A Huge Mistake

by Laney Kay

  “That’s the damn truth. He’s a tough nut, but he may be the smartest computer guy I’ve ever met.”

  Jake and Mike stared at each other, sizing each other up, until Lola came back into the room. Lola looked between the two of them and decided she’d had enough of their posturing nonsense. “Hey boys, I’m back, so y’all can go ahead and put your dicks away. I’m confident they’re both huge, so no need to decide whose is bigger.” She hesitated and then smiled and batted her eyes. “Although, come to think of it, that may actually be what my dreams are made of, so maybe y’all should go ahead and whip them out.”

  It worked to break the tension. Jake started to laugh and Mike rolled his eyes at her. She grinned at both of them. “What did I miss?”

  Mike shook his head. “Nothing much. Jake was just about to tell me what started this whole mess and why you didn’t come to me first when you thought you had a problem, but you’re here, so why don’t you fill me in?”

  Lola explained about seeing Mitch at the game, the flash drive, and about Mitch turning up dead. Mike nodded. “Okay, and why didn’t you come to me as soon as you found the flash drive and realized you might have a problem?”

  Lola winced. She knew that Mike wasn’t going to like her answer. “I wasn’t sure what was going on, if anything, and I didn’t want to involve you, or anyone else I knew, because I didn’t want to compromise your safety.”

  “I’m sorry, what? You didn’t want to compromise my safety?” Mike took a deep breath to try to calm himself down, but it didn’t work, so he tried again. Screw it, he was pissed. “Lola, are you shitting me? You know I’ve been in combat, I’m was a SEAL, for God’s sake, I’ve guarded presidents and dignitaries, and you don’t trust me to keep you, or myself, safe? What the hell? This is what I do.”

  Lola put her hand on his arm and waited until he calmed down enough to talk to her. “I know all that, Mike, and I trust you with my life and everything and everyone in it. Honestly, I just didn’t know what, if anything, was going on, and until I did, I was just thinking that I didn’t want to put anyone I loved in danger. That’s all. I didn’t think it through. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you first.”

  He stared back at her, gauging the truth of her comment. What he saw in her eyes must have satisfied him, because he nodded at her, then grabbed her around the neck to pull her close so he could kiss her forehead. “Okay, fine. Apology accepted.” He let her go and she went to stand next to Jake, who put his arm around her shoulders. The gesture wasn’t lost on Mike. He looked between the two of them and his narrowed eyes met Jake’s, who calmly returned his stare.

  Lola watched them and finally sighed. “Look, if it’ll move things along, one of y’all could flip a coin to see who gets to pee on my leg to mark me as your territory and we could move past this.” They both glanced at her and went back to their stupid macho staring contest. Lola rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mike, here’s the deal. Remember Agent Steve Prince that helped Luke capture his ex-wife who stole all those Katrina funds? Well, I called to ask him if he had any ideas about who could help me with the flash drive, and he recommended Jake, who happens to be his brother. I called him and he agreed to help me.”

  Mike snorted. “Help you with what? Tucking you into bed at night?”

  Lola was pissed. “Mike, I don’t need another big brother right now. Whatever’s going on with us is none of your business.”

  Mike was glaring at Jake. “This just happened kind of fast, don’t you think? You hopped right on top of things, didn’t you?”

  Before Jake could say a word, Lola got up in Mike’s face. “Mike, you’ve got to be kidding. Back off. I’m forty-six years old, and don’t need a keeper. And when has any man ever taken advantage of me?”

  Mike was about to make a comment, but Lola slapped her hand over Mike’s mouth. “Shut up, Mike. We’re not going there. Ever. You know that.” She removed her hand and he nodded in agreement.

  Mike and Lola glared at each other, until Mike finally took a deep breath and relaxed. “You’re right, Lola. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Mike turned to face Jake. “Sorry, Jake, all that was out of line. I’m frustrated with the situation, and took it out on you.” He held out his hand and Jake immediately shook it.

  “We’re good.” Jake understood why Mike was irritated with Lola, and he was fine with that, but he was interested in why Mike was concerned about someone taking advantage of Lola. Obviously, something had happened in the past that was something she didn’t discuss. Now wasn’t the time, but when this was all over, he and Lola were going to have a conversation. He shook his head and asked, “Are there any external security cameras on this block?”

  Lola nodded. “I know for a fact that the garage on the corner has security cameras. They had a bunch of kids stealing stuff out of their cars, so they have cameras all over the place. And I think the restaurant around the corner has them at the front and back doors.”

  Jake pointed toward Mike’s seat. “You mind?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Jake sat down, and rapidly began typing. Within a few seconds, he was logged into his system at work and had brought up traffic cameras on the block and typed in the time in question. The three of them started scrolling through video footage from the streets around Lola’s office. The traffic was light, and most cars just sped by her office, but at about twelve fifty-five a.m., a black, crew-cab Ford F-150 truck with tinted windows slowly cruised past Lola’s office, and the next camera picked it up after it turned the corner. It continued down the block until it turned into the bank on the block behind Lola’s office. Four men got out, all in dark clothes and ballcaps pulled low on their foreheads, and the cameras caught them walking toward the office. They lost sight of them as the men turned the corner, but they didn’t show up again on the camera on the street behind the office. Lola was confused. “Where’d they go?”

  Mike shook his head in disgust as he answered her question. “I think this is part of the footage they accessed and erased.” He grabbed Lola’s arm to get her attention. “The security here isn’t as tight as I wanted it to be, but it’s still not an easy system to disarm and mess with. These aren’t ordinary thugs, Lola. I’m going to put in the same system that I installed at your house, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  Lola nodded. “Fine. Mikey, you do whatever you think is best and I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you make the changes when you wanted to before.” She turned to Jake. “So we can’t see these guys any closer?”

  Jake didn’t answer. He was muttering to himself under his breath, typing rapidly and flipping through screen after screen of pictures. Finally, he stopped at a screen that showed a big, black Ford truck, but it was daytime. “I think that’s our truck.”

  Lola and Mike leaned forward so they could see more clearly. Lola looked at the time stamp at the bottom of the picture. “That’s yesterday afternoon, Jake. Why do you think it’s the same truck?”

  He glanced up at her. “I figured they would have had to come check the place out, so I ran it through a program we use that works like facial recognition programs. I put in the truck info, put in time parameters, and it spit out several options, which were easy to narrow down.”

  Lola’s eyebrows pulled together and she leaned even closer. “Sorry, Jake, it just looks like a big, black F-150, just like every other one in Atlanta. Why this one?”

  He pulled up the video of the truck’s night-time visit and pointed to an area on the tailgate. “See how the reflected light looks kind of irregular right here? You see that same irregularity every time it passes by a light. I think that’s a vertical dent, so I put that in as an identifying factor, which cut down the possibilities significantly.”

  Mike looked at the picture. “Any chance of getting a license number?”

  Jake shook his head. “The number’s altered or it’s fake. I ran it, and it comes back to an old man who was at the doctor’s office at the time in question, and his truck, with that sam
e license plate number and no dent, was parked in the doctor’s parking lot.”

  Mike turned and smirked at him. He knew that Jake had probably been poking around in places he shouldn’t be, but he didn’t care so long as they got the info they needed. “You already checked that out, huh?”

  Jake didn’t look up. “Yep. I’m running the afternoon pictures through one of Jerry Jeff’s enhancement programs to try to get a decent image of the people in the truck, but it’s not done yet. I also got some camera footage from the garage and the restaurant to see if we can get anything from those, but so far, these guys did a good job of keeping their faces off camera.”

  Jake got a notification that the programs were finished. He pulled up the results on the screen and shook his head in disgust as he waved at the screen. “Shit. That’s all we’ve got.”

  There was one picture of the driver from the side from the afternoon footage, but with a ballcap and sunglasses he was pretty much unrecognizable. Jake pointed to the side of the driver’s head. “His nose is pretty average size and shape, and normally, I could use ear shape to identify him, but his hair is over his ears, so I’ve got nothing to go on. Basically, he’s just a taller than average guy, in good shape, with what looks like long-ish dark blond, or light brown, hair.” He tapped a few keys and the picture of the four guys came up, but they kept their heads down, and with the caps, they were also unrecognizable. The restaurant camera had caught a partial view of one of the men’s faces, but not enough for the program to offer an identity, and not enough for them to be able to recognize him in the future.

  Mike leaned forward and pointed to the hand of one of the men. “Is that a tattoo on the back of his hand?”

  Jake enlarged the area and tried to enhance it, but it just made it more blurry. “It’s something, but I can’t tell what.” He sat back in his chair. “I don’t see anything we can use. Basically, they’re four guys in good shape, who drive a black Ford F-150.”

  Lola and Mike looked at each other and shrugged. They didn’t see anything else, either. Mike took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m going to get to work on the security system here and get everything changed out. I’m also installing more cameras that won’t be visible to any asshole who tries to get in here, and I’m setting up an alarm so that if anyone approaches the building or tries to access our computers, I’ll get an immediate notification. Normally, I completely shut down the system and physically disconnect from the internet so no one can access our system when we’re not here, but I’m going to reconfigure the whole thing so this won’t be a problem again.”

  Jake nodded his approval. “Great. Here’s what I’m worried about. If they didn’t find it here, the next place they’re going to look is Lola’s house. I know the Batcave and the Batcave computer are secure, but what about her condo?”

  Mike shook his head and glared at Lola. “It’s actually a great system, but again, it’s not as secure as it would be if Lola would actually use the system the way it’s designed.”

  Lola rolled her eyes. “Mikey, you know I appreciate all you do, but I don’t want to live like that.” She turned to look at Jake. “He wanted me to activate the cameras and motion sensors inside the house in different zones, so when I’m locked in my condo at night, I can activate the entire house except my bedroom. He also wanted to LoJack me so he could track me whenever he wanted to.”

  Jake and Mike exchanged a look, and Mike shrugged. Jake turned back to Lola. “Lola, I don’t get it. What’s wrong with that?”

  Lola gritted her teeth. Men. Ugh. She tried to calmly explain her position. “Jake, what if I can’t sleep and want to go to the kitchen to get something to eat? Or it’s a beautiful night, and I want to go outside to sit by the pool and enjoy the view?”

  “I still don’t get it. Just turn off the alarm for whatever zone you want to go into. Why’s that a big deal?”

  Lola took a deep breath and reminded herself that their hearts were in the right place. “I just don’t want to live like a prisoner in my own home. I don’t want to get up half asleep and set off the alarm because I forgot to turn it off. When that alarm goes off, it scares the shit out of me. I set the alarm every night so I can tell if someone’s coming in, and that should be enough for any normal person.”

  Jake waved his hand toward the screen. “Well, right now, you’re not a normal person, and when you’re in your house, you need some extra protection. You need to activate the motion detectors, and I think putting a couple of trackers on you is a great idea. When we stop by my office I’ll pick you up a few that we can put in your clothes, in your purse, on your car, and Jerry Jeff designed some that look like an ordinary small earring.” Jake laughed and shook his head, marveling at Jerry Jeff’s different talents. “You can get it in gold or silver, and he even has one shaped like a little skull. He’s quite an artist.”

  Mike laughed at the idea, and looked at Lola. “Have you met Jerry Jeff yet?”

  She shook her head. “I take it he’s a man of many talents?”

  Mike and Jake exchanged a look and grinned at each other. Jake laughed. “That’s an understatement. He’s one of a kind.” He turned to Mike. “You got the security upgrades taken care of?”

  Mike nodded. “I’ll do the updates here, but I’m still not crazy about her being in the house knowing that these assholes are probably trying there next.”

  Jake stood up and stretched, then slung his arm around Lola’s shoulders. “That’s easy to fix. Lola, we’ll go by and get your stuff and you’ll stay with me till this all settles down.”

  Lola didn’t like the idea of someone running her out of her house, but she liked the idea of someone possibly coming in while she was asleep even less. And staying with Jake had some excellent side benefits. “Fine. That whole idea completely creeps me out, so I’m not going to complain, but if we don’t figure this out in a couple of days, we’ll need to reassess.”

  “Deal.” Jake would take what he could get. “Mike, you’ve got the security upgrades here covered, but let me know if you need anything from me or any of my guys. I’ll make sure we set all the motion sensor zones when we leave the condo. Anything else?”

  Mike shook his head. “Nope, that’ll do it. If they go to the condo, I already have perimeter cameras that are on a completely separate system and there’s no way those assholes will spot them. We’ll have clear pictures of them from every angle, and they’ll never know it. Now that I know what they did, there’s no way they can access anything without me being immediately notified, by one or both systems, so we’ll have options. We can call the cops, we can take care of it ourselves, or we can let them do their thing and just monitor them.”

  Jake and Mike exchanged a glance. Lola knew they wanted to take care of it themselves. “Guys, just call the cops or let them leave and we’ll identify them and track them down later. We don’t know who these guys are and I don’t want to take any chances with your safety. I don’t want y’all injured over a stupid flash drive that may, or may not, have some kind of valuable information on it.”

  Both of the men were quiet. Lola knew that, if they had the option, Jake and Mike would stake out her condo personally, hoping those guys would try to break in. That was the main reason she agreed so easily to stay with Jake, and she was about to call Mike’s husband to make sure he kept him at home the next night so she wouldn’t have to worry about him, too.

  Lola smiled brightly. “Well, it looks like we’re going to be busy the next few days, and Jake, if you want me to do anything useful, you’re going to need to feed me.”

  Mike snorted and clapped his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Better you than me, buddy. Good thing you have your own company so you can afford to feed her. She eats like a damn lumberjack.”

  Jake ruffled Lola’s hair affectionately as she stuck her tongue out at Mike. “Yeah, I’ve already figured that one out. I’ll take her for a big breakfast and then we’ll stop by her condo on the way to my office. Let us know if you need anything f
rom us.”

  “Will do.”

  Jake and Lola grabbed some breakfast and then headed to her house. When they got into her garage and headed upstairs, Jake reached under his shirt and pulled a Glock semi-automatic pistol from his kidney holster. He turned to look at her, his face stern and unsmiling. “Stay behind me and do exactly what I say. If anything happens, try to take cover and get as low to the floor as possible. Mike didn’t warn us of any trouble here, but I don’t believe in taking chances, so we’re going to be careful.”

  Lola nodded. As the elevator opened, Jake silently stepped into the condo with Lola close behind him. Lola turned to type a code to keep the elevator open and on that floor in case they needed it. They crept through the house, Jake not relaxing until he had cleared the entire place. Finally, he holstered his gun and turned and smiled at Lola. “Good job, sugar. Thanks for staying close.”

  Lola rolled her eyes. “Please. I’m not an idiot, Jake. Last thing I want is for one of those assholes to grab me and haul me off. I’ve got some decent self-defense moves, and I’m better than average with a gun, but I figure you’re better than I am, so whatever you tell me to do is just fine with me.” She batted her eyes and moved closer until he could feel her stiff little nipples against his chest. He sucked in a breath as she leaned up to whisper in his ear. “Believe it or not, there are plenty of times I actually like to be bossed around.” She gently bit his earlobe and licked inside his ear. “Maybe we’ll have to try that sometime.”

  Jake’s eyes closed and he grabbed Lola’s hips to pull her tightly against him. He was lowering his head to kiss her when he harshly blew out the breath he’d been holding and took one step back so he couldn’t feel her against him. She grinned as he shook his head and ran his hands through his short hair, obviously frustrated. “Damn it, Lola, you’ve got to stop doing that. We need to get your shit and get out of here, and every time I turn around you’re doing something that makes me forget everything I’m supposed to be doing.”