Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,64

life than running from it.

Pinching her nose, she checked her surroundings once again and watched as a couple of girls gave her the once-over and then sat at a table on the other side of the patio. They immediately started talking with each other and sipping their drinks.

Kylie forced her attention to the screen, wondering if going home wouldn’t be better. The hell with Perry and whether he showed up or not. She needed to be able to concentrate on saying the right thing to PeteTakesU.

Where do you hang out? She decided to change the subject knowing there were times when she would have to chat for hours with a perp before he asked to meet her.

At the mall here in town, he answered quickly, but then sent another message: Want to hang this weekend? Give me your number and I’ll text-message you.

Her heart skipped a beat. But she was ready for this. Already she knew statistics showed that teenagers text-messaged as their main means of communicating. In fact, most texted on a phone more than they talked on it. She quickly typed in her cell phone number, a number that would be traced to K. Dover in Mission Hills, Kansas. Even the best investigative programs wouldn’t narrow her phone down any further than that. It was hard to search for information on someone using programs that her side had devised in the first place.

Kylie leaned back, took a long drink of her still-warm latte, and glanced at the women facing each other at the nearby table. They were deeply engrossed in a conversation about their husbands. It wasn’t the first time Kylie had watched the world around her feeling like the outsider but knowing she was right where she belonged. It was her job to make sure women like those two could sit, relax, and not worry about anything other than catching up on gossip. Kylie was the protector.

Karen never got the chance to grow up and be the gorgeous woman she seemed destined to be. Granted, back then there wasn’t the Internet and her abductor hadn’t seduced her out of her home. Sexual predators used many different means to seek out their prey. Kylie would use whatever means to track them down and stop them.

Her cell phone buzzed and she glanced at her screen, seeing she’d received a text message. Where do you hang out? it said.

Kylie sucked at text messaging. Although she believed the statistics, she didn’t understand for the life of her why people preferred this means of communicating when the buttons and screen were so small. She worked quickly to type: With my girlfriends, usually the bowling alley or mall.

At least talking to him like this, she could head home and not miss out talking to him. Closing down her laptop, she finished her latte and then headed to her car. Kylie didn’t speed but hurried the best she could, praying he wouldn’t text her while she was driving. No way would she text and drive. Not only was it against the law, but she also knew there was no way she could pull it off.

He didn’t send another text message, though. And after talking to Paul, giving him the phone number PeteTakesU sent his text message from, she entered her middle bedroom and stared at the monitors for her security system. She could see outside from two different angles, front and backyard. There were also cameras trained on her living room. Were there more cameras in the house that she didn’t have monitors for? She walked through her home, peering into air-conditioning vents but finding only the cameras that matched what the monitors showed in the bedroom. Her phone rang as she debated ordering out for supper or going to the store.

“If you’re really dying to know,” Paul said when she answered, “there aren’t any cameras in the bedrooms.”

Kylie rolled her eyes. “I was just curious.” She couldn’t hide her grin and was glad she spoke on the phone and was alone in her room so he couldn’t see how terribly she blushed. “Don’t you have a high score to beat somewhere?”

“Sure do. Oh, and that number he texted you from is a track phone. No way of knowing who purchased it or from where. Annoying little contraptions.”

Kylie thanked Paul, not too surprised, and hung up the phone. She was staring out her living room windows when a Jeep pulled up to the curb and parked in front of her home. Confrontation time. Maybe