Hit 'N' Run (Under Suspicion #1) by Lori Power Read Free Book Online Page A

spot on the team. Lorna came highly recommended.
    No, she wasn’t what he expected, and then again, she was. A girl trying to look much older than her years walked through the atrium doors of the library, all poise and control, until she wasn’t. Tripping despite her very sturdy shoes, down she went, briefcase flying, to land flat at his feet. Her strawberry-blonde hair, tucked away in a neat pony tied at the nape of her neck, escaped its confines, coming out in bunches to frame a lovely face. No glasses at all, horned or otherwise, just a startled expression and golden eyes that pierced him like rays of the sun .
    Despite his resentment over requiring a tutor, he liked her straight off. The fire in the depths of her amber eyes, a smolder calling him by name. Lorna mystified him, being all at once confident, insecure and awkward, poised, uptight, and timid. His friends made fun, calling her a female geek and wondered what was wrong with him for checking her out even after his grades improved. What did they call her? Oh yeah—Lorna the CyberFem. But when he worked with her, he would catch her watching him with that fire in full flame, and he knew—he just knew if she let him in…but she would only allow him so far. Still, like a moth mesmerized by the flame, he continued his quest until he finally got burned.
    “More the fool am I,” he scorned his mirrored self, hacking off more hair. “I won’t ever go there again.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    That he lived by the motto there are no coincidences ate away at Mitch’s resolve about burying Lorna in his past. Freshly groomed, with neat short hair and a goatee, he returned to the detachment with one thing—one woman—on his mind.
    “Jordan, isn’t it?” Mitch held up his badge attached to the chain around his neck.
    The younger man squinted, his gaze searched Mitch’s face trying to place him.
    “Morgan,” Mitch supplied. “We met yesterday.” Mitch smiled as the rookie officer’s brow smoothed in recognition.
    “Ah, yes. Sir?” Jordan’s intelligent brown eyes flashed with question.
    “Luke tells me you’re a real whiz at intel. I need some assistance locating a woman from a hit and run,” Mitch said, wheeling over a chair from a nearby desk.
    “A hit and run, sir?”
    “Yes. Problem is the accident occurred in another city. This shouldn’t be a concern though.” He tried his best man-to-man, you-know-what-I-mean approach. “It’s important to a recent sting operation and we’re tying up the loose ends.”
    “I see.” The rookie chanced a friendly grin in return. “Whatever I can do to assist, sir.”
    Jordan turned to his computer and logged on. Windows started to flash by on the over-large second monitor in rapid succession, giving Mitch a dizzying sensation of flying through space in a Star Wars episode. When Jordan paused his keystrokes, Mitch provided Lorna’s name and watched the younger man resume tapping away on the keyboard, lost in his cyber universe.
    After what seemed like an eternity, Mitch stifled a yawn and Jordan came back to earth.
    “Here she is, sir. Not hard to find at all,” he said, casting Mitch a crinkle-eyed grin. “Vital statistics, name, date of birth. Is she at fault?”
    “No. Why?”
    “Just wondering, sir. There’s a sealed record. Typically means a juvy sheet and more times than not, trouble.”
    “Juvy? A criminal record?”
    “Could be. I can’t be sure, of course, unless we opened the file, and I’d need clearance.”
    The Lorna of his memory—valedictorian, tutor, professor’s assistant—didn’t mesh with a juvenile record. “Tell me what you can access.”
    “I see here she was orphaned at the age of six when her parents died in a car accident while she was at school. Her one remaining relative—looks like her father’s brother—had custody off and on until she was twelve. I’d have to access files from Social Services to see foster-care records, but seems