by Roni Loren
“Right? I’m a genius.” Andre gave her a mock salute and headed out. “Later, Junior.”
“See ya.” Cora watched him go, shaking her head.
Andre had a unique relationship—a husband and a wife—and all three parented their little girl, Lucy. When Andre had “come out” with that information at work, it had caused quite the gossip wave. How does that work? Does that mean Medina’s sleeping with the guy, too? Whose kid is it? Everyone seemed to have a question or an opinion on the matter. That will never last. You don’t get to have cake and eat it, too. That child is going to be so confused. But Cora had kept her thoughts to herself, all the while thinking, He gets two people who love him so much they want to be with him forever. How amazing must that feel?
Cora rolled her neck and resisted Googling Hayes on her phone. It was probably best she didn’t know details right now. She just needed to get to FoxRen today, lock herself in an office, and tear apart their system until she found what she needed to take down the motherfucker who’d gotten her attacked.
Cora spun in her chair and closed the laptop she’d been working on. She didn’t notice she wasn’t alone anymore until the faint scent of her mother’s perfume hit her. Her mother had worn the same scent since Cora was a kid. Just because I’m a cop doesn’t mean I can’t smell good. The jasmine-and-vanilla combo was comforting to Cora in a lot of ways. When she was young, it meant her mom was home from work and safe. Janet Benning had won for another night. But right now, Cora assumed it wasn’t a harbinger of good news.
“So when were you going to tell me?” The words hit her in the back like tiny, sharp needles.
Cora closed her eyes, took a breath, and swiveled her chair around. “Hi, Mom.”
Her mom wasn’t in uniform today, but managed to look official anyway in her simple white blouse and pressed gray pants, her badge on her hip. Her dark bottle-red hair was pulled back into a stylish knot. She only had a touch of makeup on but somehow looked at least ten years younger than her fifty-two years. Effortlessly pretty as always. The frown lines on her face gave some of that effect away, though. “Coraline.”
She groaned. No matter what, her mom always made her feel twelve years old again. “It wasn’t a big deal. The guy ran off. I didn’t get hurt.”
“Do you know what it does to me to hear something like this from one of my officers instead of my own daughter? This happened last Thursday and you didn’t bother to tell me? You could’ve been hurt or raped or worse. What were you doing out that late? And why didn’t you have your Taser ready?”
“So we’re blaming the victim now?”
“Don’t pull that BS with me. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” The words were biting, but her brown eyes were swamped with worry.
That took the wind out of Cora’s sails. “Look, I’m sorry. I went to a business mixer with Grace. It was outside of the city and wasn’t over until late. I was tired and got careless. I wasn’t paying attention like I should’ve been. Believe me, it won’t happen again. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.”
Janet sank into the chair across from her and shook her head. “I told you that neighborhood wasn’t the best. You can’t plunk a hip coffee shop and an organic burger joint in the middle of a notoriously high-crime neighborhood and magically make it more safe.”
“It’s a transitional neighborhood. And it’s not that bad. My neighbors are nice and look out for each other. And the hookers and drug pushers are at least four blocks away.”
Her mom pinched the bridge of her nose, a sign she was hitting her smartass tolerance for the morning. “I don’t know why you don’t just move back home with me and Greg until you can afford something better. You know we don’t need that whole house to ourselves and we’re barely there anyway.”
Cora pressed her lips together to keep the Oh, hell no from slipping out. This was an old argument. She loved her mother more than anyone else on this planet. And Greg, her mom’s boyfriend of the last six years, was great. But Cora had done her time at home. She’d already lived that legacy. Being exposed to what her mom had would’ve made anyone paranoid and overprotective. Cora understood, but she wouldn’t enter that brand of captivity again no matter how well-intentioned. “I’m twenty-six, Mom. I have a life plan to not become a cliché. And living in my mother’s basement is the biggest of them all. I’m good.”
“We don’t have a basement.”
“It’s proverbial.”
Her mother huffed a breath, her impatience obvious. “I’m worried about you, honey. Did you get a good look at the guy? Was it anyone you’ve seen before?”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“Are you sure? Could it be someone you investigated here? I hold your name out of things but it keeps me up at night wondering what might happen if someone finds out you’re helping put them behind bars. Maybe it’s time that you stop—”
Cora put up her hand, cutting her off. “I got a good look. He was a stranger. College-aged. I’d recognize him if it was a case I’d worked on. What I do here has nothing to do with what happened.”
As much as her mom appreciated Cora’s help on cases, she’d always been reluctant to let Cora continue with it. It’d started with an internship years ago—which was really a way for her mother to keep a close eye on her while she’d been in college. It was supposed to be temporary. But Cora hadn’t wanted to walk away once she’d graduated. Where else could she work and feel like she was really making an impact? Where there were clear results? So she’d applied for a more permanent position that would have let her provide services to multiple precincts. Her application had been denied. Her mom had blamed it on the city not wanting nepotism, but Cora had known who’d made sure it didn’t happen.
Janet pressed her lips together. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
“No. He thought I was someone else. He thought I wanted to play some kind of game.”
“What the hell kind of game would that be?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? Kinky sex games?”
Her mother blanched. In her jaded cop mind, kinky meant demented. She’d seen sadistic killers, and had no room to parse out sexual sadism from the sociopathic kind. They’d had that conversation after a popular movie, and Cora had given up trying to argue that there was a difference. “That doesn’t make me feel any better, Coraline.”
“I’ve already contacted the landlord to ask if he would put in an alarm system, and I got an extra dead bolt installed on both the front and back door yesterday.” She lifted her purse from the desk. “And I’m carrying my Taser in my hand wherever I go. Plus, I’m not going to be working from home for a while anyway. I landed a contract with a tech company and will be in an office filled with people.”
The tense lines in Janet’s expression softened a bit at that. “Oh. Well, that’s good at least. I hate knowing you’re working at home all day. That’s—”
“—the most popular time for burglaries. I know. I don’t answer the door and one of the guys next door works from home often anyway. I’m careful. This was just a freak thing.”
“Freak things get people killed.”
“Mom.” Cora’s patience was waning. She needed more coffee for this.
Her mom’s hands went up and she stood. “Fine. I’ll stop. For now. But I want you texting me when you get home each night. Just let me know you’re there and safe so I can sleep. And I’m sending an officer to dust for fingerprints on your porch. We might have this guy in the system already.”
“Fine.” Cora stood and arched her back, her joints popping from sitting too long. She grabbed the laptop and handed it to her mother. “I’ve sent you a file with the evidence I found on here.”
“Pay dirt?”
“Go throw a book at the bastard. And maybe cut off his balls for good measure.”
She gave her a grim look. “I
was hoping this one wasn’t true.”
“Yeah, me, too.” She stepped around the desk and hiked her purse and laptop bag onto her shoulder. “I won’t be coming in for a little while if this job goes the way I expect, but if something urgent bubbles up, let me know.”
Her mom smiled at that. “Thanks. And I probably don’t say it enough, but I do appreciate what you do here. I know the pay is crap.”
“I don’t mind helping. Family legacy to get the bad guys, right?”
Janet smirked. “I said all my life I wouldn’t let you become a cop, but somehow you’re here anyway. You find interesting ways to rebel, Coraline.”
“At least I didn’t do it by trying to date one of those handsome men in uniform out there.” She tapped her chin. “Though, there’s still time. Officer Cole is looking pretty hot with that beard he’s rocking now. Is he single?”
Her mother gave her a droll look. “I take it back. Stick with this course of action. I don’t want to have to murder one of my guys.”
Cora grinned and leaned over to give her mom a kiss on the cheek. “Later, Captain.”
EIGHT
Cora stretched her neck from side to side and then lifted her glasses to rub her eyes, her sleepless weekend catching up with her. Ren had set her up in a nice, though sterile, office and had given her complete access to their systems. She’d been working for hours and had already found two holes where she’d been able to break in and view secure information. There were simple patches to fix those, so she’d taken care of that, but she had no idea if that was how the hacker had gotten in. He or she had covered their tracks well. So for the last two hours she’d been painstakingly recovering email files and the activity log so they could get some idea of how widespread this was, but she was coming up empty on most fronts.
So much for walking in day one and knocking it out of the park.
A light knock sounded behind her. She slid her glasses back into place and spun her chair around. Hayes Fox’s broad shoulders filled the doorway, his presence taking up all the space in the room though he hadn’t even stepped inside yet. Her breath stalled. Today he was wearing dark jeans and this heather-gray T-shirt that hugged his body, displaying the sheer impact of how well built he was. A body that wouldn’t yield if punched.
A body built in a prison yard.
She tried to look unaffected, not at all intimidated or like she knew too much. She’d managed to avoid seeing him today, but she’d known that would only be a temporary reprieve. The man owned the company. She was going to have to deal with him.
She cleared her throat. “Hi, Mr. Fox.”
“Hayes,” he said in that rumbly voice.
“Right.” She managed a polite smile. “Sorry, that will take some getting used to. At my last job, my boss was all about the formality.”
Hayes stepped inside, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, and set a white box on her desk. “I’m not your boss. But no one calls me Mr. Fox anyway. It sounds like I’m a neighbor of Winnie-the-Pooh.”
She blinked, the words absolutely not lining up with his deadpan delivery or what she’d expected him to say. She couldn’t help the nervous laugh that escaped. “Right. Down the road from Piglet.”
“Exactly.”
She waited to see some kind of smile from him, some hint that he wasn’t as scary as he seemed. But he wasn’t going to give her anything. He was just going to stand there like he was waiting out some obligatory time period before it was acceptable to leave. Somehow that made her feel better. He wasn’t trying to charm her. He wasn’t trying to win her over. He wasn’t putting on a front. If anything, it seemed like she was making him uncomfortable.
Which only made her want to pick him apart and figure him out. If she was going to be working with him, she needed to know, needed to get that gut read on him.
She eyed the box and then him. “So are you going to make me ask the question?”
His brows arched. “The question?”
She pointed at the package he’d deposited on her desk. “I can try to channel my Brad Pitt impression, but I warn you, it’s not very good.”
He stared at her for a long second and then his lips twitched, a dimple peeking through for the briefest of seconds. Not a smile but a preview that one could exist. “Ah. What’s in the box?”
Lord. Just that hint of amusement had transformed his face from stern intimidation to unbearably handsome, almost boyish. If the guy ever fully smiled, any ovaries in a three-mile radius would probably explode.
“Yes. What’s in the box? What’s in the box?” The second time she said it with the desperate tone from the movie, knowing she sounded ridiculous, but wanting to see what reaction she got out of him.
He rewarded her with a half-tilt of his lips. “That wasn’t bad. But I’m happy to report it’s not a human head. Ren sent me over to tell you that we actually let people take lunch breaks and that you should eat. You can go out or you can have what’s in the box—a chicken-salad sandwich, fruit, and a cookie from the restaurant across the street. We order in for everybody on Mondays.”
“Oh.” Until the mention of food, she hadn’t thought about it, but now her stomach rumbled in protest. “Thanks. I guess I hadn’t realized how long I’d been at this.”
“You and Ren will get along well. He gets so involved in stuff he forgets to eat, too. He paced the house all weekend, trying to figure this out.”
Her brows lifted. “You live together?”
Something flickered in his expression and he glanced away. “It’s not like . . . Yeah, we do.”
She winced inwardly. Obviously she’d pushed some button. She had no idea if it was because he was embarrassed to be staying at someone’s house or if there was more to his and Ren’s relationship than business. Now there was a visual . . .
Focus, rude, nosy girl. “Sorry, that’s none of my business. Curiosity overrides my mouth sometimes.”
“It’s fine. It’s not classified information or anything. We’ve shared a place since college.” He peered at her screen but still didn’t sit down. “So, any luck?”
Business talk. Okay, she could do that with him. That was a better plan than “shipping” her two new employers in her head or thinking too hard about the fact that this man was an ex-con. She turned toward the computer and tucked her leg beneath her. “Not much, but I can show you what I’ve gotten so far.”
“Okay.” Hayes stepped around the desk and perched on the edge of it to look at her screen. The scent of him drifted her way—fresh laundry and something earthy, like he’d rolled around in the grass.
She ignored that distraction and clicked open a few windows. “So, do you speak computer geek?”
“A little, but dumb it down for me. I’m only an MBA.”
She smirked. The man didn’t smile but there was a dry sense of humor hiding in there. Problem was she didn’t know what else was hiding in there.
That thought had her spine straightening, the ease that had slipped in quickly evaporating. She told him what she’d found, explaining it in layman’s language and showing him a bit of the process she went through. He asked good questions and seemed to listen carefully to her answers. He didn’t speak computers but he was smart as hell. Analytical.
He crossed his arms and eyeballed the screen. “So what’s that part you’ve highlighted?”
“That’s when I think the system was first hacked. All the other admin access times were during working hours. This one is after one in the morning and the sign-in times in the days following are mostly night hours. So if that’s the case, it means our guy got in the system about two weeks ago.”
“Damn. That’s a long time to have a free pass.”
“Eons. And whoever it is, he or she knows enough to cover their steps pretty well. I can’t see if other emails were sent. We’ll have to rely on reports from users to figure that
piece out. But I can see whose profiles were opened by the admin in that time period.”
“So this wasn’t just directed at you?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem so, unless the person was trying to dig through files to find me. That would mean they were after me personally and didn’t know who my character was in the game. But I’m guessing this is more big picture than someone just coming after me. I can’t think of anyone who’d be pissed enough at me to do what they did.”
“Have you had any conflicts with anyone recently that stick out? A co-worker, maybe?”
She shook her head. “No. People I worked with would’ve had no way of knowing I’m a member even if someone did want to mess with me. I haven’t shared that with anyone.”
“A former boyfriend or girlfriend, maybe?”
She didn’t blink at the question. She’d gotten used to people wondering if she was a lesbian. Her clothes, her tomboy ways, and her lack of any long-term boyfriends tended to bring up the question—even from her mother. She’d wondered herself for a brief time in high school, considering that maybe that was why she’d always felt different from her female friends, but that hadn’t been her answer. She wasn’t gay. And she didn’t want to be male. And boys had inevitably been the subject of her attraction. She’d just never felt comfortable being über girly. And when she’d tried to force the issue to fit in—subjecting herself to the dreaded makeover by a well-meaning friend—she’d felt like an imposter.
So now her friends probably assumed she was making some feminist statement that she wouldn’t conform to gender expectations. But really, she just wore the things and acted the way that made her feel comfortable in her own skin. It was disastrous to her dating life but necessary for her own mental health. The only time she let herself step out of that was when she was Lenore.
She adjusted her glasses. “No. The last guy I dated had the skills for this kind of thing, but our relationship wasn’t that intense and he didn’t know I played the game. Plus, he wouldn’t put out this much effort on my behalf. He didn’t put out much effort in general.”
