On the Prowl Read online

  On The Prowl

  When in Vegas book 1

  Matt Lincoln

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  2. Charlie

  3. Charlie

  4. Charlie

  5. Charlie

  6. Junior

  7. Charlie

  8. Junior

  9. Fiona

  10. Charlie

  11. Junior

  12. Charlie

  13. Junior

  14. Fiona

  15. Charlie

  16. Charlie

  17. Miranda

  18. Miranda

  19. Junior

  20. Charlie

  21. Junior

  22. Charlie

  23. Junior

  24. Charlie

  25. Charlie

  26. Miranda

  27. Junior

  28. Miranda

  29. Charlie

  30. Junior

  31. Miranda

  32. Charlie

  33. Junior

  34. Miranda

  35. Miranda

  36. Junior

  37. Charlie

  38. Junior

  39. Charlie

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  I jolted awake to the sound of rushing wind and snow falling against my window. I blinked drowsily as the last vestiges of my dream drifted away. I couldn’t quite remember what it had been about, only that it had been a memory from what seemed now like a different life. The blanket pooled around my waist as I sat up in bed, and I immediately regretted it. Fitness had always been a part of my lifestyle, and even when I retired and moved up here to Alaska, I’d made it a point to keep myself healthy. That being said, I was old enough now that my muscles ached just from being exposed to the cold. No amount of exercise could stave off the march of time, after all. Still, I preferred this to Las Vegas weather, which was dry and hot nine months out of the year.

  I looked out the window over the breathtaking view of the Hayes Mountain range. I had retired five years ago and moved to a place called Neva Pass, located in the mountains along the Alaska highway. I’d purchased a small motel with an attached restaurant for next to nothing. It was a pretty bare-bones place, with sparsely furnished rooms and a few standalone log cabins down by the nearby lake.

  It wasn’t exactly a desirable business asset since it was in the middle of nowhere and rarely got visitors. The lack of guests is what ultimately led the place to go bankrupt before I bought it. The solitude and the lack of people were exactly what drew me to it, though, so I didn’t hesitate to buy it when I found it.

  In the summer, we’d get a lot of kids coming through on their way to Denali National Park for hiking and camping. In December, we’d get families coming up to visit the nearby town of North Pole, Alaska, which was decked out in Christmas-themed regalia year-round but only really got busy in the few weeks before Christmas. Even then, though, most people would just stop for gas and a quick bite to eat before heading off again. Rarely did anyone ever spend the night.

  The majority of the year, it was so slow that I only ever bothered to hire seasonal employees for a month or two at a time. Usually, they were high schoolers or college kids that didn’t mind having to make the long commute in exchange for an easy paycheck. That meant I spent most of my time up here alone, but I didn’t mind. Sure, I enjoyed the occasional visit from my grandkids or a trip with my old work buddies now and again, but for the most part, I relished in being alone.

  I heard my phone chime and looked over to where it was sitting on my bedside table. The screen indicated I had three missed messages from my current employee, Patrick. Since we very rarely had any customers, I’d normally allow myself the luxury of sleeping in, but since it was the busy season and Patrick was clearly trying to get a hold of me, I’d probably have to get up sooner rather than later. I picked up the phone and unlocked it to see what he wanted.

  Mr. Hills, there’s a bunch of people here. It’s crazy!

  Mr. Hills, I don’t know if the rooms are clean. I only clean one at a time.

  I'm out of rooms. What do I do?

  Mr. Hills, I really need some help!!!

  Well, that was definitely bizarre. In all the years I’d been running this place, I’d never had more than three people book a room on the same night. There were only ten rooms on the main property, so the fact that Patrick had run out meant that at least that many people were trying to book a stay. I stood up out of bed and stretched. I’d go and see what was going on in a minute, but first, I at least needed a quick shower.

  I walked into the bathroom and turned the shower’s hot water knob as far as I could, then moved to the sink to brush my teeth as I waited for the water to heat up. When the weather was this cold, it usually took a while. Once it was hot enough, I stepped into the shower, rolling the muscles in my neck and shoulders as I let the water roll over me. Normally I would relax for as long as possible under the hot spray until the water began to run cold, but I knew that Patrick was waiting for me. So after only a few minutes, I stepped out again, shivering as I moved away from the warm steam. As I walked back into my bedroom to get dressed, I noticed with a glance out the window that the snow was coming down even harder now.

  I pulled on a thick sweater and a pair of snow pants. I’d originally bought them way back during my days as a federal agent for a mission in Russia, and they had served me well ever since. Although I wasn’t using them to trek across enemy terrain or scale mountains anymore, they were still unbelievably warm against the snow. I dreaded the day they’d finally fall apart, and then I’d have to find a replacement. As I was pulling on my heavy coat, I heard my phone chime again, but I didn’t bother checking the message before stuffing it into my pocket. The main motel was only a few feet away from my cabin, and I’d be there in a moment, anyway.

  The force of the wind hit me hard as I opened the door, and I had to hold my arm up to my face as I walked outside. I slammed the door shut behind me, and as I turned toward the motel, it surprised me to see a plethora of cars parked in front of it. I made my way toward the front door, and I could see through the large picture windows on the facade of the building that there was a crowd of people inside. I could also see Patrick, who looked like he was ready to bolt.

  I threw the door open roughly and stepped inside, relieved to be out of the cold.

  “Oh, Mr. Hills, thank goodness,” Patrick said as he caught sight of me. “All these people started showing up, and then I didn’t have any more rooms, and everyone started getting angry.” He rambled on with a shaky voice. I walked through the small lobby and around the counter to where he was standing.

  “Calm down, Patrick,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You did fine. I’ll figure it out now.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” a shrill voice rang in my ear from over my shoulder. I turned to see a stout woman wearing a horrendous Christmas sweater and hauling several pieces of luggage. “Are you the manager here?”

  “I’m the owner,” I said, already put off by her demeanor.

  “Finally,” the woman said melodramatically as she rolled her eyes. “We’ve been trying to book a room for almost an hour now, and this little moron here gave away the last room to someone who came in after us, even though we were waiting! Seriously, this place was basically empty when we got here, but that idiot couldn’t keep track of what was happening and-.”

  “Get out,” I cut her off, noting with satisfaction that my outburst had caused several of the other people in the room to fall silent.

  “Excuse me?” The woman said, looking at me as if I had just slapped her.

  “You heard me, get out of my motel,” I said, my voice deadpan. “You’re not going
to come in here and verbally abuse my employee, so go find somewhere else to stay.” The woman seemed to realize I was serious as her face fell, and she began to flounder over her words.

  “We can’t,” she said quietly, looking embarrassed by the fact that several other people were now watching the interaction. “We had a room booked at the Mountainside Inn up in North Pole, but a pipe broke, and it flooded. Everywhere else is booked since it’s already the twenty-third. The storm is too bad to drive through. It took us over an hour to get here, and this is the only place for miles that has any vacancy. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m just stressed out, and I have my son with me, and we really need a room.”

  I glanced down at the little boy standing behind her, who couldn’t have been more than three, and looked like he was ready to cry. I had always had a soft spot for kids, and looking at him drained all the anger I felt toward his mother out of me. I couldn’t throw a little kid out into a blizzard. I looked up at the rest of the people in the room, and it seemed like all of them were families with small children.

  “Are all of you here from Mountainside?” I asked, and everyone nodded in response. Well, that explained the sudden, unusual influx of people. This was a problem then because she was right about my place being the only stop for miles. Most people who came to visit North Pole either stayed in the town itself or in the nearby city of Fairbanks. There was no way there’d be any vacancies anywhere this close to Christmas, and it would take at least a couple of hours to get to the next town over. And while normally that wouldn’t be too bad, trying to drive the distance in such a heavy blizzard was insanely dangerous. I couldn’t turn all these people away, but the main building only had ten rooms.

  “How many of you have already booked a room here with Patrick?” I asked. Several families raised their hands. I did a quick headcount and determined that this left five families. I could work with this. “Okay, if Patrick already booked you a room, I’m not going to take it back. You can head down as soon as Patrick makes you a key.” The rest of the group met my announcement with a mixture of cheers and protests.

  “But what about the rest of us?” I heard someone yell.

  “Well, calm down, and I’ll get to it,” I said, causing the crowd to fall silent again. “I’m not kicking anyone out. Even though some of you probably deserve it. I’m not gonna throw a bunch of little kids out in the cold the day before Christmas Eve, no matter how annoying their parents are. There are some cabins out by the lake about a ten-minute walk from here. It’s a bit of a trek, and most of them haven’t been used in years, so I can tell you now they’re probably going to be a bit dusty. But they’ll keep out the snow, and they should be just fine for a night. They don’t have air conditioning, but they do have a fireplace, and I can have them all set up with firewood here shortly.” I turned to Patrick.

  “Patrick, I’ll give you a one-thousand-dollar bonus if you go out and haul a load of firewood down to each of those cabins,” I said, hoping it would be enough to convince him to lug heavy wooden logs through a blizzard.

  “Of course, yeah, no problem,” Patrick said immediately.

  “Alright then,” I said, turning back toward the crowd. “While Patrick here gets that sorted out, those of you who have a room can head on over there, although I’ll warn you that those are probably gonna be pretty dusty too. We don’t get a lot of guests, and most of those rooms go unused pretty much indefinitely. As for those of you getting a cabin, feel free to hang out in the restaurant while you wait. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s warm. I’ll go back and make some coffee and hot chocolate for the kids.” I left with that, walking through the small door entryway that led from the lobby into the restaurant. I could hear murmurs behind me as a few people followed me into the restaurant while others stayed in the lobby to collect their keys from Patrick.

  The coffee and hot chocolate we had in stock were just powder mixes that were cheap and kept for a long time, but they were better than nothing when you were out in the middle of nowhere. When I came back into the dining room, I found that a lot of the families had set up camp at different tables while the kids ran around and played. I smiled fondly. Kids acting up or being messy had never bothered me. Truthfully, it was adults that tended to get on my nerves, so I didn’t mind the kids running around. It must be upsetting having your trip to visit Santa ruined, after all.

  I set down the two trays of coffee and hot chocolate on the table closest to the kitchen and then moved away to sit down at the other end of the room while the families started to help themselves.

  “How did you get that boo-boo on your face?” I heard a small voice ask, and I looked down to see a tiny girl peering up at me. She had tightly curled brown hair, and she was clutching a bright orange stuffed animal. She reminded me of my adoptive niece, Amber, when she was still small.

  “What, this?” I asked, running my hand along the thin scar that ran from right beneath my eye down to my chin. “I got it a long time ago. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I think maybe that story is too scary for you,” I said, recalling how I’d received the scar during my second year as a federal agent. It really was a story too scary to tell such a small child.

  “I’m sorry,” a young man said as he approached the table I was sitting at. “She’s not bothering you, is she?” He had the same dark curly hair she did, and I assumed that he must be her father, or maybe her older brother. He seemed pretty young.

  “Not at all,” I said. “She’s just curious.”

  “I asked him how he got that boo-boo,” the girl said, pointing at the scar on my face. “But he said he couldn’t tell me ‘cause it was too scary.”

  “Olivia, you don’t point at people,” the man said. “I’m so sorry. She just turned three, and all of a sudden, it’s non-stop questions.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said honestly. Amber used to be the same way, always saying whatever popped into her head.

  “I’m Mark. Oh, and thank you so much, by the way,” the man said, taking a seat at the table and pulling the girl onto his lap. “For arranging for us to be able to stay here, I mean. And for the hot chocolate. We woke up this morning, and all our stuff was soaked. By the time we got here, all the rooms were gone, and I really didn’t know what we would do with that storm outside.” As if on cue, the windows rattled as the wind blew harshly outside.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “It’s an interesting change of pace. We almost never have guests, and those cabins only ever get used in the summer by hikers. It’s been a while since I had any kind of adventure.”

  “You used to go on adventures?” Olivia asked, her eyes wide. “Like an explorer?”

  “Kind of,” I answered with a chuckle. “I was a federal agent when I was younger. Do you know what that is?”

  “Like a secret spy?” Olivia asked excitedly.

  “Actually, not that far off,” I said.

  “Is that how you got the boo-boo?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it is. But like I said, I think that story is too scary for you,” I said as I noticed for the first time that the toy she was clutching was a stuffed tiger. “Although I might have a different one that I can tell you. A not so scary one that involves panthers and lions and tigers, just like the one you have there. If your daddy doesn’t mind, that is.”

  “Really? Daddy, can we hear the story? Please, please, please?” Olivia was practically bouncing with excitement as she turned to ask the man.

  “Oh, well, I don’t want to take up your time or anything,” the man said.

  “I have more time than I know what to do with,” I answered. “I have Patrick out doing the manual labor, so it’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” the man said with a smile. “Better than putting her in front of the tablet while we wait. If it’s not too scary, of course.”

  “I’ll tell the kid-friendly version,”
I said. “Well, let’s see. It was my first ever case as a federal agent…”

  1

  David Baxter had grown up on stories of cops and robbers. As a kid, it was just him and his mom, so his adult male role models were the crime-fighting detectives and police officers he would watch on tv after school on the one cable network they used to get. They were the ones who stopped the bad guys and saved the day and sometimes even got the girl. So it wasn’t a surprise when he enrolled in the academy as soon as he turned twenty-one, and it wasn’t a surprise when he graduated at the top of his class. Since he’d been a young boy, he’d made it his personal goal in life to become the most upstanding, reliable, and friendly cop in all of Las Vegas, and he certainly looked poised to accomplish that goal.

  When David woke up on Monday morning of his third week as a real, full-fledged Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer, he just knew it was going to be a great day. His hair was cooperating, his uniform was neat, pressed, and perfectly in place, and he’d even woken up early enough to walk to work through the nice park that had all the cool art sculptures in it.

  It was during this walk through the park that David came upon a food truck which he smelled before he saw, the scent of sugar and warm dough drawing him close. It wasn’t the variety of doughnuts and cookies painted along the side of the truck that ultimately caught his attention, though, but rather the pretty young woman shouting through the ordering window.