Stealing from the police station is easier than I anticipated.

The parents are right. People here are way too trusting.

Everyone knows I’m Jared’s girlfriend, so Maggie, who works the dispatch counter, lets me pass right on through. I use the excuse of bringing Jared lunch—which is true. I even brought her a coffee with extra sugar, just like she likes it, which is a totally wasted effort because she needs no additional bribe.

Jared and I eat burgers from Stella’s in his office, but we’ve barely finished eating when he has to get back to work.

“I’ll walk you out.” He stands but I put a hand on his chest and kiss him.

“I can find the way, you have enough to do.”

He attempts to protest, but I kiss him again, and again until he stops and forgets what he’s doing—until I nearly forget what I’m doing.

Once we’re both a bit breathless, I’m free to exit the building on my own, although I have to stop for a minute outside Jared’s door to collect myself.

I know exactly where to go. Instead of heading out the front door, I slip down the hall that leads to the archives and make my way down the deserted stairs. I’ve been down there before, when Jared and I were searching for information about the Knights and Ladies of the Red Baron, the old Castle Cove secret society that was the impetus behind the Castle Cove Bandit.

I find the locked cage readily enough, right next to some lockers labeled Evidence Storage.

It doesn’t take much to jimmy the simple lock and locate the trackers, stuffed in between a new camera with night-vision lenses and a recording device that looks like a simple pair of glasses. There’s also the magnet, wrapped in foam.

I bite my lip, considering it for a moment, and then I shove the magnet into my purse with the trackers.

You never know.

I haul ass back up the stairs on the balls of my feet, stopping first outside the door and listening to make sure no one is walking by. Then I’m out the door, shutting it softly behind me and walking down the hall like I didn’t just steal sensitive police equipment.

Now that that’s done, I need an innocuous vehicle. I stop by the hardware store on my way back to Ruby’s.

“Can I borrow your car?”

Tabby isn’t busy. There are no customers in the store. She’s sitting at the front counter with her feet up, thumbing through a magazine. Maybe I should have prefaced the question with light conversation and chitchat, but there’s really no time for any dancing around the topic.

“Sure,” Tabby says without even blinking. “You want the keys now?”

“If that’s okay.”

She twists around, pulls the keys from a rack behind the counter, and tosses them to me, then goes back to her magazine.

“You’re not going to ask why I need it?” I had a whole story planned about taking Paige on an overnight trip to Portland for bra shopping.

She shrugs. “I figure you’ll let me know later if I need to help you bury a body.”

“You’re a good friend, Tabby.” The words shoot an arrow straight through my chest. I don’t deserve her trust.

“Don’t you forget it.” She points at me and turns back to her magazine.

I leave Tabby’s car a couple of streets away from Ruby’s and walk the rest of the way.

Now, I just have to wait.

Jared is working over the next few nights. Part of me misses him and wishes I could spend more time with him, but it works out because I’m free to spy.

Once the sun sets and Paige is asleep and safely locked in the house, I head out the door to Tabby’s car. Her inconspicuous, midsized, older-but-not-too-old sedan is perfect for espionage. It’s basically the same car almost everyone in town has. Totally an old lady car.

When I drive by the parents’ house, a few lights are on and the Mercedes is parked in the driveway.

The house itself isn’t as ostentatious as they would normally choose, but Castle Cove isn’t exactly a mecca for the rich and wanna-be famous. It’s still nice, though, sheened in upper-middle-class elegance. It has two stories, a wraparound porch, bay windows out front, and dormer windows up top. It’s an elegant piece of real estate and I can’t help but wonder how much they’re paying for it. How much the citizens of Castle Cove are going to be paying for it.

After my drive-by, I park down the street and wait.

Once I plant the tracker on them, the plan is to show up at their house tomorrow. Surprise them, so to speak, so that by tomorrow night they’ll have something they need to talk about.

I sit there in the dark, watching, until the lights go off around midnight.

Then I creep out of the car and plant the tracker under the rear bumper, pushing it back as far as I can before activating the sensor. I run back to Tabby’s car and click the button on my end of the tracker’s receiver, synching the items up so I’ll be notified once they’re on the move.

The light on the little handheld device clicks on, a glowing green dot where they’re parked.

“Gotcha,” I whisper.

Lights in the rearview mirror blind me momentarily. I sink down in the seat as an innocuous sedan cruises by. It looks rather like the car I’m in, actually.

Weird.

The taillights disappear around the corner.

A loud rapping on the passenger side startles a shriek from my throat.

A light shines into the window, pointing just beside my face to avoid blinding me.

“What are you doing?”

Oh, shit.

It’s Jared.