Chapter 4
Before Kendra met up with Grayson, she was busy with another case.
The skip was actually a human friend she’d known from high school who had missed a ride to his court date on a car theft charge and was wanted for jumping bail.
He’d just taken some bad turns in his life and had gotten in with the wrong people.
His parents had called, saying Randy Whitcomb was at his family’s home in Kalispell, so she was on her way to arrest him.
Did his parents feel bad about turning their son in? Nope. They were worried about losing their home for putting up their property to secure his bail. They wouldn’t do that again, Kendra figured.
As soon as she arrived at their home, she headed up the walk and knocked on the door. The dad came to the door and ushered her in. Then he called Randy to come out of his bedroom.
Randy left his room, looking disheveled, wearing a dirty T-shirt and jeans, with greasy hair and smelling like beer, just a mess.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.
He frowned at her. “Kendra?”
“Yep.” She pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
“Aww hell. You’re an undercover cop?”
“Bounty hunter. Sorry. I thought your parents had told you.” She was always supposed to identify herself.
He scowled at his dad. His dad shrugged. “We did all we could to help you out when you went to jail. But we can’t lose our house over this. Go with Miss Kendra, son. Do the right thing.”
Randy put his hands out to her to cuff them in front, but she cuffed him in the back, safer for her. Then she took him out to her SUV.
“You should have called someone else to drive you over to the court when you found you didn’t have a ride.
” It was an often-used excuse. The individual felt that once they were out of jail, no one would bother to pursue them.
But they were in the system, and once they failed to appear for their court date, a warrant was issued for their arrest. Any traffic stop in which police checked their ID could lead to their arrest because they had an active warrant.
But Randy had not been out causing trouble, or he hadn’t been caught at it since missing his court date, so once his parents let the bail bondsman know he was back home, it was time to grab him.
His mother hugged him. His dad didn’t. He still looked angry that his son had stolen a car and put their home at risk for not going to court.
She imagined they would have driven him to his court session in a heartbeat, but he chose to go with someone else or just used it as an excuse that some guy didn’t have a working vehicle and was supposed to drive him there.
She drove Randy to the police station. He was sitting behind the cage in the back seat. If she ever married and had kids, she would need a different vehicle for family life.
“How long have you been doing this kind of work?” Randy asked.
“Since I was eighteen. I went with a partner back then,” she said.
“You were voted Most Likely to be a Dentist.” Randy shook his head.
“I know, that was a friend’s dumb idea. I was never interested in working in a dental office. Extracting teeth? Numbing gums?” She shivered. “What about you?”
“Most Likely to Steal a Car. I waited years before I tried that.”
“Why did you do it?” She couldn’t believe he would do anything that dumb.
“To impress a new girlfriend. I didn’t have a car, and I wanted to take her out in it. She was so mad at me when the police pulled me over and arrested me for car theft. Especially since they questioned her for hours to see how she was involved.”
“I take it she isn’t with you any longer,” Kendra asked.
“No, that was it.”
Kendra shook her head. “You didn’t think of getting a job?”
“How much do you make? Maybe I could be a bounty hunter.”
“After stealing a car, I don’t think so.
You would have to have a clean record.” Kendra pulled into the police station's parking lot, took Randy out of the car, and walked him into the station. She handed him over to one of the cops, wished Randy luck—and she meant it—hoping he didn’t get into any more trouble, and then left.
She glanced at her car clock. Grayson might have arrived at the office and called the bondsman. “Randy’s at the jail. Do you have another case for me?”
“I thought you were looking for the kidnapper.”
“I’m waiting on Ivy’s brother to arrive, and then we’ll begin searching for the kidnapper again. Not to mention that we are clueless about where Younger has gone.”
“All right. This one is wanted for armed robbery. Wear your bulletproof vest.”
She was thinking she might wait and see if Grayson wanted to help her out. “Where has he been seen?”
“At the Bagel Shop on Elm Avenue.”
She assumed that he wouldn’t be there for long. “Okay, I’m off.” She called Grayson. “Hey, I have another bail skipper case. It’s a guy who missed a court date who committed armed robbery.”
“He shouldn’t have gotten bonded out.”
“I agree. But he’s at the Bagel Shop on Elm Avenue, so if you are close by, I’ll wait for you. My bondsman wants me to wear a bulletproof vest.”
“Wait for me. If he’s that dangerous, you should have a partner. I’m checking my GPS. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Perfect. I’ll park near there. He doesn’t know my vehicle or who I am, but if he sees the cage in the car, he might get suspicious.”
“All right. I’ll be there soon.”
Grayson had been surprised to learn that Kendra was a bounty officer in the first place. Very few females were in that line of work. It helped to be a big, trained male while taking down a dangerous perp. She was petite, and dealing with a possibly armed assailant was not safe.
He called Rowland to make him aware that Younger had texted Ivy again.
Rowland swore under his breath. “Hell, does he think he can con her again?”
“It sounds like it. I suspect he figures his prey got away, and he still wants to finish what he started. My father and brother are protecting her. But Younger might end up going to our home if he figures out where she lives.”
“So are you staying there?”
“No, I’m helping Kendra with a case. I’m nearly there.”
“All right. We’ve got a shooting we’re looking into—a dispute over paying for a car. But we have a couple of men looking into your sister’s kidnapping case.”
“Good. I see Kendra. I’ll talk to you later.” Grayson parked next to Kendra’s car.
“You’re wearing your bulletproof vest,” she said to Grayson, getting out of her SUV.
“Yeah. Do you see him?”
“He’s there, the first seat by the window. He’s alone.” She motioned to him with her head.
“You would think if he’s not going to go to his court date, he would flee the country,” Grayson said.
“I know, right? It would be the only way to get off our radar. But there he is.”
“Not a shifter, correct?”
“Not a shifter.” She took hold of Grayson’s hand and walked him into the shop.
He realized she was using him in an undercover operation. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek.
She smiled, her expression amused. He carefully pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
She approached the fugitive on bail, handed him an arrest warrant, and identified herself as a Fugitive Recovery Agent.
The guy began to rise from his seat. Six-one and 275 pounds, he was big, bald by choice, with tattoos all over his head, neck, and arms. Grayson said he was a bounty hunter also and told the man to put his hands behind his back.
His narrowed dark brown eyes looked at Grayson, then Kendra.
He reached into his pocket. Grayson grabbed his hand and threatened to break every bone in it.
“All right, all right.”
Grayson pulled his hands behind his back and put on the handcuffs. “Come on. We’re going out to the vehicle.” He patted him down and confiscated a 9 mm gun from the pocket that he’d been reaching into.
“What about my car?”
“It can be towed, or if you have someone who can move it, you can do that.”
“You can put him in my vehicle,” Kendra said.
“Absolutely.” This was Kendra’s case, and Grayson just wanted to make sure she got him to the police station safely.
He made the fugitive get into the SUV, and Grayson seat-belted him in and shut the door. Then she got behind the wheel, and Grayson got into his SUV and followed her to the jail.
Once there, Grayson got the guy out of the vehicle and hauled him into the police station. Kendra turned the fugitive over to the police officer. Grayson gave the officer the fugitive’s gun.
“You’re busy tonight,” the officer said to Kendra.
“Yeah, too many of these guys get bonded out.”
“You wouldn’t have a job if they didn’t and skipped their court date.”
“True.” Then she left with Grayson and headed to the bail bond office.
Grayson followed her vehicle and received a call from his brother, this time over Bluetooth. “Yeah, Marcus?”
“Ivy got another text from that bastard, claiming he was the boy Ivy was supposed to meet. Billy wants to see her at the St. Mary’s entrance to Glacier National Park and have a picnic lunch with her at Sun Point.
Take the Going-to-the-Sun Road to get there.
He said it would take him about forty minutes to arrive. ”
“Tell him that she’ll meet him.”
“Are you going as a bear?” Marcus asked.
“You better believe it.” Grayson parked at Kendra’s bail bond office. He motioned to her, and she grabbed her backpack and climbed into his SUV. He put his phone on speaker.
“Do you want to go with me to track down Younger at Glacier National Park, Kendra?” Grayson asked her.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Ivy wants to go as a bear also,” Marcus said over Bluetooth.
Grayson shook his head. “No. She’s old enough to fight a human, for sure, but if he has got a gun or a knife, she could be injured, and she’s wearing a cast for her hairline fracture besides.”
“Yeah, that’s what I told her. She can’t get out of her cast for three weeks. And we don’t know how this guy is armed.”
“Okay, well, make sure she stays there.”
“Will do. Let us know what happens.”
“I will.”
Then they ended the call. Grayson pulled onto the road and said to Kendra, “The kidnapper texted Ivy saying he was going to meet her at Glacier National Park. He said he was the son texting her. I’m headed that way and planning to meet him as a bear.”
She settled back against her seat. “I want to also, but maybe I should be a human, and then I can arrest him, or report that we found him at the park. Unless you want to call Rowland first to give him a heads-up.”
“No. If we don’t find Younger there, it will be a waste of the police officers’ effort. We know what he looks like. We don’t know what he drives now since the stolen pickup he used previously was abandoned and recovered.”
“We don’t know his scent either. You can’t bite him, or risk turning him. If you kill him, they’ll know it was a bear, and hunters will look for the rogue bear.”
“Yeah. I’ll deal with it when I have to.”
She smiled. “You sound like me. If we don’t find him?”
“We’ll wait there for a while in case he’s running late. The thing is, he won’t be expecting to see a bear.”
“I could be bait. I’m older than Ivy, and not a brunette like her. He might come after me, and then I could zap him with my taser. Then you could sit on him.”
Grayson laughed. “That could work.” Though a grizzly would probably crush him. He just hoped they would catch up to the guy and it wouldn’t be a wash.
When they finally reached the park, they drove to the picnic area parking lot. Several trucks and cars were parked there. The spot overlooked St. Mary Lake and the mountains, a beautiful vista.
No one was there, and Grayson suspected the other vehicles belonged to hikers on one of the trails leading to St. Mary Falls, Virginia Falls, or Baring Falls.
“While no one’s here, I’m going to head up the St. Mary Falls trail and shift.
I’ll be in the woods, off the trail, but if you encounter this guy, you call out, and I’ll be there.
They have signs all over that warn everyone to stay on the trails and to keep food in their vehicle because of the bears in the area. ”
She smiled. “That means you.”
“Exactly. I’ll be one formidable bear.” He got out of the vehicle.
“Okay, go, before he shows up.” Kendra pulled a package of potato chips out of her backpack and exited the SUV, then set her backpack on one of the picnic tables.
She slipped her phone out of her pocket to take some pictures of the blue lake and the mountains, pretending to be there just enjoying nature and the park.
Grayson glanced back at her, hoping that she would be all right and that they weren’t making a big mistake.