Page 78 of Lost Lake
But she wasn’t one for public displays of affection. No one had come out to see why there were sirens, but someone was probably watching out a window. Price would return. Another deputy might be responding to her distress call. Potentially catching them together.
She wouldn’t embarrass herself or them. She inserted her hands in the small gap between them and pushed against him, wanting to stop when the space grew. But she did the right thing and kept pushing.
He blinked a few times and breathed deeply. “I didn’t want that to end.”
“Me either, but Price could be on his way back, and I can’t afford to have a story about our PDA go around the department. You either, if you want to maintain your business’s professional image.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “I should’ve thought of that, but when I finally saw you were okay, I couldn’t think.”
She couldn’t talk about this anymore without flinging herself back into his arms. “We should go inside and see what the intruder was up to.”
He helped her to her feet. “Do you know if he took anything?”
“He has my laptop and some files,” she said, turning toward her front door. “So if Price fails to apprehend the suspect, I’ll need to get on the phone to my IT department. I have a challenging password, but if a thief’s a pro and cracks it, then connects to the internet, the tech staff will see it.”
Gabe nodded. “Allows them to trace the connection and lock it down or wipe the drive to stop him from getting to any data including our investigation.”
“That’s correct.” She stepped inside. “Depending on what we know at that time, we’ll have to decide if we want them to track it before they do anything. We might not want them to alert the thief before we can catch him.”
She flipped on the overhead light in the living area, and he followed her. She stopped at the dining table now devoid of the investigation files she’d worked on after her dinner with Gabe. “It doesn’t look like it matters if we wipe the electronic files for this investigation. He took all of my notes and a copy I made of the murder book.”
“You made a copy of that?” He didn’t even try to hide his surprise. Maybe he thought their department didn’t allow it. Many didn’t, but she was a stickler for following protocol and didn’t violate department rules.
“I do keep copies. I’m not proud of my reasoning, but every day in an investigation, I have to end the day by reviewing what other people working the investigation have added to the book.”
“The control thing. You need to make sure they’re doing the work to your satisfaction.”
She nodded. “Like I said, I’m not proud of it, and I need to change, but there you have it. Thanks to my foolish control, the intruder has all of the details for the investigation.”
“We’ll talk about the control thing later so you don’t blame yourself for this, but we need to find this person ASAP.”
Thinking more clearly now, she scoured her brain for a solution. “My security feed. Let me grab my phone from the bedroom.” She raced through the house to pick it up and scrolled to the security app as she walked back to the living room. “That’s odd. The feeds are live, but blacked out and no notifications.”
“Likely not an electronic glitch then. You think he covered the camera lenses?”
“Maybe the doorbell, but he would’ve needed a ladder to reach the other ones. That’s why I mounted them as high as I could.”
“You stay here. I’ll go check it out.”
“Perfect,” she said. “It’ll give me time to get dressed.”
He spun to exit. She followed him but veered off to her bedroom. She quickly put on one of her usual work suits and tamed her hair into a bun. Not hearing Gabe in the other room, she even took a moment to brush her teeth.
Back in her living room, her phone rang right as Gabe returned.
She held it up. “It’s Sierra. And if she’s calling at this time of day, it has to be important.” She connected the call. “Sierra. Gabe’s here, and I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Good, “she said. “The results came in for the fetal tissue sample. I thought with Lucy missing you’d be working and want to know right away.”
Gabe stepped closer to the phone. “You have a match in the database?”
“Not exactly,” Sierra said.
“Then what?” Gabe’s urgent tone seemed as if he were trying to push her along.
“First, you should know it was a boy.”
Learning the gender of the baby made the loss more real. El watched Gabe to see how he handled it.
