Page 37 of Protector Unmatched

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Daphne looked over Pearce’s shoulder, marveling at the ease with which he circumvented the telephone company’s security system to access their server. It was late morning, and they’d both showered and gotten dressed by the time the computer had finally given off a soft ping, indicating that it was time to get to work. Enya was gone. Pearce had mentioned that she’d probably stayed overnight at her boyfriend’s place to give them privacy in the two-bedroom apartment, where the walls seemed paper-thin.

Daphne felt a twinge of guilt about the night before. She’d enjoyed herself with Pearce while her brother was locked up somewhere, suffering. But she was also realistic. She’d done exactly what the kidnappers had wanted—well, up until the moment she’d triggered the silent alarm—and after confessing to Pearce what trouble she was in, they’d worked on a plan to find Tim. The fact that the server of the phone company had been down wasn’t her fault. What should she have done? Twiddled her thumbs? No, Pearce and her having sex hadn’t delayed the search for the kidnappers one second. Therefore, she shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Right.

Daphne put her hand on Pearce’s shoulder. “I’m amazed at how good you are. I thought I was good, but wow, I can still learn something from you.”

He briefly put his hand on hers and squeezed it. “You learn a lot when you’ve been at it for as long as I have.”

“No wonder you’re working for a defense contractor. With your skills.”

He whirled his head toward her. “Defense contractor?”

“Yeah, Enya mentioned it.” Seeing his surprised look, she put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, she was probably not supposed to tell me that. Sorry, but I asked her, and she swore me to secrecy.”

“It’s all right,” he said, and turned his attention back to the computer. “I should have told you myself. I’m sorry if you feel that I’m not telling you a lot about myself. I’m just not used to sharing things with others.” He shrugged. “You know, shy computer geek and all.”

She put her arms around him from behind, hugging him tightly. “Right. I think we established last night that you’re not shy.” And that, in fact, he was very adventurous. As well as sexy, passionate, and insatiable.

Pearce squeezed her forearm. “You’re not shy either.” His eyes were reflected back at her in the monitor. “I enjoyed that. I hope that won’t be the last time you let me ravish you like that.”

Daphne chuckled. “Ravish? I believe that word belongs in a historical romance novel.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “All I know is that you just avoided giving me an answer.”

She turned into him and brought her face to his. When she pressed her lips to his and kissed him, he immediately pulled her onto his lap and kissed her back. It was hard to break the kiss, but eventually she did.

“Did that answer your question?” she asked with a smirk.

He mock-grimaced. “I wish you’d at least give me a sign, some sort of indication whether I have a chance, rather than keeping me guessing.”

She playfully slapped him on the arm and rose from his lap. “Men! They don’t see what’s right in front of them.”

Pearce chuckled and resumed his work on the keyboard. “Okay, the information is downloading,” he said after a few minutes. “It’ll give us the cell towers the calls were bouncing off. And once I merge it with a little program I wrote, it’ll calculate the likelihood of a more specific location.”

Slowly, Daphne scanned the rows of data on the screen. The column entitled Locations contained GPS information rather than addresses. She pointed to them. “Can you plot those on a map?”

“Yep, no problem. Just let me log off before they know what’s happening.” Pearce waited for the entire list to download, then severed the connection to the server.

Daphne watched him work his magic with a few clicks of the mouse and several lines of code. Then a map popped up, and red dots with little flags attached to them appeared on it. The map was of Baltimore.

“They’re keeping him in the city,” Daphne concluded from the information in front of her eyes.

“Looks like it. Your brother’s cell phone hasn’t been out of the city since he was taken. That’s good. It’ll narrow down our search.” He zoomed in and clicked on one of the dots to get more information. “Let’s start eliminating some of the locations. Do you know where this is?”

Daphne leaned in and read the street name. “I’m pretty sure that’s the bar where he hangs out with his buddies.”

“Looks like he, or his cell phone, was there three days ago.” He clicked on it twice, then changed the color of the dot to green. “It’s unlikely that we’ll find his kidnapper or Tim himself there. They’d be avoiding any places where Tim is known. And in particular places that you know of and would go looking for him.”

“I agree.” She pointed to another dot. “Can you zoom in on this one? I think that’s his apartment.” Pearce followed her request. She nodded. “Yes, that’s the street he lives on. It’s a duplex. When was he there last?”

Pearce clicked on it. “Hmm. Yesterday.” He turned to face her. “Didn’t you say you got the first call from the kidnapper two days ago?”

“Yes, it must have been around eleven in the morning.”

“Well, it looks like the kidnapper went back to your brother’s place the day after he took Tim. Could he have been looking for something in the apartment?”

“I don’t know. It’s odd. But it’s possible. I mean, when he showed me my brother on the video, he was tied up, so it’s possible he left him alone, or with an accomplice, to go to Tim’s apartment.”