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Three months later
Maverick
“Yo. Wolfman. What’s shakin’?”
I bristled, hearing the moniker that I couldn’t shake. I’d been called that after preventing an ambush on a secure compound during my stint in the Marines. The asshole who’d coined the phrase hadn’t intended it as a compliment. I had a feeling it would be on my tombstone.
Sooner versus later.
Hissing, I didn’t bother turning my head toward Gage Beckham, a local sheriff in Missoula. We’d known each other for two decades, running with the same crowd of bad boys who’d once terrorized Missoula. When my buddy tracked me down, usually inside a bar, that meant he needed something. “Whatever you’re selling, I ain’t buyin’.”
“Who said I needed anything?”
“Cause I know you. Remember?”
He slid next to me, immediately reaching for the bowl of peanuts I had in front of me. I concentrated on my bottle of Bud, taking another swig. I’d had a rough few days, tracking down a family of tourists who had no business being on the mountain. The fuckers had almost gotten me killed.
Twice.
“Come on. Why can’t I say hello to a friend?”
Exhaling, I shifted toward him, lifting an eyebrow. “Because you’re coming to me on official duty, which means you need my expertise.”
“I just need your brawn.”
“Fine. Go ahead and tell me. You’re not going to leave me in peace until you do. And stop eating all my freaking nuts.” I yanked the bowl away, only to have him tug it again, grinning like he’d just won a victory.
“Okay. I received a rather frantic call from old man Washington over at the Yellowstone hotel.”
“You mean motel. That’s a rat trap.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he admitted, “but he still draws in the tourists since he can pontificate with the best of them.”
The aging former firefighter had somehow managed to get his crappy motel registered as a historical location, thereby making it virtually impossible for any developer to snag the property out from under him. And he had dozens breathing down his neck. “So what does he want?”
“He says a girl took off hours ago up the mountain and hasn’t returned.”
“That’s my issue why?”
“He thinks she’s lost. She took off using one of his maps.”
“Then she could be hopelessly lost,” I grumbled. Mr. Washington had a knack for sending people in the wrong direction, map or no map.
“Yeah, but you are the best tracker in the business. Hell, in the country.”
I finished off the beer in one swig, twirling the bottle after doing so. My reputation for being able to locate anything in the wilderness had allowed me to pad my bank account, but I was getting too old for the shit. Especially when tourists didn’t pay any attention to the weather.
“Nice try, buddy. I couldn’t give a shit about compliments. Besides, it’s going to snow,” I told him.
“Not in the forecast.”
“The forecast is wrong.”
“Then you better get going.”
“Are you asking me all official like?” I asked through clenched teeth, giving him a hard, cold stare.
He shrugged, keeping the same grin on his face. “You owe me.”
