Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(4)
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.