Lucas came to a stop at the gated driveway. This was definitely the right address, but he had no instructions about how to actually get past the locked gate.

“Do we buzz ourselves in?” asked Harper.

“Your guess is as good as mine. You’d think they’d be expecting us.” If whoever was in this house had arranged his flight, they would’ve been able to tell the moment he landed. Even if they weren’t sophisticated enough to be able to track his cell phone, they should know his general whereabouts.

“All right. I’ll get out and try to—”

Just then the gate swung open. “I guess I’ll just stay here and do nothing.” Harper took her hand off the door handle.

“Looks like we’re being watched.” Lucas stepped gingerly on the gas to creep up the driveway.

“I think from here on out, we should assume we’re always being watched. But the good news is that no one is shooting at us yet.”

“That’s something....”

“I mean, you saw how far away we are from everything. You’re probably a good half mile away from the neighbors. Shooting us right here would make sure that blood doesn’t get inside the house, and if by chance the neighbors hear the shots, they wouldn’t even know what they were hearing.”

She stared tentatively out the window as Lucas moved forward. The driveway had a slight bend to the right, and as soon as they made the turn, the house in front of them was visible. Lucas wasn’t quite sure it was a mansion, but it was definitely a big-ass house. The red brick was accented with white grout, and white columns lined the front of the building. It had definite curb appeal, not that the house could be seen from the curb. The driveway branched into a circle in front of the house, with another road leading off toward the garage area to store the many cars that the rich love to have. He didn’t see any other vehicles there, so it was hard to guess how many people might be inside. Hopefully tonight he would finally get some answers about how big this conspiracy stretched out.

“What are you thinking?” asked Harper.

“I’m thinking about the best escape routes if we need to make a speedy exit. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Aren’t you a good date? Asking what I’m thinking.... How considerate.”

“You’re defusing the situation with sarcasm. That’s not a good sign.”

“Hey, I always defuse situations with sarcasm. That’s not new.” He brought the car to a stop right in front of the entrance, and she took a nervous gulp. “Let’s just say I wish I had my gun.”

“You and me both.” He took the keys out of the ignition and immediately opened his car door and stepped out. He didn’t take a second to collect his thoughts or brace himself for anything. He just went for it.

He didn’t know whether that was smart or foolish, but he needed to get himself moving somehow.

Harper was shutting her door when the front door of the house creaked open and two men in all black suits stepped out and somberly folded their arms in front of themselves. They appeared to be the muscle of this little arrangement. Oh, how she wished she had her gun....

“Mr. Stone?” asked one. They were both rather indistinguishable from each other. Each seemed to be a little under six feet tall, with short, buzzed haircuts. One appeared to have slightly darker hair than the other, and neither was all that pleasant to look at.

“I’m Stone,” said Lucas. “Which one of you is going to tell me what I’m doing here?”

One of the guys pulled open the ornate wooden door. “Your presence is requested inside.”

He debated protesting, but the logic from earlier stood. If they wanted to kill them, why wouldn’t they do it right now? On the driveway where clean up would be easier and less of those pesky annoyances such as DNA evidence would stick around?

He looked over his shoulder to Harper, and she gave him little nod. She shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t put her in the middle of his problems. Fuck, it was too late to turn back now. She fell in step with him as they headed up the porch.

Stepping into the house, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. The foyer was done up with white ceramic tile and dark wood furnishings. A tall ceiling stretched up the two stories of this part of the house, giving a nice sense of grandeur to the entryway.

But he wasn’t looking for grandeur. He was on the lookout for people. All right, so there were the two guards they’d already passed. But they didn’t look like masterminds. They looked like hired hands. So where were the actual owners of the house? Where were the people who had set him up?

“They want you in the dining room,” said one of the guards, as though they would know where that was.

Lucas took a chance and walked straight ahead. Nobody corrected him, so he assumed he was heading in the right direction. Sure enough, three doors down was a formal dining room with a table big enough to fit twenty. There were two chairs already pulled out, and he went with it as he sat down. Except for the two guards, the entire experience was relatively unthreatening. This didn’t have a gang or organized crime feel to it. So what exactly was happening? Who had the power to frame Lucas for a crime that could send him away for years and then had the balls to invite him to their house?

“So when do I get answers? Why am I being treated like a common criminal?”

“Because that’s exactly what you are,” said a feminine voice. A woman entered from the back door of the room. Lucas and Harper both turned in their chairs to watch the woman approach as she walked around the table and sat across from them. “I’ve read quite a bit about you, Mr. Stone.”

Harper looked between the two of them. “Lucas, do you recognize her?”

“I have no idea who she is,” he said honestly. “I can tell you I’m not her biggest fan already.”

“Say one more negative word about my wife, and you’ll never get a chance to even make it to a jail cell.” Another man entered from the same door as the woman and followed the same path around the table to sit next to her.

“If it will save me from one more dramatic entrance, I think I’ll choose death,” deadpanned Lucas.

“All right, the suspense is killing me. Please give me your villain monologue now so I can clear up all my confusion.” If Harper felt any fear, she sure as hell wasn’t showing it.

“Villains? Oh no, we’re not the villains here. Mr. Stone here is the one who stole everything from us,” said the woman.

Harper looked over at him with narrowed eyes. “It’s funny that he would’ve taken everything from you, but yet has no idea who you are.”

“Well, he didn’t deal with us directly. Does the name Lily Reinhardt mean anything to you?” she asked Lucas accusingly.

His heart kicked up in his chest. Fuck. “You’re Lily’s parents, aren’t you?”

“Oh look, he remembers us now,” said the man.

He racked his brain for what their names were. Of the conversations he had with Lily, ninety percent of them had been when she was naked, and they sure as hell weren’t talking about her parents then. “I can explain everything. Where is Lily? Let me talk to her.”

All of a sudden, the woman leapt across the table toward Lucas, and he kicked back so hard his chair clattered to the ground behind him. He stumbled back, only to slam into one of the guards. Luckily, the woman’s husband managed to grab her before she fully made it across the table, and he held her back.

“Well, I take that to mean Lily is not around to answer any questions,” said Harper.

“Let me make this very clear,” said the man. “We want our daughter, and the money that you stole from us, back within our possession in the next forty-eight hours, or those drug charges will be the least of your worries.”

As his mind tried to put together these odd new pieces of the puzzle, Harper said, “Okay, okay, okay. As a relatively new arrival to this soap opera, please talk to me like I’m a small, stupid child. Let’s start from the beginning. What are your names?”

“Oliver and Meredith Reinhardt.” The man’s eyes scanned Harper up and down with disdain. “Considering you’re following him around like a lost little groupie, I don’t think small, stupid child is that far off the mark.”

Harper smiled tightly at the man. “Oh yeah. I see we’re getting off on good footing. But you should consider me your friend. I’m here to help Lucas, and from what I understand, I’m going to be helping Lucas do something that’s very close to your heart. So he and Lily stole some money from you?”

“I suppose he hasn’t been too honest with you about his numerous, numerous ex-girlfriends. From what we’ve been able to discover, Mr. Stone has never been one for monogamy.”

“No, I can truthfully say his love of women is one of the first things he told me about. But whether you want to believe it or not, Mr. Stone and I are not together. I’m a coworker who’s been helping him on a previous case. So why don’t you stop insulting me and start working with me. When did your daughter, and this money, go missing?”

“She, and a hundred thousand dollars of our Global Hugs funding, went missing at the same time. Three weeks ago.”

“And why do you think I was involved in this?” snapped Lucas.

“Because she was fine until she started hanging around the likes of you,” bit out Oliver. “Up until three months ago, she was perfect. Her grades were impeccable. She was thriving in college, and she was active in her sorority and always maintained peak performance in her volunteer activities. It wasn’t until her relationship with you that she dropped out of college, stopped all of her extracurricular activities, and now this.”

“All right,” said Harper carefully. “But all that’s circumstantial. If you actually had evidence, I’m guessing the police would be here.”

“The money was transferred into one of Mr. Stone’s accounts,” said Meredith.

Lucas stood again and pounded his hands on the table. “That’s bullshit,” he shouted.

“Calm down, Lucas,” said Harper, but he couldn’t deal with this anymore.

“I would know if I had that kind of money in an account. Trust me.”

Meredith scoffed. “And I bet you were checking the balance of that Cayman Islansd account every day, weren’t you?”

Fuck. If Lily had opened up an account in his name, he sure as hell wouldn’t be getting any monthly statements. How could she do that? She wasn’t exactly a tech wizard.  “Listen. Lily and I had a thing. It was a lot of fun, but then we split up. There was no plan to steal all your money, especially from a charity. I didn’t corrupt your precious flower; she was already wilted before I met her. I’m not going to be set up for one more goddamn crime I didn’t commit.”

Harper sat up and touched his arm, but he jerked away. He didn’t want comfort right now. He wanted somebody to listen to him. “They’re lying to you,” he said between clenched teeth. “Why can’t you see that?”

Harper shook her head. “First of all, you don’t know what I see. From where I’m standing, I see two concerned parents who want to get their daughter back. Right now, you’re a person of interest. They want your help. Just like any other client.”

“You know, I can say no to normal clients.”

“Well then, consider these extra-special clients. This is what you do for a living, and finding people is my specialty. It helps you, it helps them, and it will probably help Lily too. I say we give them what they want and then put this behind us. Just like we talked about doing back in Birdsville.”

“We didn’t....” He was about to say that they hadn’t talked about that in Birdsville, but then he realized what she was talking about. Outside the courthouse, he’d said he would do what they wanted and then get his revenge. Apparently Harper was up for that plan too. “All right. I think I can handle that.”

He looked back at Lily’s parents. “We’re going to need your cooperation,” he said to Oliver and Meredith. “Even if you think you have the upper hand on me, I’m going to need access to Lily’s things, and we’re going to have to ask you some questions.”

“And we’re going to expect honest answers,” said Harper.

“We can do that,” said Meredith quickly. Even though Oliver didn’t look as sure. “We just want our daughter back. You should stay here. At least for the night. We have little Lily’s room prepared for you.”

“I don’t think—”

“Sounds good,” said Lucas quickly, cutting off Harper’s rejection. They’d have the entire night to snoop around Lily’s room, hopefully get access to a laptop or something that would have her email information on it.

“Ms. Sloan, you can stay in my daughter’s room, and Lucas will get the room next door.”

“No,” said Harper quickly. “Lucas and I aren’t splitting up.”

Meredith’s eyes immediately narrowed. “I thought you said there was nothing going on between the two of you,” she accused.

“There’s not, but from what I hear, there are a couple of locals who like to take the law into their own hands and threaten and blackmail people. You can officially consider me his bodyguard.”

Lucas’s brows rose, but he didn’t fight her. Hell, at this point, he was well-versed in how fruitless it was to actually fight Harper on anything. He said he’d let her help him, so he would. He looked over to Oliver and Meredith to see what objections they were going to give.

“Lucas will sleep on the floor,” said Oliver roughly. “We’re looking for a missing child, not running a whorehouse.”

Harper let out a strangled sound, obviously holding back laughter.

“The room will be prepared for you shortly. Until then, I want to make myself clear. Remember the stakes here, Stone,” warned Oliver. “If you don’t bring our daughter back to us in forty-eight hours, I’ll make sure that you never see the light of day again. Not even behind a barbed-wire fence.”

“I’m telling you, I never stole anything from you. Your daughter planned this—I was no part of it.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life,” said Meredith, “it’s to never trust a criminal.”

––––––––

––––––––

Harper turned around and did a slow three-sixty as she took in the bedroom she’d apparently be spending the night in. It looked like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol had thrown up. There were all sorts of shades of pink. Pale pink, hot pink, fuchsia, flamingo. Harper knew she could be a tomboy, but she wasn’t totally averse to the color. Then again, she’d never seen it used so untastefully. There was barely any white or black in the room to give a striking accent. It was just... pink.

The lace curtains on the window were so pale they might as well not exist, and the bedspread was so bright it practically burned Harper’s eyes to even look at it.

Even the dressers were some hideous shade of bubblegum. She really hoped that no store would actually sell them like that, but of course that meant the family had paid extra money for the look.

“Are you okay?” asked Lucas.

“What? Oh, I’m fine. Why?”

“You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“Well, for future reference, this is my judgy face. I’m judging right now.”

“I’m glad it’s not just me.”

“So I take it this Lily chick was a bit of a girly girl?”

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, she wore makeup and skirts. So I guess?”

“And exactly how old was she?”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Legal,” he said between clenched teeth.

He must be telling the truth, or she had a feeling the girl’s parents would’ve gone after charges more serious than drugs. But judging from the way he said it, Lily probably only recently turned eighteen. “All right, so obviously your relationship with this girl is important. You’re going to have to tell me the whole story, from start to finish. All the sordid details.” He raised an eyebrow and she quickly corrected, “Some of the sordid details.”

“There’s not a lot to tell. I was in New York a few months ago, and her picture came up on a dating app. I thought she was smoking hot; apparently she felt the same about me. We hung out for a few days, and then I left the city. There were no declarations of love or heist planning that went on in that time.”

“And do we think Lily stole this money and framed you? Or do we think she’s in danger, and somebody else framed both of you?”

“You’ve got me.”

Harper shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “All right, I’ve been told you’re an investigator—and a reasonably good one. I’m going to need you to start pulling your weight here at some point.”

“I’m thinking,” he snapped. “I don’t think my relationship with her is going to help us with this. We have to treat it like a normal missing persons. Since she’s young, what’s the first thing you do when you’re searching for a missing teen?”

“Stalk their social media.”

“And luckily for us, I happen to still be friends with her.” He took out his phone. Harper reached for it, but he pivoted to keep it out of her grasp. “I’ll take a look and then I’ll give it to you.”

“That’s ridiculous. Do your looking, and I’ll stare over your shoulder.” Except over his shoulder was a lot easier said than done considering Lucas was so much taller than her. Finally, after she had to nudge her way closer to him three times before he even got the girl’s profile page open, Lucas let out an exasperated sigh and moved to sit on the bed, patting the seat next to him.

“I really didn’t think you’d be getting me in bed this fast,” she muttered as she sat next to him.

“Oh, I knew I would. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about our little bet.”

“What?” Shit. With all the framing him for blackmail, she’d forgotten. “You can’t seriously still be thinking about that.”

“I’m alone in a bedroom with you, sitting on the bed next to you. How could I not be thinking about it?”

“You’re on your ex-girlfriend’s bed.”

“She was a hookup, not a girlfriend. There is a difference.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think that difference works in your favor.”

Lucas finally got the page open, and Lily’s face filled the screen of his phone. Harper tightened her lips as she looked at the girl. The selfie that was her profile picture was perfect. The wind was blowing her blonde hair, and her natural-looking smile showed off perfect teeth.

“I can see why you swiped right,” she said as he started to scroll down to reveal more photos of this girl looking flawless. She looked like an All-American girl next door, not the type to go sleeping around with someone like Lucas and taking thousands of dollars from her parents. Harper knew that looks could be deceiving.

“What was she like?” No matter what Lucas said about the relationship not being serious, the fact that he met her and talked to her could help them a great deal. Harper knew that when she was trying to track down somebody, usually the best information she got came from people who knew them. Even if he didn’t know her all that well, if he remembered a few trends, habits, or her pattern of thinking, that could tell them everything they needed to know.

“She was... I don’t know. Happy. Bubbly. A little naïve.”

“What do you mean, naïve?”

“It was her first time in the city. She was going to NYU, and she seemed to have no awareness of personal safety. At one point, she was buying something from a street vendor, and she started counting this big wad of hundred-dollar bills right there in the middle of the street for everybody to see. You know, naïve.”

“Not to mention the fact that she met up with you,” pointed out Harper.

“You’re not wrong,” he admitted instead of fighting her on it. “When we first met, it wasn’t something simple and easy to get out of like a coffee date. She wanted me to go to a nightclub with her. If it hadn’t worked out, she would’ve been stuck with some creeper all night. After we hit it off, she paid for everything for me for the entire weekend.”

“And you let her?”

“Hey, beggars can’t be choosers. I like to think that I made it up to her. Multiple times.”

Harper rolled her eyes and suppressed a shudder. More information than she wanted to know. Lucas kept scrolling, and Harper set a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Hold up. Have you noticed anything?”

“You mean besides the fact that she takes a lot of selfies?”

“No. Scroll back up.”

He scrolled up, quickly scanning all the pictures they just looked at.

“Our girl isn’t wearing a stitch of pink in any of these pictures. A little odd, don’t you think?”

Lucas looked up and scanned the room. “It seems like Meredith and Lily might not have been as close as she thought.”

––––––––

––––––––

Harper closed her eyes, but all she could see was pink. Even though the room was dark, she couldn’t just forget where she was. Sleep didn’t come easy to her. Even under the best of circumstances, she wasn’t a sound sleeper. She didn’t even know why she was trying. She should be out doing something. Looking for Lily, trying to figure out who wanted to frame Lucas, trying to figure out what her own parents were keeping from her....

It was three o’clock in the morning, so there wasn’t much she could do on any of those counts except lie there and think about it.

And thinking wasn’t going to do a lot to fix any of her problems.

She grabbed a pillow from under her head and threw it on the other side of the bed. But now, with only one pillow beneath her, her neck didn’t have nearly enough support. She grabbed that same pillow, put it back, her neck once again craned up at too harsh an angle. How the hell did Lily do it?

Though considering the time she spent with Lucas, it didn’t sound as if Lily spent that much time in her own bedroom.

Harper's parents should be heading out on their trip in a few days. She had no idea when she’d have time to talk to them again. Chances were, whatever was going on with them wasn’t a big deal. Her parents weren’t like her. They were low-key folk who tended to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble. It had always been hard for them to deal with a shit-stirrer like Harper. But that actually made the problem a bit more complex. Even if they’d made the slightest of transgressions, her parents would go to great lengths to hide it from her. They’d want to protect their pristine reputation as role models.

So what happened? Did her dad get a DUI? He was never really a big drinker, but she supposed she wasn’t around much anymore. There was always time to start.

Maybe it was nothing that bad. Maybe her mom rear-ended somebody and was embarrassed.

No, Harper had seen the cars when she’d driven up the other day. Neither of them looked banged up or as though they’d recently got body work done.

Was there trouble in paradise? Were they thinking about divorcing? No.... Her parents would never split up. They were way too traditional for that. They’d rather be miserable for the rest of their lives and stay in an unhappy marriage.

Were they unhappy? They’d never really seemed all that happy together, but Harper didn’t know whether that had more to do with the relationship or the strain that Harper put on both of them.

“Will you please stop?” said Lucas from where he lay on the ground.

Harper pushed herself up on an elbow. “So you’re not sleeping either?”

“No one can sleep with you making that much noise. What’s the problem?”

“Thinking about my parents.”

“You’re kidding. Did our friendly chat with Oliver and Meredith make you miss them?”

She snorted. “Hardly. I had a weird conversation with them while you were in jail.”

“I tend to inspire that in people.”

“It wasn’t about you. Conceited much?”

“I’m not crazy. We can obviously see that there are conspiracy theories that revolve around me right now.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Let’s deal with your problems for once. What’s wrong with your parents?”

“They’re lying to me.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what makes you think they’re lying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we’re off to a great start.”

“I mean, I know, but it’s nothing concrete. They’re going on some expensive vacation in a few days, and they never go anywhere together. I asked them why, and they gave me these cagey, evasive answers.”

“I got it. Your dad cheated.”

Harper bolted up in bed. “What?”

“A couple taking a random vacation with no explanation. It’s cheating. They’re trying to work on the relationship after one of them cheated. Statistically speaking, it’s your dad.”

“No, no, no. My dad’s uber traditional. There’s no way he’d ever cheat on my mom.”

“The traditional ones are more likely to do it. You think about it—it’ll make more and more sense to you.”

“It figures a man whore like you would go to cheating immediately.”

“Hey, I might be a man whore, but I’m not a cheater.”

“Are you saying you don’t date multiple women?”

“Yeah, but they know about it. I date other women consensually. Big difference. No trust violations included.”

“Ummm hmmm,” murmured Harper skeptically.

“One of these days you’re gonna have to stop thinking so negatively about me,” said Lucas.

“I can think negatively about you for however long I want to.”

“That’s gonna make me getting you naked a hell of a lot harder, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Don’t you know? Hard things make sex more fun.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Oh, you have no idea how possible I am. All you have to do is reach down and touch me.”

Harper rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see. “I can’t believe you’re flirting with me right now.”

“I’d say this goes a little bit beyond flirting. I’m flat out offering to put my hands on those pretty little thighs of yours and spread them wide enough to lick and give you more orgasms than you’ve ever experienced in your life.”

The visual of his big hands, spreading her thighs apart as those wicked eyes looked into hers, had rendered her momentarily speechless. “I, umm, you have a vivid imagination at night.”

“You have no idea. Do you want me to tell you what I’m imagining doing right now?”

“I really don’t see how that can make any of this situation better.”

“Well then, obviously you don’t have my imagination.”

Good grief, this man was going to be the death of her. “Can you even imagine what Oliver would do if he found us naked together in his daughter’s room?”

“No. I’m still really focused on imagining what I would do to you if I had you naked in his daughter’s room.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I think we both could use a distraction, don’t you? Seriously, give me one good reason I shouldn’t be sliding between your thighs at this very moment.”

“I can give you multiple reasons. One, we’re in your ex-girlfriend’s bed. Two, her father’s crazy. Three, distractions can be deadly. Do you want me to go on?”

“One, I’m pretty sure my ex-girlfriend is setting me up, so fuck her. Two, Oliver doesn’t have to know. Three, I can multi-task.”

She had to smile at his persistence. If he were anybody else, this would’ve bordered on creepy. What made him different? Was it because he was so attractive? Did that somehow make it less pervy that this super-hot guy was trying to get into her pants?

No, that wasn’t it. Sure, it didn’t hurt anything, but the real negative part was that she liked him back. She enjoyed the banter and liked how confident he was in himself. Hell, if he was so sure he was that good in bed, he couldn’t be that wrong, could he? At least now she wanted to find out.

“We should go to bed.”

“We’re already in bed. Want me to join you?”

“I really hope the first time we’re together, it’s someplace I can scream freely.”

“I got you. You said when. Not if.”

Harper fell back and bit her bottom lip. Yep. She sure as hell did say when.