Teresa Hill - Mr Right Next Door

“We’re working on it. Sorry, buddy. I didn’t get here until fifteen minutes before her plane touched down. But I’m getting a sheet on the cop right now. Okay… Looks like he is her brother.”

“Okay. So she wasn’t two-timing him with the guy on the ship.”

One point in her favor.

And if she was announcing that she was in love like that, as she arrived home from her trip, odds are it was with Weyzinski.

“Yeah, here’s the brother’s driver’s license photo and hers. Definitely the same guy who’s with her now. Looks like he’s been on the force for seven years now. Somebody talked to his supervisor in Magnolia Falls. Tried to make it all sound routine, but I don’t know, Nick. Maybe the department just didn’t like the idea of him flashing his badge around the airport without them knowing anything about it. Could be that. Could be something else. But they definitely didn’t like someone asking questions about one of their guys.”

Okay, so it looked like he wouldn’t be asking for cooperation from the local law enforcement agencies anytime soon. And he was going to be tailing a cop’s sister.

No problem .

“Don’t see any red flags on his service record, except something about a brawl in a bank a couple of years ago,” Harry said. “Wait… Damn.”

“What is it?”

“Their father was a cop. Shot and killed trying to stop a convenience-store robbery when our blonde was just a baby.”

Great .

Cops took care of their own. They took care of the families of cops. And more than anything else, they took care of the families of fallen officers.

Harry started laughing.

“Oh jeez, Nick. Are you ready for this? The town is all of twenty-four-hundred people. You’re entering a different world, my friend. You will not fit in well.”

“You don’t know that,” Nick argued. “I can fit in anywhere.”

Small-town America.

How hard could it be?

He’d blend with the best of ’em.

“She’s lived there her entire life,” Harry continued.

“So everybody knows her. Should be easy to get information on her.”

“If you can get ’em to talk.”

“I can get anybody to talk,” Nick boasted.

“She has not only the brother, but two sisters. Our pretty blonde is the baby of the family.” Harry laughed. “Looks like she’s been babied her whole life, doesn’t she?”

Nick felt an odd little kick in the gut at that.

A pretty, impossibly young pampered blonde who looked like a million bucks in a yellow string bikini, and who was probably used to getting her way in everything, indulged in every whim. God help him.

“Oh, man. All three of her siblings are married and living right there in Magnolia Falls,” Harry said. “This will not be good.”

Nick sighed.

Okay, so it didn’t sound good.

A cop for a brother, dead cop for a father.

A ton of relatives.

A tiny town.

A whole police force that would be looking out for her if anyone got wind of what Nick was doing in town.

Harry laughed some more.

“Guess what she does?”

“No clue,” Nick said, but he wasn’t going to like it. He could already tell.

“Elementary school art teacher. Isn’t that sweet?”

Nick swore.

He had a nice, maybe sweet, definitely innocent-looking elementary school teacher, the baby of a family of four, the daughter of a slain police officer, in love with a guy Nick was sure was a crook.

And Nick had to use her to find the crook.

“She’s gonna love you before you’re through,” Harry said.

“Yeah.”

This was why he got the big bucks.

Making nice, innocent women like her hate him.

Chapter Two

Nick’s bag showed up before hers, which meant he wouldn’t have to live out of his carry-on.

He could have managed, of course. He could have made it for weeks with nothing more than he could carry in a baggie if he had to. But life was more fun with all his nifty surveillance toys and a man couldn’t carry a loaded gun on a plane anymore without a ton of paperwork, which he hadn’t had time to produce in his rush to get on the flight. Fortunately, checked baggage was another story.

He grabbed his bag, shouldered his carry-on and tried not to wince at the added pressure to his wounded knee.

Harry must have been close enough to see his expression, because Harry started chuckling and said, “God, you’re old, Nick.”

Nick suggested several things Harry might do, all of which were probably illegal in this state, then got back to business.

“Tell me you have her, because if you do, I’m going to find my car.”

“You’d better because we spotted the brother’s patrol car parked illegally at the curb. You need to be ready to move, my friend. We’re trying to get another car in place in case you lose ’em.”

“I’m not going to lose a small-town cop who doesn’t even know I’m following him,” Nick protested.

“Yeah, yeah. Just trying to back you up, Nick. That’s all. That’s my job. To make your job easier.”

Nick swore softly then spotted a tiny, expensive-looking convertible that gave the appearance of being capable of flying, and produced his government ID for the young agent standing by the car.

“Here you are, sir,” the kid said, holding a briefing report, what little they’d been able to prepare by the time Nick landed.

“Thank you.” His bag went into the tiny trunk, the carry-on onto the passenger seat and then, with a kind of exaggerated care that irritated him greatly, Nick managed to fit himself into the driver’s seat without crushing his sore knee on the steering wheel or the dashboard, while Harry started laughing again.

“Son of a bitch,” Nick said. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“I just figured you’d be happy to sacrifice your own comfort, if necessary, for speed and maneuverability. Was I wrong? I mean, we could look for one of those cars outfitted for special-needs drivers, if we need to. Do you need one of those, Nick?”

“I’ll put this sore knee of mine in your gut, Harry, if you need to know how well it still works,” he said, though it might have been a pure bluff.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure he could manage it. Hours on a plane had left his knee stiff and sore beyond reason. He could just imagine Harry’s glee if he called room service that night and asked if they could provide a heating pad for him.

If his pretty blonde gave him any time to relax.

She could have a string of men waiting for her. Weyzinski could already be here, waiting for her. She could be up to all sorts of things that didn’t involve teaching little children how to finger paint.

Honestly, how innocent could a woman who looked like that in a bikini possibly be?

Nick started the car and moved the seat all the way back to accommodate his length. He adjusted his mirrors, spotted the small-town cop car, just where Harry said it would be, then checked the car’s satellite navigation system, preprogrammed for the destination of Magnolia Falls.

It shouldn’t be hard to follow the blonde and her brother. After choosing whether to take the freeway loop around Atlanta or plow straight through downtown, it looked like there was only one real choice of roads that went from the other side of the metro area to Magnolia Falls.

Nick didn’t think he’d ever been to a town this small.

“Okay, here they come,” Harry told him.

Nick didn’t turn his head, following them out of the corner of his eyes. The pretty blonde was laughing, looking as relaxed and happy as could be. Her brother looked like he could cheerfully spit nails.

Nick wondered why.

Of course, if he had a little sister who looked like her, Nick could imagine her giving him headaches. And he’d be none too happy to have her go off on vacation and get attacked by pirates.