Free Catch Her If You Can by Merline Lovelace Page A

What’s your name again?”
    “Nowatny. Jim Nowatny.”
    “I bet Jim here could help you cut through the red tape.”
    I had a momentary vision of Fox Face descending on poor, unsuspecting Dr. J. Shuddering, I keyed my front door.
    “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll work this out myself.”
    I shut the door firmly in Nowatny’s face. Fished my cell phone out of my purse. Started counting. “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand . . .”
    “What are you doing?” Charlie asked curiously.
    “Seeing how long it takes the ambulance chaser outside to get Don to call me.”
    I resumed counting and got all the way to seventeen seconds before “The Eyes of Texas” belted out. Charlie broke out in a grin at the irreverent first stanza. Halfway through the second, he got impatient.
    “Aren’t you going to answer it?”
    “Nope.”
    I let the call go to voice mail and put the phone to my ear. My mouth twisting sardonically, I listened to Don’s attempt to come on all big-brotherly.
    “You need to protect your interests, Sam. Make sure those other guys don’t stiff you out of your share of the reward. Talk to Nowatny. Let him work this for you.”
    “No way in hell,” I muttered.
     
    THE voice mails piled up after that. Lawyer Nowatny. Don again. My mother. My cousin Deb, who’d evidently used Fox Face’s legal expertise to resolve the little matter of a false worker’s comp claim. Cub Reporter DeWayne, hoping to follow up on his big news break. My uncle Alex, who I hadn’t heard from in ten years but wanted to congratulate me on hitting the jackpot, and oh, by the way, could I float him a small loan to cover the cost of the backyard in-ground pool his kids were hassling him about? The aboveground just wasn’t hacking it anymore.
    I got so tired of it all that I didn’t bother to check caller ID when the phone rang late that afternoon. But the first chord’s of Mitch’s special ringtone had me grabbing for the instrument.
    “What’s the word on Jenny?” I asked anxiously.
    “I found her.”
    I didn’t ask how he’d accomplished that so quickly. As I’ve learned from my encounters with law enforcement types, they have access to sources not available to ordinary mortals. They also tend to close ranks. I’ve seen the steel jaws snap shut more than once, leaving me on the outside looking in. Mitch is better than most of his ilk. He’ll tell me what he can, when he can. I didn’t need to hear the nuts and bolts right now, though. Just knowing his daughter was safe relieved the worst of my fears.
    His, too. I could hear it in his voice—along with a fair amount of exasperation. “She didn’t want to go home. Says her mother just doesn’t get it. “
    “Think the two of them can work things out?”
    “They have to. I promised to stay another couple of days and referee. I want the time with Jenny, but negotiating with Margo is going to max out my fun meter,” he admitted wryly. “Twenty minutes with her and I was biting my tongue so hard I tasted blood.”
    That relieved a lesser worry. I hadn’t really expected sparks to reignite when he connected with his ex again, but you never now about these things.
    “Speaking of having to bite your tongue . . .”
    My glance went to the shimmering turquoise pool visible through the sliding glass doors. My ex lay stretched out on a lounger, shirtless, balancing a beer bottle on his navel while he scarfed down the pizza he’d cajoled me into ordering. The jerk was soaking up rays as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
    “Charlie’s truck died on his way out of town,” I told Mitch. “He’s here, mooching off me until they fly in a part from Indonesia or somewhere.”
    “Uh-oh.”
    “Uh-oh is right. If he mentions Brenda’s boob reduction one more time, he might not make it back to Vegas with all his working parts.”
    “We’ll trade horror stories when I get home.”
    The smile in Mitch’s voice told me he wasn’t worried about