Hot Pursuit (14 page)

Ben parked his bike in the first available stall and started toward the store. A woman left the store with a paper bag of groceries in her arms. She moved around the two women as Ben walked up to the store. When the woman with the groceries in her hands looked up and met Ben’s gaze, she froze.

“Maggie,” Ben said, although not loud enough for anyone to hear him.

As quickly as she froze, Maggie sprung to life and hurried away from Ben with her head down.

“Maggie,” Ben said louder.

When he realized the two women talking had looked his way, Ben diverted his attention from them by looking down and taking long strides across the parking lot. Maggie neared the corner of the grocery store, dropped her bag of groceries, and took off running.

“Damn it!” Ben broke into a sprint after her. “Maggie!” he shouted once he was around the building.

Instead of a neighborhood, there was a hill leading down to a two-lane road behind the store. Ben damn near slid down the hill toward the road. There was no way Maggie could have escaped him that easily. Ben looked both ways when he reached the road.

“Goddamn it, why are you running?” he grumbled under his breath when he didn’t see her.

Then he spotted her ahead of him, on the other side of the road, working her way down another hill, this one covered with large rocks. The ocean was beyond that.

Ben hauled ass, jumping over rocks and clearing the distance between them.

“What the fuck, Maggie?” he shouted. “Do you really want me yelling where everyone can hear me? Why are you running from me?”

He leapt over three large rocks, hitting each one with his boots before going to the next one. Halfway down the rugged hill, Ben paused, caught his breath, and gulped in the fresh morning sea air. Whether it be big city or small town, Ben never grew tired of staring at the ocean. Something about its picturesque magnificence always seemed to calm him. At the moment, he only had time for a glance, but the ocean did its magic. Somewhere deep inside, he felt a sense of regrouping, of suddenly being grounded at the core of his soul.

Ben had just gained a valuable piece of information. Micah was still in Zounds. If he worked this right, he’d learn where he was.

“Fine, Maggie!” he shouted. “If this is how you want it, fine. I don’t understand why you would run from me. But if suddenly I’m the bad guy, then what the fuck ever. I’ll just stand here and shout because I know you can hear me. I have a message, and if you want me screaming it over the waves on the beach, well, I guess I can do that.”

He waited, watching, then once again spotted her.

Maggie slowly stood. She was actually just a few large rocks away from him. She’d found one large enough to squat behind, and truth be told, if he’d kept running he would have gone right past her.

“Goddamn, woman,” he snarled, willing to complain for a minute. “Why the fuck did you run?”

“Why did you chase after me?” Her expression was pinched, possibly because she was squinting into the sun facing him.

He shook his head. “Because you ran from me,” he pointed out.

A lump of fear sunk in Ben’s gut when Maggie raised a gun and pointed it straight at him. He hadn’t noticed it in her hand when she’d stood. She pointed it straight at his head, holding it with both hands.

“It’s cool, Maggie,” he cried out, stretching his arms out on either side of him. He really hated having a gun pointed at him.

Goddamn if she didn’t have the advantage. Maggie was surrounded by rocks large enough they might be boulders. He honestly didn’t know the difference other than size and didn’t care at the moment. All of his attention was riveted on the small gun, what most would call a lady’s gun, aimed to kill.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

“Because you ran!” he yelled at her hard enough he felt the veins pop out in his forehead.

Waves crashed against the rocky beach below, and it dawned on him if she fired that gun there was a good chance no one would hear it.

“Why are you here in Zounds?” she asked again, this time through gritted teeth.

Ben wasn’t too comfortable looking around him, not with that damn gun pointed at him. Once again all the training Greg King had given him over the past couple years kicked in. He couldn’t yell at her that he needed to see Micah.

“I’m up here with a friend,” he answered, speaking softer this time.

“A friend,” she repeated. “I see.”

When she gestured with the gun, Ben could see how she was shaking. He didn’t know Maggie that well. Micah was incredibly private about his life, current and past. But Ben guessed she wasn’t overly used to firing a gun. Micah probably gave her lessons out of necessity. But firing at a bull’s-eye, or whatever item was created for target practice, wasn’t the same as shooting a person.

“Take your shoes off,” she told him.

“What?” he asked, surprised.

She straightened her arms and braced herself. “Take your damn shoes off!” she yelled.

“Christ, Maggie,” he complained, confused as hell. The last thing he’d expected when he’d rode up here with Wolf was to not receive a warm welcome.

“Do it,” she insisted.

“Fine!” he shouted, no longer scared. He was pissed. “This is insane,” he complained, and kicked off one boot, then bent over, giving Maggie a wary look, before balancing on the uneven ground as he slipped out of the other boot.

“Toss them to me.”

“I’m not tossing over my boots,” he informed her. “What the fuck is this?” he demanded. “Do you not realize who I am?”

Maybe that was it. They didn’t really know each other, and she’d probably lived a life of fear and terror, unlike anything she’d ever known, after leaving with Micah. Maybe she even regretted being with him now. Who knew what fucked-up reasons she might be thinking to hold that gun at him?

“I know who you are. I don’t know why you’re here.” She straightened her arms again. “Toss over your boots,” she said coldly.

Ben reached down. “Take it easy, Maggie,” he said softly. “I’m on your side, always have been and am now, too.” He grabbed the sides of both boots in one hand and held his other hand out at his side. His gun was inside his jacket and felt heavier than normal, like a lump of steel against his chest.

“Good to know. Toss over the boots.”

“Jesus Christ, Maggie.” Ben tossed the boots at Maggie.

She didn’t try to catch them but moved from one rock to the next and adjusted her aim. “Next time I promise I will shoot.”

Then with incredible agility, Maggie hopped over the rocks and back up to the road.

“I don’t get why you did this when he sent a message for me to meet him!” Ben howled in frustration.

He could have pulled his gun at this point. Possibly he could have even shot her gun out of her hand. Ben had no intention of pulling his gun on Maggie, though. Not to mention, if he’d missed and even scraped one finger, Ben didn’t want to imagine how Micah might react.

Ignoring Maggie and letting her go, Ben gingerly worked his way over the rocks and rough ground to his boots. This was a visit he could have lived without it happening, but he had learned something from it. Now to figure out where Micah was.

Now, beyond a doubt, Maggie and Micah knew he was in Zounds. And, apparently, he wasn’t a welcomed visitor. It had never crossed his mind that Micah wouldn’t want to see him. Or that Micah might try killing him on sight, even if he did recognize him. That turned the lump in his gut to an almost unbearable level of terror.

He had told Maggie he’d come to Zounds with a friend. That was a lie. It was the best he’d been able to come up with at the moment and at gunpoint. Ben now worried that comment might result in a death sentence. What if Micah and Maggie had already known he and Wolf were in town? Now that Ben thought about it, of course Micah would know. Which meant the two of them probably already knew who Wolf Marley was.

And Ben had called him a friend. There weren’t many men on this planet Ben was even mildly afraid of—except Micah. If the man wanted you dead, you were history.

After gathering his boots. Ben sat on the rock where Maggie had been. He slid them back on while facing the ocean and pondered his next move. One thing he knew, he wasn’t going to chance riding out to Redwood National Park. Maggie had been surprised to see him but maybe not as shocked as she might have been. Micah knew Ben was here, had told his wife to leave the lipstick message. There was a good chance she’d left the message, then stopped at the grocery store before returning home. Damn it! Ben shouldn’t have chased her. He should have followed her home.

It was time to regroup and give exceptionally careful thought to his next move. If Maggie had pulled a gun on him, Ben didn’t want to think about what Micah might do.

*   *   *

Zoey adjusted the pillows on her bed and flipped the page of her book. She was reading about Catherine the Great, a Russian empress. Biographies were Zoey’s absolute favorite genre. She’d read mysteries and romances, women’s fiction and thrillers. She’d even picked up a Western or two when the cover caught her eye. Zoey liked to think she would read anything if it was good, but it was hard not to have a favorite genre. She guessed everyone did.

Biographies helped her escape. And at the moment she was willing to be anywhere other than where she was. Getting comfortable on her thick pale gold, not quite tan, comforter, she stretched out the length of her bed. It was queen size, although Zoey’s toes didn’t reach the brass bed frame. Her comforter matched the long curtains hanging on her windows. The shade her father had selected was ugly. The color reminded her of spicy mustard. She hated spicy mustard.

She forced herself to pay attention to the book and not her father yelling downstairs. Catherine the Great had a terrible husband. He reigned over Russia with a cruel hand; in a similar way Zoey’s father reigned over Zounds.

Catherine was beautiful and had lovers who adored and supported her, before and after she took over and killed her husband. Zoey glanced across her room at her full-length mirror. She wasn’t too sure about the “beautiful” part. As for lovers, what if she made Ben a lover? Wouldn’t that make her father blow a gasket? As for killing her father and taking over in his place, she had no desire to do either. She had no desire to commit a crime, especially murder. No one could pay her enough to want any part of her father’s business.

Zoey returned to the book. Imagining how others lived their lives was so much better than trying to figure out her own life. Catherine hated her husband and rebelled against him, then eventually took the throne. She did so much for Russia and was so loved by everyone that she became Catherine the Great.

Maybe Zoey would never rule a country. She sure as hell wouldn’t run her father’s criminal activities or have a thing to do with them. But she would get away from him, somehow, someday.

Emilio Cortez was a prick with no soul. He was evil to the core. Zoey was grateful to the mother she’d never known, for she obviously took after her and not Zoey’s father. She’d heard too many times how she looked just like her mother, who was some poor woman who made the mistake of falling for Zoey’s father. Zoey knew the story surrounding her mother all too well. Emilio had dated Zoey’s mother for a while. She had lived with Zoey’s father in his home in San Francisco. But they had split up after about six months. Less than a year later, Zoey’s mother showed up at Emilio Cortez’s home with an infant, claiming the baby was Cortez’s. Zoey’s mother had threatened to take everything she knew about Cortez to the police if Cortez didn’t give her a sizeable monthly allowance as child support.

Emilio Cortez didn’t handle threats or blackmail too well. According to what he’d told Zoey, he took her from her mother and decided to he would raise Zoey. As he put it, no mother should ever use her baby for profit. Her mother’s name had been Zoey. Her father had given Zoey the same name to help remind him never to make that mistake again. Zoey never had found out what her name had been the first six months of her life.

Cortez made using a baby for profit look like child’s play. Among crimes so insurmountable Zoey couldn’t even begin to count them, he would force his daughter into a marriage she wanted nothing to do with. A marriage that would unite two dynasties and make both families even wealthier than they already were.

The yelling downstairs got louder, and Zoey pulled her knees to her chest. As a child she had crouched here in terror, afraid to even breathe for fear her father would remember about her and come stalking into her bedroom. Emilio Cortez seldom had anything nice to say to his daughter. When she was growing up, it had been a good day when her father didn’t say anything to her at all. Today she detested him. Her fear of him had been replaced with disgust and anger. Anger for the way he abused everyone in Zounds and disgust with how he treated his own blood.

The door opened and Zoey jumped. Her book slipped off her legs and almost fell to the floor. She grabbed it as Melba, one of their housekeepers, the upstairs maid, stuck her head in the door. Zoey’s father insisted on titles for all servants. She hated thinking of anyone who worked in her home as lower in rank than herself. At least they had jobs.

“Sorry to startle you,” Melba apologized. “Your father wants you to talk to him in his den.”

“Why?” Zoey whispered. When she was alone with the staff, they were very informal with each other. There were those loyal to her father, and Zoey knew who they were. Some of the staff, like Melba, let their guard down when they were alone with her.

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” Melba entered Zoey’s room and opened her closet doors. “He told me to bring you downstairs. You’re also to be presentable.”

“Presentable?” Zoey rolled her eyes. “I should go downstairs in cutoff shorts and a T-shirt.”

Melba looked over her shoulder, her hands already in Zoey’s closet on her clothes. “And cost me my job,” she said dryly. She turned her back to Zoey and slid a few outfits along the bar hanging on thick wooden hangers in the walk-in closet. “This one would be lovely on you.”

Melba was probably the same age as Zoey but had been a house servant since she was nineteen. The Cortez home was her second place of employment, and she’d been here almost a year, which was a record for a Cortez servant.