Bait the devil, p.1
Bait the Devil, page 1
Bait the Devil
A Bounty of Shadows Series
Winter Austin
Bait the Devil
Copyright© 2026 Winter Austin
EPUB Edition
The Tule Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Publication by Tule Publishing 2026
Cover design by ebooklaunch
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AI was not used to create any part of this book and no part of this book may be used for generative training.
ISBN: 978-1-969218-65-1
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Dedication
Family. Because it truly is an important aspect to our lives.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Acknowledgments
A Bounty of Shadows Series
More Books by Winter Austin
About the Author
“The line between good and evil ain’t always as clear as we’d like it to be.”
Pat Garrett
Chapter One
“He’s coming out the back!”
Dorothy Ybarra bolted toward the rear door from her position next to the dilapidated fence. The hot day stuck to her skin and made her Kevlar vest chafe in all the wrong places. She wasn’t going to let it stop her from catching this bastard.
The ancient door flew open, crashed against the side of the run-down home, and swung back in a crazy wobble to smack the three-hundred-plus bail jumper trying to escape. He took a stunned step forward and then toppled down the three steps.
Dot pounced.
“Stay down!” she yelled, grappling for his arms.
With an animalistic roar, he lumbered to his feet.
Off guard, Dot clung to him, managing to wrap her arms around his twenty-inch neck in an effort to keep from sliding off.
“Freddy, you need to sit the fuck down,” she yelled in his ear.
Giving another roar, he ran, Dot bouncing against his backside as she hung on. For a man mostly built on cases of soda and boxes of Doritos, he could move. Not wanting to return to jail could be a powerful motivator. He used that weight to his advantage to steamroll the rotted fence, crashing through it and raining shards of wood and boards on them. Still, he lumbered on.
Come hell or high water, Dot would land this bond.
As he barreled through the tangled mess of weeds and shrubs, wheezing with each stride he took in the oppressive heat, Dot managed to get her boots under her and planted them into the creases that were Freddy’s hips. Without releasing her hold on his neck, she slowly eased up and back, tightening her arm around his throat.
“Freddy, I’m warning you. Stop now, or I’ll put you down.”
“Bitch!” Spittle flew into Dot’s face.
“That’s it!” She yanked back, her crooked elbow clinching down on each side of Freddy’s thick neck.
Dot leaned as far back as she could without falling off. Her actions jerked Freddy to a halt. He reached up and clawed at her arm. Dot coiled her hands and locked them together. Freddy wheeled around and whipped about, trying to dislodge Dot. His movements grew sluggish.
“Give up, Freddy.”
A garbled response blew from his lips. He dropped to one knee, still grappling to remove Dot’s arms out of the sleeper hold. Dot could see his face turning a bright red and deepen to purple. She sensed it when he finally passed out.
She wasn’t fast enough to let him out of the sleeper hold and catch him before he toppled forward and landed face-first into the hot earth. Dot scrambled up off him, then checked for a pulse. It was beating away fast and strong.
She stood, bent over, staring down at him and panting. “Damn it, Freddy.”
Her partner—huffing and puffing—caught up to them. She peered through her angled elbow. T.J. Roman, drenched in sweat and sounding like a smoker with emphysema, slowed next to her.
“What the fuck,” he wheezed.
“Would you cuff this motherfucker before he comes to.” Dot backhanded sweat from her forehead.
T.J. dragged out two sets of cuffs and double-cuffed Freddy’s hands behind his back, after he turned the man’s head to the side so he’d stop breathing dirt.
Dot and then T.J. sank to the ground and sat there waiting for Freddy to wake from his little nap.
Dot twisted around to look in the direction they had come from, cringing at the destruction Freddy had caused in his attempted escape. “Holy shit,” she muttered when she noticed how far he’d managed to get with her on his back.
“He’s jacked up on coke,” T.J. said in passing.
It was the only reason he was able to avoid T.J. and carry Dot this far. She was by no means a small woman either, standing right at six feet and weighing a solid 210 pounds with all her gear on.
She glanced around. There was no good way to get the SUV over here to load up Freddy. They were going to have to walk him back to the house where he’d been squatting to avoid them and the cops for months. God, she hoped the bastard didn’t end up having a heart attack on them. If they had to call in an ambulance, they’d lose this bond, and the cops would have custody of Freddy.
“Once he’s in county lockup, we’re done for the day,” T.J. snarled.
“Fine by me,” Dot said and flopped back on the dirt. “Don’t let him die.”
*
Two hours later, they had managed to corral the quickly sobering Freddy into the back of the Suburban, with no more eventful chases, and turn him over to the county jail. Freddy’s bail bondsman paid out their fair share of the bond and a huge tip after some hard pressing on T.J.’s part about the circumstances leading up to Freddy’s apprehension. Once the check was cashed, a celebratory late lunch at one of the best Basque eateries Dot had found in Boise was the best way to top off a successful day of bounty hunting.
Parked behind the Bar Gernika, she and T.J. sat in the back end of the Chevy Suburban with the hatch up eating chorizo sandwiches with smoked cod croquetas and a bowl of green olives dripping in garlic olive oil. Dot slurped down half of her Coke, then shook the ice in her cup.
T.J. pointed the remains of his smoked beef chorizo at her. “We should register for the SHOT show in Vegas.”
“Why?”
“Because we can.” T.J. pulled his duh face.
Dot rolled her eyes and bit into her sandwich.
“Have you ever been there?” T.J. asked.
She shook her head, wiping smokey chorizo juice from the corner of her mouth.
“The woman raised to be a hunter and a firearms collector has never been to the great SHOT show?” He lowered his reflective sunglasses and eyed her over the top of the rims. “Never?”
“You do realize my family wasn’t made of money.” Dot popped one of the croquetas into her mouth. “And that’s in the dead of winter, when we couldn’t just up and run off while we were in the middle of lambing season.”
“All the more reason you should go now.” T.J. grinned. “A lot of the best bounty hunters meet up there.”
Dot scowled at her partner and sometimes bunk buddy. “Lemme guess. You wanna show off your shiny new partner to the boys?”
“Maybe.” His grin turned devilish. “Or maybe I wanna see you kick their asses.”
Dot wadded up the sandwich wrapper and chucked it at T.J.’s head. “I’m not a toy.”
The crumbled ball of waxed paper bounced off his forehead and landed on the Suburban floor between them.
“Really? Then why are
“You sonofa—” Dot lunged for his throat but was quickly subdued.
Their moment of levity was interrupted by a shrill ring from T.J.’s phone.
“Damn it,” he snapped and patted down his body in search for his cell.
Dot found it lying on the makeshift floor behind his hulking frame. She snatched it up and checked the screen. She batted her eyelashes at T.J.
“Don’t you dare,” he snarled.
She pressed the green icon to answer the call. “Well, hello, cousin dearest.”
Lawyer-extraordinaire and covert purveyor of information, Vivian Montgomery was Dot’s second cousin. And apparently had earned a spot on T.J.’s contact list under the moniker of Hot Ass Lawyer.
“Dot? When did you start taking business calls?” Vivian asked, her brisk tone underscored by the sound of her heavy breathing.
“What are you doing?” Dot asked. “You sound like you’re saving the horse and riding a cowboy.”
“Oh, grow up. I’m on a treadmill. Put T.J. on the phone.”
“You shouldn’t run on those things. They destroy your knees and back,” Dot chided.
“When I want health advice from a cigar smoker who jumps from helicopters for fun, I’ll call.”
“I don’t jump from the helo. Unless it’s crashing. Even then, that’s sketchy shit.”
T.J., giving a rumbling growl, jerked the phone from Dot, and pressed it to his ear. “Vivian, what do you need?” He waited a moment, then with another low growl, pulled the phone from his ear and put it on speaker. “You’re on speaker.”
“I need a huge favor from the two of you.”
“When you say huge favor, how huge are we talking?” Dot asked.
“You know, I think I liked you better when you were a brooding, isolated eremite whose main goal in life was equal parts trying to piss off her mother and keep her out of trouble,” Vivian shot back.
“Love you too, coz.”
“Now shut up and let me finish.” The whining sound of the treadmill belt slowing echoed over the phone connection. “I just got a call from one of my colleagues. She had a client fail to appear today.”
“Shouldn’t the defendant’s bail bondsman be calling us?” T.J. asked.
“It’s … complicated.”
Dot smiled as T.J. groaned.
“Vivian, every time you rope us into one of your firm’s problems with their unruly children, we’re out money, time, and patience. We’re called bounty hunters for a reason. Bounty is in the name.”
“Roman, if you keep up the condescending behavior, I’ll expose your dirty little secret.”
“Dirty secret, huh,” Dot piped in. “What’s that?”
He thrust a finger at her nose. “None of your business. Vivian, if you so much as breathe out of line, I’ll make you regret it.”
“Will you do me the favor?”
T.J. stared at Dot, who shrugged as if to say, Why not?
“Fine. Mark my words, I’ll be cashing in on this huge favor sooner than you think.”
“I wouldn’t have bothered you with this, expect the guy is a veteran, and you two being veterans yourself, I figured he’d be more likely to work with you than anyone else.”
“What’s on his file?” Dot asked.
“That’s the complicated part. Officially, his file says he was picked up a third time for carrying with the intent to sell. Unofficially, he’s … classified.”
Dot frowned as she and T.J. locked eyes. As a former army ranger who spent a lot of time flying in and out of forward operating bases in Afghanistan, T.J. knew all about classified situations. Dot, as the main helicopter pilot shuttling him and his team back and forth, though never read in on his actual missions, typically was under strict orders of her own.
“Vivian, I’m not getting fuzzy feelings about this,” T.J. said.
“Neither am I. It’s why I’m calling the two of you in. The judge wants to issue a bench warrant. My colleague was able to ask for a delay before it’s submitted. She was given three hours to present her client or the warrant is released. If you’d rather, you could consider this job PI work instead of fugitive recovery.”
The shingle hanging outside their business office did say private investigators. At this point, that title belonged to T.J. and T.J. alone.
“Still not selling me on this,” he said. “If there’s no bench warrant, there’s no cash for catching him.”
“Hang on.” Vivian spoke to someone, her voice muffled, then she was back. “The firm will pay you a finder’s fee.”
T.J. continued to stare at Dot. She could sense what he was thinking. He was torn. Take this off-the-cuff job and cash in on the favor department with Vivian to help a fellow veteran? Or say fuck it and play hooky for the rest of the day like he’d planned?
Dot didn’t really have much of a say in the business dealings of their partnership since she was eight months into the training phase as a fugitive recovery agent and she wasn’t a licensed PI. It didn’t stop T.J. from pressing her for her opinion, who argued that, because she was about to start taking bounties on her own, she needed to take the reins more often.
“If it helps you make a decision, I’ve got his last known address and a phone number along with a photo,” Vivian said. “This won’t be a hard catch.”
“Stop saying that. Every time you tell me it’s an easy one, it turns into a disaster,” T.J. snarled.
“He’s right,” Dot added.
“Okay, I retract my statement. But, please say yes. Huge favor to me. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
Dot glared at him.
“Within reason,” Vivian shot back.
“We’ll do it,” Dot said, tired of T.J.’s runaround. “Send us the four-one-one, and we’ll go check it out.”
T.J. glared at her; his dark eyes flashed a warning. Dot returned his glare with a smug look of her own that dared him to bring it.
“Thank you, coz. Hurry. There’s only two hours left before the bench warrant goes out. Then it’ll be a free-for-all.”
“You couldn’t have called us about this an hour ago?” T.J. groused.
“Shut your yap, Roman,” Vivian said. “There. Info sent.”
His phone dinged.
“His name is Cade Porter. He was a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps.” Vivian sucked in a breath. “Oooh.”
“Oooh, what?” T.J. insisted.
“If this is right, he was in an artillery unit.”
“Oh my God.” T.J. groaned.
Dot grinned. Not only did acting on a favor for Vivian chafe T.J. in the chaps, but doing it for a Marine with explosives expertise was going to make that chafe burn. Throughout their long, storied history, there had always been a deep-seated friendly animosity between the army and the Marines. Push came to shove, however, they still had each other’s backs.
“If that crayon eater blows us up, I’m going to haunt you,” he said.
“I look forward to the visits. Now get going.” Vivian ended the call.
T.J. shoved his phone in a side pocket of his cargo pants. “Tell me again why we let Vivian help us out?”
“Because,” Dot said as she scooted out of the SUV’s backend, “she’s good for the money. And I trust her intel more than I would some of your bail bondsmen.”
“You say that because you’re biased.”
“Nire familia da. Garrantzitsua da.”
T.J. paused before closing the hatch. “I speak Pashto, Arabic, some Spanish, and Oklahoman. I do not speak Basque.”
Dot chuckled. “Time to learn, Danger Ranger.”
“Load up and let’s roll.”
Chapter Two
Cade Porter’s known residence was northwest of Boise city limits and smack in the middle of what Dot considered a living nightmare—suburbia. They drove past a lot of paved driveways with long lanes leading back to large homes set on acres of pasture ground at the base of the Boise National Forest. Dot noted a lot of horse farms and a few stating they were organic produce farms, but it was in part mostly a rich man’s playground with golf courses and gated communities.
“If he’s on bond, how the hell does he afford to live out here?” Dot asked as T.J. slowed the Suburban for a driveway bracketed by heavy metal gates left wide open.
