LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      Chase McKinley sat behind the wheel of his black SUV, watching the couple in the gray Chevy. The sedan was parked diagonally across the street from him, its position allowing him to observe the occupants without giving them a reason to be suspicious of his presence. In any case, they were too engrossed in what appeared to be an intense dialogue to be aware of him.

      There was no way for Chase to hear what they were saying. Nor did he worry about that. What the woman looked like was his only real concern at the moment. At this angle, and with the width of the street between them, that was hard to tell.

      The PI whom Chase regularly used had emailed a photo of the brunette, but it had been a blurry, disappointing result. Far more interesting was the investigator’s description in his report. He’d referred to her simply as “a hot number.” An exaggeration? Maybe. Chase looked forward to finding out.

      The Chevy’s front passenger door opened. A pair of long, shapely legs swung into view. They were followed by the rest of the woman who owned them. Chase sucked in a lungful of air. Holy crap! The PI had been right on target. Haley Adams was one dark-haired, gorgeous filly.

      She was joined by the guy behind the wheel of the Chevy, who had rounded the rear of the car to meet her. Chase couldn’t say much for her taste in men. Not bad looking, he supposed, but too ordinary to make any impression. And with an extraordinary-looking woman like her, he would have expected something more.

      Whoever he was, he had his hand on her arm, prepared to escort her across the street to her door. The place was one of those row house affairs, nothing to distinguish it from its adjoining neighbors. Like the homes above it on the ridge, it looked down on the valley where Portland’s downtown high-rises were packed along the Willamette River rimmed with cargo ships at anchor.

      Chase cared about neither the boats nor the office towers. His only focus was Haley Adams and the guy close at her side, who, now that he had a better view of him, wore an unhappy expression on his narrow face. Chase got a look at their parting at her front door. Enough of it, anyway, to tell it involved an embrace. A spiky evergreen blocked the rest of it. Damn shrubs grew like weeds here in the Pacific Northwest.

      Chase was willing to bet, though, the embrace ended in a kiss of the passionate variety. Who’d part from a woman like her without one? After his farewell, the guy retreated to his sedan and drove off down the street.

      Chase didn’t wait until he was out of sight to emerge from his SUV, race to Haley Adams’ door and ring her bell. He was counting on her thinking her anxious boyfriend had returned. He’d used this kind of tactic before with success, and it didn’t fail him this time.

      Her wide blue eyes registered a concerned surprise when she opened the door to find a strange man on her doorstep. Chase had his foot in the opening before she could close the door on him.

      * * *

      Haley realized at once that she’d made two careless mistakes. She had failed to secure the chain on the door behind Bill Farley’s departure, and she neglected to check the peephole before opening the door. Not that the neighborhood—or Portland in general—had a reputation for crime. But still...

      Make that three mistakes. Bill had left in such a state that she’d assumed he was back for a last session of pleading. Wrong.

      “If you’re selling,” she brusquely informed the rangy figure, “I’m not interested. And if you’re collecting for a charity, I prefer to do that by mail. Now if you’ll take your foot out of my door...”

      “I’m not selling or collecting.”

      No, she decided, he didn’t look the type. Too tough for anything like that. More like a longshoreman. He still hadn’t removed his foot. He was making her uneasy. Did she have something to worry about here?

      “Look, whoever and whatever you are, you have no right to push in here like this. I’m going to ask you again to take your foot out of my door so I can close it after you. Because if you don’t go away, I’m going to call the police.”

      “You do that. I may need them here to conduct my business with you.”

      “I think you’ve made some kind of mistake.”

      “They all say that. You are Haley Adams, aren’t you?”

      She was surprised he knew her name. “Yes, but I may very well not be the only one in a city this size.”

      “Any other Haley Adams living at this address?”

      “Of course not.”

      “Then you’re the Haley Adams I want.”

      “How do you know me and my name? And just what is this so-called business you’re supposed to have with me?”

      “About time we got around to that.”

      He moved the rest of the way into her foyer. Before she could tell him to leave the door open behind him, he’d nudged it shut with his elbow and was opening a folder tucked under his arm.

      She didn’t like this. Didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t anything he might have in that folder that had her nervous. It was the presence of the man himself inside her house—when she hadn’t let him in. Why hadn’t she called the cops immediately? That tall, solid figure could be anything, anybody. Bad things happened to women in situations like this.

      He must have understood she was concerned. “Relax,” he said, the timbre of his voice deep and husky, not at all conducive to relaxing. “If you don’t give me any trouble—and believe me, plenty of them try it—then you have nothing to worry about.”

      Nothing to worry about? Give him any trouble? Who was he? What was this all about?

      “Come on, Haley,” he said, “you shouldn’t need any explanations. You know what this is all about.” Did this guy read minds? “No? You want to play hardball, do you? Well, we can do that.”

      He had an official-looking document inside the folder. He held it out to her. “This is your copy. Mine stays inside the folder.”

      She hesitantly took it from him, looked down at it in her hand and scanned it in disbelief. It was a legal order for the apprehension of Haley Adams, residing at this address, who had failed to appear in court on the scheduled date of her arraignment and was therefore in violation of her bail bond. She looked up at him in bewilderment. He nodded solemnly.

      “I need to bring you in, Haley. Afraid that’s my job. Says so right here. See?”

      He’d produced a wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, folded it back for her inspection and was now tapping at the identification it contained with his forefinger. “Chase McKinley,” he read, “licensed bond enforcer. That’s me.”

      She looked at the ID, then at his square-jawed face. For a moment she had no reaction. Then she understood. “You’re a bounty hunter.”

      “Well, that’s one term for it. There are others. Skip tracer. Fugitive apprehension

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