Czytaj książkę: «Over the Edge»

1

MALLORY HUNT wanted a piece of Jake Trinity’s ass.

Literally.

The way she saw it, the man owed her for some very good reasons. For one, he’d sent her dad on a four-year stint in prison. For another, he’d sent her on a six-month stint in foster care. And forced her dad’s burglary crew into retirement.

All because of one lousy kiss.

Well, the kiss hadn’t exactly been lousy. If it had been, she might have forgotten it after ten years. She hadn’t.

Of course she wouldn’t admit that to her dad, so she simply said, “You heard right. Jake Trinity contacted me about a job.”

An understatement if ever there was one. The man had blasted back into her life with the force of a gunshot, insisting she drop everything to consult with him.

And Mallory intended to consult…oh, yeah, she intended to do a lot more, too, but she wouldn’t tell her dad that, either. She didn’t want to invite any questions when she knew for a fact that her dad didn’t know Jake Trinity had been the informant who’d gotten him busted on the Innovative Engineering job all those years ago.

As far as Mallory was concerned, if her dad had survived the past decade in the dark, dredging up memories of that painful time in their lives would serve no good purpose.

She’d handle Jake Trinity herself. And she had some very specific plans to pay the man back for his interference in their lives. Very specific. She’d make him regret the day he’d taken the moral high road by triggering the silent alarm that had changed the lives of everyone she cared about forever.

She’d make him pay for being the reason that her dad had lied to her for the first and only time in her life.

Yes, Mallory had it all under control…but she didn’t want her dad around to interfere with her plans, or to get any wrong ideas. He’d been dropping way too many hints about her finding a husband lately. He wanted her to settle down in a house with a white picket fence, and the last thing she needed was for him to decide Jake Trinity might make an acceptable candidate to share her happily ever after.

No, her dad didn’t need to know this job was anything more than a normal troubleshooting gig.

Which meant she wasn’t answering any more questions.

As a diversionary tactic she glanced to where he was perched precariously on the wall beside her, and asked, “Are you doing okay? How are you holding up? This is a long climb.”

Her dad peered down the sixty feet of man-made rockclimbing wall separating them from their belay partners below. “I’m going all the way today, babe. How about you?”

“If there’s no challenge, I don’t see the point.”

Today’s rock-climbing challenge had limits. She and her dad both were harnessed and roped with their belay partners clinging to their lines, ready to control the descent if either one fell. As she barely tipped the scales at one hundred and ten, a fall wouldn’t be much of a challenge for her belay partner, either.

Following her dad’s gaze down to the high-tech foam floor far below, she experienced a rush of vertigo that made her tighten her grip on the handholds and suck in a tight breath to chase the thrill that coursed through her.

She smiled.

While indoor rock climbing might not be the greatest of challenges, it was a great workout.

“That’s my girl,” her dad said. “No guts, no glory.”

“No risk, no reward,” she agreed.

“No pain, no gain.”

That comment made Mallory slant her gaze his way again. Her dad winked, alleviating any cause for worry with one charming glance.

Although Duke Hunt had been scaling man-made walls with her three times a week ever since the Vertical Playground rock-climbing gym had opened in their hometown of Atlanta, the fact still remained that he was a man on approach to his sixtieth birthday. Like her dad, she wasn’t one to dwell on impending maturity, but Mallory did have to face the occasional reminder that he was getting older. With a lifestyle as active as theirs, it would have been impossible to ignore the fact.

Though her dad was just as healthy and attractive as he’d always been—a man who women routinely went to pieces over—the passage of time had marked him physically. Distinguished silver shot his black hair at the temples. Laugh lines around his mouth and eyes scored his olive skin more deeply than ever.

But despite this evidence of age, Mallory only saw her dad, a timeless, larger-than-life man who laughed easily, lived life on the edge and loved her more than anything else in his world.

“No risk of failure, no fun.” She contributed a new addition to their collection of motivational sayings.

Lifting her gaze to the remaining thirty feet of wall shooting above her head, she reached for her next handhold.

Each time she planted a booted foot on a hold, she shifted her weight and thrust her body upward. Her muscles strained, and she forced herself to concentrate so she didn’t misstep.

As a sport, rock climbing was half technique and half muscle. Though she was barely of average height, the muscle part of the equation wasn’t an issue. The more Mallory practiced her technique, the more strength she built.

Which didn’t mean squat at seventy feet.

The muscles in her thighs had rebelled a good while ago. Of course, she’d arrived at the Vertical Playground earlier than her dad to warm up by bouldering—challenging climbs that she made without the benefit of protection or aids. She relied solely on her technique and strength to get her to the top and down again.

The top in that instance had only been twelve feet, but the activity had contributed to the sweat now soaking through her shorts and ribbed T-shirt.

“Well, tell me what Trinity said.” Her dad steered the conversation right back around to the one subject she didn’t want to discuss.

“I haven’t talked to him yet. We’re consulting after I’m done in the gym.” She didn’t sound much less winded than her dad, each word coming out as sort of a breathy grunt.

“Did he detail what he’s looking for in his proposal?”

“He wants me to pinpoint the holes in the prototype of a new security system he’s designed.”

“How does his new system look? Anything interesting?”

Interesting meant cutting edge. Staying on top of the latest security developments was a crucial aspect not only of Mallory’s security consulting business, but of her dad’s.

They were two sides of the same coin. Both their business cards read Hunt Security Specialists. Both their business cards had a phone number. Anything more would have been overkill since their reputations grew each year, a tribute to the power of client satisfaction and word-ofmouth referrals.

But that was where the similarities ended.

Mallory handled only legitimate jobs, so she didn’t have bars looming in her future. She consulted about security for commercial businesses and worked as a troubleshooter for the engineers who designed the systems. She’d also been working with several law-enforcement agencies recently, projecting how professional burglars might have entered various properties to carry out crimes.

Irony at its finest.

Her dad…well, for Duke Hunt, old habits died hard. Like Mallory, he consulted about security, but he consulted for professional burglars while they planned their heists.

On the fringes of the law, but not prosecutable. And there was no denying that her dad’s consulting business was a natural fit. Before his forced retirement, he’d spent his adult life working as a professional burglar, specializing in infiltrating commercial properties and cracking safes.

He’d trained Mallory at his knee from as far back as she could remember. By age thirteen, she’d taken her place as a member of his crew, starting off by scouting egress routes and disabling telephone lines. Eventually she’d graduated to disarming motion and heat sensors and had been training to monitor video stations when they’d been busted.

As Duke Hunt’s only child, she’d had an unconventional upbringing that she wouldn’t have traded away one second of—except for the four years her dad had spent in prison.

All because of her run-in with Jake Trinity.

“How’d Trinity hear about you?” her dad asked.

“From the work I did with Triple Safe.”

Duke shot her a smile that epitomized a pride in her abilities that far surpassed normal parental standards. “You were prime on that job, babe.”

She returned the smile. She had been prime on the Triple Safe job. The company had lucked into a chance to bid on a large account here in Atlanta. They’d contracted her to consult, and she’d blown meteor-sized craters in their proposal and helped them redesign their entire system. They’d won the account, established themselves in the industry and generously added to her portfolio and reputation in the process.

“Trinity’s prototype has a few new features. Of course I won’t have a bead on how new until I see the specs,” she said, hoping a minimum of information would satisfy his curiosity. “I did notice in his proposal that he was minimizing the risk of false alarms by using passive infrared and active microwave sensors together in the same units.”

“Sounds good. Nothing worse than a twitchy alarm.”

“You’re right about that.” Twitchy sensors could activate an alarm at the most inopportune times—a major inconvenience.

“Think you’ll accept the job?”

“Don’t know until I talk to the man.” The lie tumbled off her lips easily, considering she didn’t usually lie to her dad.

“Well, here’s hoping he offers you a challenge, then. No doubt you’d love the chance to blast holes in his new system.”

No doubt. And while Mallory appreciated her dad’s vote of confidence in her abilities, the simple truth was there was no such thing as a fail-safe security system. People designed the systems, and people weren’t fail-safe. Clever burglars—and accomplished security specialists like herself and her dad—could always find ways around new precautions.

Jake Trinity, CEO and founder of Trinity Security Services, known throughout the industry as TSS, might be Atlanta’s golden boy in the security industry, but he wasn’t any more fail-safe than his systems.

Mallory intended to prove just how fail-safe he wasn’t.

“Did Lance ever make it home last night?” she asked to divert her dad from his interrogation.

“How’d you hear?”

“Polish Paul called me on my cell. He wanted to know if Lance had contacted me.”

“Had he?”

“No.”

Duke frowned, and Mallory knew he was worried about their friend’s seventeen-year-old son. Polish Paul had been part of her dad’s crew since long before Mallory had been born, and he’d crossed the line to become family-by-love somewhere along the way. He’d stuck by her dad’s side through thick and thin, through flush years and lean, and was still sticking around ten years after Duke had retired from burglary.

Mallory wished Lance had contacted her. Once upon a time, they’d been close, too. Or as close as a young boy could be to an older almost-sister. While they weren’t related, they had lived together for a few years after Polish Paul had sprung Mallory from foster care during her dad’s incarceration.

“Well, don’t worry, babe. Paul promised to call as soon as Lance shows up.” He exhaled heavily. “Damned kid is going to be the death of him yet.”

Mallory wished she had some reassurance to offer, but she didn’t. Lance had grown into an angry teen who was determined to buck his father at every turn. He’d shut out all the people who cared for him, all of Duke’s crew and her, too. Once upon a time, they’d all been one big happy family—the only family she and Lance had ever known. But time and circumstance seemed to be pulling them all in different directions.

“Just call me when he shows up, okay?” she said.

“And you let me know if you accept Trinity’s offer. Working with TSS will look good on your résumé.”

“You think?” She swallowed back a sigh. They were back here again. “I kind of thought my endorsement on Trinity’s new system would look good on his résumé.”

Her dad gave a hearty laugh, tossing his head back in a gesture that would have knocked most climbers off their center and sent them gliding toward the floor.

Her dad wasn’t most climbers.

“Opal was right. You’re getting cocky.”

“And that surprises you? I’m your daughter.” Mallory didn’t care for the word cocky, but she’d earned the right to be satisfied with her work, as both her dad and Opal knew.

“Watch out, babe. Arrogance has been the downfall of too many good men.”

“And women?”

“Job hazard,” he said, a little too seriously.

“Is that why you’ve sicced Opal on me? Are you worried I’m heading for a fall?”

Opal was another of her dad’s crew who’d been around for longer than time—although Mallory would never have dared to phrase it that way to Opal. On the down side of fifty-five, Opal liberally contributed to her plastic surgeon’s portfolio in an effort not to look older than forty.

So far she was succeeding admirably.

But even more importantly, Opal was the closest thing that Mallory had ever had to a mother. Not that she would have ever said that to Opal’s face, either. The term connoted an age difference that simply wasn’t part of Opal’s vocabulary.

Nevertheless, she’d graciously played the role through the years, stepping in whenever Mallory had needed some motherly advice that Duke’s never-ending, constantlychanging stream of girlfriends couldn’t provide.

Mallory’s own mother had abandoned her husband and infant daughter for an opportunity to perform in a Las Vegas show—her first stop on the road to stardom. Unfortunately, life hadn’t cooperated, and she’d wound up dead in a car accident before leaving Vegas for Hollywood.

“I’m not worried you’ll take a fall,” her dad said. “And I haven’t sicced Opal on you, as you so eloquently put it. She’s just helping you out with your administrative tasks.”

“And keeping you informed about the clients I take.”

“A job perk.”

He delivered that one so matter-of-factly Mallory rolled her eyes. Her dad had never been one to pull any punches.

“Are you telling me you don’t need the help? With all the work you’ve been juggling lately…from where I’m standing, it looks like you should open a real office and hire a staff.”

“I have a real office. Just because it’s in my house doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

“You have voice mail, a pager and a computer.”

“Okay, a small office. My space is much better put to use in the workshop.” She chanced a glance away from the wall to look at him, suddenly realizing what this conversation was really all about. “The police work is bothering you, isn’t it?”

He looked away from the wall, too, meeting her gaze with those inky-black eyes that shouldn’t have been able to look warm when he smiled, but did.

At the moment he wasn’t smiling.

“You’re worried,” she said.

“Let’s say I’m reserving judgment about your latest career move. You’ve been consulting for law enforcement.” He spoke the words as though they scraped over his tongue.

“I’m a consultant, Dad. I consult.”

He still eyed her stoically.

“I have no intention of turning down perfectly good money. Besides, I like the work. I feel like Nancy Drew solving mysteries.” She didn’t say that she also got a kick out of the police relying on her.

“You also enjoy being one of the ‘experts’ that prosecution calls on for testimony in court?”

She smiled, hoping to lighten the moment. “It makes me feel…expert.”

“I’d rather see you focus on normal jobs.”

She might have argued that consulting for Jake Trinity wouldn’t be anything resembling normal. She didn’t. Her dad didn’t need to know she’d been so preoccupied with the man that she could see him in memory without even closing her eyes.

Though, in all fairness to her, Jake Trinity had been a good-looking guy with tawny hair and a sculpted bone structure that would look handsome whether he was nineteen or ninety. Ten years ago he’d screamed clean-cut good breeding with his wire-rimmed eyeglasses and preppy name brands.

Mallory remembered thinking he’d been too good-looking to be allowed. Then again, she’d been sixteen at the time and impressionable. Had she not been so impressed with the gorgeous young man who’d popped up on the job unexpectedly, she might never been tempted to approach him.

Nope, time hadn’t dimmed that memory. She still recalled every detail of that night with perfect clarity.

The Commercial-Cam Monitoring Network Prototype.

Ten years ago this video surveillance system had been state of the art. One of Innovative’s major competitors had paid her dad big bucks to acquire the prototype before the system officially launched onto the market.

The job had been meticulously planned and about as fail-safe as any job could be—they were sort of like security systems and people, never one-hundred-percent perfect. But this particular job had been going off like clockwork, until a very handsome man who shouldn’t have been in the building showed up while she secured the egress route for her dad’s escape.

Mallory should have hightailed it back up the rope to her own egress route on the roof. She should have radioed Polish Paul and told him she’d been made, so they could have aborted the job. That had been the backup plan. They always had a backup plan. Getting out of a building was just as important as getting in, Polish Paul always said.

But Mallory hadn’t done either of those things. She’d confronted that handsome young man instead, thinking she could stall him long enough to buy her dad the extra minute and a half he needed to complete the job. And she had. Almost.

But almost hadn’t been good enough. In this instance, almost meant that Jake Trinity had gotten to the silent alarm and changed their lives forever.

Almost everyone had gotten out of the building by the time the police had arrived.

Except for her dad.

He’d lied and said he’d tripped the alarm. She hadn’t believed him, of course. Neither had anyone else. Duke Hunt didn’t make those kinds of mundane mistakes. Mallory knew he simply hadn’t wanted her to feel guilty about ignoring the backup plan. He hadn’t wanted her to feel responsible for him going to prison or for the crew being forced into retirement. And his lie hurt almost as much as knowing she was responsible.

Almost as much as watching him handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police cruiser.

Almost as much as learning that the world she’d always believed perfectly normal wasn’t normal at all. To hear the police and the child welfare people tell it, her world was an illegal and morally ugly place.

That had confused Mallory at sixteen.

At twenty-six, it still did.

She was Duke Hunt’s beloved daughter, well-loved and cared for. She’d always thought being loved was a good thing whether she’d grown up on the fringes of the underworld or not.

With maturity, she’d come to understand that the real world wasn’t quite as black and white as the authorities painted it. The real world was an unpredictable place filled with good guys and bad guys. Not the classic depiction of white hats and black capes, either, but a place where the boundaries between right and wrong were often blurry and the bad guys could be more charming and gallant than the good guys.

No, her upbringing hadn’t been conventional, but burglary aside, it hadn’t been morally bankrupt either.

Which had led to another life-altering change.

During a visit to the prison where she’d gotten to see her dad through a four-inch-thick sheet of protective glass, she’d been informed that they were all retiring from the family business. The way her dad saw it, four years in prison wasn’t such a raw deal after an illustrious twenty-odd-year career. He’d made Mallory and all of his crew promise to turn their lives around and go legitimate.

Thanks to his business acumen and foresight, he’d provided the means for her and his crew to do exactly that. Nowadays, his crew was sitting pretty with legitimate businesses. Polish Paul owned a tattoo parlor; Eddie Gibb a pawn shop. Only Opal, who’d opted to spend her share of the nest egg on a nice house and expensive plastic surgeries, didn’t own a business. She worked as Eddie Gibb’s office manager instead, squeezing work for Mallory into her free time.