At my threat Vance kissed my forehead. Then he let me go.
I took this to mean he didn’t feel the King Sooper’s checkout boys were much competition. He was probably right.
“Bye Boo,” I called.
“Meow,” Boo called back from somewhere in the house, likely somewhere where he was getting into trouble.
“Be good,” I called in warning just in case he was getting into trouble.
“Meow!” Boo called back again, sounding harassed.
I turned to Luke. “I’m ready now.”
Luke had a full-on smile going. They were rare and they were effective. Some woman was going to be super lucky one day. I just hoped that Luke was just as lucky.
We started to move, Vance grabbed my hand, gave it a tug and I turned back to him. His head bent and he touched his lips to mine.
“Be careful,” he murmured, his face close, his eyes soft and warm.
My breath caught.
I nodded and whispered, “I will.”
We left and I swung into the passenger side of the Explorer.
“King Sooper’s checkout boys?” Luke asked after I’d buckled in.
“My dream men,” I replied.
“Babe.” He started up the SUV and we headed out. “At least you aren’t wearing purple pants tonight,” he noted.
“I didn’t want to embarrass the team.”
“I’m thinkin’ that’d be impossible.”
Wow.
That was huge.
Even with that hugeness uttered, I decided to take a page out of Luke’s book and be quiet.
* * * * *
It wasn’t a silent night for Luke.
He talked.
He told me Nightingale Investigations had a varied clientele. The bulk of which was corporate investigations, background checks on employees, looking into fraud, that kind of thing. This was done in-office, usually by their computer hacker, a guy named Brody, as well as through surveillance. They did some domestic investigations, cheating husbands, cheating wives, pilfering money from joint bank accounts. They used to do security but now only watched Fortnum’s and recently my place. They took on some government contracts, federal, state and local. They also took on specialized cases. These Luke didn’t share much about but explained they were worked almost exclusively by what I was realizing were the “Top Four”: Lee, Luke, Mace and Vance. The team also did a lot of skip tracing and this they did nationally if the skip seriously skipped. Mostly it was done in a six or seven state area which Luke considered “local”.
Vance, Luke confirmed, was their top tracker. He also did all their wire work. Further, he was the guy they chose to do most reconnaissance because he was ultra-quiet, something he’d learned during his past as a felon.
Lee was ex-special operations force, Army Night Stalkers. Monty was an ex-Navy SEAL. Lee’s specialty was everything. Monty’s specialty was planning operations (these operations Luke also didn’t go into detail about).
Matt and Bobby, two more of Lee’s team, were local boys who should have been cops but preferred an extra challenge. They spent a lot of time pulling in skips, taking photos during dangerous liaisons, doing stakeouts, providing security (as in bodyguards) when a client needed it and they acted as added manpower. “Foot soldiers” was how Luke described them.
“Good ones,” he said.
Ike had been a cop until something ugly went down. That something ugly wasn’t shared by Luke either. He was tracker number two on the team and was often out-of-town, the same as Vance.