Grayson said, “Since we have no idea where Ivy is, I’m going with Kendra.”
“I’m getting the other deputies involved in your sister’s case, but it appears she has not been harmed so far.”
But Grayson wasn’t too sure about it. He really didn’t think Ivy would ditch her phone.
“I’ve got to get to the movie theater on Walker Avenue. Do we have any other ideas as to where Ivy might have gone, now that her phone has been ditched?” Kendra asked.
“I’m going to take her phone to the office and dust it for prints. I’ll be in touch,” Rowland said. “Do you have any way to access the phone to see if she has anything about the boyfriend on it?”
“Yeah.” He gave Rowland her pin number. “You can check Facebook and Instagram and see if she has been on with him. Those are the only two social media sites she uses,” Grayson said.
“All right, I’ll do that.” Rowland read the words on Grayson’s T-shirt and smiled. “I need one of those.” Then he took off.
“Does she have a credit card or money?” Kendra got into the SUV and directed Grayson to the movie theater.
“Cash. Dad didn’t trust her with a credit card because she keeps running away. She works at an ice cream shop so she has cash and a bank account. So she has money. I suspect that’s why she took off when she did. She had just gotten paid, and she lives with Dad, so she has no expenses except for buying special things she wants. Otherwise, he pays for everything for her.”
They parked at the movie theater. “How do you want to do this?”
Kendra hadn’t expected to have help on her case, but Grayson was also a bounty hunter, so he knew how to manage cases too. “Do you have a taser?”
He smiled. “No.”
“Oh, you just use your muscles. We can stand outside the theater where he’s watching the movie. When he leaves, we’ll grab Houston. Then I’ll turn him over to the police. Maybe by then, Rowland will have something on the fingerprints on Ivy’s phone that will say who Big Bear really is.”
They went inside the movie theater and found the room where the fugitive was supposed to be watching the movie. Then they waited for him to exit the theater. She showed Grayson a picture of him: black-haired, bearded, blue-eyed, with a downturned mouth.
“What’s he up on charges for, and is he one of us?”
“Houston is not one of us, and he’s wanted for stealing nearly twelve thousand dollars' worth of lottery tickets from the grocery store where he worked. He didn’t pay for the tickets, used a way to bypass the system, threw out the ones he scratched off that weren’t winners, and cashed the ones that were.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Yeah, it took a while to catch him on it. He was bonded out, but he skipped his court hearing.”
“And went to the movies instead.”
She shook her head. “You would think he would have fled the state at least if he didn’t want to go to jail.”
The movie ended next door, and the people started leaving the room. She watched them just to make sure that he hadn’t gone to watch a different film. But he didn’t leave that theater.
Then the movie that he was supposed to be watching let out, and Kendra stood on one side of the doorway while Grayson waited on the other side.
About twenty people left the theater when Kendra and Grayson finally saw their target. Immediately, she took hold of the fugitive’s arm. “This is a warrant for your arrest.” She showed him the arrest warrant and also her ID card as a Fugitive Recovery Agent.
He yanked away from her, and Grayson quickly took the big man in hand. She slipped cuffs on him. Grayson showed him his ID card, proving he was also a bounty hunter. “All you had to do was go to court when you were supposed to.”
Then she called Rowland. “We caught Houston. We’re dropping him off at the station. Did you get anything on the fingerprints on Ivy’s phone?”
They got Houston into the SUV, and Kendra and Grayson slipped into the front seats.
“There was nothing in the database. It might just be Ivy’s fingerprints. If she has never been fingerprinted for anything, she isn’t in the database.”
“Okay, well, that wasn’t helpful.”
“I know, but we’ve got people out looking for her, and I’m going over her social media accounts.”
“All right. We’ll be right in.”
