Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,8

the youth of their city and make sure they were safe, was tested and put through rigorous courses in order to earn his, or her, badge. Any signs of being fucked up should have been detected long before he donned that uniform. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d arrested someone in uniform, though. A bad seed could pop up anywhere. Unfortunately, working in law enforcement could make a man, or a woman, believe he, or she, was invincible, above the laws he enforced on everyone else. It didn’t happen a lot. But it did happen. Kylie wouldn’t hesitate in making her arrest, no matter if her perp wore a uniform or not. It wouldn’t take her long to gather intel, scope out the town, and find her guy.

And anyone capable of doing this to a young girl was a hell of a lot more than mental—he was insane, not worth saving or wasting tax dollars on to rehabilitate. As far as Kylie was concerned, he should be made to suffer a horrendous death worse than what he put his victims through.

“What I think doesn’t matter,” Paul said, as if he followed her line of thinking and came up with the inevitable conclusion. He was still clicking his mouse repeatedly and staring unblinking at his computer screen. “It’s our job to find proof. Just the facts, ma’am.”

Kylie turned to study Paul. Although still light outside, heavy shadows stretched across the small office. Light from his monitor cast different shades of color over his hard, dark face as he continued jumping from screen to screen. There were streaks of silver in his black hair and crow’s-feet stretched to his temples, more visible through the lenses of his glasses that he stared over as he focused on the computer. He was a gaunt man, but not grossly unattractive.

The thick gold band on his ring finger and the heavy gold chain around his neck stood out against his brown skin, making them look more like intentional bling-bling than jewelry he’d probably worn for so many years he forgot they were there. Something told her, in the week or so she’d spent communicating with him prior to arriving here in Mission Hills, that her opinion of him summed up his nature: the computer geek taken for granted and often forgotten by agents in the field until they needed his talents. Special agents like him were overlooked in the heat of the action, yet Kylie wouldn’t be as ready to jump into this case if it weren’t for the profile he’d already created on her perp.

Paul pulled the flash drive out of the USB port and held it in his hand, palm up. Kylie walked over to his desk and took it.

“What you think does matter. I want your opinion, Paul,” she said quietly, and moved so she could see the screen he stared at through the lenses in his glasses. She pressed her lips together, hiding her smile when she realized he was playing a computer game. “Any gut reaction or thoughts that come to mind, whether you can prove them at the moment or not, matter to me and I need to hear them,” she added, walking around his desk and staring at his monitor.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he said, clicking his mouse repeatedly while moving a starship into orbit around a glowing red planet. “Peter is a city employee, paid by the hardworking citizens of Mission Hills and sitting at a computer right now somewhere here in town, trying to beat my high score.”

An instant message box popped up in front of Paul’s starship, and he moved the cursor to minimize it so quickly Kylie barely managed to read what it said.

“You’re battling against our perp right now?” she asked, shocked.

“Don’t know,” he said, and sent a stream of laser fire toward an approaching ship until it exploded on the screen.

The next evening Kylie pulled into the narrow driveway of the rental house provided by the FBI and hung up her cell phone. Everything was in place. The tag on her car was registered to Kylie Dover, her undercover name. She’d signed a month-to-month lease and picked up all of her new identification for her undercover work. Her aunt in Topeka owned the house, as the cover story went, and anyone who did a background check would learn that much. The FBI was very good at protecting their own.

She’d answered to many names over the past five years. Although a lot of her cases