Chapter Three
Three
Willits, California
Elle was tired. And cold. And sweaty, all at once, which didn’t seem fair.
She and Sara had been walking for two hours, had scaled two six-foot fences, and she had burs sticking through her clothes all over her body. But they were nearly at the border of the land that Kasey Arnold had warned them about.
This area was overgrown and completely inaccessible by car. An ATV would even have trouble, but if they did find Miller, they’d have to consider renting one. She wasn’t sure they could perp-walk Reece Miller all the way back to the highway.
That was a long way to force someone to walk.
They hiked another twenty minutes and came upon a third locked gate.
This one was far more sophisticated than the other two gates. Those were regular metal chain-link gates with padlocks. This one had thick metal vertical bars and a digital lock.
They’d been afraid that they’d trip an alarm or at least be confronted by someone who’d seen them on a camera feed. But so far, so good.
Still, Elle was on high alert, watching for danger. This was where the danger was, with the stronger gate and the better lock.
This was truly insane.
She’d been a family lawyer, for heaven’s sake.
Not a cop. Or a soldier or anything like that.
She had gone on stakeouts with Todd from time to time, but he’d mostly been angling for photos of cheating spouses.
Nothing like this. Nothing like creeping through the night hoping to avoid very bad guys who’d shoot first and ask questions later.
But here she was. By her own choice.
She wondered how her life had come to this as she studied their newest obstruction.
This gate was eight feet tall. The metal bars were about three inches apart. There were spikes on top, so climbing over would be a challenge.
“Wish I’d brought some grease,” Sara murmured with a chuckle. “I could slide right through.”
Elle wanted to grin, but she was too tired. “You want a boost over?”
Sara eyed the fence. “I wouldn’t say no.”
Elle threaded her fingers together for Sara’s foot and—
Sh-chunk.
The unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun.
Elle’s pulse began to race. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Well, shit,” Sara muttered.
It wasn’t the first time they’d been held at gunpoint, but it was never fun. Every time, Elle wondered if it would be her last breath. Every time, she severely questioned her life choices.
But so far they’d been lucky.
It was stupid to depend on luck, she knew. Sooner or later they’d meet bad people they couldn’t evade or sweet-talk.
Hopefully that wouldn’t be today.
Together she and Sara slowly turned to face the two men who’d crept up behind them. They’d been stealthy. Elle hadn’t heard a single footstep, and she’d been listening.
The younger man appeared to be in his late forties, the older one in his early fifties. Both were taller than Elle by an inch or two, so they were maybe six feet. The older one was nearly gray, the younger’s hair was still quite dark.
They might be brothers. It was hard to tell in the dark.
They wore bulletproof vests. Both carried shotguns, which were pointed at Elle and Sara.
The illegal pot growers.
Well, Kasey did warn us. Dammit.
Elle put her hands in the air, knowing that Sara had probably dropped hers to her weapon. “We’re not cops and we’re not here to steal from you.”
She and Sara were armed, but only with handguns, and they’d have to draw. They’d be dead before they could reach their weapons.
It wasn’t the first time Elle had been caught in a dicey situation, but never so far in the middle of nowhere. There would be no backup tonight.
The older of the two lifted heavy brows. “Then why are you here?”
Elle went with honesty and hoped these guys weren’t in league with Reece Miller. “We’re bounty hunters.”
The two men shared a suspicious look. “Who are you looking for?” the younger one asked.
“Can I reach for my phone?” Sara asked. “I can show you a picture.”
“Move slow,” the older one said. “Really, really slow.”
Sara nodded and slowly took her phone from her pocket. She tapped the screen a few times, then held the phone out for them to see. “His name is Reece Miller.”
“What’d he do?” the older man asked.
“Robbed an art gallery and shot the guard and a bystander on the street,” Sara said.
The men shared a glance, and Elle hoped they weren’t feeling sympathy for Miller. Birds of a feather and all. She decided that appealing to their humanity was worth a try.
It was a long shot, but if she failed, she and Sara would be shot.
And stuffed in an abandoned well, she couldn’t help thinking.
“Do you have a mother?” Elle asked. “One you like, I mean.”
Another shared look between the two men. “Yeah,” the gray man said gruffly. “Why?”
“Because Miller’s mother put up her house for collateral when she went to the bail bondsman. When he skipped, she lost her home. She’s seventy years old and is homeless.”
“Well, that ain’t right,” the gray-haired man said.
“I agree,” Elle said. “We want to bring him back to stand trial.”
“Will his mother get her house back?” the younger asked.
Elle shrugged. “Probably not. Which sucks, but that’s the way the system works. We think Miller’s out here because he grew up here. He might be camping.”
“Shitty weather for camping,” the older one said. “No, we haven’t seen him.”
Elle thought he might be lying, but she wasn’t going to push it. Not with his gun in her face. “Okay. We’re sorry we trespassed. We didn’t know who to ask for permission.”
The older man’s mouth quirked up at the corners, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “That would be us. This is our land. And we don’t give permission.”
They weren’t the landowners, but they did have guns, so it wasn’t worth arguing about.
Sara took a step back. “Then we’ll leave.”
“You’ll tell the cops where to find us,” the younger one said, his tone almost a whine.
“Nope.” Sara shook her head. “We don’t tell the cops anything. Otherwise they horn in and we lose our percentage. And honestly, it’s not our job to report everything we see. I’ve seen a lot worse than illegal grow while retrieving skippers, and I’ve never said a word.”
That wasn’t even remotely true, but nobody would know that. Sara was good at bending the truth into a goddamned pretzel.
They reported all the illegal activity they saw while searching for skippers. Anonymously, of course.
The younger one didn’t look convinced. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right here.”
Sara held up her phone and played the only card they had left. “Tracker. My office manager knows where we are. You could kill us now, but she’d still know where to tell the cops to look. Let us go and we won’t bother you again.”
The two men looked at each other, seeming to be silently communicating. Then the younger one nodded and the older one gestured with his shotgun.
“Give me the camera necklace, Red. Can’t have photos of us floating around.”
Elle was impressed. Not many people noticed her body cam necklace. Luckily she had more than one. She slipped it over her head and tossed it to him.
“It doesn’t go to the cloud. Footage is self-contained in the pendant.”
The older man took the pendant and slipped it into his pocket. “Get out. And if we see you again, we will not stop to ask questions. You’ll be dead.”
“Got it,” Elle said, her knees nearly buckling with relief. “Thank you.”
The older man smiled again, this one even more malevolent. “You’re welcome. And, really, no talking to the cops. We followed you here from where you parked. We have your license plate and we looked you up. Got your addresses. We’ll find you and kill you in your sleep.”
Okay, I take back my thank-you. And she wasn’t sure that she believed them, anyway. The Tahoe was registered to L&F, but if they were savvy, they could work out who they were and where they lived.
She and Sara turned their backs on the two men and headed back the way they’d come. Elle barely breathed, expecting to be shot at any moment.
But they weren’t. No shots were fired and, in less time than it had taken to get to the third gate, they were back at their Chevy Tahoe. They’d practically run back to the main road.
Elle collapsed into the driver’s seat. “Well, that was fun.”
“He was bluffing,” Sara said, sounding almost bored. She wasn’t even breathing hard. “He can’t get our addresses from the license plate.”
“I know.” Elle studied her best friend. “I bet you’re not even sweating. From the scare or the run back.”
Sara laughed. “I am, but only a little. I didn’t think they’d shoot us.”
Elle hadn’t been sure at all. “Did you believe him? About Miller?”
Sara frowned. “I don’t think so. But they weren’t going to give Miller up, even if he did betray his mother. That was a good try, though, Elle. I almost thought it would work.”
“Thank you,” Elle said dryly. “I do my best.”
“How much will they get off your pendant?”
“Just the woods here. I uploaded the footage with Steve Garfield when we stopped to get food.” It was a simple function.
The pendant had a port that connected to her laptop.
Now, if they’d gotten her laptop, that would have been bad.
She started the engine. “We aren’t going to find Miller back there, not if those guys are guarding the gate.
I did believe them when they threatened to kill us if we came back. ”
“I did, too. We need to regroup and come up with a better plan that doesn’t involve getting shot at.”
Elle had been thinking about it all the way back to the SUV. “I think we should watch the pharmacy and hospitals. If Miller’s baby is sick, Wendy will take him to a doctor sooner or later.”
“Let’s find out which doctors treat whatever it was that the baby had.”
“PKU,” Elle said. “I already googled nearby doctors. Not many specialists around here, unfortunately, but if the baby just has a cold from camping in shitty weather, they can see any family doctor. The pharmacy is probably our best bet, unless those two guys have seen Miller and give him the heads-up. He might get spooked and run.”