First Star I See Tonight (Chicago Stars #8) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,101

stay any longer. One more sweep. She cut through the living room, the den. Nothing. She had to get out before the police arrived. Now. She passed through the kitchen again. And there it was. On the granite counter. She grabbed it, ran out through the rear and down the alley to her car.

Once she got back to her office and stopped shaking, she made a pot of strong coffee to keep herself alert. Then she settled behind her desk and began the work of cloning the laptop’s hard drive.

An hour later, she was in.

***

Her cell rang. She jerked her head up from her desk and fumbled to pick it up. Eight a.m. She’d fallen asleep less than an hour ago. “’Lo,” she croaked.

“Nice to know how much you care.” The uncharacteristically sulky note in Coop’s voice reassured her as nothing else could have.

“Yeah, well, I had things to do, and I called your attorney, didn’t I?” She grabbed her mug, took a slug of cold coffee, and shuddered.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

She rubbed her eyes. “About what?”

“I’ve been accused of a sex crime!” he exclaimed. “I’m currently out of jail on bond!”

“Oh, that.”

“You think this is some kind of a joke?”

“Don’t even go there.” The anger she’d barely been able to suppress boiled to the surface. “Thousands of women won’t report they’ve been raped because they’re afraid they’ll be called liars. And then there’s this. It’s too much, Coop. I swear I am going to nail whoever accused you.”

There was such a long pause she thought he’d hung up. But then she heard him clear his throat. His voice sounded strange. Tight. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What have you been up to?” He didn’t say it in a casual, What’s up? way. More of an I want a full report way.

“I’ve got things to do. I’ll call you later.” She disconnected and shut down her cell. So much for teamwork.

As she tried to release the crick in her neck, she turned her attention back to her computer, where news bulletins were already broadcasting word of Coop’s arrest. The injustice brought her fully awake.

In the trash folder on Noah’s laptop, she’d found an e-mail from Bendah’s Bug Farm. Thank you for your order . . . As satisfying as that had been, it paled in comparison to what else she’d discovered. When she’d swiped Noah’s cell, she’d found a phone number he called at night, sometimes as late as two in the morning. The number had shown up so frequently that she’d ignored every ethical principle she believed in and broken into his house to steal the computer she hoped would be there, a computer that would give her even more information about the secret life of Noah Parks.

A few hours of cyber-digging had given her what she wanted—a link between the number and a name—Rochelle Mauvais, née Ellen Englley. There’d been no photos on his phone but there were plenty on the computer she’d stolen. A young, very pretty blonde. A couple of photos showed her with Noah, but most of them were of Ellen/Rochelle alone . . . and undressed. Then, at dawn, she’d hit the mother lode. A mysterious ten-thousand-dollar bank transfer made two days ago.

The remnants of the adrenaline buzz still hadn’t faded. Nothing since she’d taken over the agency had been as satisfying as the work she’d just done with her fingers and a keyboard. But that sense of accomplishment couldn’t erase the knowledge that Noah Parks wasn’t the only criminal around.

She gazed across the office at her framed True Detective posters. She’d never imagined herself as a lawbreaker, yet that’s what she was. She’d turned her back on her own principles and ignored the law, as if it had been written for other people. When this was over, she needed to take a long, unwelcome look at what she was becoming.

“I’m not asking you to give me her name,” she told Eric as she spoke to him on the phone a few minutes later. “All I’m asking is for you to see if the name I gave you matches the name of the woman who accused Coop. A simple yes or no.”

He called her back ten minutes later. “How did you get this information?”

Instead of answering his question, she gave him Ellen/Rochelle’s address and told him to meet her there in half an hour.

The interview with Ellen was short and brutal. Ellen, it turned out, had started working as an escort to pay off her college