Strangers in the Night

“Except you’re out here in the middle of the damn wilderness.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Yeah. Because you’ve lost your damn mind.”

“Because I want to be left alone.”

“I would be happy not to be here. I wouldn’t be, either, if you had a phone.”

“There’s nobody I’m interested in talking to.”

“Well, you’re going to want to talk to me. I’ve got a job for you.”

“Not interested.”

“You will be.”

“I let my license lapse. You’re going to have to find yourself another bounty hunter.”

“You don’t need a license. This isn’t official. It’s personal.”

That was what Ross was afraid of.

He finally pushed back the brim of his hat and peered up at his visitor. The homicide detective had a face the texture of tanned leather, seeming to bear the evidence of every case he’d ever worked in twenty-five years on the job. In the scant fourteen months since Ross had last seen him, Newcomb appeared to have acquired a good five years more on that face. Fresh lines were carved into his forehead and around his eyes. His gaze simmered with fevered emotion.

The knot in the pit of Ross’s stomach tightened. Whatever it was the man wanted, it was big. That was going to make it even harder to say no to him.

Which didn’t mean Ross wouldn’t do it.

When he didn’t say anything, Newcomb continued, “Did you hear about Chastain?”

Price Chastain. The name was enough to kill the last of the peace Newcomb’s arrival hadn’t managed to dispel. “I heard.”

“Trial starts in a couple of weeks. I thought I might see you back in the city for it.”

“Newcomb, how many times has the D.A. indicted Chastain for something?”

Newcomb’s hesitation was telling. “Four.”

“And how many convictions has he gotten?”

“None.”

“So you can understand why I didn’t hightail it back to the city this time.”

“It’s different this time. We’ve got him.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“This time we’ve got him on tape.”

Ross let that sink in, more the excitement in Newcomb’s voice than the words themselves. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up, but it wasn’t like Newcomb was going anywhere. “I’m listening.”

“How much have you heard about the case?”

“We don’t get much news from the city up in these parts,” he drawled.

“Victim’s Kathleen Mulroney, a secretary at his company. On a Friday night last September he caught her trying to sneak out of the building with some files she’d copied. We don’t know what was in them. They were long gone by the time the arrest was made. Computer records show she copied some kind of hidden files, but Chastain had already moved them by the time we got there. We think she stumbled on evidence of his dirty dealings.”

“You don’t have a concrete motive.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’ll be good enough.”

Ross decided to withhold judgment on that. “Go on.”

“He must have been on to her, because he was waiting for her when she came out of the building. He confronted her, they argued, and he shot her in the chest.”

“The bastard did her himself?” This was too good to be true. Exactly why Ross wasn’t buying it yet.

“Yep. Probably in a fit of rage, possibly out of sheer arrogance. We’ve never been able to pin anything else on him. What’s one more murder?”

“And you got this on tape?”

“What Chastain didn’t know was the building across the alley had just had a new security system installed. A camera above its back entrance captured the whole thing. If it hadn’t, she would have just been somebody else connected to Chastain who disappeared without a trace. We’d have never been able to connect him to it.” Newcomb shook his head. “Five years of investigating the bastard, and we get him out of dumb luck.”

“Isn’t that always the way?” Ross muttered.

As if sensing Ross’s lack of enthusiasm, Newcomb elaborated. “We’ve got everything. Chastain catching the Mulroney woman coming out of the building. The argument. Chastain shooting her. Two of his men removing the body.”

“Which men?”

“A guy you never heard of, new on Chastain’s payroll, Pete Crowley.” Newcomb met his gaze head-on. “And Roy Taylor.”

A cold trickle slid down Ross’s spine. “Why are you here, Newcomb?”

“Taylor skipped town.”

Newcomb didn’t have to say another word. They both knew it. Those three words told Ross everything he needed to know—and guaranteed his cooperation. He swore, exactly the reaction the detective was looking for. For the first time since he’d arrived, Newcomb smiled, a deep satisfied grin.

Ross closed his eyes before he put his fist right in the middle of those grinning teeth.

R ESTLESS , R OSS PULLED a fresh beer out of the fridge and popped the cap off with the back of his thumb. There wasn’t a chance of getting his buzz back, but if anything called for a drink, this was it. He just wished he had something stronger on hand.

Draining half the bottle in one pull, he paced a ragged path across the cabin’s hardwood floors while he waited for Newcomb to emerge from the bathroom. The man was taking so long in there he must have been guzzling coffee for the entire drive here.

Part of him wanted to throw the detective all the way back to the city and forget everything he’d been told. Getting pulled back into this mess was the last thing he needed. He’d finally made his escape, bought the spread in the back of beyond he’d been dreaming about for years and made a clean break with his former profession. For the past year, he’d managed to find, if not peace, then at least quiet. No more tracking skips into places no sane person would go, no more dealing with the lowlifes and the overworked, understaffed law enforcement that populated New York. Here he was left alone, and that was all he really wanted.

All except to see Price Chastain behind bars.