An FBI Special Agent--even one on leave, celebrating
Christmas in her old hometown--is not going to let some
lowlife mess with her family. A strange man follows Dawna
Shepherd's little brother two hundred and twelve miles across
West Texas, of course she'll stop the jerk cold at the Shepherd
front door.
But when Dawna yanked open the door to the chill December
evening, the light from the electric icicles glinted off a golden
seven-pointed star. She realized her visitor was holding up a
badge case.
"Team Leader Tommy O'Brien," the man said, "official
business."
A man with New York City in his voice has official business in
Amity, Texas? Curious, Dawna kept her mouth shut, studied
her visitor. O'Brien was her height--six-three. Thick through
the torso but not fat. In his forties, about ten years older than
she was, time etching a trio of lines across his forehead. His
Irish blue eyes were so deep set they looked as if they'd been
smudged in with a sooty finger. Dawna was a sucker for eyes
like that. But O'Brien's appeal was negated by the
ready-to-jump alertness in his posture. Ten seconds, he'd be
threatening to put cuffs on her. Another rush of adrenaline hit
her bloodstream, instinctive reaction to the menace coming
off O'Brien as strongly as a bad scent. She squinted to read
the print on his badge. Fugitive Recovery Team.
"A bounty hunter," Dawna said flatly. She kept on her game
face, stern and impassive, her body blocking the doorway.
Fugitive recovery agents had the legal right to pursue bail
jumpers across state lines, but they worked for bail bondsmen,
not law enforcement. So O'Brien wasn't all that official. And
he wasn't all that bright, either. What fugitive did he think
he'd find in the home of Police Chief Donald Raymond
Shepherd, Dawna's father? "Who you huntin'?" she asked.
"Astrid Anderson." O'Brien brushed a thick
lock of dark hair off his forehead and held up a mockup of a wanted poster in
his left hand. His right fell casually to rest on the extension
baton tucked into his belt. He wore leather gloves, the
fingerless version preferred by serious shooters.
Dawna plucked the poster from his hand, hiding her shock.
She knew the pallid girl pictured there. Baby-fine ash-blonde
hair skinned back in a pony tail that emphasized the high
hairline, the pale streaks of her eyebrows blending into the
shiny whiteness of the broad forehead. The young woman was
Bailey Winters--the same Bailey Winters who'd hurried into the
house only minutes before with Dawna's brother Zane. Both
seniors at Texas Tech, the two now huddled in the kitchen,
waiting for Dawna to handle the man who'd followed them
from Lubbock to Amity.
But the pictured woman couldn't be Bailey, Dawna realized.
Astrid Anderson was wanted for a murder in connection with
the robbery of a Bronx savings bank in 1971, nine years before
Bailey was born. "You got the wrong house," Dawna said to
O'Brien. "There's no Astrid Anderson here."
"Jane Winters, then. That's the name Anderson may be using
now."
Bailey's mother? Dawna shook her head, vibrating her tumble
of blonde curls. "Not possible."
O'Brien folded his arms, the ends of his fingers bluntly pink
against the dark leather of his jacket. "Jane Winters was born
March 14, 1950 in Eugene, Oregon. Got a drivers license in
Odessa, Texas in 1978. During that twenty-eight year gap, she
had no drivers license, never held a job, never filed an income
tax return, never owned a credit card and never borrowed
money. Makes me want to ask Jane Winters what she was
doing between 1950 and 1978. And since Bailey Winters came
straight to this house, I thought I might find her mother here."
"You didn't." Dawna's basketball instincts kicked in. The
other team comes at you suddenly with a strategy you've
never seen before, you don't try to guess how to respond. You
get control of the ball, call a time-out, analyze the play.
Dawna pushed the door shut, slammed the dead bolt home.
O'Brien spoke loudly from the other side. "Ma'am, there's a
very serious charge against Astrid Anderson. Really, you don't
want to find yourself aiding and abetting a murderer. You
think about it. I'll be in town till I get some answers. You
want to talk to me, you got my cell phone number right there."
Dawna waited, her back against the door, until she heard
O'Brien step off the front porch.
Then she was brushing past the darkened Christmas tree,
pushing through the swing door into the kitchen, jerking the
cell phone out of Bailey's hand, shutting that down.
Bailey backed herself up against the formica-topped counter.
Her lanky frame seemed to shrink inside her baggy warmups,
the catsup-red pants riding low on her narrow hips. She held
her hand out to Dawna, begging for the phone back. "I got to
talk to my mom."
"That's what he wants you to do," Dawna said. "He's outside
right now scanning cell-phone conversations, waiting to listen
in."
Zane snorted and moved closer to Bailey. "You don't know
that." The shortest of the Shepherd family--only five feet
nine--and the darkest, he flanked Bailey like a stunted shadow.
"He's a bounty hunter, that's how they work." How we all
work when we're hunting, Dawna amended to herself. Right
after denying knowledge of a fugitive's whereabouts, a liar
invariably tries to warn the fugitive of what's going down.
Listen in on that call, you can often locate the person you're
looking for.
Shoot, what was Dawna doing, interfering with the lawful
apprehension of a fugitive from justice? An FBI agent, she
couldn't obstruct O'Brien just because her unreasonable gut
told her he was a dangerous threat.
