Chapter Two
Open air, speed and good music. Normally, Knox could count on the combination to unravel even the worst mood or problem, but today they weren’t working. The fact that he’d just racked up a solid ten hours’ sleep after a two week stretch of cat naps at best should have had him at top speed. Instead, guilt squatted on his shoulders with all the pleasantry of the grim reaper. Hell, the dark and gloomy fucker might as well just put that scythe of his to work and gut him while he was at it. God knows, he’d just done the same thing to a sweet girl who’d done nothing but help him be a somewhat normally functioning human for the last six months.
He whipped his souped-up Audi Roadster off Highway 75 and onto the service road, the top down and the wind hitting him on all sides. Marcy Playground’s “Sex and Candy” pulsed through the car’s interior and drowned out the mid-morning Monday traffic. What he needed to do was pull his head out of his ass and do it pronto. The last thing he needed while sweeping a target’s home was a muddled head and he needed intel on one JJ Simpson pronto.
A block away from JJ’s apartment building, Beckett’s nondescript white Chevy sedan sat curbside. All five cars they used for tailing people were the same, just in varied colors, though this one was in serious need of a wash. It also was a long damned way from Beck’s preferred mode of transportation—a refurbished 1970 candy apple convertible Corvette.
Knox slid his electric blue ride in behind Beckett. Across the parking lot, JJ’s apartment on the second floor was barely visible. The tan paint job did a decent job of covering up the apartment’s age and the thick hedges lining the buildings gave the place a little color, but overall the look was mighty sterile.
The woman was an enigma. After helping his brother Trevor out a few months ago, he’d started digging around to find out more about the mystery skip tracer, only to find her online footprint had all but dried up over a year and a half ago. Worse, there were conflicting photos he’d traced to the same Jeannie “JJ” Simpson. Then she’d gone and amped his need for information up by reaching out for an alleged business opportunity. If she was really out to talk shop, he’d listen. But if her so called business deal so much as hinted at blackmail against the brotherhood, he wanted leverage to put her in her place. Plus, he was just plain curious. It was a helluva feat for someone to hide from him when he was in the mood to dig, and he’d dug plenty with her.
Eyes aimed on the landing outside JJ’s door, Knox hustled to Beck’s sedan. The power locks snapped two seconds before Knox’s fingers slipped around the door handle, and a blast of cold air billowed out into the July morning the second he opened it. He slid into the passenger seat and shut the door. “You know these models have an automatic thermostat in ’em.”
“Don’t see me givin’ you shit for sweating your balls off in that four-wheeled crotch rocket you call a car, do you?”
Goddamn Beckett. All of his brothers gave him a hard time for his Audi, especially since all of them stuck to trucks, luxury sports cars or custom rides. He still wouldn’t trade it. The color alone made him smile. A giant fuck you to conformity. Rather than fire back with a retort like he usually would, he chin-lifted toward JJ’s apartment. “You seen her yet?”
“Nope.” Beckett dialed down the radio so only the drone of the AC registered inside the car and gave him a solid once-over. “For a guy who just got more than eight hours’ sleep for the first time in a while, you look pretty damned keyed up.”
Playing it off was tempting. Damned tempting. But the fact that his jacked up sleep problem and all-around trust issues had hurt yet another decent woman was kicking his ass. If he could lay his shit out with anyone it was Beckett. “I cut things off with Tiffany.”
Beckett kept his mouth shut.
Knox shifted against the tan leather seats. He hadn’t expected an argument. God knew, Beck had given him enough stick over the years about the rigid rules Knox kept in place with the women he hooked up with. So much so he could say plenty without uttering a word.
“How’d she take it?” Beckett finally asked.
“Probably plotted at least twelve ways to cut my nuts off before I’d hit the parking lot, then talked herself out of doing anything by the time I hit the highway.” He shrugged and focused on the quad of apartments closest to the property’s edge. Over the last week, he’d done his share of time monitoring JJ’s comings and goings, but he’d never been one to catch sight of her. “Tiffany’ll rebound. My guess, she’ll find what she’s after faster without me jerking her around.”
Beckett nodded, his gaze locked on the same target as Knox. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
He paused a beat. “You gonna rebound as good as Tiffany?”
So much for Beck keeping his mouth shut. “No need to rebound when you never fell.”
“Wasn’t talkin’ about rebounding from her. Was talkin’ about rebounding from the guilt.”
Knox let out a heavy exhale, anchored his elbow on the window ledge, and raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t like hurting them. I’m honest. I tell them over and over I can’t do a relationship, but it always ends up like this.”
“Then we find another way.”
“What other way? Booze and pills put me too far out of it. That’s an occupational hazard in our line of work. Exercise doesn’t work. Work doesn’t work. Sex does. And as much as it might make me a fucking pig, I like the sex. I like the women. I like the challenge. Fuck, it’s the ultimate throw down to see how many times I can get them off.”
“And therein lies the rub.”
The unexpected comment snapped Knox’s attention from JJ’s front porch and straight to Beckett, who just shook his head like he was dealing with an idiot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Brother, you get them off. Repeatedly. Like it’s your God-given mission to sex them into the stratosphere. Then, when you pry your brainy ass out of their bed, you dote on them like a proud big brother. No amount of honesty or reiteration is going to keep them from reaching for the brass ring.”
Goddamn it. He forced his gaze back to their target’s apartment, frustration and self-condemnation burning him from the inside out. “I’m fucked up.”
Beckett chuckled at that. “No more than the rest of us.”
True. But at least it wasn’t just him and Beckett anymore like it had been growing up. Now he had five more brothers, each with their own cross to bear.
“We’re in motion,” Beckett said with a jerk of his chin toward the apartments.
Sure enough, a statuesque blonde in tight jeans and a simple tan top appeared on JJ’s landing, stopped long enough to throw her deadbolt into place, then practically bounced down the stairs to the parking lot. Actually, calling her blonde was an injustice. Unlike the California gold many women strove for, JJ’s ran closer to white. Like she’d been birthed from some mystical winter realm.
Unless it was fake like some of the women he knew. Oddly, he hoped like hell it wasn’t.
“Interesting car choice,” Beckett said. “Danny would say that’s a notch in her favor.”
Fire-engine red with black rally stripes, the Dodge Challenger JJ folded herself into looked like something one of his brothers would pick out. “Good taste in cars doesn’t mean trustworthy.”
“Told you, you’re bein’ paranoid.”
“Took me twenty-three years to get the family I wanted. Not gonna let some unknown player rip it apart if I can help it. If that makes me paranoid, so be it.” Knox shook his head. “Besides, something’s nagging me on this one. Can’t put my finger on it.” And until he was sure his family wasn’t impacted by whatever it was, he wasn’t letting up. No matter how much shit Beckett gave him.
The Challenger’s roar rumbled all the way to where Beck and Knox waited.
“That’s my queue.” Knox popped the passenger door. “Give me a call when she gets wherever she’s headed.”
“Yep. You got your keys?”
Knox patted his front pocket where his bump keys were stowed. “Might not have been a Boy Scout, but never met a locked door unprepared.”
Beckett grinned and waved him off. “I’ll make it easy on you. It’s a Schlage. My guess, a five pin.”
Knox laughed and pried himself out of the front seat. “And there you go, stealing all my fun.” With that, he slammed the door and jogged back to his car. He’d barely made it back in before JJ pulled the Challenger out of the far parking lot exit that emptied out toward the service road.
Beckett followed, but Knox held his spot. Too damned many times he’d rushed in for a job only to have their target circle back for some forgotten item. The last one he’d moved too fast on had forced Knox up-close-and-personal with a holly bush to keep from getting busted. That damned shrub had worked him over harder than the twins he’d dared to take on solo the night of Jace & Viv’s wedding, but it’d also taught him the value of patience.
Ten minutes later, he powered up the top on his roadster and backed into an ideal parking spot with a straight shot for the main road. Another lesson he’d learned through the years—always plan for a fast getaway. He dug his trusty Texas ball cap out of the glove box, pulled it on and ambled toward JJ’s place. With his backpack slung over his shoulder, the odds of anyone viewing him as anything more than a friend of JJ’s were slim and none, but any job done in broad daylight was a risk.
The scariest part? He was totally jonesed on the rush. Not the B and E part, but the anticipation of what he’d find on the other side of her door. There was something there. A shotgun muzzle pressed between his shoulder blades couldn’t have spurred him for answers any more effectively than the impulse buzzing beneath his skin.
At the top of the stairs, he tugged his bump keys out of his pocket and snagged his mini-hammer out of the backpack’s side pocket. Angling his body to better hide his actions, he slid the key in.
Set. Smack. Pop.
The lock on the main doorknob twisted smooth as butter.
Shifting to the deadbolt, he repeated the process, this one taking three bumps and a little more finesse than the first.
Feminine voices sounded on the walkway below just as the deadbolt twisted.
Home free.
He pushed the door open, ducked inside and shut himself into the blissfully air-conditioned living room. Outside, the women he’d heard continued their chatter, the clarity of their words diminishing as they moved farther away.
Turning, he scanned the tiny apartment. Standard layout. Living room, galley kitchen and small dining area on one side, with a bedroom and adjacent bath on the other. The tan carpet was low-grade and the walls were the dreary grayish white loved by every landlord in the nation, but the vibe of everything else hinted at a demure, but playful personality. A couch covered in gunmetal fabric and dotted with Caribbean colored throw pillows lined one wall, and the coffee table was little more than a slab of glass and rose gold legs.
He paced the front room’s perimeter. Where most people left anything from fliers and unpaid bills to chargers and knickknacks laying out in the open, JJ’s place was immaculate. Not a single thing out of place. She had a thing for wolves, though. On the wall hung a wide painting of three of them, each in varying shades of gray and prowling through a winter storm. What few other decorations she had were a mix of carved or porcelain depictions of the animals in a variety of poses, but otherwise, nothing at all worth his deeper inspection.
The desk stationed where most people would put a small dinette? Now, that was worth some attention. Though, tempting as it was to dive into her electronics right away, he knew better. The second he got into the laptop perched on top of her desk, he’d be fighting a black hole time-wise. Better to case the rest of the place first and leave the big job for last.
The bathroom was just as tidy as the rest of the place. Mirror spotless. Everything in its right place. Neatly folded towels draped over the towel racks. He inched deeper into the cramped space, drawing in the room’s unique scent. Kind of like the roses one of his foster moms had grown, but with a crisper edge. Brisk, like a morning after a hard freeze.
He shook off the odd observation, spun for the bedroom and got one hell of a shock. The walls were the same drab white as the rest of the place, but what they lacked in color, the bed more than made up for. Spread across the full-size mattress was a bloodred comforter that was worn but looked insidiously soft. The top had been pulled back the way you’d expect from turndown service at a high-end hotel exposing sheets barely a shade lighter. A wooden ring stained to match the rich espresso headboard hung from the ceiling with sheer scarlet panels flowing out toward either side of the bed, and pillows of every shape and size were artfully strewn in front of the headboard.
Yep, one look at that bed and every predisposed notion he’d had of his mystery skip tracer got turned on its head. No way did the woman who slept in that bed match either of the pictures he’d seen online. It was pure sex. A refuge you slipped into with a long list of decadent intent and didn’t roll out of for hours later.
Fuck, who was this woman?
He made quick work of her dresser, carefully checking the contents of each drawer for any stashed information or clues he could leverage. Like everything else in her place, the clothes he found were good quality, but a little shabby. As if she’d bought well to start with and hung on to them a long time, or got them secondhand to start with. Except the bras, panties and silk nighties. Those were still in great shape and covered every sinful hue imaginable.
The closet was more of the same. Nothing stashed away in boxes but the shoes that belonged there. No pictures. No notes. No nothing. Hell, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen one damned picture in the whole damned place. Chicks loved pictures. All JJ had were an abundance of wolves and an apparent appreciation for quality merchandise. So, where would a woman with an appreciation for tidiness keep her secrets?
Under the bed.
Grinning, he set his backpack full of tricks on the floor, kneeled beside the sex-o-topia she’d created and tugged up the dust ruffle.
Bingo.
He slid out the two-by-two black plastic tub, making note of exactly how she’d had it positioned as he did so, and popped open the lid.
His chuckle filled the room’s silence, a mix of chagrin and pure delight moving through him. Not exactly the secret he’d been after, but one he couldn’t help appreciating. Arranged on a black velvet cushion was a thick black dildo, a pink finger vibe and a slender violet butt plug.
Oh, yeah. The bed and sexy underwear weren’t a mistake. Whoever JJ was, she had a naughty side. Curious, he plucked a thin box from one corner of the plastic tub and thumbed open the lid.
A simple chrome four-by-six frame sat perfectly nestled inside, the picture inside it drawing his focus to a laser point. Two women stood beside the Dodge Challenger JJ had driven off in this morning, their arms around each other and smiling huge for the camera. Whoever had taken the picture was far enough away to get the whole car in the shot, making details of the women too obscure, but there was no mistaking who they were. One was the woman he’d seen leave the apartment this morning—the same blonde currently reflected on passport and driver’s license records for one Jeannie “JJ” Simpson. But the other was the early-thirtyish strawberry blonde he’d found on older online records buried in obscure but now dead social and professional sites.
A random mix up of identities online he could buy. In today’s technologically centered world, it happened. But the same two women arm-in-arm claiming to be the same person? Hell, no. The whole thing reeked of identity theft, if not something worse.
He snapped a picture of the photo with his phone, tucked everything back up the way he’d found it and headed to the computer. That had to be where the real info was. Hoping for no password and an easy in, he powered up her PC.
No dice.
Powering it back down, he pulled out his laptop, disassembled her hard drive and connected it to his serial ATA. Five minutes later—voilà. No password required.
He scanned her hard drive first. No hidden partitions. No special settings in her BIOS. No locks to prevent or slow unauthorized access, so probably not doing any hacking on the side. He checked her router’s default DNS servers and set them to those at his office so he could monitor future traffic.
Satisfied he had the basics in place, he turned his attention to her search history. Lots of shopping, no social media outside of Pinterest—which had no user picture associated—and some heavy traffic on search sites for skip tracing work. Otherwise, her online presence over the last thirty days was pretty dull.
He opened her file browser. Like her house, it was well organized and easy to follow. Finances were tucked away in one spot, her last few tax returns showing a healthy savings despite a somewhat meager income, which definitely pointed to those clothes and shoes being secondhand. In another folder were her subcategories for each of the companies she provided services for. In another were recipes, most of the selections having a Slavic tilt. At the very bottom was a folder labeled Future.
He clicked on it, expanding the folder and a short list of no more than ten saved articles off the web. His phone vibrated in his back pocket as he opened the first, and an ominous buzz shot across his shoulders. The article was from an entertainment feature Viv had scored from this year’s fund-raiser for Catherine’s Kids, a biker rally where motorcycle enthusiasts from Texas and surrounding states pulled together to finance summer art programs for disadvantaged and financially strapped kids. The picture at the top of the article featured him and the rest of his brothers in a semi-candid moment centered around his and Jace’s bikes. The shot was great. He’d actually saved it himself when the story had been posted, but seeing it on JJ’s computer slaughtered his hopes of JJ being on the up and up.
The vibration from his phone kicked in again.
Knox checked the caller ID, slid the answer button and tucked it between his ear and shoulder. “I take it JJ’s Monday morning excursion is no longer a mystery?”
“Nope,” Beckett said. “Not anymore.”
Clicking on the next article, Knox asked, “Anything interesting?”
“Not unless you find volunteering at a retirement village the height of entertainment.”
Knox frowned at the new page he’d opened, a technology feature he’d earned after helping the Feds nab a nasty blackhat in bed with a Columbian drug lord. He moved to the next file. “Say again?”
“I said she spent the morning doting on some old folks at a run-down retirement center. Now she’s in a dojang about three miles from her apartment changing clothes for a taekwondo lesson.”
The information was interesting, for sure, but nowhere near as eye-opening as the star in all the rest of the files stored on her computer. He slouched against the back of her desk chair. “Not exactly what I expected.”
“Nothing about this chick is what we expected,” Beckett said. “Have you looked at her?”
“Blonde. 5ꞌ6″. Skinny. Blue eyes. Doesn’t like makeup.”
Beckett huffed out a chuckle. “That description might hit the salient points, but it doesn’t do her justice. Whatever photos you’ve been looking at, they downplayed the reality big time.”
Knox ran his finger along the almost perfectly arranged desk items beneath her external monitor. Two women who knew each other at one point in time, now sharing the same identity, one of which was AWOL. Official photos close enough in appearance to match real life but not exact.
He straightened the Post-it notes so they lined up with the paper clip holder and stapler. “I’ve got a hunch she’s hiding. Probably using a stolen identity. If so, doctoring up her passport and driver’s license photos would help throw off facial recognition. It would also explain her working at a nursing home. Plenty of opportunities there for an industrious person needing a fresh identity once someone kicks it.”
“A problem for her, maybe, but not one that impacts us. Unless you found something else?”
Knox filtered through the contents of the file one last time, still floored at the number of stories and pictures amassed. “Oh, I found something else. Except it’s not the brotherhood she’s digging into. She’s digging into me.”