Run to Ground by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page B

left Santa Rosa, he would have to ditch his sideline, and he wasn't one to kick a gift horse in the teeth. All things considered, he would have to say that Santa Rosa met his needs precisely.
    If there was anything resembling a sore spot, it was Becky Kent. The more he thought about her recently, the more she got beneath his skin. Not that it seemed to do him any good at all. She had gone out with him a couple of times — to Ajo, for a movie, and to Tucson, for a decent sit-down dinner — but she never let him get out of the batter's box, forget about first base. When he had tried to make a move on their second date, she froze and shied away from him as if he hadn't bathed in a month. There was something in her eyes akin to terror that had stopped him in his tracks and made him stutter an apology before he shook her hand goodnight.
    He wondered, more and more, just what could have made her act like that. He wasn't Sly Stallone, by any means — the mirror didn't lie — but then again he wasn't Quasimodo, either. Something must have happened in Becky's past that put her off men or sex, and the mystery was eating at him, keeping him awake at night. At first he thought it might have been a sour love affair while she was at college, but the pieces didn't fit. It hurt when someone dumped you, but Vickers had never seen a woman gasp and cringe the way Becky had, not just from being jilted by some prick. It was as if she had been hurt somehow, and not emotionally, either, but he didn't have the nerve to ask.
    Not yet.
    In time, perhaps, when they had spent a bit more time together, it would seem more natural for him to ask about her past. He knew she was a local girl who went away to med school in Los Angeles and wowed them with her smarts. She'd done some time at one of those big hospitals, more nurses on the staff than there were people in the whole of Santa Rosa, but it hadn't lasted. Vickers wondered if there might be some connection, linking Becky's job with her uneasiness toward men. It didn't seem to make much sense, but you could never tell.
    If the vehicle had been passing through a couple hours later, he might have overlooked it. There was more traffic as the day wore on, but at the moment Vickers was all alone... until the dark sedan turned out in front of him, emerging from a narrow side street, and the driver swung around in his direction. In a single glance, he made the plates — from Mexico. The driver slowed a little as he came abreast of Vickers's squad car, smiling at him like a hungry weasel, nodding as though they ought to be the best of friends from way back. Vickers gave the man the evil eye but did not turn around to follow them or pull them over. They were cruising well below the limit, and he did not want to start his day by hassling nationals.
    Grant Vickers did not know the driver or his passengers, but he could place the type. They came across the border on occasion, passing through, cold men in hot machines who rarely stopped in Santa Rosa, moving on toward other destinations in the north. Sometimes they passed the other way, toward Mexico, and he was never sad to see them go.
    He did not know the strangers, but he had a fair idea of who they worked for, yes indeed. Thus far, their business interests had not clashed with his, and he would like to see things stay that way. He liked the hometown nice and peaceful, where the women and their kids were free to walk the streets. He wouldn't want it to become a shooting gallery, a modern Tombstone with himself in the unlikely role of Wyatt Earp.
    Grant Vickers was a lawman who had come to terms with his limitations. He was not a hero, not an athlete, and he certainly would never pass for Sherlock Holmes. He had the common sense to recognize a lethal situation when he saw one, and whenever one confronted him, he had the brains to back away. If he could turn a dollar on the side, for doing what came naturally anyway, well, that was icing on the goddamned