Twitchy sensors could activate an alarm at the most inopportune times—a major inconvenience.
“Think you’ll accept the job?”
“Don’t know until I talk to the man.” The lie tumbled off her lips easily, considering she didn’t usually lie to her dad.
“Well, here’s hoping he offers you a challenge, then. No doubt you’d love the chance to blast holes in his new system.”
No doubt. And while Mallory appreciated her dad’s vote of confidence in her abilities, the simple truth was there was no such thing as a fail-safe security system. People designed the systems, and people weren’t fail-safe. Clever burglars—and accomplished security specialists like herself and her dad—could always find ways around new precautions.
Jake Trinity, CEO and founder of Trinity Security Services, known throughout the industry as TSS, might be Atlanta’s golden boy in the security industry, but he wasn’t any more fail-safe than his systems.
Mallory intended to prove just how fail-safe he wasn’t.
“Did Lance ever make it home last night?” she asked to divert her dad from his interrogation.
“How’d you hear?”
“Polish Paul called me on my cell. He wanted to know if Lance had contacted me.”
“Had he?”
“No.”
Duke frowned, and Mallory knew he was worried about their friend’s seventeen-year-old son. Polish Paul had been part of her dad’s crew since long before Mallory had been born, and he’d crossed the line to become family-by-love somewhere along the way. He’d stuck by her dad’s side through thick and thin, through flush years and lean, and was still sticking around ten years after Duke had retired from burglary.
Mallory wished Lance had contacted her. Once upon a time, they’d been close, too. Or as close as a young boy could be to an older almost-sister. While they weren’t related, they had lived together for a few years after Polish Paul had sprung Mallory from foster care during her dad’s incarceration.
“Well, don’t worry, babe. Paul promised to call as soon as Lance shows up.” He exhaled heavily. “Damned kid is going to be the death of him yet.”
Mallory wished she had some reassurance to offer, but she didn’t. Lance had grown into an angry teen who was determined to buck his father at every turn. He’d shut out all the people who cared for him, all of Duke’s crew and her, too. Once upon a time, they’d all been one big happy family—the only family she and Lance had ever known. But time and circumstance seemed to be pulling them all in different directions.
“Just call me when he shows up, okay?” she said.
“And you let me know if you accept Trinity’s offer. Working with TSS will look good on your résumé.”
“You think?” She swallowed back a sigh. They were back here again. “I kind of thought my endorsement on Trinity’s new system would look good on his résumé.”
Her dad gave a hearty laugh, tossing his head back in a gesture that would have knocked most climbers off their center and sent them gliding toward the floor.
Her dad wasn’t most climbers.
“Opal was right. You’re getting cocky.”
“And that surprises you? I’m your daughter.” Mallory didn’t care for the word cocky, but she’d earned the right to be satisfied with her work, as both her dad and Opal knew.
“Watch out, babe. Arrogance has been the downfall of too many good men.”
“And women?”
“Job hazard,” he said, a little too seriously.
“Is that why you’ve sicced Opal on me? Are you worried I’m heading for a fall?”
Opal was another of her dad’s crew who’d been around for longer than time—although Mallory would never have dared to phrase it that way to Opal. On the down side of fifty-five, Opal liberally contributed to her plastic surgeon’s portfolio in an effort not to look older than forty.
So far she was succeeding admirably.
But even more importantly, Opal was the closest thing that Mallory had ever had to a mother. Not that she would have ever said that to Opal’s face, either. The term connoted an age difference that simply wasn’t part of Opal’s vocabulary.
Nevertheless, she’d graciously played the role through the years, stepping in whenever Mallory had needed some motherly advice that Duke’s never-ending, constantlychanging stream of girlfriends couldn’t provide.
Mallory’s own mother had abandoned her husband and infant daughter for an opportunity to perform in a Las Vegas show—her first stop on the road to stardom. Unfortunately, life hadn’t cooperated, and she’d wound up dead in a car accident before leaving Vegas for Hollywood.
“I’m not worried you’ll take a fall,” her dad said. “And I haven’t sicced Opal on you, as you so eloquently put it. She’s just helping you out with your administrative tasks.”
“And keeping you informed about the clients I take.”
“A job perk.”
He delivered that one so matter-of-factly Mallory rolled her eyes. Her dad had never been one to pull any punches.
“Are you telling me you don’t need the help? With all the work you’ve been juggling lately…from where I’m standing, it looks like you should open a real office and hire a staff.”
“I have a real office. Just because it’s in my house doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
“You have voice mail, a pager and a computer.”
“Okay, a small office. My space is much better put to use in the workshop.” She chanced a glance away from the wall to look at him, suddenly realizing what this conversation was really all about. “The police work is bothering you, isn’t it?”
He looked away from the wall, too, meeting her gaze with those inky-black eyes that shouldn’t have been able to look warm when he smiled, but did.
At the moment he wasn’t smiling.
“You’re worried,” she said.
“Let’s say I’m reserving judgment about your latest career move. You’ve been consulting for law enforcement.” He spoke the words as though they scraped over his tongue.
“I’m a consultant, Dad. I consult.”
He still eyed her stoically.
“I have no intention of turning down perfectly good money. Besides, I like the work. I feel like Nancy Drew solving mysteries.” She didn’t say that she also got a kick out of the police relying on her.
“You also enjoy being one of the ‘experts’
