Chapter One
3-4-8-6 point 0-3
2-5-5-9 point 2-7
6-9-2-4 point 3-3
The calculator churned out the total, whirring and feeding the skinny strip of paper out of the top.
12,969.63
Well, hell. Maddie flung her glasses onto the papers strewn across her desk. This little creep hid his dirty little deeds deep in the bowels of computer reports and financial records, but she’d be damned if she let him win.
She would find his trail and stalk him until she squeezed out every last drop of evidence available. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. The thick aroma of Buttercream filled her senses taking her back to the old bakeries of her childhood. The image the memory conjured calmed Maddie. She exhaled, releasing some of her frustration on the air from her lungs.
Her fingers massaged the bridge of her nose. She gave the guy she was after too much credit. He was good, but she wouldn’t struggle so much if she could focus her mind on the case. There it was, she admitted it. Her mind wouldn’t quit churning about the mysterious car she caught sight of this morning after dropping her twins off at school.
A black Acura sat parked just around the corner in front of her neighbors house. The Hamilton’s were on vacation in the Keys and she couldn’t recall them mentioning they had someone staying at the house. But sure enough, this morning a car was parked in front of it under the large live oak tree, affording him shade from the hot Charleston sun.
She walked across the room to stare out the front window. A trip she’d made countless times this morning. Too many times. She couldn’t see the car from here, the trees blocked her view, but somehow she knew it was there.
Sighing, she turned back to the papers for her current case. Somewhere in those pages lay the evidence she needed to help her client lock up the thieving little slimeball they employ. She would find the evidence and the money he stole. That is if that car would quit messing with her head.
First things first. She needed to get more information.
***
The binoculars zoomed in on the Victorian style house across the street and down the block from where he waited in his car. The neighborhood quieted down once the school traffic had cleared out. He’d seen Madeline Cooper’s SUV pull into the driveway shortly after he’d arrived, but hadn’t seen her again.
He dropped the binoculars to hang around his neck and went back to the papers in his lap. The information before him jumbled into a mass of letters and numbers, undecipherable to the layman’s eye. The information meant something to someone, just not him.
He shouldn’t even be here. He hadn’t worked for so long to sit and watch a woman sit in her house. He hadn’t seen this one coming.
The chiming of his cell phone broke the silence of the car. A breeze wafted through the windows, making him sigh as he answered the call. “Yep.”
“It’s me. What’s happening?”
“I need some information.”
“I deal in information. What kind?”
“A complete background on Madeline Cooper.”
“Do you have a social?”
“Nope, just an address. 5-3-2-6 Mulberry Lane.”
“Got it. Do I get a clue on what I’m looking for?”
“I’m sitting on her. Peretti’s daughter thinks she’s sleeping with her husband.”
“How did you get roped into this?”
“Hell if I know.” He pushed his fingers through his hair and glanced back toward the house. “Shit! Gotta go.”
He snapped the cell shut and whipped the binoculars to his eyes. Madeline Cooper was jogging down her road, straight toward him. How had he missed her coming out of the house? There wasn’t much he could do now without being obvious.
She turned at the corner and headed past him. She didn’t hesitate or even look in his direction.
He watched her bounce away from him in the side and rear view mirrors. Her ponytail swayed with each step. Her arms pumped with controlled movements. The muscles in her legs constricted showing off their shape and contours. He pulled out a Coke from a cooler on the floor behind him. Before opening it, he put it against the back of his neck to cool himself off.
Focus. Legs. FOCUS!
He did not have the time to sit here and watch Madam Legs in Suburbia Hell. The quiet was unnerving. It was also only a matter of time before someone approached him. Before that could happen he needed to have control of it.
He’d managed to maneuver Anthony Peretti into a position offering him the trust and access he needed to finish his job. If he’d done it once with a mafia boss, he could do it again with a suburban housewife.
Patience was key here. The background information Tanner pulled together for him could give the insight necessary to get the information he needed. Problem was patience and time were two things he didn’t have. The time he spent here chasing after Madeline Cooper took away from the time he should spend working Peretti in the direction he wanted him to go.
Her steps pounded on the pavement pulling his eyes to the mirrors. She ran back the way she’d left. She breathed heavier now than earlier. Her shirt was wet from sweat. Her face was calm, relaxed, comfortable.
She wouldn’t stop and question him. No woman with any amount of sense would walk up and confront a man. He banked his expectations on the assumption that Ms. Cooper has some sense and used it on a regular basis. Just in case she didn’t, he was prepared with a story. Whether it was for her or the police, it wouldn’t matter.
Once again, he was proven right. She ran right passed his car and crossed the road at the intersection of Mulberry Lane. She slowed to a walk at the edge of her yard. He pulled the binoculars up to watch her more closely. Her chest heaved with each deep breath as she walked circles in her yard. She bent over from time to time to yank a weed from the flowerbeds lining her porch. He’d be a jackass to admit he enjoyed that last part. Damn, he was a jackass!
He pushed his fingers through his hair and sighed. This case was too dangerous for him to be so easily distracted. Madeline Cooper was definitely a distraction.
12:29:50 PM 
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