around his sister, even one as inconsequential as Kelly Roberts. He turned left into his guest bedroom.
Tabitha rushed ahead and opened the sliding closet door. Inside, a small desk was pushed against the wall, a tiny chair stacked on top of it. A cardboard box filled with school supplies had been squeezed in next to it. The other closet door hid an easel with a chalkboard.
“Let’s get this party started.”
Soon his living room had been transformed from its regular man-friendly state to a proper classroom. The buttery recliner in dark leather, matching sofa and the industrial-style wood end tables had been shoved out of the way to make room for the desk, chalkboard and the sheet spread out to cover the floor. Tony had learned the hard way about marker stains on the carpeting.
“Look. This one is a U.”
Tabitha sat at the desk and held up her paper. Carter lay on his belly on the floor, coloring a huge art pad and himself. Mostly himself.
“Uncle Tony, can you write your letters? In order?”
“In order? That’s tough. Maybe I could do it if I worked really hard.”
“I can help you.”
“Help. Too.”
Carter popped up from the floor and approached with his purple marker. His “help” was to decorate his uncle’s hands.
If Kelly could only see him now. Tony blinked, his fingers automatically closing. Why had she come up again? He was off the clock now, and he didn’t need to think about work or her. Maybe she’d peeked her annoyingly attractive face into his evening hours because he wanted her to see that he wasn’t always a jerk.
Why did she get to him? She wasn’t the first newbie police officer to join the task force since he’d been there. Eric was just one example. She wasn’t even the first female.
So, what was different about Trooper Roberts? Was he trying to scare her off because he sensed vulnerability in her, and his instinct was to shield her from things he’d seen? She was a trained police officer. She’d been carrying a weapon all day, for God’s sake. She didn’t need his protection. She would consider him patriarchal if not downright misogynistic for considering it.
Still, believing this was about his hero complex was easier than acknowledging another reason he might not want Kelly on the task force. It had more to do with sensual lips that could make a man think of all sorts of naughtiness, brown eyes that seemed to take in everything at once and a body that even a police uniform couldn’t disguise. Or maybe it was his temptation to pull those pins from her hair, just to watch it tumble down her back.
That wasn’t going to happen.
He didn’t do office romance. He didn’t do romance. Once bitten, twice done, you might say. He’d already told Angelena he wasn’t going there. With his career in a state of flux right now, it needed to be a hell no. His focus had to be of closing this case so that he could finally be transferred. That meant one thing. If he was even tempted to veer toward that on-ramp, he was hitting the brakes and putting that car in Park.
With his curtains drawn and office door locked, he dropped into the leather executive chair behind his mahogany desk. Usually that gleaming piece of furniture and the built-in shelves with all his favorite books would have soothed his frustrations, even after a long week at his day job. He might even have smiled at the degrees on the wall and the framed photos on his desk—one a family portrait and the other of him in uniform.
But not today. No, nothing could tamp down his irritation as he attached the cable for his external hard drive to his second laptop, kept just for business purposes. It was all he could do not to slam his hands on the keyboard while using the keys and touchpad to reach the even more secretive back door of his already well-hidden website.
He couldn’t alert his dear wife to his problems, either. She’d done a fine job of avoiding asking questions for years and had graciously accepted the baubles he’d showered her with as rewards. No sense in crippling a smoothly working system.
With a few more expert keystrokes, he landed on a page showing recent transactions from his Soleil Enterprises customers, all paid for using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin for anonymity. He loosened his tie, smiling at the second-quarter sales figures. Those had already tripled since the same time period a year before.
It was a beautiful business model, providing a wide variety of goods and services for his clients’ proclivities and peccadilloes, all at prices they were willing to stretch to afford. He didn’t even know why it was called the “Dark Web,” when it spelled a brighter future for the secret bank accounts of people like him.
Except that his sunny days might have been clouded recently with a bucket of blood.
He fisted one hand and squeezed it so hard with the other that all his fingers ached. If only it could have been the guy’s neck. Of course, he wasn’t certain that it was one of his customers who had crossed the line and murdered those girls. It could have been anyone. But the crushed tiara, part of the secret crime scene information that a loose-lipped peace officer had shared with him, had made him wonder.
Tiaras. Princesses. The sinking feeling in his gut told him it was a possibility. He shouldn’t have taken a chance on that guy. But greed could trap anyone in its grasp, just as an online supermarket for dark desires kept his clients coming back. Maybe he’d been caught this time.
“If it’s you, you’re done,” he whispered to the monitor.
Leaving his own site, he navigated to a few others that the local FBI task force regularly monitored. Again, it was information he shouldn’t have had but did.
He couldn’t casually observe the task force’s activities any longer. Everyone was searching for answers. He had to find them first.
He closed the Dark Web browser, launched another on the Surface Web and selected a chat room website that was among his customers’ favorites.
Though he rarely joined in on the conversations, he started a dialogue box for his screen name.
MR. SUNSHINE: Today’s been hell. Who agrees with me?
A knock at his office door interrupted him just as responses poured in.
“I’m headed up to bed,” his wife said from outside. “Will you be working long?”
“You go ahead. I have a little more to do.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Sweet dreams.”
He wouldn’t be able to sleep now if he tried, so he continued to lurk, waiting to see who was playing that night.
He’d worked too hard to build his empire, too hard to protect it. No one would be allowed to expose it or him. Not a customer who’d taken his fun too far. Not a task force that could uncover a connection during its investigation.
Would he kill to preserve this good thing he had? In a minute.
