when the man she was doing it for refused to let her touch him—
Ohhhh. Her teeth clenched. Clever motherfucker.
Giving her a taste of her own medicine, was he? That kind of…hurt. The best part of meeting Joanna had been the way Connor looked at her afterward. Like he wasn’t ashamed or regretful over bringing her home to Mom, the way she’d assumed he would be. Knowing he’d been plotting to turn the tables on her sucked. Hard. It made her trust in him waver ever so slightly. God, in the last twenty-four hours she’d dealt with so many unfamiliar feelings, her periscope had sunk below the surface. She couldn’t see where the hell she was headed anymore.
One thing she could do and do effectively was formulate a counterattack. As soon as they got out of this pain-in-the-ass meeting, she was going to institute it. She’d already gotten a head start by wearing the shortest skirt in her closet. As Derek called the meeting to a start, she hopped up on a waist-high file cabinet and crossed her legs, pretending not to notice Connor shift in his seat.
“Thank you all for being on time. Isn’t progress a beautiful thing?” Derek scanned the room, his mouth tightening when his gaze landed on Austin. He looked like he’d been out the night before, his head buried in his hands as if they were holding his skull together. Polly sat beside him shaking her head primly. Derek turned his attention to Sera. “How was your first day at campaign headquarters yesterday?”
“Pretty uneventful. Stark didn’t make an appearance.” She consulted her notes. “There was one thing, though. Around two o’clock, a silver Hummer pulled up to the curb and honked. One of the staffers ran out and handed something to the driver. I couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but I got the license plate number.”
“Great.” Derek waited as Sera handed him a piece of ripped-out notebook paper. “I’ll run this back at the station. If it happens again today, I want you to follow him, Bowen.”
Bowen’s smile was stiff. “As long as there’s someone to take my place watching Sera.”
“I wouldn’t leave her exposed,” Derek assured him, showing a rare patience. “Polly, did you get anything useful from Stark’s financials?”
“Other than him having an expensive appreciation for European orgy porn? Not really.” Her voice was serene, as if she weren’t admitting to hacking into a man’s bank records. “He’s got his money somewhere else. Tied up in assets listed under a different name…maybe an offshore account. I’m working on it.”
“Keep working.” Derek aimed his pen at Erin. She propped her hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelashes. The captain only shook his head. “I know it was a long shot, Erin, but did you have any luck finding out how May weaseled his way out of Cook?”
“Yessir, I did. But before I begin, I’d like to request coffee at these meetings.” She flicked the lighter on, drawing an invisible pattern in the air. “Maybe some doughnuts. Aren’t you cops lousy with doughnuts? Sharing is caring.”
Derek ignored everything but her first sentence. “Did you say you found out how May got out of Cook?”
“Everyone doubts a blonde.” She refused to look at Connor, even though his gaze burned into her thighs, her face. “Okay, my ass-essment would be that May had help. The kind you buy with lots of crispy bills.”
“We already thought that might be the case.”
“Yes, but did you know May cut through three separate fences with a pair of bolt cutters?” She leaned back on the file cabinet, supporting herself with both palms. “It’s not easy to come by tools like that inside unless you have a serious connection. He hadn’t been there long enough to make friends like that without a little help. The kind of help that cuts electricity to the entire prison exactly when you’re making a break for it.”
“Power outage?” Derek narrowed his eyes. “So he went through perimeter fencing without it being caught on the security feed. Why didn’t the guards on watch sound the alarm?”
“They were a little occupied preventing a riot. Anytime the routine is thrown into jeopardy, all hell breaks loose.” She noticed Polly’s subtle nod, before the brunette went back to casting censure at Austin. “Cell doors were left open, rooms full of prisoners were in the dark with no supervision. There was panic. May had about a twenty-minute window to cut through the fence.” Erin shrugged. “My source didn’t know how