Once in, he read individual emails, both personal and work-related, from most of the key employees and their staff.
Since he needed to pay a visit to the firm’s computer room, see for himself the inner workings of the place, he looked for a reason that would get him inside the building without a lot of fanfare.
He found it when an administrative assistant mentioned to her boss that one of the copiers required maintenance. The company providing repairs was a major supplier who had long ago ordained uniforms obsolete and insisted their field personnel wear basic white dress shirts with ties and black dress pants.
It was a ridiculous notion to think repairing a copier required such formal attire, but then who was Dylan to argue? Those articles of clothing were readily available. Now, all he had to do was come up with an official-looking ID bearing the company logo.
By three-thirty that afternoon, Dylan had donned his disguise. His blond ponytail had been dyed a raven black and left loose, the locks feathering his shoulders. The horn-rimmed glasses he wore had him looking more like Johnny Depp’s brother than a copier repairman.
But hey, if he could rebuild an engine in a ’68 Camaro he ought to be able to fix a simple printer.
After presenting his fake ID with the name John Frazier to the security guard on the first floor, he stood at the downstairs reception area waiting to be led up to the tenth floor and the malfunctioning machine. When a cute, plump thirty-something brunette appeared named Donna Fontaine, Dylan put the innate Burke charm to the test.
On the ride up in the elevator Dylan flirted and discovered a bubbly Italian who liked to cook and go to the movies. He used his film buff knowledge to fluster the admin so much he had her laughing at his movie quotes and trivia. By the time they stepped off into another upscale, spacious reception area, he decided Donna seemed more than willing to hand over the key to the executive washroom. He had only to ask.
Good thing he didn’t really need Donna’s generosity.
He’d planned his foray into the camp of the enemy in late afternoon for a reason. It was a known fact most of L.A.’s work force began their mass exodus home between three-thirty and four o’clock to avoid the inevitable traffic jams.
He could only hope that was true for the dedicated workers here.
After Donna showed him to the copy room and somewhat reluctantly left him alone, it took him less than five minutes to locate the paper jam, another five to oil the drum, and the other time—to look busy.
Sure enough, in a matter of thirty minutes, employees started to abandon their cubicles and drift toward the elevators. After Donna’s floor grew silent as a tomb, he found the break room, treated himself to a soft drink and candy bar before setting out to locate the computer room.
It took him forty minutes, but five floors down he breezed into the firm’s version of his own beloved Command Central, courtesy of Donna’s pilfered security card, which he intended to leave conveniently under her office chair as if she’d simply inadvertently dropped the piece of plastic before heading home.
Command Central stood blessedly deserted.
Sitting down at the nearest work station, Dylan, aka John Frazier, went to work. Priority one was finding a place to tap into the mainframe where his wireless device wouldn’t get noticed.
It took him a few minutes to scout the area before he found the perfect place to conceal the existence of his router. The modem would relay all information to another designated remote server he’d already set up for just that purpose.
In less than an hour he was done with the installation.
Once he left the building, he found an ideal place to hide the repeater which amplified the signal from three blocks away, which in turn relayed the data to the remote server and would allow them twenty-four-seven access to anything on the firm’s mainframe.
After he finished the work, he took out his cell to let Jake know everything from his end was a go.
Back at Crandall House, Jake went to work concentrating on everything the database had to offer. He discovered financial records he could readily tap into inside the vast Boyd, Geller, and Gatz personal portfolios, which included their bank accounts, stocks and bonds, and all of their property holdings, both foreign and domestic.
For now, any hidden assets he found he intended to keep separate from the so-called legitimate monies he discovered. Separating the illegal stream of money from the genuine clients became almost impossible. Almost. He had to give it to good ol’ Jessica and Sumner’s talent for evasion, though. They’d done a decent job of masking which was which.
While his friends took care of their part, Reese zeroed in on everything personal he could find about Cade, Collin and all the cousins, which included Garrett, Scott, and Taylor Geller as well as Adam and Jacob Gatz.
Since Trevor had been kind enough to supply every single one of their passwords to their social networking sites, it wasn’t that difficult to ascertain what they were up to via the Internet.
He soon had an idea of what all seven men did in their downtime.
It wasn’t a pretty picture.
While Reese spent time searching Cade’s online persona, Cade Boyd returned the favor by finding out everything he could about Reese. Like Reese, Cade might not have been a hacker, but he could utilize a search engine.
To Cade’s way of thinking, just because the guy had graduated top of his class didn’t mean shit. He couldn’t stand the way the guy acted all Perry Mason in a courtroom anyway. And now that Quinn was with him he’d find a way to take them both down—down into the gutter where they both belonged.
For years revenge had stewed in his gut. For all the wrongs he’d put up with, he intended to make both of them pay—with their lives.
It didn’t take Quinn long to suspect something was up. As soon as Jake had returned with Kit from the Book & Bean, he’d closeted himself away in his study. From the other side of a closed door, she could hear his fingers furiously tapping computer keys.
Dylan had been gone for hours. He’d disappeared by claiming a work emergency had come up and he needed to handle it before things got thorny.
Quinn wasn’t buying it.
Because Reese had taken refuge in his room as well, she headed that way, prepared to wage a war if necessary. When faced with another closed door, this time Quinn knocked once but didn’t wait for an answer before she turned the knob and barreled inside.
Reese sat at yet another laptop, pounding away. She sauntered into the room, crossed her arms over her chest. “Hmm, isn’t it interesting how you guys have all gone to ground at the same time?”
“Work,” Reese grunted as he barely looked up from his screen.
“Uh huh. Where’d Dylan go then?”
“A work thing came up.”
“Uh huh. Reese Brennan, what are you up to? What are you all up to? I saw the way you guys were huddled and whispering this morning at the bookstore, changed the subject whenever we members of the weaker sex got within five feet. You think you’re so clever but you aren’t fooling anyone.”
He managed to grunt again before she made her way behind him and his laptop. At the last possible second, he snapped down the lid.
His eyes cruised up her long legs, the length of her body, until he got to her face.
He made a grab for her waist.
“You’re here ’cause you want me. Admit it, Tyler. You want to finish what we started at three a.m. this morning and couldn’t wait for night.” He nibbled and grazed along her jaw before pulling her down to his lap. His hand rubbed a circle on her lower back before he started playing with a hard pebbled point under her top.
She itched to raise the lid up and see what he’d been doing. But his mouth and fingers made her consider other possibilities. “You’re deep in thought there, distracted even. Are you sure you can bring your A game, Reese?”
“You’re joking, right? You mean you can’t feel my A game? I must not be doing it right then.” He put some emphasis into rearranging
her butt across his lower half, where he was stone hard. “I want inside you.”
At that moment, Kit poked her head into the room, cleared her throat. “Oops, sorry to interrupt, but Dylan’s back and there’s some heated discussion downstairs about Operation Neuter.” Kit narrowed her eyes in disgust. “Which apparently was put into motion without input from all of us.”
Quinn exploded in his ear. “Ah ha! I knew you guys were up to something. What happened to letting us in on the game?”
“No need to yell,” Reese managed. “We saw an opening and took it.”
“This is our personal war and has been for a long time!” Quinn snarled.
“Was. It was your personal war,” Reese corrected. “Now, it involves all of us.”
“Oh please…”
But the kiss he planted on her lips shut her up. “This house is too damn crowded, never a moment to ourselves. Tonight, we either find some way to be alone or we’re leaving this mad house and checking into the nearest hotel.”
Quinn patted the side of his cheek. “Aw, that is so sweet, but I think I can manage to sneak you into my room tonight without creating a media sensation.” She nipped his ear and snuggled against his neck. “I want you, Brennan.”
“Yeah? Right backatcha, Tyler. I knew it was just a matter of time. Now let’s go downstairs before I rip your clothes off and have my way tasting that body of yours.”
CHAPTER 10 Book 3
No one ever said communal living would be a walk in the park. With six adults and a baby living under the same roof there were bound to be disagreements eventually.
Even in a huge house like this one, living together meant there wasn’t a lot of privacy for things like settling differences of opinion or keeping out of anyone’s face when you were pissed.
At the moment, Baylee was pissed and waging her own war.
As she stood in the living room, furious, Reese saw another side to the diminutive blonde.
Who knew her five-three petite frame hid a fierce temper? And it was aimed in Dylan’s direction.
Hands fisted on her hips, she stood like Xena, warrior princess, staring down the much taller man. “Look at your hair. Why on earth did you have to do that to your hair? What were you thinking? You deliberately didn’t do that here…you deliberately snuck out of this house…”
“My house, my bathroom. I didn’t want to get black dye all over Kit’s brand-new sinks.”
“So you admit you snuck out of here and drove all the way to Pacific Palisades…to do that? You deliberately went to that place without telling me, didn’t tell me where you were going because you could have easily been arrested. But you’re so thoughtful and considerate when it comes to Kit’s bathroom fixtures, Kit’s feelings and not mine. And what if you’d been caught, did you consider that?”
“But I wasn’t.”
“That’s beside the point. They’ve got you on surveillance cameras now. That place is like Fort Knox. And you lied to me.”
“I omitted, that’s not the same as lying.”
“Don’t parse words with me, Dylan Burke. You told me you had a work thing to take care of; you lied.”
“Geez woman, are you going to throw every word I said back to me?”
“If I have to, you bet I am.”
“I didn’t want you to worry, which you would have done if I’d told you what I planned to do.”
“Of course I would’ve worried. I could be bailing you out of jail right now.”
“But you aren’t because I was brilliant.”
“Don’t you dare joke about this and try to get on my good side. You took an awful chance, Dylan. What if…”
He crushed his mouth to hers just as she was wavering. “I’m sorry. I should’ve said something. But I didn’t want you spending the entire afternoon stewing about it.”
Kit crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, well, you guys think you can cut us out of this, think again. The Boyds are our nemesis, always have been. From now on we do things as a group or that’s it…Operation Neuter is ours, not yours. You start sharing everything because you aren’t the only ones who can heat up the action.”
“You seem to forget we’ve known these people most of our lives, fought with them, fought against them,” Baylee pointed out.
Quinn simply stared at the men until finally she demanded, “Now, which one of you wants to come clean, catch us up on what you were whispering about this morning, besides this venture into the enemy camp done without our knowledge?”
All three males now faced a trio of pissed off females. Reese cleared his throat and started sharing, telling them about the missing call girls and his accomplice-slash-cousin theory.
Quinn’s eyes went wide. “You think Cade killed these women with the help of one of his cousins? Wow, and I thought you were the skeptic from hell. Looks like you’ve been hiding a creative side.”
“I think it’s entirely possible.”
“Wait, Mr. X put this on the table?”
“He had us looking in Connor’s direction for Claire’s murder, didn’t he? He got that one wrong. I’m thinking Cade needs help disposing of the bodies so he enlists someone he knows he can control.”
“But why would Cade need to turn to a cousin when he’s got a built-in brother stooge named Collin?” Quinn asked, not buying his theory for a minute. “That makes no sense.”
“Because no one has a bigger mouth than Collin, think about it. He’d go bragging about it first chance he got, you know he would, makes him a loose cannon. Even Cade would understand he couldn’t be trusted.”
Kit agreed, “He’s got you there, Quinn. In a weird kind of way it does make sense when you take the time to consider it, truly consider the way Cade is and how he wouldn’t want to get his own hands dirty getting rid of the bodies.”
“How many, Reese, is he supposed to have killed?” Baylee asked, a little sick to her stomach at the thought.
“Five disappeared, two of which were eighteen. Their families have no idea what happened to them, either. Some of them have been missing for almost three years now without a word. These girls were part of the same escort service and haven’t been seen since they left to go on their assignment to meet Cade Boyd.”
“Then why don’t the cops arrest him?”
Jake entered the fray. “They have to have bodies to get evidence. I’m the last person to defend that perspective but... I’d have to add, it’s that same old lame excuse about who they know and how powerful the families are.”
“Were. The family tree has thinned out quite a bit now,” Kit added.
“Never underestimate the value of who you know and how powerful your friends are,” Reese pointed out. “Especially when it comes to the system and getting justice.”
“And no cop is gonna suspect a rich boy like Cade could be a serial killer unless he’s got the goods to back it up,” Dylan said.
Quinn mulled it over. “Sounds like Mr. X knew from the start the Nutty Brothers were bad news.”
“I’d say that’s a pretty good bet,” Reese concurred. “At this point, we have to hope the cops nab him with the DNA that’s a match in Claire’s murder.”
“I don’t like it,” Quinn said bluntly. “Thus far, the cops don’t have Cade’s DNA. Wait. Any chance we could get him to meet with us?”
Reese cocked a brow. “Who?”
“Mr. X.”
“Why? The man’s a professional killer. He has no allegiance to anyone and that includes us.”
Kit disagreed. “But you can’t have it both ways, Reese. We’re either in or out here, on his side, or we’re not. We either accept him as an ally…”
Jake shook his head. “You don’t think making their money disappear shows him we’re on his side after getting his e-mail?”
“I think we need to make sure he knows.”
“That’s nuts. We barely keep in touch via e-mail; it’s all one-sided. He sends, we receive. That’s the way it’s been.”
“Not go
od enough,” Quinn said. “Kit’s right. We need to make sure we’re all on the same page. That includes him. To coordinate a successful strike against these guys we shouldn’t take anything for granted.”
“I agree,” Baylee put in, eyeing Dylan with a stubborn jerk of her chin. “And anyone who thinks this shouldn’t be an organized effort is just…wrong.”
“There,” Quinn said. “We have programming geniuses in this room. Surely, Mr. Software and Surfer Boy here can figure out a way to contact him.”
“I guess we’ve been challenged, eh Mr. Software?” Dylan proffered. “Fine by me. Look, I’m thinking someone needs to go back to Catalina and sail the Sea Warrior, bring her back. Since I’m the one who got her there…”
“I’ll go,” Reese volunteered. “I’m getting antsy sitting around doing nothing. You and Jake know I’m not any good to you anyway at hacking all the financials you’ll need to access.”
He cast a glance at Quinn. Going to Catalina for the boat was a clever way to get her alone. “What do you say, Quinn? You up for an adventure or do you want to sit around and brood about getting suspended?”
“Brood, my ass. I’m worried about my damn career here, Brennan. If you can’t see that…”
“I told you, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll have you back doing rounds a good week ahead of schedule. Bet?”
“You’re on. If I’m not back on rotation in a week, you lose, and I post an online message for all the world to see that says the great lawyer Brennan is nothing but a shyster.”
“But if I win, you post that I’m the best damn lawyer in the entire state of California.”
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? I can lie with the best of them.”
Dylan glanced around the room. “If you really want to get to Catalina today, I’ll call my buddy to fly you over there in his chopper, same way Baylee and I got back here.”
“It’s kind of late in the day. Once you get to Avalon, you might as well stay at Dad’s house for the night. I’ll go get the key,” Baylee offered.
Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set Page 85