Hunted - Softcover

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Karen Robards is the New York Times, USA TODAY, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than fifty books and one novella. Karen published her first novel at age twenty-four and has won multiple awards throughout her career, including six Silver Pens for favorite author. Karen was described by The Daily Mail as “one of the most reliable thriller...writers in the world.” She is the mother of three boys and lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Hunted

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS THE KIDS that got to him. Every damned time.

Even now that Social Services had taken the little girl away, New Orleans PD homicide detective Reed Ware couldn’t get the crumpled, tear-stained face of the mop-haired five-year-old who had just watched her mama get shot to death out of his mind.

He needed a drink. Several drinks. Hell, a whole bottle of Jack Daniel’s, hold the glass.

For a moment, he craved the smoky smoothness of whiskey on his tongue. Then he reminded himself that he didn’t drink anymore.

And refused to allow himself to remember the reason why.

Do not go there.

It was just after 3 a.m. on December 23. Two full days to go before Christmas, and the seasonal crime wave was in full swing. Something about the holidays—the pressure of dealing with family, the loneliness of those without family or whose families were broken, the expectations, the disappointments, and in New Orleans especially, the booze and drugs—added up to a measurable uptick in the number of murders and violent crimes as people looked forward (or not) to the arrival of good old St. Nick.

Peace and goodwill toward all, anybody?

The cracked brick sidewalk Reed was standing on was shrouded in shadows that were kept from being dangerously dark only by the gassy yellow streetlights that dotted the French Quarter. Despite the lateness of the hour, even this out-of-the-way area near Canal Street was not quite deserted. A couple of onlookers huddled together across the street, faceless in the dark as they watched the comings and goings of the investigation. A few more people slunk along the sidewalks, oblivious or uncaring. Somewhere not too far away, he could hear a street musician on a violin playing what sounded like “O Holy Night.”

The irony of it didn’t escape him.

He was just coming off his shift, which had run way longer than expected because he had been, what else, investigating a homicide—the homicide of that little girl’s mother to be precise. It was horrible. And it was the job. The job that paid for the dinged-up six-year-old Ford Explorer—his personal vehicle—waiting for him at the curb and the dinged-up two-bedroom cottage with the dinged-up microwave dinner in the freezer waiting for him a dozen blocks away in Bywater.

He hadn’t chosen to become a cop for the salary. Or the perks. Or the hours. Or the, well, anything. Except once, a long time ago, a cop was all he had ever wanted to be.

Look at him now: thirty-five years old, no family, precious few friends, not even a cat to go home to. Living the dream, he thought wryly.

Laissez les bons temps rouler. Let the good times roll.

“Merry Christmas, huh?” That weary remark came from his new partner, Bob Terry, as he caught up to Reed in front of the run-down apartment building where the murder scene was still being processed. Terry had actually been his partner for a little over a year now, but Reed called him his new partner to differentiate Terry from his old partner, Elliot DeBlassis, who’d moved to Boston at the insistence of his new wife, Helena, who was from there. She had gotten sick of the heat and humidity that were as much a part of the city as gumbo and jazz—along with, of course, the crime and the gangs and the never-ending violence and threat of danger to her husband that was part of being a cop in New Orleans.

She’s the smart one, was what Reed had told DeBlassis at the time. Parting from his longtime partner and closest friend would have been hard, except by then he’d become so emotionally numb that nothing had really bothered him anymore.

“Yeah,” he replied to Terry. Terry was thirty-three, about Reed’s own height of six two, husky and blond where Reed was lean and dark, and at the moment packing an extra twenty pounds or so from sympathy eating while his wife, Mia, had been pregnant. The infant was three months old now, and Terry was looking haggard from lack of sleep. “You go on home. I’ll do the paperwork.”

That was the thing about crime: it always came with paperwork. Reams of it.

Terry was a good guy. He even hesitated a minute. “You sure?”

Reed waved him away. “Tell Mia she owes me one.”

“Will do. Thanks.” Terry took off down the line of police vehicles that had parked alongside the curb toward his own seen-better-days Honda Accord.

Reed watched Terry leave, then got in the Explorer and headed toward the Eighth District Station House. People moved along the sidewalks in ones and twos, little more than black shapes in the darkness, most of them holding the plastic cups in which they were allowed to carry alcoholic beverages on the streets as they flitted from bar to bar. The bars had no closing time, and the people who frequented them all had about the same amount of restraint, or lack thereof, which led to a lot of booze-related crime. The Christmas decorations were up, twinkly festoons of greenery hanging from the wrought iron balconies, wreaths on the doors of every other shop, red bows on every other post. Like the Quarter itself, the decorations looked slightly seedy, shabby, raffish. So late at night, the atmosphere was straight out of Dickens. Or Interview with the Vampire.

He was just turning onto Royal Street when his cell phone rang.

A glance at the name on his screen made him frown. Elizabeth Townes? He didn’t know anybody by that name, as far as he could remember.

Suspicion narrowed his eyes. Only a very few people had his personal cell phone number.

“Ware,” he answered.

“Hey, Dick, you want to see what I’m talking about, you get yourself over to Grandma’s House and come on down that alley back there.” Even if the dick hadn’t been a dead giveaway—it was a smart-ass way of shortening detective—Reed would have recognized the voice instantly, despite its current barely audible whisper. It belonged to Hollis Bayard. Holly was an eighteen-year-old street tough whose rap sheet ranged from theft (stealing things like cell phones from unsuspecting tourists), to underage drinking, to marijuana possession, to assault on a police officer. All of which, fortunately for him, occurred before he had turned eighteen two months before. Since the magic birthday that had made him a legal adult, he’d managed to avoid being picked up. Reed had zero confidence that Holly’s luck would last. “Shit’s popping right now.”

The whisper was the giveaway: Holly was close to whatever was going down. If he knew Holly, he was too damned close.

Reed felt his gut clench. For whatever unfathomable reason, he felt a small amount of responsibility toward the kid. The Quarter was one of those places where minding your own business was prized. You didn’t, you could get yourself killed.

Lately, minding his own business wasn’t Holly’s strong point.

Grandma’s House was slang for the headquarters of the 110ers gang, a murderous bunch of drug and gun traffickers that even the cops were afraid of. If Holly got in their way, he’d be floating facedown in the muddy brown waters of the Mississippi before morning.

“You haul ass out of there,” Reed ordered. He was already hanging a hard left and putting the pedal to the metal. Luckily, at this time of night, vehicular traffic in the Quarter was almost nil. “You hear me? Whatever it is, I’ll...