Dangerous by Patricia Rosemoor Read Free Book Online

Just thinking about the past practically made her wet wanting what she couldn’t, shouldn’t want to have.
    “Settle down,” Drago said when he turned onto a side street. “We’re here already.”
    She was trying to settle down…and hoping he wasn’t aware of how her discomfort had shifted from what they were doing professionally to what she couldn’t let happen personally.
    As he slowed and angled the car into what appeared to be a too small spot, Camille looked around. She’d worked this neighborhood on the job and had learned something of its history. Over a dozen decades, what had started as the “downtown” of a large Polish neighborhood had become home to an artist community, and now, a few more decades later, had been gentrified. Not that the street lined with old brown brick two- and three-story buildings looked anything but old.
    “Ready?” Drago cut the ignition and pulled out his key.
    “As I’ll ever be.”
    “You’re not going to give Stone a hard time, are you?”
    That wouldn’t be prudent if she wanted the hacker’s help. “I’m going to let you handle him.”
    “Good.”
    When they got out of the car, he took her arm. She wanted to tell him not to handle
her
as he guided her a few houses down. But that would only start an argument, so she suffered in silence. They approached the building on the second floor, which was on street level. Houses in Bucktown, as in a few other Chicago neighborhoods, had been built in low areas. More than a century ago, the city had raised streets to sea level, creating this oddity. As they waited for Stone to answer the door, she looked down into the bowl-shaped yard below and back to the underside of the vaulted sidewalk that held the remains of an old privy room.
    Shortly the front door creaked open.
    “Drago.”
    She whipped around to see a skinny guy in the doorway. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, jeans, and work boots despite the warm summer weather. His light brown hair electrified around a too pale face; he looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in a very long time.
    “Stone, this is Camille Martell.”
    She noticed Drago hadn’t said
Detective
Camille Martell and wondered if the hacker had any clue that she was a cop.
    “Hey, c’mon in.”
    She let Drago take the lead. Inside, the long, narrow room was nearly devoid of furniture, but a giant LED television hung on the wall opposite the old couch. An upscale sound system covered a wall unit. And an open laptop sat on the coffee table. Stone didn’t invite them to sit, rather kept going to a set of stairs that took them down a level, to what once had been the main floor.
    “The heart of my operation.”
    Camille took it all in, every inch of muted dark space crowded with electronics. A purposeful cave. The windows were all covered so not a speck of natural light entered the room. And no one could look inside at the multiple screens, CPUs, keyboards, and other expensive equipment she couldn’t name. She recognized little of what Gary Stone used as the tools of his trade, but she was certain a potential thief would.
    She asked, “You rent the whole building?”
    “Nah. I own it.”
    Of course he did. He was a hacker.
    Drago gave her a warning look. She clamped her jaw shut. How Stone made his money wasn’t her business. She had to keep her focus on the case.
    “Here’s the laptop.”
    Drago handed it to Stone, who sat at his flagship desk and immediately hooked it up. Hoping against hope that at last she’d get a break on this case, that she could save an innocent girl, Camille’s stomach knotted, and she had trouble taking an easy breath. Finding a seat at the back of the room, she let Drago take over. He seemed pretty computer savvy himself.
    Breathe, she told herself. If only meditation techniques worked for her, she might be able to relax. Instead, she talked herself into believing that this would work. That between the two men, they would get the results she needed to find Angel and