Lorie O - Strong, Sleek and Sinful

“Goddamn good thing I speak Neanderthal. So tell me, she’s working undercover and that is why she’s lying every time she opens that pretty little mouth of hers.”

“You know I’m not going to answer your questions.” Noah might as well just have confirmed everything Perry just said. His mind raced, trying to come up with wording good enough to drag more information out of his FBI friend. “I made it to a crime scene tonight only to learn the FBI beat me to the punch. They announced tonight their involvement in this case. But I’ve worked alongside FBI agents before on other cases. So there’s got to be a damn good reason why someone has decided she can’t reveal who she is to anyone, not even me.”

“Don’t push it, man.”

“Like fucking hell. I’m going to fucking shove my way into this one. You have no idea.”

As he remembered how she ran across her yard barefoot, chasing him down instead of letting him leave her, Perry’s insides tightened. His urge to protect her peaked to dangerous levels. He would make sure she didn’t get hurt while she pursued a madman, and at the same time vowed to destroy whoever it was who decided she could take on this case by herself.

“This isn’t worth jeopardizing your career over, man.”

“You have no idea what it’s fucking worth to me, man. What if I told you going after that cop lady of yours wasn’t worth it a year ago?”

“I would have told you to go to fucking hell,” Noah said, laughing dryly.

“Well, back at you, man.”

“You take any information you stumble onto, Perry-”

“I know the fucking ropes,” he hissed. But the realization hitting him like a brick in the head at the moment was strong enough to knock sense even into his thick skull. “She’s on this case, undercover, and can’t tell me the truth. I can learn it, though, man. I wouldn’t jeopardize her job. All that I need to know is the truth. I’ll make sure she understands that I won’t blow her cover.” There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his mind that once he made her see that he knew who she was, Kylie would quit lying. Then he could protect her properly. And he would get her to admit she was having feelings for him, too, feelings that went beyond craving a good fuck. “I know she won’t stop working the case. But you have no clue. Kylie is one hot, petite little number. Whoever decided to send her after a monster all by herself needs his head examined.”

“You go right ahead and tell her that,” Noah suggested, this time his laughter deeper, louder, as if he’d just heard a good joke. “I know a lady cop who just loves hearing that because she’s hot as hell and sexy to boot she shouldn’t go after the bad guy. Let me know if your woman can kick ass as well as mine can.”

Perry barely listened. He sat at his computer, typing in various versions of Kylie’s name, along with the words “agent” and “FBI,” until he found what he needed.

“Donovan,” Perry said out loud.

“What?”

“She isn’t Kylie Dover. Her name is Kylie Donovan.”

“Man, let it go. Just go solve your case.”

“Do you know her?”

“You know I can’t confirm that. Furthermore, this conversation never happened.”

Perry knew he had it now. “It’s cool, man. What are friends for.”

“Uh-huh. Talk to me once you’ve solved this case.”

“Will do.” Perry hung up the phone. It was time to read up on Miss Donovan.

Special Agent Kylie Donovan had one hell of a track record. He wasn’t able to find so much on the Internet, other than random newspaper articles, when he did a search on her name. But when he logged onto the special Web site allowing him exclusive access to crime history and a search engine designed to focus on criminal history, Agent Donovan appeared as much as any agent.

She was in fact twenty-seven years old, from Dallas, TX, and the only surviving daughter of Kent and Deirdre Donovan. The password-protected search engine pulled up a lot more articles that were successfully buried in the Internet available to the general public. Government agencies might not be able to curb reporters and different forms of media across the nations, newspapers, magazines, blogs on news channel Web sites, from reporting facts they’d just as soon not have as public knowledge. There were ways, however, to make it hard for names to pop up when a search was done. It was a process that Perry didn’t know a lot about. What he did know was that if he truly wanted information on someone, logging onto the Web site offered through his line of work proved the most effective and the least hassle.

“Impressive, Donovan, very impressive,” he said, leaning back in his office chair in his den and stretching. It was almost four in the morning, and sleep was a long way off. Especially with adrenaline pumping through him with a vengeance. “You’ve nailed quite a few sexual predators in your time.” In fact, it was obviously her area of expertise.

He opened another file, which was an article dated thirteen years ago. It wasn’t about Kylie Donovan but Karen Donovan a teenage girl found raped and murdered in Dallas, TX. Surviving family were her parents and younger sister, Kylie.

Perry blew out a staggered breath, scrubbing his head with his palms while his eyes burned from staring at his screen for so long. He stood, feeling the kinks in his muscles, and twisted his torso a few times while contemplating his next move.

“You’ve got the facts, Flynn. Now what to do with the knowledge.” He spoke the words, but there wasn’t any doubt in his mind what he would do.

There were options. Breaking into her home again was one. He could show up over there and knock on her door, let the cameras record him arriving. Although now it made more sense why they seemed to be set up more for surveillance than protection. It also made sense why she didn’t want him in that middle bedroom or running a check on her gun. Kylie worked undercover. But part of her was real. He’d seen some of her true colors. The most recent being her running barefoot across her lawn after him when he walked out on her.

Maybe she couldn’t tell him she was working the Peter case, but she was able to show him that she didn’t want him walking out of her life.

Perry picked up his phone and scrolled to her number, which he’d recently entered. Then finding his earpiece, he pushed the send button and listened as it rang.

“Hello,” she said, sounding out of breath, when she answered on the second ring. Kylie wasn’t sleeping.

“Where are you?” he demanded.

“Who is this?”

“Special Agent Kylie Donovan, this is Lieutenant Perry Flynn. We need to talk.”

Kylie tripped over her foot walking to her car. “Crap,” she hissed.

“Yeah, crap,” Perry said in her ear. “Where are you?”

She sighed, reaching her car and staring at the field office, which was dark and appeared very closed in the middle of the night. Thunder rumbled in the distance. It better rain soon; the humidity was worse than anything she’d experienced in a while.

“Getting ready to head home,” she said, feeling a wave of exhaustion hit her.

Sitting with Paul, going over ISPs and listening while he explained how a Web site could be tracked to an “address,” basically showing where it was created, didn’t help her mood. When, once again, it became apparently clear that whoever Peter was, he was working out of the computers located inside the police department, she got pissed.

Then Paul suggested it was an interesting coincidence that whenever she finished talking to Peter, Perry showed up. That’s when she walked out the door. If Paul wanted to camp there all night, that was fine with her. But she wasn’t hanging around any longer and listening to bullshit.