Lorie O - Strong, Sleek and Sinful

She knew why she was called in, for the same reason she was flown from city to city any time the local police ran into a snag with online predators. Especially when their prey were teenage girls. Kylie wouldn’t say why, and she wasn’t convinced she knew the reason herself, but she was good at tracking assholes who fed off of innocent teenagers. For some reason, it came naturally to her. It wasn’t something she was proud of, understanding the minds of twisted bastards who fed off of innocent teenagers. She saw the beauty of young girls, how virgins inexperienced in the art of seduction yet provocative in their willingness to flirt and explore could be more of a turn-on than a fully grown woman who was already jaded from life’s experiences.

That was how Karen was, her older sister, cocky and a flirt, flaunting her perfect body and teasing and torturing every boy in their high school. Karen loved every minute of it. And Kylie, being younger and not yet as developed, envied the hell out of her beautiful, perfect sister, who managed to get every boy at school to stumble over his own feet to do anything for her. Kylie couldn’t get any of them to give her the time of day. Of course all of that ended the day her sister died.

Kylie pinched her nose, blowing out an exasperated breath, and put the horrible memory out of her head. Someday she would quit seeing her sister every time she took on a new case. “You’ve tracked the ISPs?”

“That’s why you’re working solo, kiddo.” Paul probably wasn’t more than five years older than Kylie, possibly in his mid-thirties, yet he spoke like an old man.

He looked like a nerd, but there was an easygoing side to him Kylie immediately liked. She’d spent the day with him, after flying into Kansas City and renting a car to drive to the suburb of Mission Hills. And in that short time she already knew he would be volumes of help in gathering data for this case.

“I’m still working on narrowing it down to a specific computer. Our perp is jumping around. But whoever is chatting with these girls is using city computers. The Mission Hills, Kansas, Law Enforcement Center for one, and other city offices, but I’m narrowing it down, and it’s not looking pretty.”

“You think he’s a cop?” she asked, keeping her emotions at bay.

Someone who’d taken an oath to uphold the law, to protect and serve, to watch over 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 were handled in her home office in Dallas, once she showed an ability to narrow in on this particular type of perp, her supervisor, Susie Parker, started sending her around the country, helping out local law enforcement agencies to nail online sexual predators.

At least this time she would use her real first name, except when she was online. She might not be attacking starships in distant galaxies, but her battle would definitely go down on the Internet. The online predator stalking and killing teenagers in Mission Hills would die from worse than laser file, at least if she had anything to say about it.

Paul Hernandez turned the corner in his Ford F-150 and pulled in behind her rental car. This wasn’t her favorite part of a case, all the prep work, and she was grateful he’d agreed to stop by and help her get organized. Kylie pushed the button to release the trunk and then hopped out of her car.

“Holy crap,” Paul said, and then let out a low whistle between his teeth. “How much for the goods?” he drawled, strolling up her driveway and eyeballing the skimpy outfit she’d worn while scoping out several of the teenage hangouts in town.

“You couldn’t afford me,” she told him smugly, and walked around to her opened trunk. “There’s more stuff inside. We’ve got this computer, and then a camera system that needs to be installed. Without your help, this would take me all night.”