Chapter One
One
Willits, California
Present day
“It’s so beautiful here,” Sara said.
Elle Randolph brought her horse to a halt next to the woman who was both her boss and one of her best friends, looking out over the rolling ranch land dotted with grazing cattle.
This was not how she’d pictured Northern California, but to be fair, this was the first time she’d ever traveled this far north in what had become her home state when she’d moved from Florida three years before.
It was colder than she’d been expecting, although it wasn’t the damp cold she’d experienced on the coast. She shivered in her thin black moto jacket. She was going to have to buy a heavier coat.
She and Sara had been exploring the area east of Willits, just one of many small towns dotting the 101 as it ran the length of California.
This region was famous for its vineyards and there seemed to be signs for wine tasting rooms every other mile, but Elle and Sara were more interested in the farms and ranches. The mountains and the redwood forests.
The places where someone could hide.
Elle smiled at Sara as she angled her body so that the body cam she wore—hidden within an onyx pendant—caught the topography. “It really is. This might be just what we’re looking for.”
Sara nodded once. “I hope so. Seems like we’ve been searching forever.”
Or at least for two weeks. Ever since their quarry had jumped bail in San Francisco and fled north.
Their guide beamed. “I’m so glad this works for you. I love it here. So many of my friends left the area after high school graduation, but I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else.”
Sara studied the young woman curiously. “You don’t want to move to San Francisco and be…I don’t know. An actress or a musician or an internet influencer?”
Kasey Arnold laughed. “No. That is so not me. I grew up here, taking care of the horses with my folks. I work for the city part-time while I go to college. I have everything I need. I’m content.”
“That’s not something we encounter every day,” Elle said honestly. Especially with young adults Kasey’s age. Most wanted more money, more fame. Just more.
“Now, don’t get me wrong,” Kasey said. “If you decide to film your movie here, I will be so stoked. And I wouldn’t say no to being an extra or something.”
Elle felt bad. She and Sara had told Kasey that they were searching for locations for a film they were making, but that was nowhere close to the truth.
They were searching for a man named Reece Miller who was on the run from the authorities after jumping bail, leaving his poor mother holding the bag for the collateral she’d put up with the bail bondsman.
His mother had used her house as collateral. And now she’d be homeless because he’d selfishly run away.
Elle and Sara would find him and make sure he stood trial.
It was what they did. They were bounty hunters.
Sara had been doing it for more than a decade. For Elle, however, this was a relatively new career.
Her “second life.”
Which required lying to nice people like Kasey Arnold.
Elle didn’t like lying to people, but one never knew how folks would respond to their being bounty hunters. People either thought it was super cool or somehow dirty. Like they were doing something illegal at best. Immoral at worst.
“I’ll make sure I put in a good word for you with the director,” Sara promised, and Kasey’s smile widened.
“Thank you.”
Okay, maybe a little immoral. They actually lied quite a lot. But this time, it was for Kasey’s protection as much as their own professional discretion. Kasey or her parents might know Reece Miller.
He’d kind of grown up around here, after all.
Elle and Sara couldn’t have Kasey telling her folks. They might warn Miller or, perhaps worse, go looking for the man themselves for the reward.
Miller was armed and dangerous. He’d seriously injured two people and would continue to do so if it meant keeping his freedom.
It was safer for everyone if Elle and Sara brought him in themselves. They knew what Miller was capable of and how best to contain him.
They also kept their real purpose secret so that no one involved the police.
At least not yet. As a rule, Elle and Sara didn’t notify law enforcement of their presence until they’d found their skipper.
Sara said that too many times she’d lost the target because the cops had interfered with their surveillance, alerting the skipper to their presence.
Sometimes cops wanted to make the bust themselves because of seriously inflated egos.
Sometimes they had a general prejudice against bounty hunters and sought to mess them up.
So they hadn’t told the local cops they were here and didn’t plan to until they absolutely had to. Nor did they want Kasey to do so.
Elle pointed to the specific area they were interested in, up the hill, beyond the tree line. “Can we ride over there?”
“There” was the small farm where the then-teenaged Reece Miller had lived for two years with his grandparents—his parents’ last-ditch effort to rehabilitate their son, who’d already spent time in juvie for assault and grand theft auto before his sixteenth birthday. Miller was bad news.
The farm itself was no longer in Miller’s family. They’d sold it to the neighboring ranch years before to pay for Miller’s bail and attorney when he’d robbed a liquor store right out of high school.
Elle and Sara were currently exploring that neighboring ranch on horseback, hoping to do some recon on the Millers’ old farm.
Kasey’s smile fell away. “Oh no. Not there. You don’t want to ride up there.”
That was promising. Forbidden zones made some of the best hiding places.
“How come?” Sara asked. “Who lives there?”
“Nobody. We don’t cross that property line. There’s been reports of growers up there.”
“Growers?” Elle asked. “Like illegal pot growers?”
Kasey nodded, her expression deadly serious. “It’s a real problem around here. Do you know about growers?”
“I didn’t until recently,” Elle admitted.
“I was surprised it was still a thing, folks using land that belongs to someone else to grow illegal pot. I’m fairly new to California and I didn’t realize there was still a market for it.
I mean, it’s legal now, both medical and recreational, and has been for a long time. ”
Kasey sighed. “Oh, it’s still a huge thing.
Pot’s legal but it’s also heavily taxed.
The growers don’t want to pay the tax man, so they squat on other people’s land, grow their crop, sell it illegally here or in states where it’s not legal yet.
They are extremely protective of their grow.
I’m talking guns and ‘I’ll kill you if you come closer’ kind of protective. ”
Elle had been surprised to learn that, too. She’d read about the problem of illegal growers. Mendocino County was part of the infamous Emerald Triangle, the largest cannabis-growing region in the country. “Has anyone been killed?”
She knew they had. She’d read up on the area as she and Sara had driven up from San Francisco, but Kasey wouldn’t know that.
“Oh sure,” Kasey said, still serious. “Not every day or even every year, but occasionally. People fight over the illegal grow and end up shooting or stabbing each other.” She tilted her head, thinking.
“There is one instance you might be interested in, you know, for your movie. There was murder and gangs and witness protection and everything.”
“When was that?” Elle asked.
“Hold on a minute,” Sara said, holding her satellite phone. “I want to listen but I need to take this.”
A sat phone was useful in this part of the country, where the cellular signal was one bar at best. Many times it was zero, especially in the area between the coast and Willits.
When they found Miller, they’d need to inform the local police before taking him into custody. It wasn’t just a courtesy, it was California law. The sat phone would allow them to make that call from wherever Miller was hiding.
It also allowed Sara to keep in touch with her wife Felicia, who was two weeks away from giving birth. Elle hoped whatever message Sara had received wasn’t a medical emergency.
She also hoped they caught Reece Miller before Felicia went into labor. Otherwise she’d be finishing this case solo. Elle had worked alone before, but it was certainly more stressful not having someone watching her back.
Kasey waited patiently. Elle liked the girl. She had a quiet confidence, a serenity that was rare in a noisy, busy, one-click world.
Elle had met a few people like Kasey in the past few days that they’d been in Northern California. The pace of life seemed slower here.
It was nice.
Sara texted something, then pocketed her phone. “Sorry about that. Tell us the story, Kasey. The one about murder and gangs and witness protection. When did it happen?”
“Oh, it was years ago,” Kasey said. “Long before I was born. Before you two were born, even.”
“Back before fire,” Sara deadpanned.
Elle choked on a laugh.
Kasey grinned. “You know what I mean. It was back in the seventies. The Hells Angels—you know, the motorcycle gang?”
“Yes, of course,” Sara said. “Did they do the killing?”
“They did. They killed three people and shoved their bodies into an abandoned well. It was down in Ukiah.”
Ukiah was the closest town, about a half hour south.
It was the biggest town in the county, with a population of about sixteen thousand.
Importantly, it had a Costco and a Walmart, where Elle did their grocery shopping.
These were the only big-box stores for sixty miles.
Folks on the coast often drove the two hours across the mountains to shop in Ukiah.