Wanted by a Dangerous Man (2 page)

I’d never imagined a man like him existed. He was complex… a little too much so. Killing people wasn’t a morally gray area. But he’d saved my life even though he realized that I was coming after him. And he’d said something memorable about the people he’d killed… something I clung to like a drowning woman:
every single one of them would have killed me if given the chance.
That could be interpreted as self-defense. Not the kind that would float in a court of law, but it was worth a deeper discussion.

I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking about him, to stop obsessing over what I could have done differently. I was probably making him into something he’d never been. In other words, falling in love with a hot guy who I had basically invented.

My personal phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, a cell phone.
 

“Hello?” I said, desperately hoping Corbin’s sexy voice would rumble through the speaker.

“Sorry. Didn’t think you’d still be awake,” Henry said. “I expected your voicemail. So you gave me the right number.”

“Uh… Yeah.”

“I know I said dinner in two weeks, but I realized that I’m probably going to be out of town then. What are you doing tomorrow night?”

I stifled a yawn as I slipped the chain on the front door. “Dunno. Nothing, I guess. What’s wrong with next weekend?”

“You know how these things are. Definitely working.”

Wondering if I was being manipulated, I padded through the kitchen and into my bedroom. I decided to give Henry the benefit of the doubt. “Tomorrow’s ok.”
 

“So you know, I don’t put out on the first date.”

I wrinkled my nose. Forward
and
tacky. Although… if Corbin had said those same words, my heart would have flipped somersaults around my rib cage. Corbin. I couldn’t get him out of my head. Which meant I had no business dating anyone.

“A friendly dinner between colleagues,” I said.
 

After chuckling so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it, Henry suggested a Chinese restaurant downtown, and we agreed to meet there at 7:00.
 

Wow. Look at me. Dinner plans for Saturday night, like an adult.
 

In another few hours the sun would be coming up. I brushed my teeth, cracked one of my bedroom windows for fresh air, and stumbled under the covers, asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

I woke frozen in the midmorning. Quick hot shower, then I swung by a bakery for cookies on my way to the local sheriff’s office. My dad had always insisted I show my face there on a regular basis. I wasn’t a cute kid, but I’d been an improvement over the average loser the cops dragged in, and the women who worked there had taken a liking to me. Later I learned that they began prioritizing our requests, which made my father seem a bit calculating and scummy. Even later, though, I appreciated when they let me into databases that they shouldn’t.

Frances worked the front desk alone. She was in her mid-seventies and wore a short, dark wig, bright red lipstick, and round glasses that made her look owlish.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were alone today,” I said as I slid the platter of cookies across the counter. “Think your grandson will eat these, or should I take them home?”

She peeled up the aluminum foil. “Oatmeal raisin? It’s almost worth the trip to the hospital. I’ll put them in the break room.” Her arthritic but strong fingers pinched the foil closed again. “What are you doing here on a Saturday?”

“In the area,” I said with a shrug. “How about a copy of the Most Wanted list? The extended version.”

“Just like when you were a teenager. You know you can get them online.”

I knew. She’d told me that before, though not recently. But I didn’t have a printer in my apartment, and my father didn’t want me looking at the lists. He felt that the “foolish daydreaming” detracted from my “real job.”
 

Complete hypocrisy on his part. First, I worked longer hours than anyone else. Second, my father loved to brag about some of the criminals he’d reeled in. Growing up, whenever his friends were over, after a few beers the boasting would begin. But heaven forbid I want to match wits with the dangerous, dead-eyed criminals on the list. Perhaps it would have been different if Rob shared the dream, but my brother lacked ambition except where slutty women were concerned.
 

I’d found out the hard way that my father knew
everything
that got printed at the office. So after my weekend with Corbin, I started going to the police station on Fridays to get the list. That week, work had gotten in the way. Frances never worked Fridays, so she didn’t know I was back up to my adolescent habits of daydreaming about a run-in with the top bounties on the list.
 

Of course, the daydreams were substantially different now.

She brought me the list, and I folded it twice and stuck it into an inside pocket of my coat. Frances and I chatted about her grandson, who was gay, and her worries that he’d never find a nice guy and settle down.
 

“What about you?” She tapped the side of her nose. “Now’s the time. Get out of this bounty hunting stuff before it turns you bitter. You’re in the prime of your life, but you’re not getting any younger.”

“I’m twenty-four!”

“Which isn’t as fresh as twenty-one.”

I stared at her, open-mouthed. Frances wasn’t mean, but she spoke her mind, which meant she was always saying something that made me want to slit my wrists. She’d told me once that because my parents were divorced, I didn’t have good guidance. Frances believed that women needed to focus on trapping a man through whatever means necessary so they could settle down and start squeezing out kids. Ostensibly this was based on her regrets about not sleeping with some guy when she was twenty. He then proceeded to bed and finally marry a woman he didn’t love. He’d died young, but not before confessing to Frances that she was the love of his life.

It would have been heartbreaking if it were true, but Mary Lou, who had retired the year before, confided to me that Frances had eloped with her high school sweetheart the week after graduation and that they’d had a long and happy marriage until his heart attack.

“I’ll have you know that I have a date tonight,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you’re bribing me with cookies? You want me to give you advice?” She wiggled her drawn-on eyebrows, and I had to bite the inside of my mouth to stop from cracking up. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Henry Heigh. Doubt you know him.”

She looked at me as if I were crazy. “Why wouldn’t I know him? And why on Earth are you going out with a guy like him?”

Uh-oh.
“What’s wrong with Henry?”

“What’s wrong with him?” she repeated, her tone making it clear that the question boggled her mind. “He’s handsome, I’ll admit that. A real charmer when he wants to be. He’s like gum.”

I frowned. “Sticky?”
 

“You ever chew five-cent bubblegum? That’s Henry Heigh. Looks appealing, but pretty soon the fake color and flavor fade and your jaw hurts. Smart girl with those nice green eyes? You can do better than him.” The phone rang, and she went off, shaking her head in dismay.

It was official. My choice of date made lonely old women feel sorry for me. Though if she had known about Corbin, she would probably fall to her knees and beg me to marry Henry before he got away.

I waved goodbye, then drove to the office to write my report on the night before. The reports made me crazy. My father had come up with this four-page form, and if I didn’t get it filed within 24 hours, he would do something unfair, like misplace my next paycheck for however long it took me to comply with procedures.

If I complained, which I didn’t do anymore because I made sure to fill out the damned forms, he would say something flippant about how he thought we were an office that didn’t respect rules.
 

Yes, my dad was kind of a dick. In his defense, he’d succeeded in a difficult business. Had to respect that, but I still daydreamed that he’d retire to Mexico sometime soon.
 

No one else was in the office, which wasn’t unusual for a Saturday morning. Kat had gone through another breakup which meant she’d be calling out of work for a few days and moping around the house. Rob would likely arrive after lunch. He would argue that he came in right after he finished breakfast. And we would both be right.

Perhaps if I lived in a nice, overpriced condo, like Rob did, and not in a dark, dank and depressing—but affordable—hovel, I’d spend more time at home, too.

I finished filling out the last form and tossed it onto my dad’s desk instead of sticking it in the file. Dad would want to know that we were splitting the bounty with Heigh. It had been a good negotiation on my part, but my father would probably think that if I were a man, I could have wrestled Henry for it.

Time for my reward. I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and pulled out the list, unfolding it slowly.
 

There he was, still in the top position. Corbin Lagos. Considered armed and dangerous. Speaks four languages. May be using an alias. Quite probably out of the country. Wanted for murder, conspiracy and theft. 30 years old. Blue eyes. Dark brown hair. 6’3”.

It was always a bit surreal to see him reduced to a handful of words. And his eyes weren’t blue. They were an alarmingly vivid blue-green that could turn a woman’s panties sopping wet at fifty paces.

When I went after Corbin, I hadn’t gotten the full list of his crimes, just the name, a black-and-white picture, and the bounty amount. “Various crimes,” it had said.
 

There was no new information, which I already knew because I had a crappy, slow computer at home that I used to look up the list daily. Same photo, too. “You haven’t aged a bit,” I said. I slid the paper back into my pocket.

The door opened and Rob walked in, his nose and ears Rudolph-red from the cold. “Who were you talking to?”

“None of your beeswax.”

He stomped the muddy snow off his boots, adjusted his glasses, and trudged to his desk. “You get Jones last night?”

“Kinda. Henry Heigh was there.”

He frowned. “Oh, that guy. Shouldn’t he be retired?”

“He’s not that old,” I said, sounding a little too defensive.
 

Rob didn’t respond because he didn’t give a crap, but the damage was done. My soft spot for the underdog was starting to kick in, though. Now I couldn’t cancel the date without wondering if I was being shallow. Rob looked through the messy pile of papers on his desk. “Damn. I can’t find my—”

“No.”

“But I didn’t even—”
 

“Exactly. Do your own work.” I put on my coat and went out.
 

My dad was in the parking lot. His bloodshot eyes briefly met mine, a dour smile tightening his lips. I couldn’t help but notice that the T-shirt under his unzipped parka was stretched drum-tight over his midsection. He’d permanently put on a bit of weight each time he remarried, but until recently he’d carried it well. I worried about his arteries. Martha, the current and hopefully final wife, called him her big teddy bear. She liked to cook him huge slabs of meat, and she handed him a beer when he walked in the door after a long day at work. My mother, on the other hand, had taken up running when she remarried, and only ate organic foods with ingredients she could pronounce.
 

“Rob’s here,” I said as we passed.

He patted his dark curly hair, which was now shot with gray. “I can see his car,” he said. He managed to make it just condescending enough where I felt stupid, but not so much that I could call him out for being a dick.
 

Anyone else would have worried that he’d gone too far, but not my father. It wouldn’t even cross his mind that I was upset. I drove off without another word.
 

After picking up groceries for the week, I went home. I added the Most Wanted list to the stack. It was turning into a real Corbin Lagos shrine. All I needed was a black candle and some chicken blood, and I might be able to summon him.

Hm. I wondered if any modern day bounty hunter had tried black magic to track a fugitive. Knowing how superstitious some of them were, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Even though I had absolutely no intention of bringing Mr. I-don’t-put-out-on-the-first-date home, I found myself cleaning. After two hours, the place looked different, though not necessarily better. With the bags of recycling and trash taken out—a real chore in the winter when the landlord didn’t bother to shovel the icy concrete walkway to the back of the building—what might have been a small but passably livable basement apartment was revealed in all its hideous splendor.

I thought about Corbin’s house. Or whoever’s house it was. If I didn’t mind accepting comfort of shady origins, I could have stayed there as long as I wanted. It was large and sunny and perfectly decorated.
 

It was time to shower and meet my platonic date.

Henry wore tight, faded black jeans and a windbreaker with a bulky, cable-knit sweater underneath. “Don’t you have a coat?” I asked, though I had to admit he looked sexy in a rugged, outdoorsy way.

He smiled. “I’ve never been bothered by the cold. My family’s Scandinavian.”

“Is that Latin for polar bear?”

He gave me a puzzled look.
Note to self. No bad jokes for Heigh
.

The hostess came to seat us, and Henry insisted that we get one of the tables in the window. “I want everyone to see how pretty my date is,” he told her with a wink.
 

I managed not to roll my eyes. The hostess walked away, and Henry leaned over, sending a whiff of expensive but tasteful aftershave in my direction. “Hope I didn’t embarrass you. The other tables get banged into a lot. Sitting here, you don’t have people walking past every thirty seconds.” Flashing that incredible smile, he opened his menu. I mentally added one point to the “considering this a date” column.

The food was as yummy as I remembered. I didn’t eat out much. It was pricey, and I had a list of things I didn’t like. Luckily, Chinese food agreed with me, which was strange because most people said that you couldn’t know what was really in it. Things like that tended to freak me out. But veggie fried rice and a greasy egg roll were too delicious to pass up.