ace, not me.”
“I don’t think so. My debts are paid, I’m not fooling around with anyone’s wife, and I haven’t pissed anyone off lately. Except for you. Nobody’s got a reason to send muscle after me. You, on the other hand…” He skimmed his gaze over her face again. “Somebody wants you, sugar.”
“Thousands do,” she said, stretched out her long legs as she shifted toward him.
“I’ll bet.” He didn’t give in to the impulse to look at those legs—he just thought about them. “But other than the brainless idiots you’d kick in the heart, you’ve got someone real interested. Interested enough to set me up, and take me out with you. Ralph, you bastard.”
He shoved aside a copy of The Grapes of Wrath and a torn T-shirt and snagged his car phone. Steering one-handed, he punched in numbers then hooked the receiver under his chin.
“Ralph, you bastard,” he repeated when the phone was answered.
“D-D-Dakota? That you? You track d-d-down that skip?”
“When I figure my way clear of this, I’m coming for you.”
“What—what’re you talking about? You find her? Look, it’s a straight trace, Jack. I g-g-gave you a plum. Just a c-c-couple’s hours’ work for full f-f-fee.”
“You’re stuttering more than usual, Ralph. That won’t be a problem after I knock your teeth down your throat. Who wants the woman?”
“Look, I—I—I got problems here. I gotta close early. It’s the holiday weekend. I got p-p-personal problems.”
“There’s no place you can hide. Why the phony paperwork? Why’d you set me up?”
“I got p-p-problems. Big p-p-problems.”
“I’m your big problem right now.” He tapped the brakes, swung around a convertible and hit the fast lane. “If whoever’s pushing your buttons is trying to trace this, I’m in my car, just tooling around.” He thought for a moment, then added, “And I’ve got the woman.”
“Jack, listen to me. L-l-listen. Tell me where you are, dump her and d-d-drive away. J-j-just drive. Stay out of it. I wouldn’ta tagged you for the job, ’cept I knew you could handle yourself. Now I’m telling you, stash her somewhere, give me the l-l-location and drive away. Far away. You don’t want this.”
“Who wants her, Ralph?”
“You don’t n-n-need to know. You d-d-don’t want to know. Just d-d-do it. I’ll throw in five large. A b-b-bonus.”
“Five large?” Jack’s brows lifted. When Ralph parted with an extra nickel, it was big. “Make it ten and tell me who wants her, and we may deal.”
It pleased him that M.J. protested that with a flurry of curses and threats. It added substance to the bluff.
“T-t-ten!” Ralph squeaked it, stuttered for a full ten seconds. “Okay, okay, ten grand, but no names, and b-b-believe me, Jack, I’m saving your life here. Just t-t-tell me where you’re going to stash her.”
Smiling grimly, Jack made a pithy and anatomically impossible suggestion, then disconnected.
“Well, sugar, your hide’s now worth ten thousand to me. We’re going to find a nice, quiet spot so you can tell me why I shouldn’t collect.”
He zipped off an exit, did a quick turnaround and headed back north.
Her mouth was dry. She wanted to believe it was from shouting, but there was fear clawing at her throat. “Where are you going?”
“Just covering my tracks. They wouldn’t get much of a trace on a cellular, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”
“You’re taking me back?”
He didn’t look at her, and didn’t grin. Though the waver of nerves in her voice pleased him. If she was scared enough, she’d talk. “Ten thousand’s a hefty incentive, sugar. Let’s see if you can convince me you’re worth more alive.”
He knew just what he was looking for. He trolled the secondary roads, skimming through the holiday traffic. He’d forgotten it was the Fourth of July weekend. Which was just as well, he thought, as it didn’t look like there were going to be a lot of opportunities to kick back with that cold beer and watch any fireworks.
Unless they came from the woman beside him.
She was a firecracker, all right. She had to be afraid by now, but she was holding her own. He was grateful for that. There was nothing more irritating than a whiner. But scared or not, he was certain she’d try to take a chunk out of him at the first opportunity.
He didn’t intend to give her one.
With any luck, once they were settled, he’d have the full story out of her within a couple hours.
Then maybe he’d help her out of her jam. For a fee, that is. It could be a small one because at this point he was ticked and figured he had a vested interest in dealing with whoever had set him on her.
Whoever it was, they’d gone to a great deal of trouble. But they hadn’t picked their goons very well. He could figure the scam well enough. Once he captured his quarry and had her secured and in his car, the men in the van would have run them off the road. He’d have figured it to be the action of a competing bounty hunter, and though he wouldn’t have given up his fee without a fight, he’d have been outnumbered and outgunned.
Skip tracers didn’t go crying to the cops when a competitor snatched their bounty.
The goons might have let him off with a few bruises, maybe a minor concussion. But the way that mountain of a man had been waving his cannon in M.J.’s apartment, Jack thought it was far more likely that he’d have sported a brand-new hole in some vital part of his body.
Because the mountain had been an moron.
So at this point he was on the run with an angry woman, a little over three hundred in cash and a quarter tank of gas.
He intended to know why.
He spotted what he was after north of Leesburg, Virginia. The tourists and holiday travelers, unless they were very down on their luck, would give a dilapidated dump like the Kountry Klub Motel a wide berth. But the low-slung building with the paint peeling on the green doors and the pitted parking lot met Jack’s requirements perfectly.
He pulled to the farthest end of the lot, away from the huddle of rusted cars near the check-in, and cut the engine.
“Is this where you bring all your dates, Dakota?”
He smiled at her, a quick flash of teeth that was unexpectedly charming. “Only first class for you, sugar.”
He knew just what she was thinking. The minute he cut her loose, she’d be all over him like spandex. And if she could get out of the car, she’d be sprinting toward the check-in as fast as those mile-long legs would carry her.
“I don’t expect you to believe me.” He said it casually as he leaned
