Caught by Jami Alden Read Free Book Online

don’t like to use our resources to stalk your fuck buddies.”
    “I don’t either, but sometimes it’s necessary. Remember Amber? She was wanted in Idaho for setting her boyfriend’s pubes on fire.” His brush with genital assault still made his boys shrivel up and duck for cover.
    “If you didn’t bang everything that moved, you wouldn’t have close encounters of the psycho kind.”
    “Thanks for the advice, but unlike you I want to get laid this decade.” He wasn’t that indiscriminate. Then he remembered going home with Gillian the night before, for no good reason other than that he wanted a warm body next to him for a few hours. Maybe his brother had a point.
    Speaking of warm bodies…Toni’s image popped into his brain. Warm, shit. He sensed in Toni a kind of dark intensity that would set him on fire.
    But he had his work cut out for him there, if the look she gave him when he said the lipstick on his ear wasn’t his girlfriend’s was anything to go by. He didn’t know why he’d bothered to explain, but he wanted her to know he was single. But instead of looking interested, Toni’s plump red mouth had puckered in disapproval as if she’d been sucking on underripe lemons.
    “Toni’s another investigator.” He filled Derek in on Toni’s involvement with Marcy. “I want to know who I’m dealing with.”
    He hung up on Derek and spent the next few hours canvassing the neighborhood. Finding out who she’s talking to online will get me a lot further than talking to neighbors who probably don’t even know her name. It galled him to admit Toni was right.
    Neighborhood life in the twenty-first century.
    Maybe Laurie Friedland would provide him with something useful. Hell, maybe he’d find Kara sacked out on her friend’s couch. He pulled into the driveway, not surprised to see a green Honda Accord already parked there.
    Kara’s friend Laurie lived about half a mile from the Kramer estate in a large ranch-style home that looked like it had been given a recent face-lift. He rang the bell and a harried woman answered. Over her shoulder, he could see Toni standing in the foyer, her brows knit into a frustrated frown behind her heavy glasses.
    “Oh great, you’re here,” Toni muttered.
    He flashed her a cocky grin, purely to piss her off, and turned to the woman he assumed was Laurie’s mother. A brunette in what he guessed to be her late forties, but it was impossible to tell for sure. With her straight, shoulder-length brown hair and an outfit that concealed the beginnings of middle-age spread, she would have been attractive if she’d left her face alone. He knew that women—especially women in this area—worried about aging, but he didn’t get why they thought hacking up their faces until they looked like the Joker was an improvement. “Mrs. Friedland?”
    She nodded, her gaze momentarily freezing on his face. Ethan widened his friendly smile for good measure. “Ethan Taggart,” he said, holding out a hand, which she blindly grasped with her manicured fingers. “I work for Kara Kramer’s father, and I was hoping I could ask your daughter a few questions.”
    “Is she a friend of yours?” She shot an annoyed glance at Toni. At least Ethan thought she was annoyed. Hard to tell, since her face didn’t move much. “What was your name again?” she snapped. Toni repeated her name. “Yes, Tory also wants to talk to Laurie about Kara, but we’re about to get mani-pedis at LaBelle, and we really don’t—”
    “Mrs. Friedland, did Toni explain why we need to talk to your daughter?” Ethan asked, using his larger frame to subtly back her into the house.
    “You can call me Joyce,” she said, her wide smile made a little creepy by the fact that nothing moved above her cheeks.
    “I didn’t get a chance yet,” Toni snapped.
    Joyce’s smile disappeared as she turned her attention on Toni. “No, you just barged in here, demanding to talk to Laurie.”
    “Joyce,” Ethan said, placing