Read Online The Devil's Bounty by Sean Black - Free Book Online Page A

Warner glanced up from her prayers. ‘If you need to take a break at any time just let me know,’ he said.
    She smiled, got up and walked to the door. ‘Can I ask you something, Tyrone?’
    Ty smiled. He probably only ever heard his full name from ladies who went to church, and Lock when he was being sarcastic. ‘Sure.’
    Jan’s gaze fell away to the bed where her daughter lay sleeping. ‘Why are you doing this for us?’
    Ty could have given her some story about how he was happy to help, but he wanted to be honest. Much as he felt for Melissa, he hadn’t welcomed her arrival in Lock’s life. ‘Because Ryan asked me to.’
    Jan gave a tiny nod, apparently satisfied. ‘You must be good friends.’
    He shrugged. ‘We’ve been through a lot together. Makes you close, I guess.’
    ‘Not one of Melissa’s college friends stayed in touch with her after what happened.’ Ty noticed that Jan’s eyes were moist. ‘The damage that man did to her. She was such a beautiful young woman.’
    ‘She still is,’ Ty said. ‘That don’t change.’
    Jan took a pack of tissues from her handbag, took one out and dabbed at her eyes. ‘But it does. Not on the outside, maybe. But inside. She trusted people. She assumed they were good. He robbed her of that.’
    ‘You know she wants us to go after him? She talk to you about finding Ryan?’
    Jan nodded again. ‘She thought he’d understand.’
    ‘She tell you why she thought that?’ Ty pressed.
    ‘She said his fiancée had been killed by a man like Mendez. Is that right?’
    Ty tilted his head so that he was staring at the ceiling. ‘There was more to it but, yeah, I guess that’s what it came down to. Ryan and I were looking after a woman who was being stalked. One of them kidnapped Ryan’s fiancée as a way of getting him to back off. He didn’t and she ended up dead.’
    Jan Warner didn’t say anything.
    ‘We were out trying to find her,’ Ty went on. ‘It was dark and the weather was real bad. She’d escaped from where he was holding her. She ran out into the road in front of our vehicle. I was driving but Ryan still blames himself.’
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Jan.
    Ty rubbed his face. ‘I sometimes think that if she hadn’t escaped, if the guy had killed her before she had the chance to get away, it might have been easier. Then I hate myself for thinking that.’
    Jan reached out and touched his arm. ‘Life doesn’t always give us nice neat endings.’
    ‘But that’s what your daughter’s looking for,’ he said. ‘An ending.’
    ‘I suppose it is. She feels that until he’s behind bars she can’t move on with her life.’
    ‘And what do you think?’ Ty asked.
    Jan blew her nose. ‘I just want my baby back to the way she was before. I don’t care about Mendez or what happens tohim. I’m not interested in revenge. I only care about Melissa.’
    Of course she did, thought Ty. She was a mom. But, sadly, the people who were hunting her daughter, who were seeking vengeance for her continued pursuit of Mendez, saw it differently. For whatever reason they believed that the only way of stopping the pursuit of Mendez was to murder his victim. Even if Melissa or Jan could speak to them directly and tell them that Melissa was scared enough to drop their crusade, Ty doubted it would have any effect. Once the word came down to street level that an individual was to be taken out, nothing else mattered. When you were marked, you were marked, not because the people giving the orders were unable to change their minds but because word came down and was difficult to reverse.
    Ty was wary of Melissa overhearing them. He took Jan’s elbow and moved her a little further down the corridor. ‘You know these people aren’t going to stop now.’
    ‘But if I take her home with me …’
    ‘The kid who came in here to finish the job, she was a gang member. They got gangs all over the country. Every city, every small town, there’s no hiding-place if they want