Free Cowboy Undercover by Alice Sharpe Page A

it.”
    “Where do you work now?”
    Chance emphasized an impatient sigh. “I was a bouncer at a strip club until I blew town to find Lily. How is this getting me any closer to that goal and why the third degree?”
    “You a good shot?”
    “Give me a gun and a knothole a hundred yards away and I’ll show you.”
    Block poured two small glasses of amber liquor out of a crystal decanter he kept on the desk and handed one to Chance. “Cheers,” he said, hoisting his glass to his lips. Chance did the same and downed it in one gulp, trying to get a handle on where Block was coming from. He sure didn’t act like a guy whose kid had been taken.
    Block sat behind his desk and motioned for Chance to take a seat opposite him. “If I know Lily, and I do, she’s trying to get our son back.”
    “Charlie?”
    “You know the boy?”
    “Sure, I saw him around now and again. Lily didn’t encourage us to be friendly if you know what I mean.” He grinned and added, “Maybe she thought I’d be a bad influence. Who is she trying to get him back from? You?”
    “No. I had him for a day or two but then someone stole him away in the night.”
    “So that’s why she left Reno? Because someone took Charlie from her?”
    “Yes. Me.”
    Chance looked around again. “The kid will be better off here than in that dump in Reno.”
    “Of course he will. But a third party decided they wanted to hurt me so they took Charlie.”
    Chance shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why isn’t this place swarming with cops? What kind of ransom do they want?”
    “No ransom demand has been made and I didn’t call the police. I don’t want them involved. Too dangerous. What I want to do is steal him back.”
    “Then go do it. If he were my kid I wouldn’t be sitting here yapping about it.”
    Block’s lip curled in anger but he quickly covered it with a self-deprecating smile. “I can’t. If I show up, who knows what they’ll do to the boy. I need someone else to take care of it. Maybe someone like you.”
    “Me?” Chance scoffed. “Ha.” He paused as though thinking and added. “If they don’t want money for the kid, then why did they take him?”
    “I have no idea,” Block said.
Like hell you don’t,
Chance thought. “The only thing I have to go on is a note they left. That’s why I’m pretty sure where he is.”
    “And where’s the note?”
    “Lily took it with her when she left,” he said. No trace of the lie he’d just told surfaced in his eyes. “But like I said, she’ll charge in and mess up everything.”
    “A specialty of hers,” Chance said. “But I still don’t see how any of this gets me closer to my money.”
    “I’m going to be honest with you,” Block said. “I need help. I need someone I can trust—”
    Chance shot to his feet and laughed. “Trust? Hell, you don’t even know me.”
    “Sit down, Pete, please. I’m an excellent judge of character.”
    Chance grabbed his glass and gestured at the decanter. The glass he could break before he left, but he didn’t want his prints on the liquor bottle. Block took the hint and poured him a shot that Chance knocked back as he reclaimed the chair. “You want me to go get him, is that it?”
    “Yes.”
    Chance stared at Block, who didn’t flinch. After a long pause, he shook his head again. “Excuse me, but looking around it’s hard not to notice you must be loaded. Hell, hire yourself a private detective.”
    “Listen to me, Pete, it isn’t that simple. These aren’t ordinary people. It’s going to take someone with finesse and cunning and you strike me as a man with both those qualities.”
    “Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” Chance said. “Use one of your own people.”
    “I had to fire the only man I would trust with a job like this.”
    “Why’d you fire him?”
    “He failed to protect my son and I do not tolerate failure. Listen, just come up with a convincing story, fit in for a few days and then when the time is right, do