Free Secure Location by Beverly Long

ran his finger across a line. “He arrived at nine-thirty and left here at ten-ten.”
    With travel time, that would have given him very little time to get to Meg’s car. Impossible? No. But not likely if Tracy’s memory was correct.
    “Thank you,” he said. He returned to his car and immediately opened the file for the employees who had been terminated by the hotel within the past year. He plugged the first address into his GPS.
    He found Mason Hawkins at home. The neighborhood was middle-class, with small ranch-style homes. None of them had garages and most had cars parked in the driveway or in front, along the street.
    There were no vehicles in Hawkins’s driveway. An old white van, with its front tires beached on the curb, sat in front, halfway between Hawkins’s house and the neighbor’s.
    Cruz knocked on the wooden door and waited a full minute before it slowly swung open. Hawkins wore boxer shorts, black socks and a cardigan sweater that zipped up the front. His hair was dirty and he was holding an open bag of potato chips.
    Cruz noted it all but he wasn’t overly interested in the trappings. A man could change his wardrobe, alter his appearance and even take on a different persona. He couldn’t change his physical size as easily. And Hawkins was close enough to five-ten, one-sixty, that Cruz stayed interested. He took stock of Hawkins’s thigh muscles and saw that they didn’t scream slacker in the same way his outfit did.
    “Yes?” Hawkins said.
    “I’m Cruz Montoya.” The man showed no reaction to Cruz’s name. That didn’t sway Cruz one way or the other. If Hawkins was behind last night’s push, he probably knew that Meg’s ex-husband was in town and he’d had plenty of time to prepare for a visit from him or the cops.
    “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying,” Hawkins said and tried to swing the door shut.
    Cruz put his foot out, stopping the momentum. “You used to work at the BJM Hotel.”
    The man glared at him. “I can’t imagine what business that is of yours,” he said. Hawkins was trying for tough but it wasn’t working. He’d flinched when Cruz had said the hotel’s name.
    Cruz leaned forward, getting in Hawkins’s face. He wasn’t conducting an investigation. He didn’t need to hold his cards close. Myers would kick his ass if he found out about the visit. The detective’s primary motivation would be to gather enough evidence to prosecute someone for the crimes that had been committed; Cruz’s interest was more personal—he simply wanted it to stop before it got more violent and Meg got hurt.
    “Oh, it’s definitely my business,” he said, his voice low. “I care about Meg Montoya. And if I was to find out that you had any intent of causing her even a minute of distress, I would be pissed off. Got that? Really pissed off. Then I become your worst nightmare.”
    Hawkins’s hand, the one holding the potato chip bag, was shaking. The plastic crinkled. “I gave BJM eight years of my life. They paid me lousy and wasted my talent. I’ve got a master’s degree in accounting and I was paying monthly invoices and processing payroll. A high school graduate could have done it. They owed me.”
    “Not my issue,” Cruz said. “Meg Montoya is my concern.”
    “I’ve got nothing against her. Her boss, that’s another story. He’s a jerk. Said he was doing me a favor by not pressing charges. I’m about to lose my house and I can’t find another job, not without a reference from the place I worked for eight years. I might be better off in jail.”
    “Guys like you don’t do well in jail. You’re dessert after a big meal.” Cruz could tell that Hawkins got the drift by the look in the man’s eyes. He figured it wasn’t the first time he’d reflected upon what his life might be like in prison. That was undoubtedly why he was writing monthly checks to BJM.
    Cruz leaned forward. “If I find out that you’re lying to me, I’m going to come back here and