business platform." It was an excuse that allowed them to be around the house all day without anyone thinking it was abnormal.
"Gah, computers. I don't know a thing about them. Erik uses them for work, and he's always checking his email on his phone."
"What does Erik do?"
"He's a business consultant. He's responsible for ten or fifteen companies at a time. His company moves in when a business is in trouble and helps them streamline, remove the dead weight and trim to become efficient and effective again."
"Wow, that sounds interesting. No offense, but I hope we never need to call in his company." Amber made her eyes cross.
"Oh, Amber, we are going to get along fine. I'm so glad." Clare made a big production of looking to her right and to her left before she leaned in and whispered, "Most of the women around here have a stick up their ass, or so many kids they’d give anything to have a stick up their ass."
A shocked laugh erupted from her before she could stop it. "Well, I'm not a fan of sticks." She was damn proud of Gage, but she wouldn't bring him into an operation. Keeping him safe was paramount and making sure potential suspects didn't know about a personal vulnerability was absolutely essential.
Brody came back out of the garage and dropped his arm on her shoulders.
"Well, I'll let you two get back to moving in. See you at 6:30, and come straight to the backyard. I won't hear the doorbell and there is no sense going to the front of the house when you can walk through the yard."
"Thank you again." Brody extended his hand and shook Clare's.
"No problem, welcome to the neighborhood!" Clare waved and headed back to her immaculately pruned and groomed yard.
Brody watched the woman walk across the lawn. Amber leaned into him. "I really hope she's not smuggling dope. I like her."
He chuckled and turned her toward the house. "Smile and flip off the camera."
"How about we don't and say we did?" She elbowed him in the side, and they both meandered back into the garage and then into the house. They were lucky. The house had been staged to sell, so there was a couch to sit on. They'd brought an air mattress and bedding. The bedrooms hadn't been staged except for a few plants. Tonight, the surveillance van would start its coverage. The city utilities van they'd commandeered three years ago would once again be a set up for utilities work that never actually happened. The bullpen had drawn straws for shift coverage as the houses would be monitored 24/7, even when Brody and Amber were there.
Amber brought him a cold water as he worked on the computers they'd set up in the office. They had two monitors each, and the cameras were sending the stream into the cloud. They would be able to monitor take offs and landings from the security system already installed on the hangar by the previous owner. The hangar was alarmed, but not the house. Brody shook his head. Whoever lived in this house had their priorities wrong.
He picked up his earwig and hit the mic key on the computer. "Do you have us?" He glanced at the feeds he had on his screen and then looked over the top of his monitors to Amber. She nodded that she had all the feeds.
"Roger that. We have nine feeds. Three on House A, three on House B, and three on the hangar. We can see down the entire flight line. Those are good cameras."
"Installed by the previous owner." Brody continued to work through the program his cousin had sent him. He hit the small icon and instantly both screens flashed black before a myriad of pop-ups appeared.
Amber pushed away from the computer and held her hands up. "I didn't do that!"
He chuckled and hit the icon again, sending everything back the way it was. "That is a gift from my cousin, Jewell. If we have unannounced guests, click on the black treasure chest at the bottom of the screen."
"Here?" Amber clicked and both sets of screens once again flashed black and populated the nonsense they'd seen before. "Wow. That's impressive."
"It doesn't do anything but run on a loop, but if anyone was to come into the house, they wouldn't see our surveillance feed, they'd see our 'work'. The van has the same program installed. It has saved our bacon a time or two when nosy city workers showed up."
"Okay,