Saving the Girl Next Door

by Susan Kearney

  He stood, wanting to go to her and put his arms around her. But she was half-dressed, sitting on his bed. In a motel room. Pure temptation.

  No way should he go to her.

  He paced. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “We’re going to figure out who did this to you and why.”

  “If you say so.” She lifted her head, trying to be brave, and her courage pulled at his heart.

  He could not go to her.

  “I have a very good track record for solving these kinds of cases.”

  “Really? I thought you were mostly a pilot.”

  “I am, but since the Shey Group is a team, I’ve learned a lot from the best guys in the business. And if we can’t succeed on our own, I can call in more experts to help.”

  “Thanks, Jack.”

  She looked grateful and vulnerable and adorable.

  And somehow he found himself on the bed, gathering her into his arms. She snuggled and placed her cheek against his chest.

  He rocked her, enjoying the feel of her. And as the sun brought in the new day, Jack knew that he was meant to be here for her at this moment. Holding her seemed so natural and so right.

  And when she tipped up her head to look at him, he didn’t know how he could continue to resist her.

  Chapter Seven

  Piper just knew Jack was about to kiss her. As much as she wanted his lips on hers, and as long as she’d waited to get what she wanted, she had no intention of letting him think he could change his mind on a moment’s notice and that she’d simply accept whatever crumbs he planned to give her. Nope. She might want Jack, but she had her pride. Since he’d already refused her advances several times, she now had different standards. Higher standards. He had to want to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss him, and no way could he possibly be as needy—since the thought appeared to have just occurred to him.

  He could wait. And if that meant she had to wait, too—so be it.

  She went from cuddly to businesslike by scooting away from him, standing and checking the alarm clock. “If we hurry, we can catch my dad at the coffee shop before his morning classes.”

  The look on Jack’s face? Priceless. His lower jaw actually hung open before he snapped his mouth closed so hard his teeth snicked together. His lips thinned, but just for a moment before his mouth lifted into a wry grin. But it was the respect gleaming in his eyes that told her that while her female instincts might not include experience, they worked just fine, thank you very much.

  They packed everything into the trunk of their car and checked out of the motel. Her dad’s schedule was as predictable as the school calendar. He taught Monday through Thursday from eight in the morning until noon during summer sessions, which were shorter and more intense. And before starting his day with his students, he fortified himself with breakfast and the sharing of news and local gossip with his coffee klatch—a group of men who’d been meeting at the local shop for years.

  She dressed in the new clothes Logan Kincaid had supplied, and met Jack by his car. He had the stereo blasting, which was fine with her, since she didn’t feel compelled to talk.

  If her father was surprised to see his daughter and Jack arrive together after she hadn’t come home last night, he hid his feelings well. However, since she’d overheard her parents discussing her private life one night a few weeks ago, she knew they were concerned, not just by the loss of her job, but that she had no steady guy in her life—and never had. So perhaps her father was relieved that his twenty-five-year-old daughter had finally spent the night with a man—although nothing had happened, if she didn’t count riding around naked.

  Her father was sitting alone. His friends were paying their bills at the register by the door, but he was finishing up his coffee and the sports page. When he saw them enter, he closed his newspaper and stood.

  She hurried to him and gave him a hug, enjoying the scent of bacon, eggs and coffee as well as his favorite cologne. Since he was her height, she had no trouble kissing his cheek. Dressed in slacks and a white shirt, he regarded her from behind gold-rimmed glasses, his twinkling green eyes reminding her of her own.

  “Hi, Dad.” She released him. “You remember Jack Donovan?”

  “Of course.” Her father shook Jack’s hand. His expression was both warm and wary, as if he hadn’t made up his mind what he thought about his only child spending the night with Jack.

  One of the reasons she loved her father was that he always backed her up, and he never jumped to conclusions. Fair-minded and even tempered, he might be slow to make a decision, but once he did, it would be a fair one.

  “Mr. Payne.” Jack spoke quietly. “Sorry to disturb your breakfast.”

  “Call me Dan.” He gestured for them to take seats at his table. “And this isn’t a disruption, but a welcome surprise.”

  “Dad, Jack is trying to help me get my job back.”

  Her father raised his brows. “I told your mother you wouldn’t give up.” He nodded at Jack. “So how can I help?”

  Jack spoke quietly and succinctly. “My firm has a sophisticated computer program that is suggesting there may be a connection between the arsonist who set fire to your home and whoever has framed your daughter. Since police computer records were hacked, we were hoping you could fill us in on some of your students.”

  “Hmm. That’s one mighty smart computer program you have there. Wouldn’t mind taking a look at it.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s classified.”

  Her father shrugged. “Well, I’m not surprised by the program’s theory.”

  “You’re not?” Piper had thought the computer’s scenario far-fetched, but she hadn’t wanted to insult Jack or the man who’d written the program, whom he so admired. She’d remained silent on the subject, but with her father agreeing, she perked up. Perhaps they were on the right trail, after all.

  Her father spoke slowly, as if thinking aloud. “I never suspected that our house might have been burned down by a student—until now. The police told me that the fire was probably started by a neighborhood kid making trouble, or possibly by the family member of someone my wife had put into jail during her career.”

  “Why do you think differently now, Dad?”

  “Mind you, I don’t have any proof.”

  “But you have a theory,” she prodded.

  He hesitated, but then spoke with sadness. “Six months before the fire, the university computer system suffered a massive virus attack—total corruption of the system. There was chaos. Students couldn’t get their grades. Professors couldn’t teach their online classes. The university president asked me to track down the culprit—a culprit who knew how to get past the school’s fire walls.”

  “You suspected a student?” Jack asked.

  “An advanced student. Someone going for their Ph.D. Or a professor.” Her father leaned forward in his chair. “While others repaired the damage in record time, I traced the initial problem to an e-mail.”

  “Which was bounced from country to country?” Jack guessed.

  “You got it.”

  “So you never found the criminal?” she asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  Piper frowned at her father. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, the hacker left a long trail to follow. I got stuck in Bulgaria. They aren’t too cooperative over there, but I finally traced the hack back to a major Internet service provider in the United States, which would have eventually led me to the criminal.”

  “But?” she pressed, sensing his reluctance.

  “I backed off.”

  “Why?”

  “The university hadn’t suffered as much damage as they first thought. The system basically needed reformatting and rebooting. We were back up and running within two days. Although the damage wasn’t that bad, the climate at the university was nasty and vindictive.”

  Piper sighed. “And you suspected one of your students did this?”

  “Y
eah. Since I teach the upper-level classes, chances are the virus came from one of my students.” Her father always had been a softy. On the rare occasion when Piper had needed disciplining, her mother had been the one to do it. And Dad always backed his students, just as he’d always stood up for her. Piper could understand how difficult it would have been for him to turn one of them over to the authorities—especially when he knew they’d be expelled and possibly jailed. But he’d kept this information even from her during her arson investigation. “And I hated the idea of a student’s entire life being ruined for what may have been a prank,” he added, confirming her suspicions.

  Jack frowned. “I don’t understand how this may be connected to the fire, sir.”

  “I recorded on a disk every e-mail anyone had sent to the school during the time period in question. If I’d given the disk to the authorities, they could have eventually traced the virus back to the hacker.”

  Piper sighed. “You kept the disk, didn’t you?”

  “And I warned every class, especially those going for advanced degrees, that if there was a repeat occurrence, I’d turn over the disk to the FBI.”

  Jack kept his voice low, but he put the puzzle pieces together before she did. “You kept the disk at home?”

  Her father nodded, his face grim. “But I couldn’t believe that the guilty student would burn down the house to get rid of the evidence on the disk.”

  “You never made a backup?” Piper asked.

  Her father shook his head. “I suppose I should have told you this as soon as we realized a hacker was behind your career trouble. But I never connected the two incidents.”

  “And you never traced the e-mail through the ISP to the source?”

  “I didn’t want to know.” Her father took Piper’s hand. “However, I never suspected the culprit would burn down our house or come after you. I still don’t understand why…”

  “There could be lots of reasons.” Jack ticked them off. “Revenge and fear top my list.”

  “Fear?” Piper looked at him in confusion.

  He looked straight at her. “Fear that Detective Piper Payne might catch the arsonist. You were nosing around the case.”

  “But I had no leads.”

  “Yeah, but the hacker didn’t know that. Maybe during your investigation you questioned him or her. Maybe the student has graduated and is now a solid citizen with a lot to lose—family, a job, a reputation in the community.”

  “So out of fear this ex-student got two citizens to frame me?” She sighed. “Your theory sounds far-fetched. For all we know, the computer is wrong and the arson had nothing to do with my being fired.”

  “Maybe,” Jack agreed, but she could see that he didn’t think so, and neither did her father. Jack now faced him. “Sir, it’s more important than ever for you to give us the names of those students.”

  “Okay.” Her father neatly folded his paper and tucked it to the side of his plate. “Although some students stood out more than others, I can’t possibly remember every one. I teach a lot of kids every semester.”

  A waitress came over, took their orders and poured them each a cup of coffee. Piper hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she found herself ordering a three-egg Western omelette with a side of bacon and a glass of orange juice. Staying up all night with Jack had a way of making her hungry—and for more than food.

  Even as Jack settled into a conversation with her father, he looked sexy in his crisp white T-shirt and jeans. He had a warm way about him, edgy, with that reckless streak just under the surface that called to her on levels she didn’t quite understand.

  But she wanted to. She wanted to challenge his restless streak to come out in bed. She wanted a taste of that excitement. It wasn’t like Jack to hold back, but she knew he would succumb to the tension simmering between them. And had no doubt that together they would make magic.

  Jack helped himself to four packets of sugar, which he poured into his coffee. “We’re probably interested in someone you do remember,” he told her father. “Someone capable of hacking into the police department. Someone brilliant. Possibly antisocial. Possibly with a military background.”

  Her father rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Except for the military background, which I wouldn’t know about, you’re describing about half my students. Can you narrow this down any more?”

  “We’re probably looking for an older male. Someone who took your upper-level specialized classes during the last five years.”

  “And someone who still lives in the area,” Piper added, knowing her father liked to keep up on his students’ careers. She’d interviewed many of his former students when she’d investigated the fire, but none of them had panned out.

  “All right.” Her father removed his glasses and cleaned them. “The problem with remembering the brilliant ones is that they are usually self-taught and rarely come to class. But I remember several who fit your description. However, bear in mind that I can only guess at their hacking abilities—since that’s not a subject I teach.”

  “Yeah, or Mom might have had to arrest you,” Piper teased.

  Her father chuckled. “She would have to do her duty. Even after all these years, your mother has high standards.”

  “That’s why she chose you.”

  “Yes. I’m a lucky man. Now, if only I had some grandchildren to teach how to use a keyboard and a mouse,” he teased Piper right back. She didn’t mind. Her parents had made no secret that they’d wanted more than one child. She would have liked a sister or a brother, too. But it hadn’t happened.

  “Sir, your students…” Jack prodded, putting the conversation back on track.

  Even as a kid she’d suspected that her family’s closeness had made Jack sad at the lack in his own family. She wondered if he still felt the lack, or if the new friends that he worked with made up for the void in his past.

  Her father wouldn’t be rushed. He wiped his lips with a napkin, then settled back in his chair. “First, there’s Aaron Hodges. The kid was a computer tycoon before he entered college. He had a thriving business selling souped-up computers before he ever came to the university. In my day the language of youth was overhead cam engines and fuel-injected funny cars. Now kids are into gigahertz, CPUs and megabit-per-second Net connections. That kid would have sold his own grandmother a computer system with a super-cooled micro processor, using a mobo—”

  “Dad, you’re losing me.”

  “A mobo is a motherboard. And he would have added a front side bus—”

  “Dad.”

  “An internal electrical pathway to burn through the latest games and whip the online competition.”

  “Okay. We get the idea. The guy likes speed and gadgets, and would sell them to people who don’t need them. What else can you tell us about Aaron?”

  “He struck me as an overachiever, a little secretive, maybe willing to break a few rules to get ahead, but that’s about it. After he got his undergraduate degree, he left the university for a few years and then returned to get his Ph.D.

  Piper wrote Aaron’s name down and underlined it. She’d spoken to him. She recalled an ordinary young man with glasses. He’d been more interested in trying to sell her a computer than answering her questions.

  “He’s one of the best salesmen I’ve ever met. He now owns Hodges Computer Systems over on Highway 19.”

  “So he does have assets, as well as a reputation to protect,” Piper added. “And the resources to bribe others.”

  “Who else?” Jack asked.

  “I know you said males only, but Danna Mudd was one of the smartest students I’ve ever taught. She had a double major in computer science and English. And she got kicked out of school for selling term papers to other students.”

  Piper wrote down her name. She remembered Danna, too, from a phone conversation. She’d struck her as a bright young woman who would go far. “Papers she downloaded off the Internet?”

  “Nope. She wrote every word herself.”
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  “Where is she now?” Jack asked.

  “I heard she writes grants for one of the charity foundations. Maybe the American Breast Cancer Society. And I also heard that her brother was in the military. Killed in Afghanistan.”

  Piper bit the end of her pen. Hoping for information about other students, she’d phoned Danna, but had never really considered her a suspect. “So she’s apparently gone legit and wouldn’t want her past hacking coming to light, either.”

  “We’ll check her out,” Jack told him.

  “And then there was Easy As Pie.”

  Jack finished his coffee and pushed the cup and saucer aside. “Easy As Pie?”

  “His nickname. He was one of those nerdy little kids with the dark glasses that were held together by tape. He had no social skills. He always wore black T-shirts and black baggy pants and a black leather trench coat. Every time I saw him I thought of Columbine High School, but the kid never gave me any problems. I swear he must have dreamed in computer code. And he had a hard time speaking English.”

  “Was he foreign?” Jack asked.

  “No. Just uncommunicative. He was working on some high-speed, ultra super-duper new motherboard. Was going to have it patented. I have no idea if he succeeded or where he is now. I hope the CIA recruited him, but I’m not sure if he ever graduated.”

  “Can you recall his real name?” Jack asked.

  “John Smith.”

  “You’re kidding.” Piper looked up from her note taking. This former student had refused to talk to her about the fire, telling her through a closed door that he didn’t speak to cops without a lawyer. Since she’d merely been on a fishing expedition, she’d had no reason to force her way inside or to pull him downtown for questioning, never mind arrest him.

  “Nope, it was John Smith, aka Easy As Pie. I always thought he might have…”

  “Might have what?” Piper asked.

  “Been the next Bill Gates or the next Osama bin Laden. I’m not sure which. The kid had an intensity about him. Eyes like a fanatic. But I’m not sure if he had any causes, because he rarely spoke.”