Chapter Six
Six
Mendocino, California
Ronan flinched when Penny slammed the kitchen cabinet door, muttering under her breath about people hiding the coffee, even though it was on the counter in plain sight.
He hit a button on his laptop, pausing the surveillance footage from Eunice Greene’s pharmacy cameras, and turned in his chair at the kitchen table to stare at his daughter.
“Pen?”
Penny drew a deep breath. “Sorry, Dad.”
“Hey.” He rose and sat on the edge of the table.
“What’s wrong?” She drew another breath and, when she’d turned to face him, he was stunned to see tears in her eyes.
“Honey, you’re scaring me. You’re scaring Puff, too.
” Puff looked up from where he napped under the table, then promptly went back to sleep.
“Okay, you’re not scaring Puff. Only me. What’s going on?”
“Just…” She waved her hand. “It’s school. I was working on this project and my study partner quit. Just up and quit. Like, school. She’s almost done and she’s dropped out. It’s a whole-semester project and I’m not supposed to have to do it alone.”
Ronan took a tentative step forward, never sure how to respond when Penny got upset. “Are you venting or do you want me to help you?”
“I guess I just want to vent. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Can you talk to the professor?”
“I did. She said to find another group, but they’re all filled up and nobody wants a new person this late in the game.
There’s one more person I can ask tomorrow, but she and I haven’t gotten along in the past. She’s kind of abrasive, which is why she’s the only one without a partner.
Nobody wants to work with her, but it doesn’t look like I’ll have a choice. ”
He immediately thought of his old partner calling Sara Lambert abrasive. Dwight Jackson had hit the nail on the head with that one. “I thought we weren’t supposed to call women abrasive?”
She shrugged. “I’m allowed to. You’re not.”
“Okay.” He could accept that. “Do you want a hug?” He opened his arms, and she walked into them, shuddering out a sob. “Penny?”
She pulled away, wiping her eyes. “I’m just overwhelmed,” she said. “I’m almost to the end of my degree and I had everything all planned out. Now it’s all messed up.”
“Why did your partner quit?”
“I don’t know. I got a text from her this morning saying she was sorry, but she’d met someone and was heading to Florida with him to get some sun.”
And now he was thinking about Elle Randolph, shivering in a heavy coat and pining for the Florida heat.
“Which,” Penny continued, “I get. It’s gray and raining here. I wish I could drop everything and get some sun, too, but I’m responsible.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind and come back.”
Penny narrowed her eyes. “If she does, I’ll tell her to fuck off.”
He couldn’t even blame her for swearing. “Let me know if I can help you, okay?”
“Okay.” She exhaled heavily. “I’m going to make some coffee. Want some?”
“Absolutely.” He needed to review hours of surveillance footage from the pharmacy. Returning to his chair, he resumed watching his laptop screen as Penny started the coffeemaker.
It was odd, watching people shop. And also a little funny when someone walked by the condoms multiple times before quickly grabbing a box and hiding it under the other items in their cart.
Especially when that someone was a teenage boy he knew.
“Is that Eric Griffin?” Penny asked from directly behind him.
He nearly slammed his laptop lid down, but she’d already seen. “I do believe it is.”
Penny made a strangled noise. “He can’t be old enough for sex.”
“He’s what…” Ronan mentally counted. “Sixteen?”
“I babysat him.”
Ronan chuckled. She sounded so outraged. “At least he’s using protection.”
“I guess so. How did he get old?”
“I ask that question every time I look at you. But that’s the way of it. Kids grow up and have lives. That’s what parents want.”
“Aw.” She dropped a kiss on his cheek. “I’m not going far, so don’t worry. Someone has to stick around to make sure you eat properly.”
It must be a day for twinges of guilt, because he felt another. He twisted in his chair to look up at her. “It’s not your job to take care of me. I will be fine on my own. You go where life takes you. Just call me every now and then.”
She met his gaze, her features almost identical to her mother’s, except for her eyes. Ronan still missed his ex, even after all these years. Still kind of loved her, despite everything.
But he sometimes hated Evelyn, too, so he figured that it all balanced out. She’d decided that having her own life had been more important than her family. Leaving him he could have accepted. She’d felt trapped into marrying him, with Penny on the way. They’d been so young.
Doomed from the get-go.
He’d tried to make it work, he really had. But she’d had other ideas. For years she’d traipsed around the world, footloose and fancy-free, sending an occasional postcard to the daughter who cried for her at night.
He’d hated Evelyn in those moments.
Still, he’d been devastated when she’d died, if only for Penny. His daughter had grieved the relationship she’d never have with a mother who was too flighty to be responsible.
So Penny had decided that she would be responsible. She’d always felt like she had to take care of him. Had to feed him. She’d even ironed his uniforms.
He’d stopped all that. Penny had needed a childhood. She’d needed school and friends and activities and he’d made sure she’d gotten all of that.
But it still seemed his daughter felt like taking care of him was her job.
“I’m exactly where I want to be, Dad. If I decide the small-town life isn’t for me, you’ll be the first to know.” She patted his shoulder. “Get back to work.” Then she leaned in to stare at his screen again. “Ooh. I know what I want for my birthday.”
“Condoms?” he asked.
She grinned. “No. I can buy those myself.”
He covered his ears. “La la la.”
She pointed to his screen. “That jacket and those ankle boots. I’ll find them online and send you a link.”
He turned back to his laptop and froze.
That jacket and those boots were being worn by none other than Elle Randolph.
“She’s got great hair, too,” Penny added. “Maybe I’ll go red next time I go to the salon.”
Ronan opened his mouth and closed it again, his gaze fixed on Elle. She was perusing the aisles, but she wasn’t looking at items. She was looking at people.
She was heading to the pharmacy counter and…
She was showing the pharmacy tech her phone. It was Steve Garfield, the guy who’d stolen from Eunice and run when he realized his boss had found him out. Steve leaned in to look at her phone and shook his head.
Ronan didn’t need the audio to know what she’d asked him, but he backed the recording up by ten seconds and turned up the volume.
“Have you seen this man? His name’s Reece Miller.”
“I sure haven’t, ma’am,” Steve had replied.
Ronan closed his eyes, hot anger welling up within him. She’d lied to him. He’d felt sorry for hurting her feelings while she was lying to him.
He’d specifically asked her if she’d talked to anyone in the pharmacy. She’d said no.
Wait. His brain replayed the conversation.
No, he hadn’t asked her that exactly.
What had he asked her? Exactly?
Did you talk to the pharmacy manager?
And to that she’d said no.
She hadn’t lied. She just hadn’t told the whole truth. She’d talked to a pharmacy tech, not the manager.
Loopholes, dammit.
She’d been a lawyer before becoming a fugitive recovery agent. Looks like she’s kept up her skills.
Penny leaned in to study his screen. “Isn’t that the bounty hunter? The one you were looking at this morning? Giselle Randolph?”
He closed the laptop. “I can’t talk about it.”
“But if I see her around town, do you want me to tell you?”
“If you see her around town, I want you to stay far away from her.”
Penny’s dark brows knit. “She’s dangerous?”
“Not like she’ll hurt you. But she brings trouble with her.” Especially for Dianne Foster.
“But I should still call you if I see her?” Penny pressed.
“Yeah,” he agreed grudgingly. “Call me.”
But it wouldn’t really be necessary because he was planning to follow Elle Randolph everywhere she went from now on.
No more allowing those big brown eyes to make him feel even a smidgen of guilt.
She wouldn’t be able to sneeze without Ronan knowing. It would make her angry.
Good. He welcomed it. Because then they’d be back on equal footing.
Fort Bragg, California
Thursday, January 22, 7:20 a.m.
“Thanks for meeting me here this early,” Ronan said to Chuck Williams’s parole officer.
Reece Miller’s old friend was currently out on parole, so he’d have to submit to a search of his house, even without a warrant.
But Ronan was hoping to do this the easy way.
The PO had a rapport with Chuck whereas Ronan did not.
Ronan had been the one to arrest Chuck for stealing a tourist’s car, which had sent him to prison to begin with. Hostility was expected.
Michael Jefferson drained his travel mug of coffee and tossed the mug onto the center console of his truck. “Glad to help. Chuck generally doesn’t leave for work until eight, so this is good timing. Do you really think he’s harboring a fugitive?”
“I don’t know. The man I’m looking for was friends with Chuck back in the day. If he’s not here, I’m hoping Chuck knows where he’d hide.”
Ronan was also hoping he could get this done quickly.
He needed to talk to Giselle Randolph. He was still annoyed that she’d wiggled through a loophole, telling him only a half truth.
She hadn’t talked to the pharmacy manager, but she had talked to Steve Garfield and he wanted to know what she’d learned.
Of course, if Chuck Williams was hiding Reece Miller, it would be all over. Ronan would take Miller into custody, and the bounty hunters would go home where they belonged.