Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(80)
Julian arched a brow at Vaughn. From the other two, he’d expect this lack of insight. Perhaps his hacker was slipping. “Fine,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “Then things are proceeding exactly as expected.”
“You want the Feds crawling up your ass?” Franco asked, shock covering his scarred face. Christ, the man was as big an idiot as he was a brute.
“Of course not,” Julian replied, speaking as he might to a child. “But their investigation will serve as a means to an end. The FBI, like the fire department, won’t find anything they can use to indict me, for the deaths or for my gatherings. While they struggle in vain to try, however, I’ll gain access to something I want very much.”
“I don’t get it,” Charles said, blinking his beady eyes. “What do the cops have that you want?”
Vaughn straightened, staring at Julian from beneath the hood of that infernal sweatshirt. “The woman. You want the woman.”
At last, a light among the dimwits. “Bravo, Mr. Vaughn. I want the lovely Detective Moreno to pay for her audacity, and what better way than to have her come to me.”
“You think she’ll come to you as part of the investigation?” Charles asked, and truly, Julian had to question how the man functioned with such slow uptake.
“I think she came to me when there was no investigation. She’s too impulsive for her own well-being. Certainly we can motivate her to act without too much effort. And when she does, I’ll be ready.” He turned toward Vaughn and lifted his eyebrows expectantly. “So tell me, do we have eyes on the detective’s apartment?”
Vaughn clacked a series of commands over the nearest keyboard, one-handed. “Yup, sure do. I tapped into the security feed for her building—piece of fucking cake, by the way—but she’s not there now. The camera in the lobby has her leaving at about oh-five-hundred this morning. Interestingly enough, she landed on the firefighter’s doorstep.” Another clack, and the grainy image on the computer monitor changed. “They got hot and heavy on their way into his place a couple hours ago, and haven’t come out since.”
Julian smiled. This was going to be even easier than he’d anticipated. “Excellent. Don’t take your eyes off that feed. If either one of them so much as sets a toe over the threshold, I want to be informed on my cell phone.”
“You’re headed out?” Vaughn’s fleece-covered head pulled back in surprise.
Julian’s heart beat faster, his blood beginning to rush at the dark pleasure of the task in front of him.
“Yes. Charles and Franco and I have some work to do. It’s time to bait the hook.”
21
Kellan sank his shoulders beneath his RFD hoodie, blocking out the early October chill as he surveyed the front of Isabella’s tidy, three-story apartment building along with the two on either side of it. Evening sunlight still illuminated the city block, although the collection of evenly placed streetlights would take over the job in less than an hour. The handful of people crossing the leaf-covered sidewalk looked friendly and perfectly in-place as they walked their dogs or strolled by, and after his second three-sixty, Isabella cleared her throat from beside him.
“You do realize this is completely unnecessary,” she argued—albeit lightly—for the thousandth time.
And for the thousandth time, Kellan argued right back. “Look, you can blame my lieutenant for this. But if I have to check in with him every twelve hours as a just-in-case, then you can put up with me doing a little look-see while I walk you to your door.”
“A little look-see?” Isabella’s caramel-colored brows lifted in challenge, and okay, she might have him there.
Too bad for her, the last ten years had honed his ability to field a raft of shit like a consummate pro. “Suck it up, buttercup. I like you. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to make sure you get into your apartment safe and sound.”
Although he’d intended the words as a tease, Kellan couldn’t help but realize how much truth hid behind them, too. Yes, the sex had once again been mind-blowing, and he and Isabella were clearly compatible between the sheets. But then she’d opened up about Angel and getting taken off this case, trusting him enough to let him in, then spend an entire day with him besides, and damn it, Kellan couldn’t deny what was right in front of him.
He did like her.
Which would be dangerous, except for the fact that right now, in this moment, it felt too fucking good to scare him.
“Fine.” Isabella’s throaty voice brought him back to reality with a sexy snap. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, a tiny smile shaping her mouth as she turned and started to move over the sidewalk. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you insist on checking under my bed, you’re going to find a legion of dust bunnies. They may or may not be friendly.”
“You’re a badass,” he said, falling into step beside her and nudging her shoulder with his. “I’m willing to bet you can take the dust bunnies.”
“You’re lucky I like you, too. Otherwise I’d make you fend for yourself,” Isabella quipped back. She pulled her key ring from her jacket pocket, unlocking the main door to the building and holding it wide to usher him over the threshold. “Here we are. Home sweet home.”