No Perfect Hero(55)

She’s not my kid. She’s not even Hay’s, but she’s grown on me, this adorable little munchkin with the most delicate and exaggerated mannerisms only kids have.

She really loves Mozart and chatters my ear off whenever she can about that hairball. Haley and I may not be her parents, but it’s going to affect her if we keep circling each other like scorpions with stingers at the ready.

Once again, though, I force myself to put my thoughts aside. I check into my hotel in Boise and settle in to do the job proper.

It’s almost laughably easy, honestly.

Most criminals stupid enough to skip on bail are too dumb to disappear convincingly, though now and then you get the occasional mastermind who vanishes without a trace.

The man I’m tracking, Thad Roshank, isn’t a criminal mastermind.

And after all my time and prep work sniffing out the extent of Bress’ operation, Roshank is a baby. A pup compared to a wolf.

He’s left trails everywhere, with associates and debit card purchases, not even having the basic common sense to pay cash. Every transaction is like a heat map tracking his movements.

I know where he's been every twelve hours or so since he jumped bail and took off.

He’d been arraigned in Coeur d’Alene. Guess he at least had the sense to know trying to leave the state would make things worse if he got caught.

But while Boise’s a big city, it’s a close city. It barely takes a week of careful tracking and a little late-night surveillance to lead me to Roshank’s doorstep.

He’s staying in the kind of pay-by-the-hour motel you either book if you and a “guest” only need it for an hour. Or the kind you rent by the week because you don’t intend to stay in town long enough to be detected.

It’s dirty, dingy, and the alley across the street where I’ve taken up position smells like liquor, piss, and used latex. I’ve tracked Roshank multiple times returning back here, staggering in late with escorts on his arm and booze drifting off him. Someone like that shitstain, I really hope the woman he ducked out on doesn’t actually want him back.

But if he can spend that much money on liquor and prostitutes, he can sure as hell afford to pay his child support and then some.

He’s a spot of white in my vision as he comes reeling around from the front of the building, his button-down shirt untucked. His skin looks pasty, sucked dry. No girl on his arm tonight, thank fuck.

He’s alone. Perfect.

That’ll make this that much easier.

I wait until he disappears into room 117, the same room he’s been slumming around in all week, drinking and fucking and probably getting up to a few actionable drug charges, too.

Just a little longer. Just enough time for him to get complacent, before I let myself out of my truck, check the Glock holstered against the small of my back, and saunter across the lot to pound on his door.

He doesn’t answer at first.

I knock again, louder, and hear curses, banging.

I brace, just in case he isn’t as alone as I think. But no, he’s just drunk. Very, very drunk.

As he creaks the door open, he peeks up at me blearily, his narrow face twisted in irritation.

“Huh? I already paid for the week,” he slurs. “Whaddya want?”

I smile grimly. “Thad Roshank? You’re under arrest for bail hopping.”

His eyes widen. He freezes, gaze darting about, but there’s nowhere for him to go.

No other exits from the room, and I’m blocking the door.

He turns and bolts anyway, darting for the bathroom. Idiot.

I’m on him in a second, catching him up around the waist and lifting him off his feet with one arm. He kicks, struggles, hissing and snarling and cursing me over and over again, but he weighs practically nothing to me and inebriated, his arms are wet noodles.

I slam him face-first down on the bed, the mattress bouncing. I’m not trying to hurt him. Fun as that'd be, I just subdue the prick instead.

In seconds, I’ve got him in a tight hold, wrists wrenched behind his back, his body pinned under my weight while I maneuver him into cuffs.

Just to be on the safe side, I cuff his ankles, too. He looks like a runner.

Someone who’d try to bolt for it even after hope's lost. I’m not having it.

There's a cell waiting for this asshole.

I can’t imagine having a family and just dropping them like a bad habit.

But as I lean back, taking in the dingy, musty motel room, I sigh.

It's too fucking typical.

Drug accessories everywhere. Bent spoon, lighter, rubber hose. Little bags with clear rocks inside. Roshank went off haywire long before he skipped out on his family and his child support payments.

All this evidence is going to take forever to catalogue, if I want it done right.

To hell with it.

I hit the speed dial for the Boise Police Department, and have a little conversation with one of my contacts in the narcotics division. I’ll stay here only long enough to hand him over, and make sure my client gets notified. It’s not the way we usually do things, but as long as he’s in custody somewhere, that’s all that matters for the contract to be fulfilled so I can leave. Get back to Heart’s Edge.

Back to Haley.

I can’t tell myself that a second time. I can’t let it mean that much.

Damn if I don't feel her, like she’s pulling on something inside me, something hooked deep.