Bonaparte's Belle: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 24), Dale Mayer [read an ebook week .TXT] 📗

evidence. She stopped and frowned. “Unless you want to go to Denver?” she said. “We can do the trip in and out, and I can drop this off at the main station there, where the ballistics staff can handle it.”

He immediately nodded. “That would be best,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll be waiting even longer, right?”

She nodded and made a quick call, checking on her truck to find out it wouldn’t be ready for another twenty-four hours. Frowning, she decided to leave that issue alone for now. “Yes, and dealing with all the shipping hassles,” she said, “sometimes, if it’s important, I do drive them in.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

She nodded, quickly locked up, and, with both the weapon packed up in a case and the bullet in an evidence bag, they drove into Denver. On the way there, she asked him several questions about his family, his kids, and what he wanted to do with his life.

At that, he just laughed and said he was doing it. “I see my kids in the summer, and I work for Levi when I’m not with my kids.”

“Does he just give you time off?”

“That’s my agreement,” he said, “my time with my kids is time off from Levi.”

“As long as you can afford it,” she said, looking at him sideways.

He shrugged. “I’ll make it work,” he said. “The kids are important.”

She liked that about him. By the time they hit the station in Denver, and she had delivered both the weapon and the bullet and then documented the details in a report, they hopped back in.

“Do you want to grab some lunch while we’re here?” he asked.

“We can,” she said. “A nice burger place is up ahead.”

“We can do that,” he said. “I also wanted to pull some records from City Hall.”

“It’s Saturday,” she said, with a shake of her head. “You won’t get very far.” He frowned at her, and she frowned right back. “It doesn’t matter what you want to do. It’s still a government site, and nobody will be interested in opening up for you on the weekend.”

He groaned. “Fine, I’ll have Levi get it for me.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Recent transfers of property in your county, past and current owners, land use restrictions, mortgage holders, mechanics liens, that kind of thing.”

“Get Levi to do as much as you can while he’s at it,” she said, “since they have connections that we don’t.”

“Isn’t that interesting?”

“It really is.”

“You know what?” he said. “While we’re here, we might want to look at a few other things in town.”

“Like?”

“Well, I’m not sure how you are for firepower.”

“Meaning weapons?” she asked. “I’ve got a .22 and my police issue.”

“Right,” he said. “I also arranged with Levi to pick up a couple weapons somewhere else.”

“What do you mean by somewhere else?”

He looked at her sideways. “At a friend’s place.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “Right, a friend.”

He laughed and said, “How about we do a stop-off, and I pick them up?”

“Sure. I thought you had a handgun with you.”

“Well, I brought one here, yes,” he said. “But we could always use a little more.”

She just shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.

He drove to a small shop and walked in to find one of Levi’s friends, who looked up at him, smiled, and said, “You must be Bonaparte.”

She looked over at him and asked, “Does everybody know you?”

“Hell no,” he said, “but, in this case, it’s a good thing.” He introduced the two of them and said, “Richard, this is Sheriff Angela Zimmerman.” They shook hands, and he continued, “Levi said that you had something here for me.”

Richard nodded and picked up a weapons case, sitting off to the side, and said, “This one’s for you.” Bonaparte opened it up, looked at it, and whistled. “Oh, this will do perfectly. How much do I owe you?”

“Levi’s already taken care of it.”

“Nice to have friends like Levi,” she said, with a smile.

“Don’t forget. This is still a job for him. He supplies everything.”

“I get that,” she said. “It’s just irritating in a way.”

“Don’t let it irritate you,” he said. “That’s what friends are for. Sometimes we need everything our friends can offer.”

“Well, right now I certainly do,” she murmured. She watched as Richard added ammo to the case and packed up the weapon. She faced Bonaparte and said, “But we don’t have a license for it.”

Bonaparte looked to Richard, who immediately pulled out the paperwork and a side holster for the weapon and handed it to him.

She looked at it in surprise, then at him and asked, “How did you get that?”

“Legally,” Bonaparte said. “We travel all the time with weapons. If I had driven here, I would have brought more than I could have flying.”

She nodded slowly and said, “I don’t need to think about it, do I?”

“I’m here with all the paperwork in hand.” He signed for their receipt, and then they left again.

She looked at him sideways. “Does Levi really have ways to do all this?”

He looked at her in surprise and then nodded. “In every state in the country and in most of the countries in the world. Obviously not all because we haven’t been to every one at this point in time.” He tilted his head in consideration. “You know what? That would be an interesting question to ask him, whether we’ve completed jobs in every country or not.”

“I guess,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize just how global they’ve become.”

“Very,” he said, then smiled at her. “Have you had any interest in traveling?”

“Not a whole lot,” she admitted. “I’m pretty much a homebody.”

“Not a problem being a homebody, but sometimes people like to actually get out and leave so that they enjoy coming back.”

She burst out laughing. “That’s an odd reason to travel.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think a lot of people travel like that. They just don’t think about it that way. They all have to get away, but, as soon as they do, all they want to do is get