Saving the Girl Next Door

by Susan Kearney

  His mom didn’t wait for Jack to answer. She pointed to his gear. “You are not bringing that stuff into my home.”

  Jack would have loaded up his car, but the sleek two-seater couldn’t possibly hold all his equipment. “I’ll see if the Paynes will store it for me.”

  He hadn’t wanted to bring Piper into this part of his operation, but he preferred to avoid a hotel where many people had a room key. This equipment was expensive, specialized and not altogether legal for civilian use. His boss had close ties to the military, and the team often worked with top secret equipment but had been warned not to flaunt it.

  So Jack made three trips, lugging the crates over to the Payne house while his folks sat on their porch and glared at him. He’d hoped that the ten-year separation would have caused them to mellow, maybe miss their only son. Instead they seemed just as determined to drive him off now as they had when he was a kid.

  Which was one of the reasons Jack never envisioned his own marriage or becoming a father. His folks had set such a poor example. He had no idea how to raise a kid the right way. But he did know better than to try.

  When he rang the doorbell, he expected Piper’s parents to answer. But Piper opened the door and took one look at his armload before reaching for the top crate. “Let me help.”

  “My folks…”

  “It’s okay.” She grinned at him. “This way I can keep an eye on…your equipment.”

  Was she deliberately flirting with him? Most likely the double entendre had been accidental. “I intended to keep you informed.”

  “But now we can work together.” Her tone was light and happy.

  She had no more idea how this equipment worked than his parents, yet she invited him inside without hesitation. She always had. Her home had been a refuge when things got bad at his house, her parents welcoming. And if Piper suspected that his gear might not be exactly street legal, she didn’t indicate it by her expression or attitude.

  “There’s an extra bedroom on the second floor that my mom was fitting out for a real estate office.”

  He followed her up the stairs, noting that she had really nice buns to go with her long legs. In fact, if he hadn’t known Piper and had met her at a bar, he would have hit on her immediately. For the umpteenth time that day he reminded himself she wasn’t that kind of girl. She was the fall-in-love, get-married-and-have-a-bundle-of-kids kind of woman.

  “Your mom’s a real estate broker?”

  “A saleswoman—or she will be if she ever passes the state exam. Math isn’t her strong suit.”

  “I thought she was retired.”

  “She’s not ready. Dad’s not ready, either. But he has more hobbies to keep him going. He loves to golf and fish. That’s where he is right now—out hooking snapper.”

  They made several more trips, and he appreciated the fact that Piper didn’t seem all that interested in his equipment—at least, his electronic equipment. He’d caught her staring at his buttocks when he ascended the stairs ahead of her, and when they locked gazes she blushed—but she didn’t drop her eyes.

  He’d been the first to look away. Great. Next she’d have him tongue-tied, a state he hadn’t been in since ninth grade when a senior had shown him what making love was all about.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “About you,” he teased. And then he let his tone turn serious. “I was wondering if you were up for a little breaking and entering?”

  BREAKING AND ENTERING?

  The lovey-dovey duo should go find a room. But no, they couldn’t leave the investigation alone. Clearly they weren’t going to give up. And if they got to the source and applied the right pressure, Leroy might cave.

  Leroy was a weak link. But then, he was a weak man, ruled by his dick. Caught between his voluptuous mistress and his rich wife, he’d set himself up to be taken advantage of. So he deserved what he got.

  And Donovan and Payne thought he was on vacation. Wrong. But a clever person could use that mistake to advantage.

  Their incorrect information could be the means to do them in. Especially if they planned an illegal break-in.

  A fist of fury slammed the keyboard. If the cop and her almost-lover kept asking questions, eventually business would suffer. And with the biggest deal of the century about to set up a lifetime of luxury retirement, now was not the time to allow such peons to persevere.

  Strength, determination and cunning would win the day.

  But the Shey Group angle could prove troublesome. Dealing with even the one team member was irksome. An accident would have to be set up with care. With no strings leading back to the source. Because if the team descended like a horde of swarming hornets, the sting could be painful and severe.

  Careful planning was in order. Planning that would end their interference—for good.

  Chapter Four

  “You want us to break in to a building?” Piper tried and failed to keep her voice from rising at her sharp disappointment in Jack. Did he really have so little regard for the law? Jack had done some crazy things in his life, but no matter the end, she couldn’t justify his means. She’d sworn to uphold the law and was working to clear her name. How could she go along with him and be such a hypocrite? “Breaking and entering is illegal.”

  “No need to worry. We won’t get caught.” He grinned that charming grin at her, the one that used to make his old girlfriends practically swoon. Jack had always had the ability to talk both males and females into his reckless schemes, and somehow he always came out smelling cleaner than breath mint.

  And he was deliberately missing her point. She didn’t bother keeping the exasperation from her tone. “Do you really think that the possibility of getting caught is all that I object to?”

  “Look, I’m hoping to acquire information on who might have framed you.”

  She set down the last crate and turned to face him. “That sounds good, Jack. But what about the illegal part?”

  “We already covered that.” He used a screwdriver to open the first crate, his hands swift and strong. He’d always been handy, fixing his motorcycle and later his car. One summer he’d even worked as a sports car mechanic. He could probably assemble a computer with his eyes shut.

  “Breaking and entering is wrong, Jack.”

  “Yeah.” He pulled out a sleek computer with a wide, flat monitor, handling the equipment with the tenderness a father might give to a baby. He ran wires to a plug and hooked into her mother’s Internet service provider. There was no fumbling, no reading directions, no hesitation—obviously he’d put this equipment together many times before.

  “We have privacy laws to protect the innocent.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not interested in the innocent, only the guilty.”

  “Before you hack in, you have no way of knowing if you are investigating the innocent or the guilty.”

  “Yeah.”

  Her fingers itched to slap the oh-so-charming grin right off his oh-so-handsome face. He was toying with her values and her sense of right and wrong, and she didn’t appreciate him challenging her principles, not one little bit. But when he agreed with her, she had no idea how to argue with him.

  “Exactly where do you want to break in?”

  “Leroy’s house. The man lied about you. He broke the law first. And as a former police officer, you should be committed to justice, even for yourself. He’s on vacation, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “Why do you need to go inside?”

  “It’s easier to break in to his computer if I’m there in person.” He turned on his computer, and while the systems loaded, he pulled her over to the window seat. “You don’t have to come with me, but I could use a lookout.”

  “Can’t you hack into his system from here?”

  “Maybe. But it’s more difficult and I would probably leave a trail that might lead back to us. You needn’t come inside. Just be my eyes and ears.”

  “That house probably has an alarm.”

 
; “I’ll take care of it.”

  “How?”

  “I have a device that will override his system.”

  “What about the lock?”

  “Not a problem.” He took her hand and rubbed her fingers. “We won’t steal or damage anything. If he’s innocent, no harm will be done. He’ll never even know we’ve been there.”

  Maddeningly, he could be the most persuasive man. He made his plan sound so reasonable and made her sound irrational for not going along.

  Jack squeezed her hand. “And if he’s guilty—”

  “The evidence you get won’t be legal, since we obtained it illegally.”

  “We aren’t going to prove your case in a court of law.”

  “But—”

  “We want the charges from the two citizens dismissed. And we can do that if we have enough evidence. You’re going to have to trust me.” Jack released her hand and returned to the computer. “Give me a sec. I need to run Ryker’s Search and Compile program.”

  If he’d just changed the subject to distract her, he’d only partially succeeded. Yet she wouldn’t forget her misgivings—misgivings that went deep and straight to her core. She’d become a police officer to serve the community, to protect people, to get criminals off the streets. And for the most part, the system worked.

  “What’s Search and Compile?”

  “The program looks for aberrations in a pattern.”

  She followed him to the computer and peered over his shoulder. He typed in the names “Vince Edwards” and “Leroy James,” his fingers dancing over the keys in a blur. Then he hit the “enter” key and laced his hands behind his head, a satisfied gleam in his eyes.

  “Ryker wrote a program that will automatically search for information about these people,” he explained. “It will call up phone bills, credit card bills, driving records, arrest records, real estate owned, schools attended, IRS records—”

  “I get the idea.”

  “The data will be placed and stored in convenient files. Then the computer goes to work pulling out things that don’t fit a pattern.”

  “You just lost me.”

  “Suppose that every August Leroy takes his family to Disneyland, but this year he goes to the beach. The computer will kick that fact out. Or suppose his average credit card purchase is twenty dollars, and he suddenly buys a two-thousand-dollar diamond ring, the computer will kick that out for me to peruse.”

  “Clever.”

  “Ryker Stevens is a genius and his program is very thorough. It’s also slow. And might take days to find anything significant. But eventually, if there is a connection between Vince and Leroy, the computer will find it.”

  During her investigation she’d done background searches of both men, but she had only skimmed the surface before she’d been pulled off the case. The computer could turn up many things that she hadn’t had a chance to research. “Like maybe they went to Cub Scouts together?”

  “Or have a friend in common—one that maybe you put away in the slammer.”

  She’d thought of that possibility and had gone through her records. If there was a connection between the two men who’d accused her of taking a bribe, she’d never found one. “So we wait.”

  “And while we wait, we dig around at Leroy’s house.”

  Talk about a one-track mind. She used to call Jack persistent. But the truth was closer to stubborn. Damn stubborn.

  “Dig around? I thought you wanted to see what’s on his computer?”

  “That, too. While I’m busy cracking his password, you can check the house trash cans and his coat pockets, his drawers, his—”

  “I thought I didn’t have to go inside?”

  “You don’t, but if I have to do everything, it’ll take longer.”

  And increase their chances of getting caught. She suspected he’d known all along that she would give in. No way could she let him take that kind of risk for her while she played it safe. “I know how to do a search.”

  “Good.” He winked at her. “Then you can be useful. I do so adore a useful woman.”

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. “I didn’t say I was going with you.”

  “Yeah, but if I leave you alone, you’re going to miss me.”

  “Aren’t you ever serious?”

  “You mean you wouldn’t miss me?” He clapped one hand over his heart. “I’m hurt.”

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want to do this.” Her protest was more for form. She didn’t want to appear to give in too easily.

  “That’s cool. I’ll go alone.”

  Just like that, he was letting her off the hook. But how could she stay safe at home and let him risk a felony—when he was doing this for her?

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I can’t let you go alone.”

  His eyes narrowed. “But you just said—”

  “I don’t want to do this—but I will.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He grinned. “Good. It’s going to be a blast.”

  PIPER’S STOMACH CLENCHED in fear, as it did when she pulled over a citizen during a traffic stop. A police officer never knew if the person behind the wheel or a passenger might pull a gun, or step on the gas and flee. She had to keep herself ready and alert and wary, on edge enough to react quickly if necessary.

  And breaking in to Leroy’s house in the dark gave her the same jolt of adrenaline. Chances were they’d get in and out without a hitch. But the possibilities of being caught were endless. The family could come home early. A neighbor could spot them and call 911. An attack dog could charge out of the den.

  Piper wrapped her fear under tight control. As promised, Jack had gotten them inside without a problem.

  He had used a remote control device to open the automatic garage door and driven right inside as if they had every right to be there. Hopefully no neighbors were up at 3:00 a.m. to notice them.

  Jack was busy at the door that led from the garage to the home’s interior. She shone a penlight so he could attach some device to the alarm system’s wiring. Within ten seconds he had the red blinking light turning to green, and she released a pent-up breath.

  “You’ll be fine,” Jack whispered.

  “If we don’t get caught.”

  “That’s what makes this so much fun.”

  She followed him into the kitchen. “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s like having sex that very first time. You don’t know what to expect and that adds to the thrill.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Your first time wasn’t exciting?” Jack led her through the kitchen and into the den. He shone his light on the computer keyboard, then checked the windows to make sure the screen wouldn’t reflect outside.

  Piper didn’t want to discuss her nonexistent sex life, which was no one’s business but hers. Anxious to get their search over with as quickly as possible, she headed toward the staircase. “I’ll start in the master bedroom upstairs and work my way down.”

  “Be careful not to let your light hit any mirrors,” Jack reminded her. He’d already turned on the computer, and the hum seemed loud in the quiet house.

  “How long are we going to be here?” she asked.

  “It’s just like sex. We take as long as we need.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she muttered, again.

  She reached the fifth or sixth step before Jack spoke again. “Piper, don’t tell me that you’re still a virgin?”

  “I’ve never broken the law before.” She deliberately avoided his question. She didn’t want to admit that she’d once dreamed of losing her virginity to him. Nor did she want to admit that she still found him hard to resist.

  Before he could say anything else, she left him behind. While she wasn’t ashamed of her virginal status, she wasn’t sure she wanted Jack to know about it. She didn’t wa
nt him to think she hadn’t had several opportunities. She had. But somehow she always ended things before she got that far.

  The thin elastic gloves Jack had insisted she wear were the same issue detectives used to avoid contaminating a crime scene. So she had no trouble opening drawers, rifling through jacket pockets in her search through Leroy’s things. Either his wife was a meticulous housekeeper or he was a neat freak.

  She didn’t find so much as a slip of paper in the suits and pants hanging in his walk-in closet or in the polo shirts and boxers folded neatly in his drawers. The laundry basket was empty, as were the trash cans—almost as if the house had been sanitized by an expert.

  Not so much as a dirty sock under the bed. She checked the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Nothing. When she opened the nightstand’s drawer, she found a pink address book, probably the wife’s. She flipped through it, surprised at the number of entries. Everything from baby-sitters to doctors to the local veterinarian.

  Leroy’s side held a Bible, a half pack of breath mints, two condoms and a pair of reading glasses.

  She hoped Jack was having better luck. She didn’t bother with the children’s rooms and headed back downstairs. Maybe they had a home office—although that was unlikely, since the family computer was in the den.

  “Find anything?” she asked Jack.

  “Leroy spent the majority of his online time in chat rooms.”

  “What kind of chat rooms?”

  “He was cruising for women. Young women. His latest love interest went by the name of Baby Cakes.” Jack typed and spoke to her at the same time. “I’ve inserted a worm into his machine. I think it might give me Baby Cakes’s ISP address.”

  “Baby Cakes?” Had she seen that name in the wife’s address book? She’d thought it was a store for baby clothing or birthday cakes. Hadn’t paid it any attention.

  She hurried back upstairs, pulled out the address book and there it was. Keeping the address book, she hurried back down the stairs. “Jack, I think I have Baby Cakes’s phone number.”

  “You found Leroy’s address book?”

  “This book is pink. I think it’s his wife’s address book. Look.” She turned to the Bs and pointed.