Worst Date Ever (Scandals #3) (21 page)

I don’t think I would ever have moved had his cell phone not started ringing.  He ignored it the first time, but when whoever it was called right back, I felt him reach in his pocket, pull it out and click the answer button.

“Yes, this is Cody Daniels.”  He listened, then added, “You’re there now?  I’ll be down in a minute.” 

I heard the phone click off, and that revitalized me enough that I struggled to my feet.  I brushed the tears off my cheeks, hoping he wouldn’t notice, but, of course, he did.  He stood and turned me around.  He hooked his finger under my chin and lifted my face until he forced me to meet his gaze.

“The Mini’s owner is downstairs with his insurance agent.  I left a card on their windshield when I went out for breakfast,” he explained.  “I’ve got to go down and talk to them, but I’ll be right back.  Okay?”

Silently, I nodded.  Of course he’d be back.  I was camping out in his apartment.  And right now, I desperately needed a nap.

He took my hand and led me back inside the condo.  “Are you going to be okay?”

Again, I nodded.

He seemed reluctant, so I managed a weak smile.  “Tell them I’m sorry.”

Cody picked up his keys off the counter and left.  I glanced over at Liberty who was sitting at the computer. “Can you handle it for a while?  I need a quick nap.”

“Sure, go ahead.”  Her pretty face looked pinched.  “Hey, I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m just really tired.”

“Go get some sleep.  I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

I stumbled down the hall to the guest bedroom.  I switched on the light and saw that the air bed had sprung a leak and was completely flat.  Obviously, it was not made to be a trampoline.  Note to self…next time read the instructions and the disclaimers.

Without really thinking about anything other than that I was about to collapse to the floor, I crossed the hall, sprawled across Cody’s big bed and promptly fell asleep.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

              Cody’s lips moved over my bare skin, leaving a moist trail between my breasts and down my torso, across my stomach and…oh my…lower…lower.  His tongue lapped between my legs, and I writhed, not wanting him to stop.  I buried my fingers in his thick dark hair, holding his head in place as the orgasm built, then exploded.  He moved over me quickly and plunged his penis deep inside me as the spasms still pulsed within me.  He cried out and spilled his heat inside me.  My fingernails bit into his back as the powerful sensations peaked, then slowly subsided.

He started to move away, but I wrapped my fingers around his dick and started stoking his still impressive length.

“Again?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

I continued to caress him, and he responded quickly, hardening in my hand.  “At least once more.”

“You’re insatiable.”

“Only with you,” I told him, reaching down to cup his balls.  “I love you, Cody.  You’re the man I’ve always hoped for.”

His groan eased out through gritted teeth.  “And I love…”

“Tulsa, wake up.”  Liberty’s excited voice pierced into the best dream of my life, and I tried to resist.

I rolled over, hoping to fall back into the conversation I had been having with Cody. 
Say it
, I willed,
tell me you love me
.

“You’ve got to get up. 
Yukon King
found his man.”  Liberty grabbed my arm and pulled me completely out of the dream. 

Before I realized it, l was hanging off the bed, and she continued to tug until I forced myself to sit up.  I blinked, trying to separate reality from fantasy.  It took me a few seconds to let the dream go.  It had been so intense…so wonderful.

“Hurry, we’re going to miss our window to connect to his computer.”  Liberty pulled again, and I slid off the bed.

I barely remembered crawling onto the big bed, but someone had pulled back the sheets and comforter and tucked me in.  I knew it had to be Cody, but I tried not to read too much into it.  He was just being nice…something he did very well.  “How long did I sleep?”

“About four hours.  Cody left a while ago to run some errands, and I’ve been watching the screen saver, then, pow!  There it was…the IP address.”

The enormity of that started to sink in, and I increased the pace.  Sure enough, frozen on the screen was 70.114.164.59.  I jotted it down on a piece of paper before it disappeared, then copy/pasted it in a browser and hit enter.  When it came up, I activated the
Santa Claus
program that simultaneously hacked into the hacker’s computer while sending out tracers to follow the money trail.

Liberty and I sat on the edge of our chairs and waited, anxiously, for the connection to complete.  Abruptly, the screen went black.  Liberty and I exchanged worried looks.  We’d come so far.  If it crashed now, it would be a huge disappointment.  I had no idea what to do next.

Cold sweat broke out on my forehead as I stared at the blank screen.  There was a flicker, then a full screen picture popped up.  But instead of seeing the screen of a stranger’s computer, I realized I was staring back at myself.  The IP address was Cody’s computer.

“What’s happening?” Liberty asked.  “That’s us.”  She leaned in so we were both in the picture.

“I don’t know,” I said aloud.  But inside I was screaming,
Cody, no, it can’t be you. 
I was crushed.  I had been his champion…his lover…his fan.  How could he have deceived me so completely?

“Should we tell Michael?” Liberty looked around nervously as if Cody might appear behind us.

“I guess we have to.”  But I simply didn’t want to believe it.  “Let me run a couple checks first.”  I ran a search for the IP address on my cell phone.  It didn’t have a name attached, but it confirmed that it originated in Austin, Texas.  I tried every way I knew to find its registration, but without success.  I was so deeply involved with my phone investigation that I didn’t notice that words were appearing on the screen, one letter at a time as if someone was typing them. 

“Look!” Liberty exclaimed, drawing my full attention.

I read it aloud as the words came together. 

“
What are you still doing at Cody’s?  I told you to leave this alone.  It’s none of your business.  Need more proof that I’m dead serious?

I hit the
Prt Scr
key but when I checked the printer, nothing had printed out. I tried again, with the same results…or lack of results.  Clearly, the person who was controlling our screen was also controlling the computer.

I signaled to Liberty with my index finger to not talk and pulled a yellow legal pad in front of us.  I wrote,
Don’t talk about the case while in the condo or on the property or in front of anyone.  I don’t trust anyone anymore….except you.

Liberty nodded.

The letters on the screen started separating, spinning off into space and out of sight.  I found myself staring back at myself again and wondering what the heck it all meant when I heard a deep rumble and felt the building shake.  Liberty and I rushed to the living room and out onto the patio. 

In the parking lot below, most of the cars were gone except for the dented Mini-Cooper and the blazing bonfire that used to be my beautiful Edge.

“Good grief!” Liberty exclaimed.  “Someone blew up your car.”

She was a master of understatement. 

I ran back to grab my phone to call 911, but before I dialed the first number, I heard sirens approaching.  In the building, the fire alarms screamed and a recorded voice told us to exit quickly and safely but not to use the elevators.  Liberty and I hurried out the door, but I had the presence of mind to lock the system and set the alarm.  We opened the door to the stairwell and sighed. 

Great…fourteenth floor.  At least it was all down.  Poor Liberty was still limping from her recent broken leg, and I’m IT, not a friggin’
Amazing Race
contestant.  The first ten floors went quickly, but the last four seemed to take forever. I kept glancing back to make sure Liberty was keeping up with me and was relieved to see she was only two steps behind. Finally, we reached the ground floor.  I pushed the bar on the stairway exit door and rushed outside, gasping for air, only to start coughing as the black smoke from my burning vehicle filled my lungs.  I doubled over, holding my aching sides.  Fuck!  I need to start exercising.  How do firefighters do it with all that crap on their backs? 

“Tulsa, are you okay?” Liberty put her hand on my back.

“I’m…fine.  Just…give me…a minute…to catch…my breath.”  I slowly straightened and covered my mouth with my hand to filter the smoke that was stinging my eyes and burning my throat.  Through the rolling cloud, I could see the firemen were covering my car in foam.

More people exited out the back of the building into the parking lot, and a fireman came over and herded us further away from the building and out of the dangerous fumes.  A small group of people were already there, mostly residents or merchants in the building, but some lookie-loos.

“That’s my car,” I told him.

“Was anyone in it?” he asked.

“No, it’s been parked there since yesterday.”

He nodded and went back to the building as more people filed out the door.

I realized I was still holding my cell phone.  I started to dial the office when I was swept up into a fierce embrace so rough that what little breath I had gathered was squeezed out of me.

“When I saw the smoke and heard the sirens…are you alright?”  His concern seemed genuine and the tears welling in his eyes were real.  He couldn’t be that good of an actor.  I was convinced he truly cared.

Or at least that’s what I wanted to believe.  The possibility that he might be behind all this was unthinkable.  As I looked directly into his brilliant blue eyes, the truth was undeniable.  The killer wasn’t Cody.

The relief nearly buckled my knees.

“Let’s get away from here,” he said, and while keeping his arm around me, he reached out for Liberty with his free hand.

He guided us across the street and into a café.  We found a booth in the front where we could keep an eye on the activity, but keep away from the smoke.  All I wanted was a big glass of ice water to clear my throat, and I was sure the waitress wasn’t too pleased at our measly order.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Someone blew up my car.”

His eyes widened.  “That was your car?”

I nodded.

He pounded his fist on the table.  “This has got to end…before someone dies.”

“That’s not all.” I filled him in on the IP address connecting back to his computer and the threatening message.

He listened quietly, but as soon as I was finished, he declared, “He’s watching us.”

Liberty and I looked around.  There were a few other people in the café, but they all seemed focused on their meals or each other. 

“I don’t mean here.  I mean on the computer.  He has been spying on us through my webcam!  He knows everything we’ve been doing.”

It hit both Cody and I at the same second exactly what the man behind the camera had seen last night.  Our gazes met, and Cody mouthed
oops
.  I felt my cheeks burn hotly at the thought that our lovemaking had been observed. 

“So, he knows we’ve tracked down his computer,” Liberty commented, completely missing the silent exchange between Cody and me.

“That’s why he bombed my car.  He wanted to get us out of the apartment.”  I glanced across the street at Cody’s building.  The smoke had stopped and only a shimmer of steam rose from the ruined vehicle.  Someone must have given an “all clear” because people started going back into the building through the rear lobby doors.

We got up and Cody left a twenty dollar tip on the table.  We crossed back to the parking lot.

“I’m going to talk with the guys.  I’ll meet you upstairs,” Cody said, then surprised me with a kiss on my forehead.

Liberty and I joined the crowd that was slowly funneling through the single door.  I saw Michael, Darius and Chloe in line, but they were too far in front of us for me to call out to them.

“Well, that was exciting.” 

I turned to see Amanda moving along next to me on my left.  “Exciting?  That was my car.”

She gasped and glanced back at the pile of twisted metal in the parking lot.  “Oh no!  Do you think it was an electrical short or something?  Maybe it was some sort of recall.”

I didn’t think so, but I didn’t really want to discuss it with Amanda.

“I had to park two blocks away,” she continued chatting even without any encouragement from me.  “It’s awful about your car, but at least it didn’t reach the building.”

We shuffled forward until we passed through the doorway and into the lobby.  As expected, the elevators were busy.  We were among the last people to re-enter the building, so there were only a few of us left, waiting for an elevator to return.  Lucky Michael had his own elevator.  Finally, the one directly in front of us dinged and swooshed open.

“I’ll ride up with you,” Amanda’s cheery voice said just as we were about to enter the car.

I realized that she would assume we were going up to see Michael, and I was too tired to play games.  I grabbed Liberty’s hand to stop her from going inside. “I need to talk to the fire department about my car.  You go ahead.”  I turned to leave, dragging Liberty behind.

“We should grab a drink after work someday, Tulsa.  Don’t let Michael be a slave driver.”

“Sure,” I called over my shoulder.

“Bye bye,” she said, giving me the rippling finger wave.

“What was that all about?” Liberty asked as soon as we were back outside.

I explained that I didn’t think it was a good idea for anyone outside of Scandals and Linked to know that we were set up in Cody’s apartment.  Although apparently, one person too many already knew.

“Well look who’s here,” Liberty said as she pointed to Christopher’s car that was stopped next to a police car near the entrance to the lot.  After a moment of conversation with the cop, Christopher pulled on in and parked.  Killeen was with him, and they got out and hurried over to us. 

“Are you guys okay?  What happened?” Killeen asked.

“We were upstairs…we found the hacker’s computer…we got this threatening message…then kaboom…they blew up my car.”  I gave them the
Cliff’s Notes
summary.

“Sounds like he knew you were after him,” Christopher observed.

I nodded.  “I think he was connected to Cody’s computer all along and was just sitting back, watching us through his web cam.  Plus, I’ll bet he had us bugged, too.  Any high school kid with a few bucks can pick out cell phone calls and listen in…no trick there.  But this guy is always at least a step ahead of us.”

“I talked to the cop.  They tried to look at the security cameras, but…surprise, surprise…they were down…again,” Christopher told us with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Probably hacked into the building’s security system,” I mused.  Of course, now it was all coming together.  If he knew our every move, he also knew how to hide his tracks…which would make my job almost impossible.  Unless
Santa
came through.  “I need to get back up to Cody’s computer and see if the hacker was able to compromise my program.”