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From inside her car, Sierra watched as the female officer with the darker ponytail, the same petite woman she’d spotted peering into her Camry earlier that morning, trotted up, her rifle pointed downward. All four convened before two of them, Donovan and the female officer split off and headed behind one of the neighbors’ houses, probably to cover the rear of the targeted address.
Precisely two minutes later Spencer and the plainclothes officer both headed up the street to approach the front of the house, which Sierra couldn’t see at all from her vantage inside the car. But no one had been assigned to watch her, and she felt that familiar tingle of anticipation, a fizzing itch in muscles eager to get out there and be part of the takedown. Her father’s hunting instinct, as he’d liked to call it when he went out looking for the bail jumpers whose bounties fed them...and his gambling habit.
So she stepped out of the car—just to stretch her legs, of course, not to defy a direct police order. Once standing, she strained her neck and ears, catching the pounding at a front door, the deeply authoritative, “Police! Open up!”
Followed minutes later by a faint sound—one Sierra had only heard because she’d strolled to the end of a nearby walkway—of the female officer calling, “Sarge, the back door’s open, but the red van’s still in the—We’ve got a runner! White male, vaulting the rear fence! Donovan and I are in pursuit!”
Adrenaline pumping though her system, Sierra warned herself to get back to the car, stay clear of the situation, where she could end up, at worst, shot, or arrested for interfering with a police action. Sighing in frustration, she dutifully returned to her vehicle...
But Spencer hadn’t said a thing about remaining parked there, so she decided, with that fizzing itch inside her growing, to circle the block, just to offer an extra set of eyes and ears well versed in tracking fleeing suspects. And to call in to dispatch anything she spotted that might constitute a threat to officers or lead to the escape of—
Right there, between a hedge of red-berried pyracantha and a stone retaining wall near the corner, Sierra caught sight of a movement, along with the waving of the shrub’s canes, whose wickedly long thorns were notorious for piercing skin and catching clothing. That has to be him. The runner the cops are after, she decided as she parked along the curb as close as she dared and pulled out her phone.
Before she could dial, the runner broke cover—not the male in the Cardinals cap, as she’d expected, but Destiny herself, her platinum pixie cut partly hidden by a black watch cap and an oversize chambray work shirt serving to obscure her small, neat figure. She was cutting diagonally past Sierra’s hood as she sprinted across the street.
Unwilling to let her get away, Sierra popped open the door, the surge of fresh adrenaline propelling her past the flare of pain in her ribs as she vaulted after the bank teller. Thanks to the bank teller’s poor choice in footwear—a pair of sky-blue spike-heeled pumps—Sierra gained on her quickly, shouting, “Hold it right there! Freeze! Fugitive recovery!” just as the blonde wobbled to the opposite curb.
Whirling around with her honey-brown eyes flaring, Destiny turned to frown at Sierra before her painted nails dove for her rear pocket. Fearing she was reaching for a weapon, Sierra stepped in, twisting her body, and popping the blonde’s midsection with an upper cut that knocked Destiny out of her heels and sent her tumbling to the ground.
Kneeling beside the gasping, sputtering woman, Sierra quickly confirmed that Destiny had been going for a cell phone rather than the gun that she’d imagined.
Thrashing in her attempts to rise, Destiny recovered breath enough to cry out, “H-help! Let me go! Police!”
“Just stay down, woman, or next time I won’t pull my punch,” Sierra said, pressing on her shoulder to keep Destiny from flailing about and injuring herself. Once she’d zip-tied her captive’s wrists, she followed the direction of the teller’s desperate gaze and sighed to see Sergeant Colton stalking her way, looking mad enough to arrest her, along with Destiny, on the spot.
Oh, snap.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay inside your car?” he demanded. “This is a police action to recover a material witness, not time for an amateur to interfere with our operation.”
“A simple thank-you would suffice,” Sierra grumbled, wondering if the man imagined she routinely caught fugitives as some kind of hobby. “Or maybe you’d have preferred that I allowed her to keep right on running, wasting your officers’ time and possibly putting them in harm’s way, when she practically ran out in front of my car, trying to escape?”
Pushing herself into a sitting position, Destiny complained, “This woman struck me! Did you see her? I—I want her arrested for assault!”
Sergeant Colton swung an even harsher look in the teller’s direction before saying, “Before you make any decisions about that, Ms. Jones, I think we need to have a long, hard talk about the company you’ve recently been keeping—”
“And I think you might want to check out, too,” Sierra told the officer, “what she was up to at that bank where she was working. Because from the way her coworkers and her manager acted when I started asked questions earlier, I have to wonder exactly what an audit might turn up.”
* * *
The following afternoon, two jailers escorted Ace from the infirmary, where he’d been stuck since the judge had denied his bail after the prosecutor had successfully argued that a wealthy man who’d already run once was the very definition of a flight risk.
It still hadn’t sunk in that he would remain behind bars until his trial, that the only way he could hope to meet Nova and the grandchild she was carrying for the first time would be inside a jailhouse visiting room.
As the shame of it seeped through him, Ace realized that something was up, since neither guard had answered his question about where they were going. But the look the two men passed between themselves triggered a tightening in his gut. One that warned that he had more bad news coming.
“Is my lawyer here again?” he persisted, confused since Michael Seaver had told him yesterday he would be tied up in court this afternoon. “Or is this the family visit I’ve been promised?”
After weeks of separation, he was desperate to see a familiar face and hear the latest news firsthand—and to know that at least some among his family members were still speaking to him. Desperate enough that he was willing to swallow his pride and allow them to see the same man who’d once represented Colton Oil wearing expensive hand-tailored suits, designer silk ties and Italian leather shoes sporting the latest in bright orange jail garb and what was beginning to resemble a ragged beard. At least he was moving more freely now that the bulky dressing on his wound had been replaced with lighter bandaging.
“Didn’t they tell you in the infirmary where they’ve been keepin’ you all by your lonesome like some kind of rock star?” the younger of the two guards asked, his disapproval palpable over what he clearly considered special treatment. Even though at the present time, the county’s small jail had no other prisoners in need of the infirmary. “It takes at least forty-eight hours for your visitors’ list to b
e approved. If we can get to it.”
Ace’s heart sank, but he didn’t respond to the taunting tone, the clear effort to get a rise out of him. Instead, he thought about the names he’d added to his list, including Sierra Madden’s. Part of him hoped that none of them would show up, would see him humbled like this. Another part of him feared exactly that.
“I ever tell you,” the taller of the pair, a scowling man, asked his partner, “how I was all set to start a job for Colton Oil once? Hard, dirty work, but honest, with good benefits and the kind of paycheck a man can be proud to take home to his family.” His glittering, dark eyes were set deep beneath the shelf of a high forehead.
“Yeah, I think you did.” His frog-faced younger cohort smirked in Ace’s direction. “But why don’t you go ahead and refresh my memory, Pete? I’m sure that Mister Bigtime CEO here would just love to hear that story.”
