She relaxed against him. God, she felt good. She snuck her arms around his neck.
“Being a caveman isn’t all that bad.” Her breath was warm against his neck.
“Do you want to tell me what happened with your alarm system? Because I have to tell you, those two things put together like that, give me a really bad feeling.”
She relaxed more into his body, then rested her forehead on his chest for a moment before looking back up at him. “I never put those two things together. Do you really think they have something to do with one another? Because when I talked to the guys at my alarm company, they wanted to upsell me on a new system. They wanted me to get cameras around the house. They said they couldn’t be sure if it was a person trying to break in or an animal who had tripped the window alarm, so I should upgrade.”
Who in the hell had she talked to, Bert and Ernie?
“Did they send you a report?”
“Yeah, it’s in my e-mail along with the estimate for the alarm upgrades.”
“Why don’t we go have a look at those along with getting some food?”
Chapter 8
Jill bit her nail as she read over Law’s shoulder. He made her entire workspace look small as he sat at her desk. Darn it, there had been more to the report than she’d realized. Law pushed back from the desk, looked at her, and frowned.
She sighed. “In my defense, after living in downtown Houston, it just never entered my head that there would be any real issues living in a gated community here in Perfectville.”
“You want to run that by me again?”
“Seriously, Lawson. Lorraine lived here in this little corner of Laguna Niguel for ten years, I never once heard of anything more serious than mail being stolen and that was just some high school kids. This place is locked up tighter than a drum.”
She felt energy pumping off him in waves. It wasn’t the type of energy that she’d had in mind when she’d changed her sheets earlier in the day.
“Combine this with the guy who was casing the place, and you have a problem.”
Jill sat down on the other chair in the room she’d turned into her office. “But why this house? It’s not the most expensive one here. Heck, it’s not even the most expensive one on the block. This makes no sense.”
The only thing that seemed to be going right was that she remembered to turn off the oven. She hated the idea that she was being targeted.
“It’s going to be all right,” Law assured her as he got up from his chair and held out his hand.
“What?”
“I’m hungry. You promised me food. You promised me beer,” he cajoled. “We’ll get this taken care of, don’t worry.”
She let him pull her up and followed him into the kitchen.
“Something smells good in here.”
“Potato skins with cheese and bacon. But because you’re also health-conscious, I have a platter of veggies to offset it. Of course, the lime offsets the calories in the Corona’s.”
“A woman after my own heart,” he smiled.
She went about serving up the food and the beer.
“How about I take you out tonight after we watch the show?” he said.
“Actually, I have a couple of steaks I thought we could grill.”
He gave her a long look. “I could be up for that.”
She sighed as she put her beer down and pushed her plate away from her. “I think there’s another problem besides the guy who came to my door and the alarm going off.”
Law set his beer down and looked at her.
“Okay, hit me.”
“Remember Lesley from the Grief Sessions at the rec center?”
He nodded.
“She called today. She wanted me to write a testimonial and then she mentioned a man trying to get ahold of me. He’s the husband of a former member of the group, so she gave him my name and contact info.”
Law sat up straighter.
“She told him where you lived?” His voice was sharp.
“No. At least I don’t think so. She didn’t mention that. I’m pretty sure she just gave him my name and number. Anyway, I think that I might have deleted his messages.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jill gave a frustrated sigh.
“Look, I get a heck of a lot of spam coming to my voicemail. I don’t listen to messages that come in from numbers I don’t recognize, I just read the voice-to-text messages. If they aren’t able to translate, I delete them. It’s how I weed stuff out. Maybe his got deleted. It just seems suspicious that all of this is coming together at the same time, don’t you think?”
“Who is he the husband of?” Law asked.
“A woman named Angela Smith. She lost her two-year-old son, Richard. She was new to the area. We both arrived early a couple of times to the session, and I found out she was living in a month-to-month apartment working as a maid. I felt sorry for her. I tried to take her out to a meal, but you could tell she was too proud. The last night she was in town, I saw her at the local bus stop with two suitcases. I talked her into letting me give her a ride to the downtown Greyhound station. She said she was going to Arizona. I asked for her cell phone number, I’ve called and left a couple of messages, but she hasn’t called me back. I hope she’s okay.”
“Transient. Last name Smith. Husband looking
