Kara Lennox – Bounty Hunter Honor (страница 3)

“My daughter has been taken.”

Score one for Rex’s instincts. “By her father?”

The woman nodded.

“Why don’t you let me refer you to one of my—”

“No. I want you. You’re the best.”

“The best doesn’t come cheap,” Rex said. Though the First Strike office was his home base, Rex was an independent contractor. Ace, sole owner of First Strike since the death of Rex’s father almost two years ago, let all the bounty hunters charge what they wanted and pursue the cases that interested them, paying a small percentage to the agency in return for an office and administrative support. So long as each brought in a certain minimum—and Rex always far exceeded the minimum—they could handle the job any way they chose.

“I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes,” the woman said.

“I charge five hundred dollars a day plus expenses.” He figured that would scare her off.

She didn’t even blink. “It’s not a problem. Just get my daughter back.”

Rex sighed. He couldn’t say no. The case sounded routine enough. Maybe he could wrap it up in a day or two. He got up, dragged over a chair from a neighboring desk and situated it next to his, rather than on the other side of the desk. He didn’t want any barriers, physical or emotional, between him and his potential client. If he took on her case, they would have to trust each other completely. He refused to work any other way.

She sat down, clutching her brown leather purse in her lap so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Rex picked up a pen and a legal pad. “Your name?”

“Nadia Penn.”

“Tell me what’s going on, Nadia. After I hear your story, I’ll decide whether I can help you. Do you have legal custody of the child?”

“Yes.”

“And the child’s father?”

“My ex-husband. He gave up all parental rights when we divorced six months ago.”

That admission gave Rex pause. What kind of man gave up all rights to his children?

“He was abusive,” she said without hesitating a beat. “He sent me to the hospital with a broken jaw. No court was going to give him custody, and he didn’t want to pay me child support.”

The thought of any man using his fists on such a delicate, defenseless creature made Rex’s gut churn. It was that sliver of compassion he felt for the fairer sex that had ruined him, ended his military career.

“Legal rights aside, has he had contact with his daughter prior to this?” Rex asked. “Have you allowed him to visit?”

“Peter Danilov has no personal interest in Lily. He cares nothing about her. He took her to blackmail me. I have access to something he wants very badly, and he intends to barter for it with my child’s life.”

Good Lord. So much for the simple, straightforward case he’d envisioned. “So, whatever it is, give it to him. Nothing is worth a child’s life.”

“It isn’t that easy.”

He sighed. “This sounds like a matter for the police.”

“Do you know how many children are kidnapped by noncustodial parents? And do you know how little the police care? Anyway, I couldn’t risk it.” Nadia opened her purse and pulled out a plain white sheet of paper, folded. She handed it to him.

He took the paper gingerly by one corner. Ah, hell, why bother? She’d probably already destroyed any potential forensic evidence.

“You can touch it,” she said. “It’s already been analyzed. No prints but mine. Common photocopy paper, Canon Inkjet ink. Nontraceable.”

“I thought you didn’t go to the police.”

“I didn’t. I work in a research lab. I did the analysis myself.”

“Ah.” He tried not to show his surprise. He wouldn’t have pegged this delicate, fairylike creature as a hard-nosed scientist, though he ought to know by now not to let anyone’s outward appearance surprise him. His last stint in Korea should have burned that message into his brain once and for all.

He read the note, which set forth the terms she would have to meet if she wanted to see her daughter alive again. She would be required to deliver a package to a certain place at a certain time, then leave. The package would be picked up, the contents verified. Only then would the child be released at an undisclosed location. She would be notified after the fact.

If she agreed to these terms, she was to go today at 3:00 p.m. to the Forest Ridge Mall food court wearing a red shirt and wait at least fifteen minutes, after which she would be contacted as to where and when to make the drop.

Peter Danilov obviously liked cloak-and-dagger games. Such an affinity for drama could be used against him.

Rex asked Nadia the obvious. “What does Peter want from you?” The note simply referred to a “package,” which Rex assumed meant Nadia knew what it was.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“And I can’t win this game playing with only half a deck.”

“I can’t tell you without breaching the security of the United States,” she said quietly. “But suffice it to say, it’s something very dangerous. I could never put it into Peter’s hands. Which is why I need you to get my baby back.”

National security? Dangerous?

“Whoa, wait a minute. You don’t by any chance work for—”

“JanCo Labs.”

Ah, hell. JanCo Labs was a huge facility tucked away in the piney woods of East Texas a few miles from Payton. The lab worked almost exclusively on top secret government contracts—everything from gene splicing to weapons technology.

Rex was intrigued despite himself.

“Do you have any way to contact Peter?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken your daughter?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve had no contact with him for months.”

“Do you believe he will actually harm Lily?”

She hesitated. “He never physically hurt her before. But I do know one thing. If he suspects even for a moment that I’ve come to you or anyone for help, he will spirit Lily off to Russia with him, and I will never see her again.”

NADIA ENDURED the next hour of tedious questions solely because she knew Rex Bettencourt was her only hope.

She hadn’t been too sure when she’d first walked up to the First Strike Agency. She’d read of his impressive success rate in a national magazine and had considered it an extremely lucky break that the bounty hunter was based in her own backyard. But when she’d seen his place of business, with its faded, tattered awning and grimy windows, she’d been less than impressed. First Strike was in a bad area of town to begin with, sandwiched between a bail bondsman and a pawnshop. But even if the neighborhood hadn’t discouraged her, the office itself would have.

Narrow and deep, the office housed a half-dozen mismatched desks scattered haphazardly around the room. There didn’t seem to be a reception desk, or anything to welcome a walk-in customer. In the back corner was a home gym setup and some free weights.

As she tiptoed across the ripped indoor-outdoor carpeting toward the only occupied desk, she’d taken in the gallery of Wanted posters with darts protruding from the faces and the stacks of magazines—Soldier of Fortune, Guns & Ammo, Fast Car—decorating the desks.

The only computer in the room was a big, beige clunker grimy with fingerprints.

But then she’d seen Rex. Although his face had not appeared in the magazine article she’d read, she’d somehow known instantly that the man seated behind a desk at the back of the room was Rex Bettencourt. With military-short, sun-bleached hair and a deep tan even in the dead of winter, his posture had communicated the sort of supreme confidence she was looking for. And from the moment he’d opened his mouth to speak, she’d known he was the man who could get her little girl back safe and sound. His impressive muscles made him look dangerous, but the intelligence behind his green eyes assured her he was also capable.

“You haven’t given me much to work with,” Rex said when he’d run out of questions. “A description of a woman who smokes with a rodent face and an accent isn’t much help. Are you sure you’ve never seen this woman before?”

“I know I’ve never met her. But now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, to go over it in my mind, she seems familiar somehow. I may have seen her before—at a party, in a crowd.”

“She might have been following you.”

Nadia shivered at the idea of being watched. Her Russian grandmother had risked her life to come to this country, where she could be free, where her movements were not constantly monitored or her motives challenged. Nadia had been raised to appreciate her freedom, her relative safety.

Peter had taken that away from her.

“I know I haven’t given you much,” Nadia said. “But someone will be at the mall to spot me. Maybe it will be the woman again. You could follow her.”

“If you spot her. Or if he doesn’t send someone else, someone you wouldn’t recognize.”

“When he contacts me again, then,” Nadia said.

“Peter probably won’t send another messenger with a piece of paper. He’ll try something different this time, maybe a phone call from a throwaway cell phone.”