Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,57
his Jeep when he took her corner too sharply. “Not my problem anymore.”
If she was pissed at him for interfering with her meeting someone in a dark parking lot when she knew he was coming back over, he was best off without her. All he needed to do was get the taste of her off his lips, the soft feel of her warm flesh out of his memory. He balled his hands into fists, remembering their kiss earlier and how good she had felt when he’d caressed her body. And how well she’d responded to him.
“Just be okay,” he muttered, scrubbing his head and pulling into his driveway fifteen minutes later. God. Going home didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
It wasn’t just the protector’s instinct still simmering way too hot inside him, it was the cop in Perry that needed to know she was fine. He reluctantly got out of his car, fingering his keys and heading toward his back door. The silence around him, the peaceful and serene surroundings, annoyed him even further.
Perry paced his living room floor, not bothering with lights, as he replayed what he saw play out at the parking lot. On an impulse, he headed to his computer and wrote down the tag number to the black Suburban. Underneath it he wrote the words “green Honda”; then he stared at the block letters he’d just printed on the notepad.
“What are you up to, Miss Kylie Dover?” His stomach knotted; anger, concern, and not having any answers making for a cruel combination in his gut. If she was a player, then she was a pro. He hated feeling he’d busted her trying to meet another man and forced himself to remember there was nothing between them. “Nor will there be if this is how she plays.”
Perry slipped the paper with the tag number into the file where he’d put the printed picture of the Web site page. He stared at the young girl, looking so innocent and anything but happy, as she stared naked at the camera. He needed more puzzle pieces to fit this case together. The best thing to do right now was bury himself in this investigation and put Kylie out of his mind. Her life was her own damn business.
Carl Ramos studied the picture from the Web site and compared it to the pictures Kathleen Long’s parents had given Perry. “When did you get pictures of her?” Carl asked.
Perry glanced at the pictures Carl compared, and returned his attention to the road. “I went over to the Longs’ last night after you went home.”
Carl shot him a quick glance. If he was hurt, he didn’t show it. Perry doubted that was his reaction.
“You want me to put it on my log sheet that I went with you?”
His question surprised Perry. Carl was a good man, and a good cop. “You don’t ever have to lie for me,” Perry told him, studying Carl only for a moment to see that his question was sincere. “You’d headed home to be with your mother and that is important. I didn’t know I was going over there until I left the station and ran into Rad in the parking lot. It was an impromptu visit, but we need more information.”
He turned onto the Longs’ street and slowed to 20 miles per hour as he headed down the long, quiet, shady side street. Large well-kept homes lined either side and there wasn’t a car visible anywhere. People in this neighborhood parked in garages, and most were at work.
“The Longs know we’re coming?” Carl asked.
“Yup. Eileen Long said Kathleen had a computer in her bedroom. She knows we’re coming with a subpoena for the hard drive and didn’t have a problem with it.” Perry had been distracted all morning at the station, especially when he ran a check on the Suburban’s tags and came up with nothing. The tag was fake, a crime in itself. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about this before we headed out. These teenage girls meeting some prick off the Internet and then ending up dead is hitting a bit too close to home, I think.”
“Are you worried about your sister’s kids?” Carl stuffed the pictures back into the file and placed it in Perry’s open briefcase on the floor at Carl’s feet. “She’s got all girls, doesn’t she?”
“Yup. And about the same age as these girls. When I get time I’m going to find out if they knew Kathleen.”