. “Easy, easy. We don’t have any right at all. We’re just asking, and of course you can refuse us. But the sooner we locate Patti, the less likely the cops will come here looking for the same thing we are. Only, they’ll have a warrant.”

Aubrey gripped his arm. She obviously didn’t like the sudden escalation of hostility.

Holmes backed down slightly. “I don’t have any way of knowing who called.”

Aubrey handed Holmes a card. “That has my cell number on it. Will you let me know if you think of anything, or if anyone else calls or comes by looking for Patti?”

Holmes took the card and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get home. My wife isn’t feeling well.” He ushered them out, then watched until they got into their car and left.

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