Burning Hearts

by Marci Bolden

  “It’s not him.”

  “The fuck it isn’t.”

  “Mr. Price, someone hid a camera in my kitchen. The suspect wore a mask so we couldn’t see her face, but it was, without a doubt, a woman.”

  His face paled, but then his eyes lit as if he’d solved a great mystery. “Tiffany.”

  “Possibly. Why would she put a camera in my condo?”

  “Because Shane is frothing at the mouth to get you into bed. Has been since he saw you working out. He asked to see the resident file for you and Josh.”

  “Did you show it to him?”

  He nodded. “We faked your purchase, so I don’t think he could get much off of it.”

  “Wrong. He got plenty off that report. Including the pattern Josh and I have for leaving for work and coming home. He knew exactly when our condo would be empty so Tiffany, if that’s who it was, could plant a camera. Why are they planting cameras in condos? The camera was in the kitchen. If they were trying to get something smutty, why not put it in the bedroom?”

  He looked at her as if she were too dumb to exist. “If he wants you, and Tiffany agrees, they’ll stop at nothing to get you. Has Tiffany thrown herself at you yet?”

  “Not exactly, but I have to say I did feel a bit like I was being groomed when I went shopping with her.”

  “What about your boyfriend? Has she come on to him yet?”

  She sat back, thinking about the odd evening she and Josh had spent with Courtney…the woman whom they’d also seen on video sleeping with Tiffany Tremant.

  “I guess she has.” He smirked. “If they don’t think you’re open to sleeping with them, don’t doubt for a minute they won’t sink so low as to get evidence of your boyfriend cheating on you. Once you’re brokenhearted, Tiffany will become your best friend.”

  “And more,” Eva said thoughtfully.

  “Only if you let her.”

  “Did they show interest in Wendi Carter before she discovered the camera?”

  “Shane did. Wendi’s boyfriend threatened to kick his ass, and then Tiffany cornered Wendi. It was ugly.”

  “So their advances fell flat with Wendi and they turned on her.”

  “I don’t know their motive, but if I had to guess, they probably wanted to make her life a living hell so she’d sell and move out. Everyone here knows these units don’t stay empty long. If someone wants to sell, they won’t have any issue finding a buyer.”

  “Do you really believe they’d go to such lengths to get rid of one person who wasn’t interested in having sexual relations with them?”

  “I don’t know. This entire situation is crazy.”

  “Well, that we can agree upon. What happened to the camera from Wendi’s apartment?”

  Neal frowned. “I don’t know. It really did go missing from my desk. Listen, if it isn’t Shane, then it has to be Tiffany. I don’t know who else would do this.”

  Tiffany Tremant definitely could have been the slim figure on the video camera. And Shane would know enough about security cameras to tell her to cover her face so the footage didn’t give her away. That also meant he probably knew enough to cover his tracks when buying the cameras, which would explain why Sam still hadn’t been able to trace the purchase.

  “Is there anything else you’ve been keeping from me, Mr. Price?”

  “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I was trying to protect my wife. I didn’t know Shane and Tiffany would…”

  “Manipulate women for sex?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  She didn’t approve of the choices he’d made, but she did believe the situation had gotten out of his control before he understood the real consequences of his actions. “You’re going to do two things by the end of the week, Mr. Price. First, you’re going to refund the HOA, and second, you’re going to have real security installed by someone other than Shane Tremant.”

  He opened his mouth, clearly to argue, but then he nodded.

  “I want to see proof those things are done. Or I will notify the police of your participation, willing or not, in what’s been going on here.”

  “It’ll get done,” he muttered.

  Standing upright, she looked down her nose at him. “You may not have intended to, but your attempt to cover for your wife has put every woman in this building in a position to be violated in more ways than I can explain. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wendi Carter is suffering tremendously after realizing she’d been watched. Imagine how she would feel if she’d been unknowingly manipulated into a sexual relationship with a married couple.”

  “I get it, Ms. Thompson.”

  She shook her head at him. “I don’t think you do. But you will, if any of the women they’ve corralled into their little sex ring has been forced, in any way, to do something they didn’t want and you were a silent accomplice.”

  She left him with that slap of reality.

  Josh didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one little bit. But he’d agreed to help. Even if he didn’t like it. Looking to his left and then his right, he made sure no one was coming. “Almost done?”

  “Just about,” Eva whispered.

  “Hurry up.”

  He glanced around again, certain that someone would catch her placing hidden cameras at any moment. This was the last one, the last hallway she was going to be spying on. At some point, someone dressed in all black would leave one condo, and Eva would be able to track her to the next condo…one where she would presumably be planting a camera. And then this would finally be over.

  His stress had been heightened since she’d relayed the information she’d gathered from her talk with Neal Price. Courtney’s behavior hadn’t simply been to test the waters where Josh and Eva were concerned but apparently had been an attempt to break them up, break Eva’s heart, and turn her into some kind of living sex toy.

  He and Eva had debated how Courtney had gotten to that point, but obviously she’d been working on behalf of the Tremants. Shane and Tiffany wanted Eva. The thought made Josh’s skin crawl. No, it did more than that. He was outraged.

  Lusting after Eva was one thing, but actively taking such drastic steps to get to her? He’d thought that son of a bitch had crossed a dozen or more lines when he was staring at Eva in the gym. If Josh were able to, he’d beat the crap out of the man. The best he could do, though, was discreetly kill him in a way that would leave no evidence.

  “Hey.” Eva shook him gently. “You okay?”

  He exhaled. “Yeah.”

  She eyed him, showing her disbelief, but then grinned. “Oh, Joshua. Were you plotting murder to protect my honor?”

  “I hadn’t gotten to plotting yet. I was just reminding myself that murder was an option.”

  “Aw, baby.” Putting her hands to his cheeks, she kissed him lightly. “You’re the best.”

  He smiled. “Are you done?”

  “I am.”

  “Good. Now I can wow you with my computer skills.”

  She sighed dramatically. “I was hoping to be wowed by something else, but I’ll settle for computer skills.”

  Putting his arm around her shoulders, he pressed the button for the elevator. Looking up, he sought out the camera she’d placed somewhere in the fake plants that adorned the hallway. “Everything’s in place?”

  “Yup. Let’s get these cameras active and catch us a pervert.”

  They curbed the conversation until they returned to their condo. While Josh set up his laptop so he could connect Eva’s cameras to the private website he’d set up, she scanned for any new cameras that might have been placed but didn’t find any.

  “There’s got to be more to this,” she said, plopping onto the sofa beside him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this can’t just be about Shane and Tiffany getting their rocks off. They get Courtney to seduce you on video, for what? To blackmail you into breaking it off with me. Then they turn around and recruit me into their l
ittle sex ring? That’s an awful lot of work for a little genital gratification. There are a million websites out there with women looking for this type of situation. Shane could recruit dozens of them online. Why is he going to such lengths to manipulate the women in this building?”

  “I guess he wants his own harem.”

  “Would you do this much work for a little bit of ass? I’m going to have Sam check the dark web again,” Eva said thoughtfully. “I’d bet anything these videos are a hot commodity for some amateur porn site. The Tremants are making a killing off these women who probably don’t even know they are being recorded.”

  “Or maybe they do. You said Courtney’s room was set up like a wet dream for someone who has a schoolgirl fetish. She may be in on it.”

  “But I didn’t find a camera in her bedroom.” She scoffed. “Check that. I didn’t find a hidden camera turned on and emitting a heat aura. I did not look for a hidden camera that is probably only turned on when there are activities happening. Holy shit. What is going on with these people?”

  “Sex and money, babe. There’s not a lot of people who won’t do anything for sex and money.”

  “Would you do this? Have a condominium of concubines?”

  “No. Jesus, Eva, most men are lucky if they can keep one woman happy. I wouldn’t know what to do with two or more.”

  “Somehow I think you’d come up with an idea or two,” she muttered.

  “Look, Neal might be twisted in his justification of what he’s done, but he’s right on one thing. He’s loyal to his wife, and whatever he’s doing is to protect her. That’s what a relationship is, right? You have your one person to love, and honor, and protect. Right? I don’t need a condo building full of women.” He nudged her. “I only need one.”

  She kissed him lightly. “You’re sweet, Joshie.”

  His heart melted a little, even though she’d called him by that name. “I’ve been told.”

  Nodding her head toward his laptop, she said, “And this will store memory, right?”

  “I hijacked one of the servers at HEARTS. With Sam’s permission,” he clarified. “She’s probably the only one of you guys I can take in fisticuffs, but I don’t want to risk it.”

  Eva chuckled. “Never underestimate a woman who wears stilettos just because.”

  He logged in to the site he’d created. “Do, uh, do you ever wear stilettos just because?”

  “No. I do wear them for kinky sex, though.”

  Jerking his face to her, he stared with wide eyes. “What? We never…”

  She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t owned stilettos since… Never. I’ve never owned a single pair.”

  “We should fix that.”

  Leaning close, she brushed her chin on his shoulder and whispered, “Only if we get to buy you a gimp mask.”

  “What’s that?”

  She gawked at him for a moment before muttering under her breath about his naiveté as she Googled the term. Within a minute she was showing him the images of black leather masks, most with zippers over the mouth. “How about one of these and a studded collar so I can take you for a walk while wearing my stilettos?”

  “I’ll try anything once,” he said, returning his attention to his task, grinning as her laughter filled the condo. “One more click here, and…” The six black boxes on his screen came to life, each one a camera showing the hallway of each floor of the building. No matter where their voyeur went, they’d be able to pinpoint her location.

  Eva wrapped her arm around his back. “You are amazing, Dr. Simmons.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Thompson. Might I make a suggestion?”

  “Snaps on your gimp mask instead of a zipper?”

  He chuckled. “Chinese delivery for dinner and a long evening of monitoring the Jupiter Heights hallways so we can end this thing before someone else gets hurt.”

  She kissed his shoulder. “Amazing and brilliant. I’ll call it in.”

  “I want—”

  “Sweet-and-sour chicken and wonton soup.”

  “You know it,” he said as she started scrolling through her phone again. While she ordered their dinner, Josh fine-tuned the website and used his phone to call the HEARTS office and verify with Sam that things were working on her end. This would allow any of the women to help Eva watch the hallways anytime and anywhere.

  Something he definitely admired about them was how solid their team was. More like family. He had nice coworkers but definitely didn’t have that kind of camaraderie with them. When he’d called in to let them know he was taking a sick day, he might as well have said he was never returning again. The one time he could recall Eva calling in sick, they had taken turns for two days staying with her while Josh went to work. He had felt like a schmuck, but Eva insisted they had more flexibly in their work than he did. Which was true, but he should have nursed her back to health. Sometimes they were both too logical for their own good.

  He didn’t plan to keep that pattern going, and now seemed like a good time to start surprising her. As soon as she returned to her seat and announced dinner would arrive in half an hour, he put his hand to her knee. “When this case is over, I think we should move in together.”

  She was surprised. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened. “Look at you being spontaneous.”

  “It’s not, really. It makes sense. I love you. You love me. We’ve already lost some time because you’re so stubborn.”

  She gasped, and he laughed.

  “Okay, because we both needed to get our heads around some things,” he corrected.

  “That’s better.”

  “Maybe it seems like I’m jumping the gun here, but even after we broke up, we still”—his heart suddenly ached a little—“we still loved each other, and neither of us dated anyone else because we knew. Maybe we didn’t want to admit it, but we knew. This is it.”

  “This is it,” she said under her breath.

  “So let’s…jump in. Huh?”

  After taking a deep breath, she nodded her agreement. “Yeah. Let’s jump in.”

  “Your apartment is better suited, don’t you think?”

  One side of her mouth quirked up. “Because of my bathtub?”

  “I love your bathtub,” he practically growled.

  She closed the distance between them to press her mouth to his. Before he could pull her deeper into the connection, her phone vibrated, and she pulled back. He wanted to protest, but she grabbed the device and had it to her ear in a split second.

  “Hey, Sam.”

  He returned his attention to her laptop, only half listening until he caught the gist of the conversation. Sam had found what Eva had insisted was out there somewhere—amateur porn starring Shane and Tiffany Tremant. She was going to send screenshots to Eva of at least two other women to be identified. She had to find out if they knew they were being recorded and had given permission for their images to be used. If not, they were victims of a serious crime, and she had all the proof they’d need to get justice.

  “I’m going to start putting the evidence together to take to the police,” Eva said. She rolled her head back and nodded. “How long will that take?”

  Josh squeezed her knee when she dragged her hands through her hair.

  “I’ll give you until noon tomorrow. Sam,” she said firmly. “Noon tomorrow.” Hanging up, she dropped her phone on the table and shook her head at Josh.

  “She found the footage, huh?”

  Eve blew out a breath. “She wants to try to trace the account before I involve the police. She’s afraid they’ll take too long and the footage will disappear.”

  “Sounds like a legitimate concern.”

  “It is. But damn it.” Shoving herself to her feet, she paced. “We have no way of knowing if that footage is out there with the consent of all parties involved, Josh.” Stopping, she planted her hands on her hips and faced him. “If I had to place a bet on who the women are in the footage, it’d be Courtney and Brenda. I’ll confirm as soon as Sam sends
me a screenshot.”

  “Think they know?”

  “Courtney might. I doubt Brenda does.”

  “You can’t do anything about it until you hear from Sam.”

  Blowing out her breath, she dropped onto the sofa again. “I know.”

  Putting his arm around her, he pulled her closer. “Wanna look at houses?”

  She laughed lightly. “Yeah. Let’s look at houses.”

  “Yes,” he said in an excited whisper. They didn’t have to look at houses, and they both knew it, but if Eva didn’t have a distraction, she’d lose her mind. Using the remote, Josh turned on the TV, and with a few clicks on his trackpad he transferred the output on his laptop to the large screen. With half the screen showing the hall monitors, he started searching for houses for sale on the other half.

  14

  As soon as Eva opened the locker room door, the echo of angry voices surrounded her. This was not what she’d had in mind when she’d suggested an early morning workout to Josh. She was eager to use the fancy Jupiter Heights gym one more time before handing this case over to the authorities. Breaking up a fight was not on her agenda.

  “Stay away from us,” one woman said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” the other countered.

  “Do you think I’m stupid, Courtney?”

  “No,” she deadpanned. “But it’s not my fault if your boyfriend keeps coming on to me, Melly.”

  Ahh. Eva supposed this was inevitable. If Melly wasn’t on board with the swinging game—and given the disgust she had expressed at Shane touching her ass, she never would be—it made sense that she was on the same list as Wendi Carter. “Ryan is not coming on to you. It’s the other way around.”