Sandra Robbins - Fugitive Trackdown

She sighed and reached down to rub her ankle. “I guess it would be better if I had someone with me tonight. So take me to your sister’s apartment, and then you can go home.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he darted a glance at her. “Jessica said she’s hardly heard from you since your father’s funeral. Why haven’t you been in touch with us?”

She shrugged. “For the past few weeks I’ve been going over my father’s business affairs. It seems he owed a lot of penalties to the courts because of bail jumpers, and he wasn’t getting a lot of new business. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can save his company. I thought even if I couldn’t, I would see that Peter Willis was brought in.”

“It sounds like you might stay in Memphis. What about your librarian job back in Nashville?”

“I’ve taken a leave of absence for the remainder of the semester. I thought I could spend the time taking care of all the loose ends with my father’s business, but I didn’t know how bad things really were for him.”

Her words startled him, and he glanced in her direction. “What do you mean?”

She sighed. “It seems business hadn’t been too good lately, and he had a lot of clients jump bail. Besides, that new bail bond business in Memphis has given everybody else some stiff competition.”

“You mean the Bond Squad?”

“Yes. Do you know them?”

He nodded. “Yeah. They’re the ones who hired me to go after James.”

“That figures,” she snarled. “They can afford to hire the best bounty hunters.”

He grinned and glanced at her. “So you admit I’m the best at what I do.”

She let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Don’t flatter yourself. I wasn’t talking about you personally. I meant your family’s business. It just happens to be the oldest bounty hunter group in the city, and maybe in the state.”

He laughed and shook his head. “The term bounty hunter makes people think about some reality show you might see on TV. That’s why we call ourselves a fugitive recovery group.”

Her eyebrows arched and she chuckled. “Well, call it whatever you want, mister. But you’re still a bounty hunter as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think your great-grandfather who started the business had any problem with the term.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.” He smiled. “But things have changed since the days when he hunted bail jumpers up and down the Mississippi River. One thing about him, though, he had a philosophy that has been an inspiration to all of us.”

“‘A man must answer for the crimes laid against him,’” she said. “That’s what he always said after taking someone into custody, wasn’t it?”

He darted a surprised glance in her direction. “How did you know that?”

“I ought to know it. I’ve heard Jessica say it plenty of times. Anyway, I’m glad your business is doing well even if mine isn’t.”

“Claire, I’m sorry things weren’t going well for your father before his death, but I meant it when I said I wished you had come to us. If not to me, then Jessica or Lucas. You know we’ve always thought of you as family.”

She turned and stared at him. “Really? Somehow I always got the impression you’d rather I wasn’t around.”

He squirmed in the seat and straightened his back. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”

“It really doesn’t matter now. I must have seemed like a silly little girl to you with my crush on my best friend’s big brother, but that’s all in the past. Let’s just drop the conversation. All right?”

“Sure. If that’s what you want. I’ll take you to Jessica’s, then...” He stopped midsentence and stared in the rearview mirror. “I think we’ve got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“I think we’re being followed.”

Claire looked over her shoulder and out the back window. “You mean by that car behind us?”

“Yeah. They’ve stayed right with us for several miles.”

“Can you tell if it’s one of the cars that Peter and James were driving?”

He squinted and stared into the rearview mirror. “Their headlights are too bright. I can’t tell anything about the car.”

“What should we do?”

“Let’s make sure they’re really after us.” Adam glanced at the dashboard as he let up on the accelerator. The car’s speed dropped by twenty miles per hour. “Now we’ll see if he’s really tailing us. If not, he’ll pass.”

He watched for a few minutes, but the car made no effort to pass. He dropped the speed lower, but the vehicle remained several car lengths behind them. Claire glanced back and then to Adam. “He’s still there.”

“I know.” Adam pushed the accelerator down, and the car sped away from the headlights that shone through the rear window of his car. As if on cue, the driver behind accelerated and kept the same distance between them. “Seems like he’s going to hang with us.”

Claire’s eyes grew wide. “What now?”

“Try again.” He slowed almost to a crawl, but the car still didn’t pass. Then without warning, he floored the accelerator, and the car leaped forward.

Claire screamed and gripped the sides of her seat. Adam cast one glance at her before he hunched over the steering wheel and roared toward the lights of Memphis that were just coming into view.

THREE

Claire stared wide-eyed at the speedometer as it inched higher and then looked at Adam. The reflections from the streetlights they roared past cast an eerie glow across his face that sent cold chills up her spine. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and the muscle in his jaw flexed. She turned her head to stare out the back window and swallowed the fear that rose in her throat. The other vehicle sped through the night perhaps two car lengths behind.

Ahead, the lights of Memphis beckoned as they approached the turnoff that would take them toward the eastern part of the city. She bit down on her bottom lip as the tires squealed and they barreled along the exit and onto the city’s loop highway.

The car shook, and she wondered how Adam could remain in control of the speeding car, but he appeared to be having no problem. Even this late at night heavy traffic rolled along the expressway. Adam wove in and out of the cars as if they were on a racetrack. Another glance to the rear told her that the other car hadn’t given up the chase.

Finally she could keep silent no longer. “Have you been able to tell if the car looks like either of the ones James and Peter were driving?”

He shook his head. “I still can’t tell, but it has to be somebody connected to what happened earlier tonight. Hang on. I’m going to get off this highway.”

Claire gasped as the car swerved along the next exit and roared down Poplar Avenue headed east. Claire looked behind, but the car wasn’t in view. Traffic was lighter on this street, but that could be expected at eleven o’clock on a weeknight. Adam didn’t slow the car as he wedged his way into a line of traffic in the right-hand lane. Then the lights of another car flashed in the distance, and Claire wondered if they’d been spotted amid the vehicles that moved down the street.

“I think he’s behind us again,” she said.

Adam didn’t reply. Instead he made a sharp right turn into the parking lot of an all-night discount store. A flashing sign next to the street advertised a midnight sale, and the area around the store was filled with cars and people standing in line waiting to get inside.

He drove into the parking lot, found a spot between two cars and pulled in. He quickly killed the engine and turned off the lights. From where they sat they had a good view of the street. Several cars drove by, and then one sped by in the direction they’d been traveling.