Hot Pursuit (10 page)

Wolf didn’t trust Ben. In spite of their truce and agreement to hunt the man together, a million bucks was a million bucks.

Ben had been out late. Wolf would let him sleep in. Fair was fair. Wolf would do his own sniffing around this morning.

“Good morning, Mr. Marley.” Betsy Watson held up a pot of coffee from the doorway at the other end of the spacious dining room. “Take it black?”

“I do, and thank you.”

Betsy Watson reminded Wolf of Aunt Bee from
The Andy Griffith Show,
which he used to watch when he was a kid. She even sounded like her.

“Have a seat anywhere,” she said, waving her plump hand in the air and holding the coffeepot with the other.

Wolf chose a seat by the front window. There were five round tables in the dining area, each covered with a checkered tablecloth. As he sat, Betsy paused next to him and uprighted the white cup from its saucer in front of him, then poured rich-smelling coffee into his cup.

“You’re the early bird. Any plans today?” she asked.

“Figured I’d get a feel of the town and ask around to see who is hiring.” He and Ben had decided their covers would be that they were searching for work, having been unlucky in previous towns. They agreed to tell anyone who asked that they’d been working their way up the coast in hopes of finding jobs.

It was a cover that wouldn’t last for long, especially if anyone decided to try to prove their story true. They weren’t planning on using their cover any more than necessary, because if Ben and Wolf snooped around properly, they would find the Mulligan Stew assassin. It was a believable cover, though. And since few places were hiring these days, people would shy away from them once they mentioned “unemployed” and job searching. It was the perfect way to get away from people they didn’t need to waste their time with and allow time to focus on questioning people who might give them information they needed.

“I can get you started with a good homemade breakfast,” Betsy promised.

Wolf didn’t doubt for a moment that “good” would be an understatement. “Whatever I smell coming from your kitchen has got to run circles around ‘good,’ Ms. Watson.”

The older woman laughed, and her thick fingers fluttered over her ample bosom. “Now you call me Betsy. Everyone does. And you probably smell my cinnamon buns. They’ll be out of the oven in just a few minutes. I’ll bring one out to you as soon as they’re ready.”

“Sounds perfect.” Wolf leaned back and enjoyed his coffee after Betsy hurried to her kitchen.

His window in his room offered a great view of the back of the house and parking lot. He knew how many people were at the bed-and-breakfast, give or take one or two if groups traveled in one car. There were two cars parked in the parking lot other than his car and Ben’s bike. Now, seated where Wolf was, he had a nice view out the front of the old house.

Wolf took in the dining area. He’d always loved shiny hardwood floors, the kind that were so glossy they reminded him of gym floors from grade school. The thick door frames were natural wood as well. There was one modest-looking chandelier hanging in the middle of the ceiling. It had probably hung over a dining-room table that might have been in this room for years before the house was turned into a place of business.

He stood and walked to the large, clean glass window. The circular drive was thick with large white gravel, and the neat lawn around it was still green in spite of it being late in the year. There wasn’t a car or person in sight. He wondered if that was normal. Since Betsy didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who would stay calm and collected if something bad was happening, he decided it must be how this town was at this time of day. Wolf wasn’t sure he could stand a town so quiet and serene. He preferred a bit more activity, chaos even, action as it were. Something for him to observe. Zounds was a bit too orderly for his tastes.

Leaving the window, he glanced at the doorway where Betsy had disappeared. Those cinnamon buns were making his stomach growl. When had he last had home cooking? Or, for that matter, eaten anything that hadn’t been wrapped and handed to him through a drive-through window?

He walked over to a far table where a newspaper was.

“Damn,” he muttered. It was actually four newspapers, all this morning’s paper and each one embarrassingly thin. Zounds didn’t have a lot to talk about. The paper was four pages thick. Definitely not enough action.

It was almost chilly out when he left not too much later. Wolf had enjoyed the best damn cinnamon roll he’d ever had in his life. The coffee rated right up there, too. Betsy had been willing to talk and had shared some information about her town, which she’d apparently lived in for the past forty years, since marrying her Herb, God rest his soul. Most businesses were family run, and with times being hard, most were struggling. She’d shared with Wolf how a man named Cortez was making the hard times even harder on those unfortunate enough not to own the buildings their businesses were in. Betsy had owned her home free and clear before her grandsons spent three months converting it into the bed-and-breakfast. Now, with Betsy having a loan to pay off to the bank, Cortez had made a few threats that she didn’t like.

Wolf nodded to a man gardening just up the block. The man nodded back and paused, watching Wolf walk by with mild interest. He was new in town, in a small town that possibly didn’t see a lot of newcomers. Keeping a low profile might be next to impossible to do. He’d worked under worse circumstances. Using his and Ben’s guise as unemployed men searching hard for a paycheck might help keep them under the radar of the assassin—if he was here.

Wolf really hoped he was here. There was nothing more exciting than narrowing in on the hunt.

He turned at the end of the block and was taken aback by the sunrise. It was beautiful yet blinding. Just like a woman, he thought morosely, so beautiful you couldn’t look away, but then when you didn’t she’d make you regret it to your dying day. In this case, his eyes would suffer if he didn’t get sunglasses. It sucked that he’d left his pair in his Escalade.

“Damn good excuse to enter some of these stores,” he muttered, squinting as he approached downtown Zounds. Looked like he was going to buy a second pair of sunglasses and get an opportunity to chat with a few more of the town folk.

Maybe he’d find a cute salesclerk who might know who had moved to Zounds in the past year. Goddamn he was a glutton for punishment. No one burned Wolf Marley twice! Although, he mused to himself, there was a big difference between flirting or even enjoying a one-night stand or two and entering into a long-term relationship. He would never do that again.

Downtown Zounds was only a couple blocks long. What a ridiculous name for a town. Wolf wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the story behind the naming of this town. After he passed a few shops his mood dropped. It appeared no one around here opened before eleven. Was there even a twenty-four-hour grocery store or drugstore in this damned town?

At the end of the two blocks of shops, the road ran a circle around a grassy garden courtyard with a large statue in the center of it. Wolf stared at the statue of a man, or sailor it appeared, with his hand above his eyes, as if warding off the sun, except he was facing the wrong direction. The man stared off toward the sea.

Wolf searched for a plaque, didn’t see one, and decided he didn’t care. He wasn’t in Zounds to learn about its history or to care if some guy named Cortez was giving the town people grief. The only reason Wolf would care was if it would draw the Mulligan Stew assassin out of his hiding place. Even at that, Wolf almost preferred the assassin remained hidden.

“I’ll find you,” Wolf whispered to himself, and looked away from the statue.

Something caught his eye, and he started across the street, glancing both ways then shaking his head in disgust. There probably wasn’t a running vehicle in a two-block radius, if not farther. What time did people get up and go to work around here?

Wolf tilted his head and looked alongside the edge of the building in front of him, down an alley. Not a dark alley. He doubted Zounds had any dark alleys. The town was too quaint, and so far its citizens appeared just as quaint, if not gullible. The last store on the street was next to the alley, the side of the building painted white. A field stretched out on the other side. It was probably the brightest alley he’d ever seen.

He glanced at the sign attached to the building over its front doors.
ANGELINA’S BOOKSTORE.
He saw rows of books through the tall glass windows on either side of the entrance. Books weren’t exactly his thing. If he needed information he couldn’t get by using his wit and keen observation, he looked online.

Wolf’s thoughts shifted to the Cortez guy Betsy had mentioned. If Cortez was persecuting and bullying the town, people who lived here might be existing in denial because they didn’t know how to stop him. They didn’t leave their homes unless necessary. The stores were only open six, or so, hours a day, then shopkeepers hid from this Cortez monster. Wolf shook his head, pulling his attention from the bookstore back to the alley. What a sad way for people to live their lives.

A woman was in the alley doing something with boxes. If that was Angelina in the alley, stomping on boxes or doing some bizarre type of alley dance, she was one hot mama. With a body like that he hoped she was anything but an angel.

The woman looked up from her task when Wolf started in her direction. Brown curls framed a thin, long face. Her nose was just as long and narrow, but turned up just a bit at the end. That nose defied an otherwise regal, almost aloof natural expression. With the sun behind her he couldn’t tell the color of her eyes. But he saw her gaze tighten and sensed her cautious nature when she straightened from her task and tugged at her T-shirt.

As he approached he saw it was a Redwood National Park T-shirt, and the picture of the trees on her shirt stretched over perfectly shaped full, round breasts. She was slender, not tall, with thin legs. Her skinny jeans showed off just how nice those legs probably were. In fact, the entire package would rate right up there as mouthwatering.

Wolf could interrogate anyone through the guise of light conversation, but taking a minute to chat with a beautiful woman made the job all that more enjoyable. As he neared the woman he saw dark blue eyes studying him. They were so dark blue they were almost lavender.

God, a man could lose himself in those eyes. She moistened her lips, and they parted, full, naturally red lips on a small, round mouth. A man would give up more than his heart to this woman; he would lose his soul, then thank her for taking it.

At least another man might. Not Wolf. Not ever again. Four years of happiness didn’t compensate for the pain that had ripped out his heart. In one night, one hour, his world had been destroyed. Wolf had rushed home, because that was all the time he had to spare, just for a romantic weekend, only to be given the dump. He should have driven on to his next job. Although, as he’d been informed when he’d mentioned that during the heat of an argument, he would have received it all in a letter.

Four years ended in a fucking letter. The twit!

Rebecca had told him the hours he’d spent on the phone with her every night while out on a hunt, the flowers he would have had sent to her when he ended up being on the road longer than originally thought, or even boxes of Godiva chocolate, her favorite, he would special-order online and have delivered to her office weren’t enough. Rebecca didn’t want a ghost for a boyfriend. She’d dumped him five minutes after he’d arrived home on that treacherous night over a year ago, her suitcases in hand. The next day she’d sent movers to his home and damn near emptied it out, claiming all furniture they’d bought together during their time together. Since he’d hit the road again early that next morning, wanting to be anywhere but in his house with no Rebecca, he hadn’t found out about the furniture until seeing the charge for the movers when he’d looked at his account online. She had used his credit card to clean his house out of all of the furniture bought with his money during the years they were together.

“Are you lost?” the woman in the alley asked, her tone brittle with sarcasm. Those dark blue eyes were radiant from the sun light. And so large, almost catlike. She was short, but something about her suggested she had no problem with her height or taking on the world or anyone else who might challenge her alley.

“In this town? Hardly,” Wolf retorted, and noticed an adorable spray of freckles over her nose. Spitfire, he decided, and thought fueling that fire might help bridge him into conversation. There was a lot to learn in a little bantering. “You, on the other hand, either seem confused on how to use a box or are taking out your anger on an inanimate object when you should just punch the asshole in the face.”

The woman straightened, ran her hands down the sides of her T-shirt and jeans. She stared at him. For a long moment, she didn’t smile, blush, or tell him to go to hell. Finally, she moved a tight little brown curl away from her forehead.

“I think I’ll punch the asshole in the face.” She still didn’t smile. “You aren’t by any chance a lawyer, are you?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Why? Need a divorce?”

When she shook her head, the curl plopped right back into the middle of her forehead. She didn’t seem to notice. “No, but I’d love to know how many laws the asshole is breaking in doing this to me.”

It was Wolf’s turn to shake his head. “I’m not sure making a pretty lady dance on boxes in an alley is against the law,” he said dryly. “Unless there is a city ordinance against it.”

“I’m not dancing on them; I’m trying to crush them,” she snapped. “But books are sent in really sturdy boxes and they aren’t crushing easily.”

Wolf walked up to her. “Now crushing I can do. It was that dance I was a bit leery of.”

“By all means.” She made a flourish with her hand and moved to the side, giving him room. “I just can’t believe I’m now required to break down all boxes from my store before putting them in the city Dumpster, or risk a fine. And he wants an inspection, too.”