Fatal Destiny - Sample

FATAL DESTINY

A Grace deHaviland Bounty Hunter Novel

DAVID DELEE

STOLEN MOB MONEY! RUTHLESS HIT MEN!

A PAST THAT WON'T STAY DEAD AND BURIED!

For bounty hunter Grace deHaviland the job seemed simple. Track down Barry Keegan, an accountant in a white collar criminal case who jumped bail. How hard could that be?

But the case turns deadly when a co-defendant ends up murdered and Grace's best friend, sheriff's deputy Suzie Jensen, is nearly killed. Can Grace track down the elusive Barry Keegan--a man more dangerous than anyone could've guessed--while she tries to protect his wife and son from a violent past they thought dead and buried?

CHAPTER ONE

GOD MUST HATE ME.

Here it was, just the second week of October and a cold snap had moved into the area, plunging the temperatures to near freezing already. Unseasonably cold, the TV weather people said. A stalled Canadian cold front, they explained. Yeah, right. I knew what was really going on. It was God. I could hear him up in heaven, telling the angels with a laugh: Grace deHaviland's doing surveillance. Let's make it cold as a cadaver's crotch down there.

I cupped my hands and blew into them. Damn.

Parked in the Grandview Heights section of Columbus, I'd been sitting for hours in my beat-up cargo van in the shadows of an overhanging elm tree down the road from the only working lamp post, my full attention on a dilapidated old colonial across the street. The house was one on a block of rundown homes earmarked for demolition, something the city never seemed to get around to. In the meantime, they became havens for drug dealers, users, crack whores and the homeless.

This one had a large front porch. The paint on the wide steps was worn to the wood and the once-white railing had so many spindles missing it looked like a boxer's punch-drunk grin. A rusted glider was set off to one end and an old, moldy couch sat under the large front window. The cushions on it were so worn out, they sank. Broken crack vials, fast food wrappers and a busted up tricycle littered the yard. An old box spring and rusted iron headboard leaned against the peeling siding. Junked.

I covered the light of my cell phone and checked the time: 6:30 a.m.

The darkness before the dawn.

A lone figure rounded the corner, coming from Avondale Avenue, and walking in my direction. His hands shoved in his pockets, he had his hoodie pulled up over his shaved head to ward off the chilly, pre-dawn breeze. I checked him against the mug shot I had of Tyrell Parks. It was my guy.

I opened the well-oiled van door without a sound. The dome light remained off because I'd removed the bulb months ago. The van's decrepit appearance—I'd picked it up at auction about a year ago—its dings, dents and splotches of matte-black primer paint were deliberate, all carefully applied so no one looked twice at it. Yet mechanically, its care and maintenance was top shelf, as good as money could buy. The perfect decoy vehicle.

Jogging across the street, I avoided the splash of piss-yellow streetlight, and carefully navigating my interception point. I jammed my hands into my jacket pockets, returning the mug shot of Tyrell Parks to one pocket and wrapping my hand tightly around the stun gun I carried in the other. My Colt .45 auto-loader sat snug and heavy in its holster, pressing into the small of my back. I didn't have to check for my backup piece, either. The weight of the small .32 revolver strapped to my right ankle was hard to forget.