Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,73
turned on when he got rough. Thinking about it now got his dick hard all over again. “I’ve got a little vixen right now who is doing her best to make my life hell.”
“Sorry if she won’t put out. Can’t help you there,” Noah said, laughing. “But what is the mess you’ve got going on?”
Like always, any time either of them got knee-deep in bullshit, talking it out with each other usually helped. It did for Perry at least. He knew his friend couldn’t always discuss cases in depth when he was buried up to his balls in them. But there had been a time or two over the years when he’d unloaded probably more than he should have on Perry.
“Several teenage girls have come up missing. We had one the other day who appeared out of nowhere, raped and beaten damn near beyond recognition. She made it to the back of the grocery store before collapsing and dying. One of the employees there found her.”
“Shit. You got leads?”
“I got voice mail right before calling you back. They can’t find anything on her hard drive. Another girl who snuck out of her parents’ house to meet a guy and got intercepted by her father had been chatting with someone named Peter. I think he’s an online sexual predator right here in town. There’s a Web site that I found that had the girl we found today’s picture on it.”
“One of the porn sites you mentioned?” Noah was all business now. “You wanted me to help you figure out how to locate where the Web sites originate, right?”
“Yup. I got put on Kathleen Long’s case today, the girl we found behind the store. So hopefully I’ll get a bit more cooperation out of the department now.”
“What’s the Web site that had her picture on it?”
“Are you online now?” Perry moved his mouse, and his screen glowed to life in the dark den. Gulping down more beer, he quickly logged into his chat program and pulled up the Web site.
“I’m logging in now,” Noah told him.
Perry waited until he saw Noah appear on his buddy list and then sent the link to the Web site. At the same time, the site opened on the screen. The pictures were different than they’d been the last time Perry looked.
“Damn it, she’s not there anymore.”
“Big surprise, huh.”
“No shit. But I saved the page. Hold on.” Perry went to the saved file and then sent it to Noah. “Two girls have disappeared over the past six months. Another would have disappeared if her father hadn’t followed her and prevented it. We know all of them were talking to a boy who went by ‘Peter.’ He claims to be their age, but always says he lives in a town nearby. He lures them out of the house and that’s the last we hear of them. I can’t prove yet Kathleen Long, or this Web site, is connected to the other two girls. But my hunch is that they are.”
“Could be,” Noah said, sounding distracted. More than likely he was checking out the Web site. “What else do you got?”
“Not much. My nieces have been talking to a woman who is working on a thesis,” he began.
“Okay, and?” It didn’t take much for Noah to catch onto a vague line and know there was more to it.
“I’ve spent a bit of time with her.” He wasn’t sure why he said that, and paused, regrouping. He didn’t know how to explain Kylie. “She’s interviewing teenagers so she can write this college paper, but she won’t show me the paper and then last night I caught her trying to meet someone in a dark parking lot.”
“No shit?”
“I intervened and the guy took off, but then she took off, too. She’s got all this surveillance equipment rigged up around her house, and a room that she has locked and won’t let me in to see what is in there.”
“You think she is Peter?”
“No. Oh, hell no. But I think she’s a cop chaser and she’s going to get her ass hurt if she tries playing detective, especially with a case like this.”
Noah didn’t say anything. Perry worked around his thoughts, trying to put into words his gut reaction toward her.
“Dani loves her to the point she even talked to Megan about her. And Dani doesn’t open up about her life to any of us.”
“Dani is your niece, right?” Noah had met the girls briefly a few years ago, but Perry didn’t