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I gave him a hard look. “Somebody needs to take up the slack around here.”
“Very funny. Looks like you might be a busy man.”
“Yeah? How so?” I studied Bart, the kid still wet behind the ears. My buddy Gage had gone through several deputies over the last year. Once the rookies found out the life wasn’t as glamorous as the glossy brochures claimed, they almost always migrated to something else.
Bart glanced over his shoulder. “Better let the sheriff tell you. You know how he is.”
Gage was a hard-ass when he wanted to be, his less than illustrious past giving him reason to toe the line between right and wrong. I took long strides down the corridor, hearing male voices before I rapped on the door, not bothering to wait for an invitation before walking inside.
There were two marshals in the visitor chairs, both standing when I walked in.
“You’re late,” Gage told me, lifting a single eyebrow.
“I had stuff to do. What’s so urgent?” I glanced from one marshal to the other. They weren’t in a shitting mood.
“This is Marshal Tyson Walker and Chance Sheffield. They just happen to be in the need of your services. Maverick Dane is hands down the best damn tracker I’ve ever worked with. You have a copy of his resume so you can see how many fugitives he’s apprehended over the years. I think he qualifies for the job you have.”
What was this, some freaking audition? I wasn’t into dog and pony shows and if they didn’t handle it right, I’d walk out the door and not look back. “As I asked before. What the hell is so urgent?”
Marshal Walker glanced down at the paperwork in his hand then tossed it on Gage’s desk. “While you’ve brought several criminals to justice, none are quite as heinous as the man we’ve been after for almost ten days.”
The fuckers had lost a fugitive for ten days? No wonder their tighty-whities were in a bind. “That means what to me?”
The two marshals glanced between themselves, and I glared at Gage. He knew better than to offer me up on a silver platter if the parties weren’t up front from the get-go.
Marshal Sheffield cleared his throat, still fingering a file he had in his hand. Then he extended his arm. “We have a situation, a man who escaped federal custody while being transferred. In the process of doing so, he gunned down two police officers.”
“What crime did he commit before?” I grabbed the file, opening the flap and staring at the man’s picture. The accompanying notes indicated he’d fled Chicago. No wonder they needed a tracker. Even if they used scent dogs, the trail was ice cold on day two.
“Bruno Escavetti is an enforcer for the Butelli crime syndicate. He’s been on the Feds’ radar for years, but no charges against him stuck until he made a single mistake. I have no doubt the family helped orchestrate his escape.”
“Let me guess, he’s a brutal killer.” If the crime syndicate had helped him, which was likely, they’d do so with a purpose in mind. I snorted and flipped through several pages. The notes were pretty good, the man supposedly killing at least fifteen people in his illustrious career, including several women.
“The worst. He’d been called Dr. Evil,” Walker said dryly.
“Nice. What makes you think he’s in Montana?” I closed the file. At this point, I wasn’t certain I wanted to take the case.
“An informant who works for the organization. Supposedly, Bruno was ordered to head this way. But none of it has been confirmed, just a possibility.”
I laughed, tossing the file on Gage’s desk. “Uh-huh. That means you don’t know shit. He could be enjoying a vacation with his family.”
Sheffield bristled. “Don’t you think we already checked that? His family is in Boca Raton where he put them. There are a dozen reasons he could have headed this way. They’re all detailed in that file if you’d bothered to look all the way through it.”
I didn’t like the man’s attitude. “You need a tracker. I need details. It’s a normal course of business to be given all the facts. It appears you have jack shit. I’m not interested.” I turned toward the door and sensed Gage was up in arms.
“For the love of God, Maverick. Listen to what they’re saying. Bruno is a dangerous psychotic who doesn’t mind killing anyone who gets in his way. And if you read those notes, you’re going to see that he’s extremely creative in the methods he uses. He enjoys torture, including of women. He even killed a kid, or so I heard.”
My chest tightened when I heard that. I took a deep breath, still uncertain this was a good idea. Then I turned around, glaring at all three men. “How long do you think he’s been in the mountains?”
Sheffield shrugged. “A couple of days.”
A couple of days. My thoughts drifted to the man Lily had insisted she’d seen. The one with an assault rifle. “Have there been any sightings to corroborate your claim he’s already here?”
“Two sightings, the last just outside the Montana border.” Walker rubbed his eyes. “Maybe you’re never gone to a crime scene after a victim has been tortured, their intestines hanging out, but I have. Bruno needs to be caught.”
I could tell those sightings hadn’t been confirmed. They were going on hunches, not facts. This was nothing but a wild goose chase in my opinion, which obviously didn’t count.
Yeah, he certainly did, but whether or not I was the man to bring him to justice was beyond me at this point. “I’ll glance over the information and let you know.”
