Hot Pursuit (31 page)

The moment his attention shifted to Maggie, though, that look that caused instant terror to twist in Zoey’s gut disappeared. Now there was a man in love. His expression transformed so noticeably when he gazed at his wife.

“Maggie has been making me nuts all morning once she found out you were coming. She’s so excited to show off her house,” Micah said, and smiled.

“I do believe it’s our home,” Maggie said playfully, looking more relaxed and happy than she ever did when she came into town. “And it’s not a house; it’s a cabin,” she teased, and tapped her small boot on top of his much larger one. Then shifting her attention to Ben, she continued smiling. Maggie was absolutely glowing. “I’m sorry I held you at gunpoint and made you take your boots off.”

“What?” Zoey gasped, but then hated how everyone looked at her.

“Oops,” Maggie muttered, her smile fading.

Micah caressed his wife’s arm. “Take Zoey inside,” he instructed, his tone dropping a notch so that it almost sounded like a growl.

“I’ll explain later,” Ben promised, pulling Zoey into his arms. “Please don’t think bad of me,” he whispered into her hair.

Zoey tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Why should I think bad of you?”

“She made me take my boots off so I wouldn’t follow her.”

“Ben was trying to find me,” Micah cut in, and patted Ben on the back. “Maggie gets rather protective, I’m afraid. Just one of the many reasons I love her,” he added, and again looked at his wife with a reverence any girl would die to have from a man.

“There better be tons of reasons.” Maggie laughed. “Come on, girl. Let me show you our home. You’ll love it. I’ve really gotten into interior decorating.”

“I’ll say,” Micah muttered.

Maggie hooked her arm around Zoey’s and guided her away from the men. “I’m so glad you’re here. Honestly, you’re our first visitors. I didn’t think Micah would go for it.”

“He’s quite a man,” Zoey said, not sure how to say something favorable when he gave her the willy-jillies.

“He’s the best there is,” Maggie said dreamily, and pushed open the door to the rustic redwood cabin, proof in itself that the cabin had been there a while. Not many things were made from redwood these days. “But welcome to our home,” she said with a dramatic flair, and waved her hand around a spacious, nicely decorated living room.

As simple as the cabin looked from the outside, it made up for it on the inside with its sophisticated and plush look. If growing up under a crime lord’s brutal scrutiny had taught Zoey anything, it was how to identify expensive tastes when she saw them. The couch, with two matching chairs, and a wide, oval dark cherry coffee table with end tables of the same set on either side of the couch were all very nice pieces of furniture. Not the kind of stuff picked up at a department store or out of a wholesale factory outlet.

“Living room, obviously,” Maggie said, her smile so broad it was all teeth. She tugged at Zoey. “Let me show you the rest of the place.”

Maggie danced through their master bedroom and two full baths, one with a Jacuzzi and very large skylight. She opened doors to two more bedrooms, both simply furnished, then brought the two of them into the kitchen.

“And this is my kitchen,” she said, sighing as she glanced around with pleasure. “Isn’t it marvelously perfect?”

Zoey had to agree. She walked around an island in the middle of the room with a cutting board as a countertop. Glancing at a fully stocked glass wine cabinet, she shifted her attention to a fat wood-burning stove, then took in the shiny chrome appliances. The room was spacious, the windows large and on opposite sides of the kitchen so morning and evening light would traipse across the solid, nicely glossed wooden floor. A long braided carpet covered half of the room where a breakfast nook and round table with two chairs were surrounded by glass, showing off the thick forest.

“I haven’t been able to get Micah to eat there with me yet,” Maggie confessed, pouring two cups of rich-smelling coffee, then bringing the mugs to the breakfast table. “He prefers eating in the living room.”

“This place is amazing,” Zoey said, wondering which one of them had the bucketloads of money it would have taken to decorate and furnish the place the way it was. She wouldn’t ask, though. “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Ben? I have so many questions.”

“And I’m going to answer every single one of them.” Maggie’s expression grew serious as she sipped her coffee. “Micah allowed you to come out here with Ben because he said, as a crime lord’s daughter, you probably have had a lifetime of learning how to keep secrets. Personally, I always knew I could trust you. But it’s Micah who has to have the final say in that department.”

“What?” Zoey frowned. She shook her head, ready to deny it. “I don’t know anything about my father’s many crimes. Other than knowing he’s a bastard, I always stay away from his business,” she confirmed. “You know that.”

Maggie nodded once. “I know. But it’s why Micah agreed.”

Zoey simply stared, wondering what kind of phobias that tall, dark man outside with Ben had. She didn’t have time to figure out how to word her question.

“Micah is a wanted man, Zoey,” Maggie said quietly, in fact in such a hushed whisper it wasn’t clear what she said or meant at first.

“Wanted? You mean by the law?” Zoey asked.

Maggie nodded once. “I’m going to assume that Ben hasn’t told you anything, which Micah said he wouldn’t. He said Ben would be loyal to him to death.”

Zoey was already tired of hearing what Micah said. “Ben wouldn’t tell me what?” she demanded.

“About the two of them being bounty hunters.”

Zoey sighed and relaxed into her chair. “Ben told me that.” She didn’t add that he’d told her that when they’d arrived outside. For some reason she was suddenly feeling defensive.

“Ben and Wolf Marley drove up here together from Los Angeles to find Micah.” Maggie paused as if trying to read from Zoey’s face whether she knew this or not. Her gaze lingered a moment on Zoey’s bruises, but then Maggie met her gaze and held it as if she knew Zoey needed time to process what she was being told.

Zoey’s stomach tensed. Already she started thinking she wasn’t going to like this conversation. “He told me they came to Zounds looking for work.”

“I know.” Maggie started talking fast, not taking any more breaks to learn what Zoey knew or didn’t. “I don’t know yet how they met. Micah is finding that out outside. But we already know Wolf Marley came to Zounds looking for Micah because of the incredibly large bounty on Micah’s head.”

“How much?” Zoey asked, feeling sick. She’d left a world of crime, run from it. Was it seriously all around her and she was simply too gullible to realize it?

“Over a million dollars last we checked,” Maggie said, her voice tight.

Zoey couldn’t breathe. Maybe she didn’t know the details of her father’s business, but she’d overheard plenty of conversations. Her father never tried skating around any topic because of her. A million-dollar bounty was only issued for incredibly heinous crimes. But Maggie was sweet. She was perfect. What had that man done to rate such an incredible bounty?

“Wait a minute,” Zoey said, pieces of conversations from the day suddenly swimming in her brain. “Ben and Micah were bounty hunters together, right?”

“Yes.” Maggie looked down at her cup, which she held in front of her mouth with both hands. “Micah was raised by his father and uncle. He learned to hunt large game at a young age. Both his father and uncle were avid hunters. When Micah became a teenager he got bored hunting large game. There wasn’t a creature out there he couldn’t kill with one shot.”

Zoey listened, keeping her expression bland for Maggie’s sake. It was clear how much she loved Micah. Zoey couldn’t stand killing, though. If that man outside was a killer, a murderer for Christ’s sake, she wanted nothing to do with him.

“Micah’s father and uncle decided there was a way for Micah to be challenged.” Maggie stopped and stared at Zoey for a moment as if she was searching for the right words.

“He’s a murderer!” Zoey helped her out and pushed away from the table.

“No!” Maggie almost yelled. “No,” she said quieter, reaching for Zoey. “Let me explain. Micah is one of the best men you will ever know, Zoey. I promise.”

Zoey relaxed back into her chair but already knew she wouldn’t like where this story was going. Worse yet, why was she being told? All her life not knowing meant she was safer. Did she want to know about Maggie’s husband?

“Micah’s dad and uncle brought Micah into the business. Mulligan Stew,” she explained. “When someone had a person they needed taken care of,” she continued, faltered, cleared her voice, and went on, “a bad person, the very worst, they would contact Mulligan Stew. Now Micah, who always had final say, only accepted jobs when the person had done terrible things. His father and uncle would screen the calls, or often e-mails, negotiate payment; then Micah went out to take the job.”

“Oh my God, he’s an assassin,” Zoey said, covering her mouth.

Maggie didn’t say anything but stared at Zoey over the table. She took a long drink of her coffee, then placed her mug on the table. “Micah has killed over seventy-two people,” she whispered.

“Maggie,” Zoey complained, putting her cup down before she dropped it. “I don’t want to know this.”

“I have to tell you.” Maggie looked imploring. “You have to understand why Ben couldn’t tell you anything. Why he had to lie,” she continued.

“Ben lied?”

“Micah became so good at what he did he easily could pick and choose his jobs. He was paid insanely large amounts of money, sometimes by entire towns, although there was never a paper trail and there is no way to prove any of this. He has killed mass murderers, rapists, known serial killers, when the law might not have had enough proof in spite of knowing who had committed the crimes. He’s killed robbers, hustlers, and crime lords. He’s killed abusive husbands, child molesters, and pedophiles.”

“So because he has killed so many terrible people that makes it okay?”

“I think it helps show the kind of person Micah is,” Maggie said seriously. “A couple years ago, Micah decided to retire. He moved to L.A. and changed his identity. He took a job as a bounty hunter and that is when I met him, and when Ben met him.”

“So Ben didn’t know who Micah really was?”

Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t, either, at first. He’d had a lifetime of keeping his private life private and he’s still very good at it,” she told Zoey, looking frustrated. With a limp wave of her hand in the air between them, she dismissed any current problems she might have living with such a man in order to get her story out.

“Ben wasn’t a licensed bounty hunter at the time. He was working toward it,” Maggie offered, searching Zoey’s face and again looking as if she wanted to know how much of this Zoey already knew.

Zoey slumped in her seat. “Go on,” she prompted. “Ben has obviously lied about everything about himself before coming to Zounds.”

“He was protecting Micah,” Maggie insisted, as if that made everything all right. “Micah and Ben went on jobs together. There was a lot Ben couldn’t do, and a lot Micah taught him while they were on those jobs,” Maggie told her.

“Taught him?” Zoey leaned forward, and her stomach clenched. She endured the pain, needing to know the truth. “What exactly did Micah teach him to do?”

Maggie’s smile was sad. “No, it wasn’t like that. Micah will take his curse of being the ultimate hunter to his grave, I’m afraid. He’s very adamant about that. But Ben was a pup when he started working with Micah. He was eager to learn. Micah showed him how to fine-tune the natural hunter inside Ben, or at least that is how Micah has told it to me.”

Maggie leaned back, and the glow of happiness, and what Zoey now saw as a sense of pride, of unadulterated love for her killer husband, made her smile shine.

“I see,” Zoey said slowly, trying to digest everything while her stomach began forcing bile to her throat.

“The last job Micah did before he retired had come back to haunt him,” Maggie continued, once again focusing on her mug. “The law started coming around and Micah decided it would be best for everyone if he disappeared. He tried protecting me, Ben, and everyone else he worked with by leaving without saying anything.” A tear slipped down Maggie’s face when she looked at Zoey. “But he couldn’t do it. You don’t know how big of a heart he has. Micah couldn’t just leave without giving some kind of explanation to those he now cared about, and who loved him,” she finished on a breath.

Maggie sighed as she began running her finger around the rim of her cup. She didn’t seem to realize what she was doing. Maggie was looking back to a time that, if the look on her face was any indication, brought her a lot of pain. Zoey never would have guessed her friend was in love with an assassin. Maggie had given up her freedom. She would be in hiding for the rest of her life, whereas Zoey was just now experiencing freedom. It was a strange thought and one she didn’t have a clue how to process.

“He went to where his boss and his boss’s wife were hunting a guy who had run instead of going to his court dates. Micah has skills no other human on this planet has. I would swear to it. He was able to get close to where they were without anyone knowing he was there. The guy his boss was hunting had bounced checks. He wasn’t a terrible criminal, just a man who had made some really stupid choices in life. And he was about to make one more. He pulled a gun on Micah’s boss’s wife. Micah shot the man. The law was on it instantly, especially when the bullet that killed the man matched the bullet that had killed a dirty CIA agent, who had been the last man Micah had killed before retiring. Micah had found people who really cared about him. He hadn’t known that level of friendship and he’d never felt that level of protectiveness before. Micah wasn’t thinking about protecting himself. Possibly for the first time in his life he was focused more on taking care of someone else. Guns make an imprint on bullets when they’re fired, like a fingerprint. That’s how the law knew that they’d found the Mulligan Stew assassin.”

“Oh God,” Zoey gasped, wrapped up in Maggie’s story. “What happened?”