Lorie O - Strong, Sleek and Sinful

“Dani and Megan had a fight. My sister is pretty upset right now and honestly she wasn’t making a hell of a lot of sense. I guess Dani got mad again when she was accused of agreeing to meet someone online.”

“But we already know that is true. Dani admitted as much to me. She’s got a guy online she refers to as a boyfriend, yet they’ve never met in person. And he’s got a screen name that is spelled funny but pronounced ‘Peter.’ ”

“You told me.” Perry’s voice was deep, gruff, almost pissed sounding when he finished putting his shoes on, then grabbed his keys and headed for the door. “Apparently Dani stormed out of the house, calling her mother a few choice names, and when Megan stormed out after her Dani took off running. They can’t find her.”

“Megan hasn’t called in to Dispatch, has she?” Kylie was already around Perry’s car, reaching for the door handle on the passenger side when he climbed in behind the driver’s wheel.

He met her gaze when she slid in next to him. “Nope. And she won’t unless I ask her to. Why? Are you worried about going on a call with me?”

“Are you?” she challenged. The way she saw it right now, he was putting himself more on the line than she was with the two of them leaving together like this. No one on her side would know about this circumstance, especially if Megan didn’t call it in.

“Nope.” Perry’s profile showed his determination and his jaw was set the way he always held it when he was hell-bent on seeing something through.

As he backed the Jeep out of the driveway the quickening returned in her gut with a vengeance. They’d just made incredible love to each other. She could feel the dampness between her legs, and for the first time since dressing and hurrying out the door she imagined she probably looked like hell-or like a lady who’d just gotten the shit fucked out of her.

Now they were headed out on a call, working together. This was almost as good as rolling over and fucking him again. And if it weren’t for the dire circumstance and the possibility that Dani could run into trouble out at night alone and pissed, Kylie would probably be reveling in the moment, inspired by the opportunity to work by his side, even if it was just this one time. She would get to see him in action. Once she kicked Dani’s obstinate ass, she might just have to hug her for giving Kylie this opportunity.

“You’ve got your cell phone,” Perry said, not making it a question as he headed down the road with his high beams creating lines on the road ahead of them.

“Yes,” she said, again studying the strong features of his profile.

“Good. We won’t have radios. If we have to comb the neighborhood it will be the only way we can communicate.”

“Works for me.”

Perry obviously didn’t give any thought to how Megan would react when she learned Kylie was still with him. Megan opened the front door the moment he knocked but then gawked at Kylie before quickly regaining composure.

“Which way did she head?” Perry asked, ignoring Megan’s reaction to seeing Kylie.

Megan pointed out the door and down the street to their right. “I followed her for about a block before she lost me, I hurried back home to call you.”

“Did she change clothes after we left?” Kylie asked.

Megan searched Kylie’s face, as if drawing her own conclusion about something, and took a moment before her face lit up. “Yes. She did change. She’s wearing a white T-shirt. Are you going to help look for her?”

“Yes.” Kylie didn’t hesitate in answering.

Diane pushed her way next to her mother in the front door. Although an older version of Dani, Diane also held strong features very similar to her mother’s. Diane focused on Kylie but then glanced furtively from her mother to her uncle.

“I’ll help look, too. With all of us we’ll have her back in no time.” Diane rubbed her mother’s shoulder, looking worried.

“No.” Perry spoke so firmly all the women looked at him. “None of you are leaving this house. Is that understood?”

Diane looked ready to argue, but Megan put her arm around her daughter and backed her into the house. “Bring her home, Perry, alive and well so I can kill her.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

Megan looked so distraught, torn between outrage and pain that created hard lines around her pretty eyes. For a moment, Kylie was ripped back thirteen years and saw her own mother, worried sick while waiting to hear word from the police that her oldest daughter was alive and safe. That message never arrived.

“Here’s what I need from you,” Kylie said, and both Megan and Diane gave her their full attention. “I want you to go through her computer. Find any chats with this boy she was supposedly going to meet.”

“But,” Diane began, immediately chewing her lower lip.

“Do as she says,” Perry ordered.

“I know you don’t want to violate her privacy.” Kylie would snap at Perry later for being so gruff with both of them when they were obviously worried sick. “But it could save her life. Call us immediately if you find anything indicating she planned to meet him tonight. Or if you find her agreeing to go anywhere. Do it now. There isn’t any time to waste.”

Perry turned from the door, taking her by the arm. Kylie hurried down the path with him, not bothering to say goodbye to either of them but hearing the door close behind them.

An hour later, Kylie and Perry had combed the neighborhood and been on the phone with Diane and Megan more than a handful of times. Kylie got stubborn with Perry, aware that he worried about the rest of the women in his life when Dani was missing but insisting they would cover more ground and learn more faster if the two of them split up. Reminding him he wanted to know if she carried her cell phone so they could communicate didn’t seem to help much, but when Kylie pointed out she’d taken on many killers in the past, all alone, Perry’s gaze darkened over, his expression bordering on violent.

“Fine,” he growled.

“Diane is calling Dani’s friends now,” Kylie reminded him. “I say we head to all hangout spots where she might have gone to regroup and be alone. We check out every one of them that is open at this hour.”

“Bowling alley is still open,” Perry said. “We can go there together.”

Kylie nodded. She needed to get to her car, but they would figure out how to do that if the investigation continued into the night. She stared into the darkness, scanning her attention across the large, empty parking lot. It was the fifth or sixth one they’d cruised around and then through. Dani wasn’t anywhere.

Worse yet, Diane couldn’t find anything on any of the computers at the house that helped them. “She’s password-protected her cell phone,” Diane told Kylie in her most recent call.

“Try thinking of her password. Anything you can think of,” Kylie suggested.

“Try ‘Peter,’ ” Dorine said in the background, doing what the fourteen-year-old did best, eavesdropping.

“No luck.” Diane was obviously trying every password she could think of while they talked on the phone.

“Wait a minute,” Kylie said, sitting next to Perry in his Jeep while they drove across town to the bowling alley. “The screen name she was talking to when she told me about Peter… it was spelled funny.”

“I’ve got it!” Diane laughed in her ear. “It was Petrie, not Peter. Way to go, Dorine, for being queen eavesdropper.”

Kylie didn’t smile as she listened to the two girls laugh. She wondered what Megan was doing, and felt her pain as her stomach twisted when they pulled into the bowling-alley parking lot. The building had a sign on it that lit up a lot of the parking lot, and streetlights lining the lot added to the visibility. She remembered coming here when she was supposed to meet Peter, and Perry interrupting the meeting. What she wouldn’t do for that to happen again tonight.