Chapter 2
Grayson rubbed his lightly bearded chin. Kendra was right. When he didn’t find Ivy in the grocery store, he didn’t have any idea where to check for her. “All right. I’ll drive us to the movie theater to help you capture your fugitive, Kendra.”
Rowland met up with them and said, “I just saw the security video. Ivy purchased some snacks and then left the store. She was out of sight of the security cameras when she vanished. I didn’t see anyone with her at the store. We’re all still looking for her.”
“I need to get a bail skipper and turn him in,” Kendra said. “Let me know if you get any leads on Ivy, and I’ll help out again.”
Grayson said, “Since we have no idea where Ivy is, I’m going with Kendra.”
“I’m getting the other deputies involved in your sister’s case, but it appears she has not been harmed so far.”
But Grayson wasn’t too sure about it. He really didn’t think Ivy would ditch her phone.
“I’ve got to get to the movie theater on Walker Avenue. Do we have any other ideas as to where Ivy might have gone, now that her phone has been ditched?” Kendra asked.
“I’m going to take her phone to the office and dust it for prints. I’ll be in touch,” Rowland said. “Do you have any way to access the phone to see if she has anything about the boyfriend on it?”
“Yeah.” He gave Rowland her pin number. “You can check Facebook and Instagram and see if she has been on with him. Those are the only two social media sites she uses,” Grayson said.
“All right, I’ll do that.” Rowland read the words on Grayson’s T-shirt and smiled. “I need one of those.” Then he took off.
“Does she have a credit card or money?” Kendra got into the SUV and directed Grayson to the movie theater.
“Cash. Dad didn’t trust her with a credit card because she keeps running away.
She works at an ice cream shop so she has cash and a bank account.
So she has money. I suspect that’s why she took off when she did.
She had just gotten paid, and she lives with Dad, so she has no expenses except for buying special things she wants.
Otherwise, he pays for everything for her. ”
They parked at the movie theater. “How do you want to do this?”
Kendra hadn’t expected to have help on her case, but Grayson was also a bounty hunter, so he knew how to manage cases too. “Do you have a taser?”
He smiled. “No.”
“Oh, you just use your muscles. We can stand outside the theater where he’s watching the movie. When he leaves, we’ll grab Houston. Then I’ll turn him over to the police. Maybe by then, Rowland will have something on the fingerprints on Ivy’s phone that will say who Big Bear really is.”
They went inside the movie theater and found the room where the fugitive was supposed to be watching the movie. Then they waited for him to exit the theater. She showed Grayson a picture of him: black-haired, bearded, blue-eyed, with a downturned mouth.
“What’s he up on charges for, and is he one of us?”
“Houston is not one of us, and he’s wanted for stealing nearly twelve thousand dollars' worth of lottery tickets from the grocery store where he worked. He didn’t pay for the tickets, used a way to bypass the system, threw out the ones he scratched off that weren’t winners, and cashed the ones that were. ”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Yeah, it took a while to catch him on it. He was bonded out, but he skipped his court hearing.”
“And went to the movies instead.”
She shook her head. “You would think he would have fled the state at least if he didn’t want to go to jail.”
The movie ended next door, and the people started leaving the room. She watched them just to make sure that he hadn’t gone to watch a different film. But he didn’t leave that theater.
Then the movie that he was supposed to be watching let out, and Kendra stood on one side of the doorway while Grayson waited on the other side.
About twenty people left the theater when Kendra and Grayson finally saw their target. Immediately, she took hold of the fugitive’s arm. “This is a warrant for your arrest.” She showed him the arrest warrant and also her ID card as a Fugitive Recovery Agent.
He yanked away from her, and Grayson quickly took the big man in hand. She slipped cuffs on him. Grayson showed him his ID card, proving he was also a bounty hunter. “All you had to do was go to court when you were supposed to.”
Then she called Rowland. “We caught Houston. We’re dropping him off at the station. Did you get anything on the fingerprints on Ivy’s phone?”
They got Houston into the SUV, and Kendra and Grayson slipped into the front seats.
“There was nothing in the database. It might just be Ivy’s fingerprints. If she has never been fingerprinted for anything, she isn’t in the database.”
“Okay, well, that wasn’t helpful.”
“I know, but we’ve got people out looking for her, and I’m going over her social media accounts.”
“All right. We’ll be right in.”
Once they dropped off Houston at the police station for disposition, they spoke with Rowland.
"Did you learn anything on Ivy's social media account?" Grayson asked, sounding like a worried brother.
"Nothing except for her initial posting about meeting Big Bear online and that he'd invited her to meet with him in Kalispell. How did she get here?"
"Maybe by bus. I saw that when I was tracking her phone, she kept stopping for brief pauses on the way here, so I assumed she'd traveled by bus.
I saw her walking down the street, and then she must have heard my car engine approaching, and she immediately took off on a narrow alley between buildings. "
"Where I tased you," Kendra said, still feeling bad about that.
"Right.”
“Since Ivy has ditched her phone, she hasn't posted anything more." Rowland continued to look at her Instagram pictures. "Before that, she posted a picture of Kendra tasing you."
"Oh, great. Now you have evidence of it," Kendra said, morosely. It was bad enough that she had done it, but she didn't want her boss to know if he happened to find Ivy's Instagram post.
"So I can press charges? That's why my sister would have posted it. Even though she's causing us all grief, she is still protective of her family." Grayson gave Kendra a smidgeon of a smile.
"Yes, I got that when she told me I had shot her brother. If she hadn't, I could have handcuffed you and had you arrested. So I was grateful that she explained the situation."
“Like that would have been easy.”
Rowland got a call. "Be right there. A girl fitting Ivy's description jumped out of a moving pickup truck. Two men following the truck picked her up in their SUV and called us."
"Is it Ivy?" Grayson asked.
"She had no ID on her, and she wouldn't say who she was."
"Where is she now?" Grayson sounded concerned.
"Follow me."
"Is she hurt?" Grayson asked.
"Bruises, but they're taking her to Westover Clinic. It's shifter-run. The deputy who came for her is a bear. He recognized her scent as one also. They're going to check her over. We're heading over to the clinic now," Rowland said.
"She's going to be all right," Kendra told him.
"She's so damn stubborn. She won't listen to reason. Maybe this time she will." Grayson said, so frustrated.
"That's what I was thinking," Kendra said.
Grayson followed Rowland to the clinic and parked in the lot.
Once Grayson was out of his SUV, Kendra had to run to catch up to him because he was walking so fast. Not that she blamed him. She could tell he was really worried about his sister.
The doors automatically opened for him and Rowland, and she joined them.
He was at the admissions desk in a heartbeat. "I'm here to see my sister, Ivy Stone."
"She's getting X-rays done."
Kendra was glad his sister had revealed her identity to the medical staff.
"For what?" Grayson said.
"Dr. Crystal Westover thinks Ivy might have broken her arm, but she has to be sure. You can wait here, and I'll let your sister know you're here to see her. What about your parents?"
"I'll take care of the insurance paperwork." Grayson took the forms and began filling them out.
"I'm going back to see her to get her statement so we can catch this guy," Rowland said. "If she had been kidnapped, we need to know right away."
"I doubt she would have jumped out of a moving vehicle for the fun of it," Grayson said.
"Right, but I need to get a description of the guy. We know it was a black pickup truck. I’ll be right back."
Grayson hurried to fill out the rest of the paperwork and turned it in at the admissions desk. "Where is she?"
"She'll be in room three when they're done with her," the admissions clerk said.
He headed down the hall to see her, and Kendra hurried after him. He glanced at her. "Are you sure they'll let you see her since you're not family?"
"It's a shifter clinic. They're more relaxed about family and friends seeing patients in the clinic. Unless, of course, the family says they don't want people to visit who might upset the patient."
When they arrived in the room, Rowland was waiting for Ivy to arrive.
Grayson was glad Rowland hadn't already spoken with Ivy yet because he wanted to learn everything he could about what had happened to her. He had every intention of continuing to chase down the kidnapper himself.
Then the nurse wheeled Ivy into the room. Ivy was wearing a bandage around her head, the center of it sporting a spot of blood, and her arm was in a sling.
The doctor walked in and said, "Ivy was lucky.
The truck had just started to roll down the road and hadn't picked up speed yet. She made a break for it at the right time. Even at that, she banged her head pretty hard and has a hairline fracture on her radius. She didn’t have any concussion.
She's young, healthy, and a shifter, so she'll heal up in no time. "
"That's good news. Thanks, Doc," Grayson said.
"I'll leave you to talk to her about what happened." Then the doctor left the room.
"I'm Deputy Sheriff Rowland Smith,” Rowland said to Ivy. “I need to learn what happened."