Saved by a Dangerous Man (14 page)

When he leaned forward to kiss me, I eagerly lifted myself up, meeting him. I couldn’t tell him how I felt, but it was there, all of it, in the way that I kissed him.
 

He left me in a contented heap on the bed while he cleaned up.
 

“I hate when you leave,” I confessed when he returned.

“My turn for good news,” he said with a smile so gorgeous that it broke my heart. He was partially dressed, and the blue flannel shirt hung open. I watched with dismay as he fastened the buttons.

He propped his arms on either side of me, leaned down for a soft, gentle kiss.
 

“More good news,” I murmured. “What is it?”

He kissed me again, making me wait. Apparently, not being all aggressive and dominant was making him act up in other ways. I snaked a hand under the bottom of his shirt, but he caught my wrist.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “Hopefully on a midnight flight, but I may not get in until a few hours after that. And I’ll have a week.”

I stared at him. “Why do I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming?”

“Ok, there is a catch. I’ll be gone for a month after that. That month is going to happen sooner or later, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” I didn’t ask where he’d be going.
 

“And then I’m taking a long break,” he said.

“How long?”

“Two months.”

My heart thudded. Between all the ups and downs of the last few days, I was going to need a pacemaker. “Where will you be? Here?”

“That’s my plan.” He glanced at the time and grimaced.

“Before you go…” I fixed the collar of his shirt, then stroked his hair just to feel the smooth, soft waves sliding between my fingers. I wanted this moment to last… everything was so perfect. Henry was off my back, Corbin would be taking time off… I didn’t even care about losing my job. I’d find another. A better one.

Even after Corbin left, I couldn’t stop smiling. Every little thing, from the lemon verbena body wash to the feel of the carpet beneath my feet was wondrous, joyful.

I was happy.

And then Rob called.

“Smile was the photographer,” Rob said. There was hesitation in his voice, like he didn’t want to say what was really on his mind.

My heart sank. Smile—Lester Smith on his driver’s license—was one of Dad’s closest friends. He’d been a private investigator for some time but had turned to landscape photography. He was in his early sixties, and while he didn’t come around much since his wife’s stroke put her in a nursing home, I still thought of him fondly, and I knew Rob did, too. That he had taken the photos was a betrayal. He
knew
us.

Lester was also one of the few wholly decent people I knew. A man didn’t get the nickname Smile for no reason.

The bad news was that, being honest, he wouldn’t give or sell me copies of all the photos no matter how nicely I asked. On the other hand, he wouldn’t give them to anyone else, either, which was probably why Dad had hired him.

Or maybe Dad chose him because Smile was cheaper or owed a favor. Recent events proved that I was not an expert on my father’s motivations.

I pursed my lips. “You’d think it’d be illegal to take photos in a strip club.”

“It was so crowded. They had some buffet happy hour special. One of the dancers could have birthed triplets and no one would have noticed.” Rob cleared his throat, dropped his voice to a whisper. “I, uh, took the liberty of looking in Dad’s office this morning and found more photos. Didn’t look at all of them, but it’s clear that Dad had us followed for weeks.”

I leaned forward, dizzy, terrified what Rob would say next. “What kind of photos?”

“Me and various, um, friends. You and Cory. Audrey… We need to talk about Cory.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough air to fill my lungs; nothing could get around the fist-sized lump in my throat. “Ok,” I said weakly as I slid off the couch and landed on my butt.

“I recognize him,” Rob said.

“Ok,” I whispered.
 

“From that blizzard last November. The Most Wanted list. I’ve been taking a look at the list every few weeks since then.”

The phone was wet in my hands; even my ear was sweating, and a dull buzzing sound filled my brain. “Ok,” I said. Apparently it was the only word I could manage.

In the silence that followed, I imagined all the things I would have said if I weren’t terrified, weren’t a coward.
 

“Where are you?” Rob asked. Before I could respond, he added, “I’m at your apartment, and you’re not here.”

“I… wasn’t going to lie to you.” I blinked my eyes closed, tried to push back the dull roar. Sharp pains raked through my gut, and I thought:
I am dying
. I lay on my side, unable to support myself at all.

“Tell me. All of it. From the beginning.”

“It’s funny,” I whispered. “A series of coincidences.” Over the next thirty minutes, I told him everything. Rob interrupted me several times for clarification on Henry’s role. That Henry figured in the story seemed to bother him more than the fact that I’d been running around with a criminal.

When I finished, he didn’t say anything for a long time. I stared at the leg of the coffee table, memorizing the gentle swoop of the curved wood, thinking about the ridges that ran down it. Anything to distract myself.

“We’ll need to destroy the photos,” Rob said finally. “The originals, too.”

“You’re not—”

“Actually, I am. There are some things that I don’t want getting out, either. Maybe it’s nothing compared to your secrets, but they would complicate my life, and I’ll feel a lot better once they’re gone.”

I sat up, flicked my tongue over my parched lips, drew in a steadying breath. “Get Smile out of his house tonight, and I’ll take care of it,” I said. My voice was surprisingly calm.

“Tomorrow evening. I can take him out to dinner, claim that it’s to discuss changes at the office.”

“Tonight would be better.”
 

“Dad’s got me working. I left the photos where they were. Don’t want Dad to suspect anything until all the digitals are history.”
 

One more day wouldn’t make a difference. “Ok. I’m sorry.”

“I know. Just… I wish you’d told me.”

The thing was, I wish I had, too.

The biggest drawback to sneaking around in the winter was snow. Smile lived in an old single-family house in the suburbs, and his lawn was a pristine blanket of white.

Winter had some advantages, though: earlier nightfall, and people tended not to linger outside for no reason.

It was 7:00 when I finally crept out of my car and sidled up Smile’s driveway. I darted from shadow to shadow to reach the fence. His closest neighbors would have had to work to see me, but despite the dark clothing I’d chosen for the occasion, I felt like I was covered in flashing lights that screamed,
“Look! Look at me! Wait a second and I’ll do something illegal!”

The gate between Smile’s garage and his house was snowed shut. I carefully straddled it, lost my balance, landed in disgrace.

Well, then. I’d intended to obscure my footprints, but a huge, Audrey-sized depression might be a challenge.
 

After using three fingers to scoop snow out of the top of my jeans, I followed the fence around to the back. The windows were all locked, so I climbed up on the woodshed, then across the patio roof. It was already overloaded with snow—Smile should have known better—and I expected to crash through. Every step set the roof to groaning, little warnings that maybe I should try the basement instead.

But I could see that the bathroom window was open several inches. Thank goodness for old houses without exhaust fans. I headed toward it, moving carefully.

Five minutes and one banged elbow later, I was in a graceless pile on the cold tile floor. I’d been in Smile’s bathroom plenty of times during his cookouts, but never when the house was dark.
 

Creeping around in his home made me feel scummy. It occurred to me that I’d been doing a lot of illegal things since the night Corbin saved my life. It wasn’t directly his fault, but I couldn’t deny the correlation.
 

I wondered if Smile had felt scummy about following me and Rob.

The office, I knew, was on the third floor, in the renovated attic. I flipped on my flashlight and made my way to the bottom of the steps.
 

“Damn.” Padlock on the door. I couldn’t catch a break. And how stupid; a flimsy lock like that would only keep out a casual snooper, the hasp secured with easily accessible screws.
 

I dug out my Swiss Army knife, separated the hasp from the wall, then climbed the steps.
 

There was Smile’s workstation, neat and orderly, and probably not a speck of dust in the place. He had binders with coded client names.
 

His monitor was dark, but the computer itself was on, no password needed. Since I knew that Smile had taken the latest batch of photos only a few days earlier, it was easy to locate the files by searching by date.

All the pictures of me and Rob were in a folder marked “Flower Show.”
 

Now for the hard part. I’d spent several hours that morning researching various ways to deal with the images. Deleting them wouldn’t work because they could be recovered, but after spending some time chatting with a very nice hacker, I had a program that would delete and then overwrite them with copies of other photos. I dug the thumb drive out of my pocket and pushed it into the USB port.

After I finished with the computer, I gave the backup and the online backup similar treatment. The hacker had recommended corrupting all recent backups, then overwriting them. I then dug through Smile’s filing cabinet, rifling through several hundred pictures, the majority of cheating spouses. All of the photos seemed at least ten years old. It made sense. Why did he need to keep hard copies? He could just print new ones whenever necessary.

I found his camera, checked the SD card. Bingo. Rob and I had warranted a card of our very own. I slid it into my pocket, next to the thumb drive.
 

Then I did everything in reverse: fixed the lock, climbed out the window, tried to smooth over the snow on the roof, crept backward in the footprints that I’d already left and filled them in as best I could.
 

By the time I got back to the car, I was covered in sweat but triumphant. A fair trade, and not a bad night’s work.

Except I wasn’t finished. There was still one more thing to do, and then I could go home and wait for Corbin to return. My bag was already packed. I’d locked my windows. I was ready to go with him to the mountain house that felt like home.

Stroop Finders was dark and silent. But why wouldn’t it be? I didn’t work there anymore, and no one else was stupid enough to labor until ten at night.

I could have driven into the lot—my visit would be fast—but why take chances? So I turned down the next street and parked under a burned-out streetlight. This area wasn’t residential, and no one would notice my car, or care.

When I reached the front door, I quickly tapped in the security code. Red lights flashed on the screen.

“Bastard.” I fumbled out my phone and dialed Rob. From the way he answered, it was clear that he couldn’t talk freely.

“The new alarm code. I need it.”

“One second.” The background noise grew louder, then vanished. A few moments later, he gave me six digits.
 

I carefully punched in the numbers, and the lights blinked green. “Thanks. Call Dad and tell him that you’re at the office?”

“Yeah. But why are you there?”

“Getting the hard copies of the photos.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow morning,” he said. “Go home.”

“Were you able to sleep last night?” His silence was answer enough. “Me, neither. Once I finish this, we’re in the clear.” I hung up and went inside, closing the door behind me.
 

I didn’t need lights to navigate to Dad’s office. This place? Like the back of my hand. After a moment’s reflection, though, I turned on my penlight—in case Dad had also rearranged the furniture. The desks were large and heavy—Rob said they were the perfect tornado hideout—and banging into them always left bruises.

What was with Dad changing the code, anyway? Did he really think I’d, what, come back and steal his contacts? Shred everything? My face burned with indignation.

Focus,
I told myself.
Be pissed later.

I continued through the main room and to Dad’s office. High windows allowed outside light to slant in through the blinds, spilling shadows over the familiar forms of his bookcases and small filing cabinets. The room smelled faintly of the aftershave he’d used for as long as I could remember. Habit made me want to glance through the binder of new and unassigned cases that sat on the corner of his desk.
 

I knew exactly where the photos would be. Not in the safe, or in a file cabinet, but under the sink in his private bathroom, behind the stacked rows of toilet paper where the plywood had warped and split after a flood. I squatted and forced my fingers into the splintery wood gap.
Jackpot.
It was probably the first place Rob had looked, too. Dad could pretend that he was in the right, but I knew he was ashamed. He wouldn’t want anyone to see the photos.

The large envelope was practically bursting with proof of what horrible people Rob and I were. I stuck my penlight between my teeth and began shuffling through the stack.

At first glance, there were more photos of me and Henry, having perfectly tepid dates, than me and Corbin. The clearest photos of Corbin were of him exiting the warehouse, when he’d been in disguise.
 

But there were several poorly lit shots of Corbin outside the warehouse—before he’d whipped out the wig—and they were clear enough. Taken as a whole… not good. Although one would have to be looking closely.

There was also a shot of Rob shaking hands with the disguised Corbin. Out of context, it looked incriminating. I sucked my lip and wondered if Rob had seen this photo. Probably not—he would have deemed recovering the photos more urgent.