Guilty as Sin (9 page)

“Reward?” Jackson said.

Kate stopped her flurry of activity. “Did we not discuss the reward? I’m sorry, I thought we went over that—”

He shook his head. “It’s highly possible we did. Everything’s been a blur. How much do you think we’ll need?”

Kate’s gaze flicked uncomfortably to Tommy’s. Finding nothing there to calm her, she swallowed hard and looked back at Jackson. “It fully depends on your resources. I’m not sure I’m comfortable giving you a price outright—”

“Give him a ballpark, Kate,” Tommy snapped.

“If they’re able, families usually offer at least twenty thousand.”

Jackson swore. “Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but between Suzanne’s treatments and start-up costs for the business, I’ve eaten through our cash buffer. The money is there, but it could take awhile to—”

“I’m happy to offer up whatever you need,” a masculine voice boomed from the doorway. Though Tommy hadn’t heard the voice in years, a reptilian part of his brain recognized it and was immediately repulsed. The muscles in his shoulders immediately bunched.

“John,” he said before he’d even turned around.

“Tommy Ibarra,” John said. “I’m surprised you recognized me, it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.”

I never forget a douchebag.
Like it or not, Burkhart’s voice was forever etched in his memory banks.

Tommy remained silent as John offered his hand to Jackson, who, despite the animosity Tommy didn’t bother to hide, shook his hand and introduced himself.

“And Kate,” John said, a big grin spreading across his face as he opened his arms wide.

It took all of Tommy’s restraint not to insert himself between them as Kate stepped readily into his embrace. A sour feeling twisted his gut as he compared her warm hug for John with his own reception.

It wasn’t jealousy, he told himself harshly. Besides, what else did you expect from Kate? Under what circumstances would she possibly have been happy to see him, after what they’d been through?

And the feeling, he reminded himself, was absolutely mutual.

Still, as Burkhart released her, it was all Tommy could do not to plant his fist right in the middle of his smug face.

“I was at Tim Greaves’s office going over some paperwork for a property rental and he mentioned he’d set you up
here to coordinate the volunteer effort. I thought I’d come by and see what I can do to help.”

“I was wondering if you’d be in town,” Kate said, sounding way too delighted for Tommy’s taste. “I didn’t get a chance to email you before I flew out.”

“And it’s not as though you were coming out here to catch up with old friends,” Tommy bit out, irrationally angered by the fact that Kate and Burkhart had apparently kept in touch all these years while he himself had been left to dangle, waiting for a response that never came.

“You said you wanted to help,” Tommy said, angling his chin at him. “If you two are finished with your little reunion, Jackson here has a missing fourteen-year-old he’d like to find.”

Kate’s blue eyes narrowed into a glare. “I know exactly why I’m here.”

“And I’m here because I want to help, and from what I heard when I was walking in here, the first way I can do that is by putting up cash for the reward,” John said.

“That won’t be necessary,” Tommy started. While Jackson would have trouble getting access to a sizable sum of cash any time soon, Tommy had done well enough for himself that he could put up a decent chunk without it hurting too much. “I can—”

“How about a hundred thousand?” Burkhart offered as though Tommy hadn’t spoken.

Kate’s eyebrows arched up to her hairline. “A hundred?”

“Not enough?” he asked. “Make it two hundred thousand.”

Tommy hid a wince. A hundred he could have managed. Two would involve more effort and time to liquidate than they had.

Jackson shook his head. “That’s very generous, but I can’t ask you to do that.”

Burkhart held up a silencing hand. “You didn’t ask, I’m offering.”

Jackson scrutinized him with the same steely gaze that had made dozens of enemies of the United States squirm. For a moment the hard-as-nails operative Tommy had known broke through the mantle of the father overcome with grief and worry as he tried to discern the other man’s motives.

Apparently Jackson decided they were sound because he nodded his head once and held his hand. “I’m in your debt and will do whatever I can to pay it back once my little girl is home safe.”

Burkhart shook his head and schooled his face into a mask of humility that Tommy didn’t buy for a second. “You don’t need to pay me back. Cases like this, a young girl missing in our community…” He turned his gaze to Kate. “I remember what it was like when Kate’s family lost Michael, how it tore their family apart. If I can do anything to keep another family from going through that…”

Tommy looked at Kate, felt a stab of disgust when he saw that Kate was eating up his line with the gusto of a largemouth bass gulping a fat, juicy worm.

Then the disgust turned toward himself when he saw the tears in Kate’s eyes, the way her expression seemed suddenly haunted. Help was help, and if Burkhart’s money could help get Tricia back safely, Tommy would kiss the douchebag’s ass himself.

“This is great news,” Kate said, struggling to compose herself. “We’ll announce it to the press as soon as the tip line is up and running.”

The sound of a phone ringing pierced the air. Burkhart pulled his cell out of his pocket and offered a sheepish apology. “I have to take this,” he said, already headed for the door. “I’ll check back in later.”

Kate called CJ to fill him in on the latest development and then sat down and pulled out her laptop to prepare her statement for the press.

Jackson stood in the middle of the room, looking a little dazed and at a loss for something to do.

“Why don’t you go home and tell Brooke the good news in person,” Tommy offered gently. “I’ll call you when the flyers come in and we can start distributing them.”

Tommy walked him out and retrieved a box of equipment and his laptop from his truck. He pulled six small black boxes from the box and tried to keep his gaze from snagging on Kate. But it was damn hard to keep from getting distracted by the way she sucked her full bottom lip between her teeth as she tried to concentrate. Almost impossible not to remember how the plump, pink curve had felt between his own teeth, how it had tasted when he traced it with his tongue.

“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning pointedly at the black box he was hooking up to the first phone.

“Tracing equipment,” he said matter-of-factly.

“The police will put a trace here if they think it’s necessary. Until then the phone company will track all the calls.”

Tommy shook his head. “All they can tell us is the number the call came from. It can’t give us the immediate, exact location of the caller. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the local law enforcement isn’t exactly overstaffed. CJ does the best he can with what he’s got, but they’re not exactly brimming with technological expertise. By the time they decide you need a trace and get one installed, it could be too late.”

Kate came over and bent her head to take a closer look. “I’ve never worked with one of these.”

Tommy shook his brain out of the red fog that settled in
as her scent enveloped him. He craned to look up over his shoulder at her. “You’ve never worked with
me
before.”

She turned to him, her face mere inches from his. So close he could see the thin line of pale lashes before her mascara took over, feel her warm breath feather over his lips. All she had to do was lean in just a little bit more and her mouth would be on his.

She froze in place. As though she didn’t know if she wanted to close the distance between them or fling herself away.

Her eyelids flickered, and that was enough to break the spell. She surged to her feet, stumbling a little as she straightened. “You’re right, I haven’t, which is why I’d appreciate it if you consulted me before tampering with the phone lines.”

“I’m installing state-of-the-art tracing equipment. I’d hardly call that tampering.”

“What if it malfunctions, or interrupts the calls—”

“Kate,” he snapped, “I’m a communications and security expert. One of the things I’m paid—and very well, I might add—to do is design and test equipment like this. Jackson isn’t just my client, he’s one of my oldest friends. Do you really think I would do anything that would interfere with getting Tricia back safely?”

“Of course not,” Kate said, contrite, and turned back to her laptop screen.

CJ came by just as Tommy was wrapping up, trailed by a pack of reporters who had already sniffed out the location of the volunteer headquarters.

The minute Tommy declared the phone lines ready, Kate readied herself to talk to the press gathered on the sidewalk outside.

Tommy watched, inexplicably fascinated as she gave herself a quick primp. First she smoothed her hair back from
her face. As he watched her slim fingers comb through the reddish blond waves, he could practically feel their silky weight against his own fingers.

And the way she smoothed lipstick over her surprisingly lush mouth made him want to pin her down and not stop kissing her until every bit of color disappeared.

The thought made his cock twitch behind the fly of his pants, and he winced at the sharp physical reaction. Christ. How hard up did a guy have to be to spring a woody from watching a woman put on lipstick?

As he dragged his gaze away, it snagged on CJ, who was staring at Kate with his own look of lust.

For the second time in as many hours, Tommy had to force himself not to punch a man.

The only one who deserves to be punched is you, dumbass
, he scolded himself. CJ was his friend—no way would Tommy ever get in a sword fight with him over a woman, especially not Kate.

Kate and CJ stepped outside, leaving Tommy alone. With the phone equipment installed, there wasn’t much else for him to do here.

A fact Kate made a point of noting as she and CJ stepped back inside after the press briefing. “Hopefully the phones will start ringing soon,” she said. “Tommy set it up so all the calls can be traced—”

“Let me guess, you can triangulate on a caller’s location with a margin of error of less than ten feet,” CJ broke in.

“Yeah, if you’re living in the dinosaur age,” Tommy said. “Try less than ten inches.”

CJ shook his head and muttered “Army prick,” but his words held no real heat.

“Not my fault you Marines are inferior.”

“I’m sure you have a lot of work to catch up on,” Kate
said pointedly to Tommy. “Thanks for all of your help this morning, but I can handle things from here.”

He had no doubt that was true. With her years of experience with St. Anthony’s, he had no doubt Kate could coordinate a platoon of volunteers with her eyes closed. But her obvious discomfort in his presence, her clear desire to be rid of him, rankled him just enough to want to mess with her.

“Like I said before, finding Tricia is my number one priority. There’s nothing else that requires my immediate attention.”

Giving her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, Tommy pulled his laptop from its case and settled in one of the metal chairs to dig through Tricia’s correspondence leading up to the night she disappeared.

“You find anything yet?” CJ asked, wandering over from Kate’s side to look over Tommy’s shoulder.

“Nothing beyond what I can only assume is the typical teenage girl back-and-forth.

“What are you looking at?” Kate’s shoes tapped briskly along the hard linoleum floor as she too came to stand behind Tommy’s chair.

“Tricia’s email and online postings from Twitter and Facebook.”

“Didn’t you take custody of the laptop?” she asked CJ.

Tommy and CJ exchanged a look. “Jackson did give us the computer,” CJ said. “We also decided that, in the interest of expediency, Tommy should have a copy of the hard drive.”

“Remember what I said about cops being strapped for resources and not exactly on the cutting edge of technology—no offense,” Tommy said to CJ.

“None taken. Wave your nerd flag high.”

“It applies here too,” Tommy said. “Bonner County doesn’t
have its own cybercrimes division, so right now Tricia’s computer is hanging out in Boise, waiting its turn to be analyzed unless it gets bumped up in priority. Which it might, what with you opening the floodgates on the press coverage.”

“Even then,” CJ pointed out, “we need to go through all the hoops with the service providers, get warrants to access the accounts. All of which will cause critical delays.”

“Of course. I’ve worked with private investigators in other cases.”

“Tommy’s one of the best in the country. And the best thing,” CJ continued, “is that Tommy’s giving us his services for free. If you knew how much he could make—”

“It’s the least I can do,” Tommy cut him off. He didn’t know why he was so uncomfortable bragging to Kate about his success, even if he wasn’t doing the bragging. He didn’t have anything to prove to Kate, her father or anyone, and unlike Burkhart, he didn’t need to make a big public show of how well he was doing.