Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
“Let’s do it,” he told her.
She nodded toward the street. “Drive around back,” she told him. “There’s an alley. We’ll go in the bathroom.”
Caleb nosed the Charger down the street and into the alley that was used for garbage pick-up. He killed the engine behind the Paul house and got out with Izzy. She made a casual check of their surroundings and, satisfied they were unseen, hopped the chain link and onto the unmowed grass.
As he followed, a bit less gracefully he noted sourly, she said, “The old man has early mornings at a warehouse on the other side of the tracks. Takes his truck, leaves the bike. I’m guessing the reputation of the buzzards is what keeps it from being stolen.”
Caleb grunted as they approached the back door. “You might want to keep that reputation in mind,” he told her, “while you’re sniffing around.”
“I’ve dealt with gangs before,” she assured him. “I’m careful.”
“See that you are,” he replied. “Or they’re going to find both our bodies in the Badlands, bones picked clean.”
“If they find us at all,” she said with a grin. “The Buzzards are a bit hardcore for a cow town.”
“Rapid City’s not a cow town,” he argued. Then he recalled his native California and that Izzy was from Denver. “Well, okay,” he relented. “But there’s no shortage of hardened felons.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
She pulled a small, flat, leather case out of her jacket pocket and opened it. Shiny bits of silver glinted in the sun.
“Have you done this before?” she asked him.
Caleb shook his head. “Battering ram.”
She laughed. “Well, the last thing we need is Paul Senior to know someone broke in and sniffed around. I’d use a Lock-Aid under different circumstances, but it leaves damage.”
She selected a long, thin file from the case and handed it to him. “We’ve got all day,” she told him. “Might as well learn something new.”
The lock was cheap, even Caleb could see that. He took the pick from her and leaned closer to the door. Izzy positioned herself beside him. “Just slide it in easy,” she said. “Though you may have trouble with that,” she teased.
He gave her a sharp look, then turned back to the door. He slipped the pick in and jiggled it.
“Don’t rattle it around,” Izzy scolded. “You’ve got to finesse it. Go in slow, feel for the tumbler. That’s the sweet spot. You want to go at it gently till it gives way, then sink further in,” she instructed in a sultry whisper.
“Woman,” he growled.
She smiled. “It’s okay if you can’t get it,” she assured him. “After all,” she waved a dismissive hand at him. “Battering ram.”
Caleb’s blood heated and he took a deep breath to steady his hands. He ignored her and tried again, slower this time, but his hands wanted to go at something else, someone else, and the tightening in his jeans was starting to distract him.
Just because Caleb didn’t make slow, sweet love to women didn’t mean he couldn’t, or would be bad at it. He chose to keep it impersonal, an itch that needed regular but infrequent scratching. Her teasing galled him in a way that it shouldn’t have.
His hand slipped and he lost the tension on the tumblers. “Damn it,” he muttered.
Izzy laughed. “You need me to finish it myself?”
Now he was irritated. She had come, multiple times. He wasn’t a barbarian, for God’s sake.
“Let me do it,” she insisted, and took the pick out of his hand before he could object. She pushed the leather case into his empty hands.
She slid the pick in and tilted it a little to make room for the tension wire. True to her word, she turned the lock, sans key, and in less than sixty seconds they were standing inside the Paul’s kitchen.
Caleb surveyed the dirty dishes and stacked pizza boxes. “If this place weren’t a filthy rat’s nest,” he said. “I’d bend you over and—”
She clucked her tongue at him. “Guess you didn’t learn anything.”
She left him grumbling to himself as she carefully examined a stack of unopened mail on the counter, then moved to the living room.
“The easiest thing to do would be to access their phone records,” he told her.
She frowned. “Except I don’t have access to them. And my police contacts are good, but not so solid that they’d dump a phone or two for me without a warrant.”
Caleb understood. Now that he was on suspension, his own contacts couldn’t drum up a warrant-less search. Especially not on a mere hunch that Paul-the-younger was harboring his fugitive cousin and a kidnapped girl.
“Hmm,” Izzy said, breaking Caleb out of his reverie. She picked up a framed photo off a shelf and looked at it. When he moved closer he saw an older man, Paul Senior, he guessed, with his twenty-something son. They were standing in front of a cabin, surrounded by trees.