“Unit Seven, what’s your ten twenty?”
Perry grabbed the two-way radio from the clip where it hung on his dash.
“I’m headed back in,” he said on the radio. “I just passed the Eighteenth Street Expressway.”
“We’ve got a head-on collision at Forty-seventh Street and Fontana. Possible drunk driver. He ran from the scene of the crime.”
“I’ll be ten ninety-seven in minutes. What direction is our suspect headed?” Perry switched lanes and accelerated toward the accident scene.
“Northeast and on foot.”
“I’m heading into that neighborhood now.” Perry put the radio on its hook on the dash and turned right at the next intersection. The small tract homes lining either side of the street were predominantly rentals, some duplexes and others single dwellings. It was a neighborhood mixed with college students and families with small children, affordable housing for those starting out in life.
The radio chirped on his dash: “Suspect is reported heading northeast on Elledge Road.”
Perry pulled his Jeep to a stop on the neighborhood street and stuck his Bluetooth in his ear. He forwarded his private cell to the earpiece and jumped out of his car, heading down the block on foot. His phone rang and he pressed the small button to acknowledge the call.
“Flynn, where are you?” It was Barker, and she sounded out of breath.
“On Elledge. Do you have a visual?”
“He ran in between a couple houses. I’m calling in for more backup. He’s a white male, late teens, blue jeans, and red baggy T-shirt. Dark hair, shoulder length.”
“Ten four.” Perry walked quickly up the street, looking in between each house. “East or west side of the street?”
“West.”
“Roger that. Where are you?”
“I see you. I’m on the corner. He disappeared about four houses up from me. He runs a lot faster than I do.”
Perry snorted. Barker was in pretty good shape. He continued glancing in between houses as he worked his way up the block and spotted a cruiser heading slowly down the next street. Pausing at a double driveway, he thought he saw something move behind overgrown hedges that ran the length of the property line. At the same time, the sound of children laughing grabbed his attention.
“Shit, Barker,” he hissed under his breath. “Kids in the yard. And I think I see our guy.”
“Crap. Not in the same yard?”
“How intoxicated is our man?” Perry asked, glancing at both homes on either side of the double driveway.
“I arrived at the scene and walked up to his car when he bolted. The man in the other car that was struck said the kid never got out of his car. He stayed in his car, too, and dialed nine-one-one.” She wasn’t at the end of the block anymore, but her voice was clear in his ear. “Do you see him?”
“Stand by,” Perry whispered, reaching the end of the hedges and moving behind them. A chain-link fence lined the property line, and the unruly hedge grew along it. There wasn’t much space to crawl behind the bushes, and the hedge grew on both sides of the fence. It offered a natural blockade to prevent neighbors who lived on top of each other from seeing into each other’s private lives. Perry dropped to his knees and squinted past branches and leaves. “I see him,” he whispered. “He’s toward the backyard and we’ve got children at play.” Perry stood and glanced at the front of the house. “The address is Sixty Ten. Get down here and have those kids pulled inside. I’m going after him.”
“Ten four.”
Perry palmed his gun at his waist. He didn’t want to use it. Not with children laughing and playing. Their young voices sounded happy and innocent. He moved silently, coming closer toward where the suspect squatted behind the hedges, and where the children played. Before Perry reached the back of the house, he heard a car pull up on the street. He glanced over his shoulder, noting the squad car before returning his attention to the hedges. He bent over, caught sight of the man’s shoes and legs at the same time that a woman appeared from the back side of the house.
“Oh God,” she screamed, surprised to see Perry and clasping her hands over her mouth.
“Get your kids inside,” Perry ordered, pointing to his badge on his belt.
The woman dropped her attention to his waist and her eyes widened as she froze and turned pale.
“Do it now,” he ordered.
At the same time the man leapt out from behind the bushes, racing toward the children, who immediately started screaming. The woman screamed, too. Backup raced up the driveway behind him. Perry leapt at the man.
He grabbed the man at the waist, but his wiry frame twisted in Perry’s grip.
“Get your kids inside!” Perry yelled at the woman. He didn’t focus on the cops who appeared in the yard and hurried toward the children, or on the woman as she started screaming and crying at the same time, adding to the noise the children were making. The young man slid out of Perry’s grip and shifted his direction, no longer running toward the kids but instead racing toward the back of the yard. “Police!” Perry yelled. “Stop now!”
Perry watched the punk leap at the privacy fence bordering the backyard and then manage to pull himself up and fall over the top to the other side.
“Son of a bitch,” Perry hissed under his breath, following suit and hoisting himself over the fence. Goddamn. He wasn’t as young as he used to be.
The man fell in a crablike position but managed to pull himself to his feet, tripping twice as he bolted toward the house facing the next street.
“You’re making it worse for yourself,” Perry yelled at the man. “Stop, now, or you’ll face more charges.” He wasn’t surprised that the man ignored him.
Perry dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence. He wracked all the muscles in his body as his hands and knees scraped over the uneven, hard-packed ground. The coolness against his palms did little to stop the stinging that zapped up his arms and from his legs to his hips. He would lecture himself later about staying in shape. Right now, he’d be damned if this punk would get away. Nothing pissed Perry off more than terrifying small children when moments before they’d been laughing and yelling at one another without a care in the world.
The man raced toward the driveway between houses while dogs barked furiously inside each house. A car turned and pulled into the driveway. Perry watched the driver’s expression contort with terror. He accelerated instead of hitting the brake and the man couldn’t turn around quickly enough. Perry grabbed his phone as he watched the guy leap backward and fall on his back when the car hit him. The guy driving found his brake and slammed it hard enough to lock his tires. The driver stared in shock out his windshield while white-knuckling his steering wheel. Immediately a squad car pulled up behind the idling car in the driveway.
“Take it easy,” Perry said quietly, placing his hand on the guy’s shoulder when he tried rolling over.
“Fuck you!” the man grumbled, and then moaned when he again tried rolling over.
“Suspect is down,” Perry informed Dispatch, and then stood, walking toward the front of the house to find an address. “We’re going to need an ambulance.”
Barker walked around the side of the house and grinned smugly as she moved to his side. “You’re pretty impressive for a man close to forty,” she said under her breath, and glanced up at him with an invitation in her eyes.
It was an invite he’d never accept. “You need help getting statements from everyone?” He didn’t bother telling her he was thirty-three, not close to forty. There wasn’t any reason to dwell on personal information with her, or anyone on the force.
She squeezed his biceps and gave him a quick once-over. There was definitely approval on her face. “What? And let you do all the work?” She met his gaze and lowered her voice. “I have no problem jumping in and getting dirty to get the job done, darling.”
Perry nodded. Anything he said would simply encourage her. There were as many cops on the scene now as there were civilians. This time Perry walked around the block back toward his Jeep, nodding to the ambulance driver when he came around the corner. Perry paused at the middle of the block, spotting the mother of the small children, who now stood talking to her neighbor at the end of the hedge dividing their yards. She sounded shaken but okay. Perry picked up pace toward his Jeep.
He paused when he reached for his door handle, frowning and staring over the roof. A green hybrid was parked across the street in a narrow driveway. Perry instantly recognized the tags-those registered to Enterprise. Dani had told him Kylie was a college student at KU, working on a thesis about teenagers as a subculture. He imagined that would make for an interesting paper; his nieces definitely lived in a world of their own.
Perry opened his car door and leaned against it, taking his time studying the hybrid, the narrow driveway, and the small home. Although it wasn’t quite evening, the blinds in the house were all closed. The yard was neat, though, with patches of dirt breaking up thick clumps of grass, typical of the many yards on this street. The house was probably a rental. Most on this street were government housing or rented to private individuals. It was an affordable alternative to living in an apartment and not unusual for college students to be found living here, although not many who attended KU, which was half an hour drive from here.
There was something about her, though. He’d spotted it the moment he laid eyes on her the previous afternoon in the mall parking lot. Dani was a pretty perceptive kid, and she’d noticed something about her, too. Enough so to approach a stranger, which he should have lectured Dani about doing, and ask what she was about. Obviously Dani didn’t confront her-Kylie-because she was distractingly pretty. Although his niece did comment that Kylie was a sharp dresser, he didn’t conclude from that statement that Dani approved of her appearance.
Perry wouldn’t describe her as a sharp dresser, more like alluring, tempting, as if she slipped into that minidress she’d worn the night before knowing it would turn the head of every man who passed her. Her blond hair wasn’t long, but long enough to give a man something to grab hold of, to yank her head back and enjoy the slender arch of her neck and back.
There was a compelling spark in her bright blue eyes, noticeable even at night. But the way her dress hugged her figure, showing off perky, decent-sized breasts and narrow hips, made it damn hard for him not to physically respond when he first laid eyes on her. It was more than the challenge in her eyes, the cool way she had responded to him when he let her know he’d pulled her tags after seeing her at the mall the other day, which made him ache to know more about her. In spite of how young she looked, there was intelligence in her eyes, wisdom and something else. Something that told Perry there was more to the young lady than just a college student going all out to write an incredible thesis.
Perry focused on each of the front windows, seeing no movement inside. Maybe a bit more investigation was in order here. It was right there, kicking in, causing his insides to harden while predatory and protective instincts burned inside him. And maybe something else. He appreciated that curiosity warred with other emotions, with the desire to learn what a beautiful woman was about. Years on the force had taught him that danger appeared in all shapes and sizes. Although he doubted anything about Kylie the college student was dangerous, he still fought the compelling urge to get to know her better.
His radio beeped inside his car. “Unit Seven, what’s your ten twenty?”
Perry slid behind the wheel and slowly closed his car door. Grabbing his radio, he cupped it in his palm while continuing to watch Kylie’s home. “I’m here; go ahead.”
“Request ten eighty-five.”
Perry frowned as he reached for the radio on his dash and switched to a different channel. Cliff Miller, the dispatcher, didn’t often ask Perry to move to a secure channel, unless there was trouble.
“Roger that,” he said, and released the button, waiting for Cliff to enlighten him as to what was so serious that they needed to move to a different frequency.
“The owners of that car at the mall yesterday just came in and visited with Rad. Appears their daughter is officially missing.”
“Shit,” Perry hissed, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Get me everything you can on her. I’ll hit the streets.”
“Ten four.” The silence ran for several minutes while Perry stared at Kylie’s home. Something told him he would see the hot, sexy college student again.
But for now, school was out. His nieces would be home. Maybe he’d start with them. He hated dragging them into this, but the reality was that teenage girls were disappearing. Whether his sister approved of him scaring her daughters or not, awareness would protect them.
Cliff came back with Olivia Brown’s home address, the name of her high school, and a list of several girls who were considered her closest friends. “Rad just told me to send you over to the Browns’. They should be receptive to you going through her computer.”
“Ten four. I’m on my way.”
*
It was after seven when Perry’s sister, Megan, called and asked if he’d pick Dani up at the library. Those first few years after David’s death were hard as hell on the entire family. Megan was young, and left alone with four girls to support and raise on her own. Perry jumped in right away, to the point where he helped support all five of them while Megan struggled to find work that paid enough to keep a roof over their heads. Perry was pretty fucking proud of his kid sister. Many women would have crumbled under the life she’d been dished out, but Megan remained strong and brought up four beautiful young ladies. Diane had started junior college last fall, and now if they could get Dani through high school and not have her turn into a wild child like she seemed determined at times to become, Perry was sure they’d be able to get the other two through high school as well.
“There a reason why you’re not answering your mother’s calls?” Perry said in a low, deadly whisper when he approached Dani from behind.
She sat in an oversized chair in the middle of the library and jumped noticeably, spinning around, when he spoke. Her eyes were wide with fear but narrowed quickly when she stared at her uncle.
“You scared the crap out of me, Uncle Perry.”
“Watch your mouth.” He continued staring down at her, letting her know with his hardened look that he expected an answer to his first question. Whenever he was certain Dani would do both him and Megan in with her willful nature, Megan would assure him that Dani was simply incredibly intelligent and would make them both proud someday.
“I got us a computer,” Kylie said, speaking in a soft whisper, as she appeared out of the first aisle of books. She froze, lifting her attention from Dani, who still sat in the chair, to Perry, who stood behind her. For a moment something dark passed over Kylie’s gaze. It disappeared in the next moment and her features softened. “Oh, shoot. Do you have to leave?”
“Apparently visiting hours are over.” Dani stood slowly and kept her back to Perry as she said something that he didn’t hear to Kylie.
Kylie’s sleeveless dress ended at mid-thigh and showed off slender tanned legs that weren’t muscular but appeared toned enough that she could wrap them around a man and squeeze the life out of him while he drove deeper inside her. Her pink fingernail polish matched the color on her toes, which were visible through black open-toed sandals. And her blonde hair, which didn’t quite reach her shoulders, looked soft, like silk, and made his fingers itch to find out if it was.
Kylie lifted her gaze to his and he swore he saw awareness in her bright blue eyes, as if she knew that he wanted her and hadn’t decided yet whether that knowledge appealed to her or not.
More than likely, dressing like that, Kylie was propositioned on a regular basis. That didn’t sit well with him for some reason. There were people with strange kinks out there. It was enough worrying about protecting his nieces all the time. He didn’t need an incredibly sexy college student distracting him and creating carnal needs that were torn between fucking the shit out of her and protecting her as well as his niece.
“Dani, we’re leaving now,” he said, sounding gruff enough that his niece turned around and studied him. “Let’s go.”
“Just a minute,” she said, sounding exasperated. She turned and looked at Kylie as if apologizing with her eyes. It was a quick glance, one he’d miss if he weren’t focusing on the body language between both of them and noting the intense similarities. “Uncle Perry, I’ll be out in like ten minutes, okay?”
“No,” he said firmly.
Kylie interrupted him. “It’s okay, Dani,” she said, her soft voice soothing, incredibly sultry sounding. “We can do this another time. Your uncle is in a hurry.”
“No, he’s not,” Dani grumbled. “He’s just bossy.”
“Dani,” he warned her. His sister might tolerate public mouthiness, but he sure as hell wouldn’t.
“You don’t even want to know what we were going to do?” Dani’s tone turned sweet when she faced him and stared up at him with eyes that remotely resembled the beautiful, intelligent eyes he remembered before she insisted on covering them up with all that black eyeliner. “You’ve got to be just a little bit curious, Uncle Perry.”
“Dani, it’s okay.” Kylie shook her head at him and laughed softly. “There’s nothing to be curious about.”
Perry easily noticed his niece was working him. That didn’t spark any curiosity. What did intrigue him was how suddenly Kylie didn’t want him to know. In fact, to the point where she made eye contact with him for the first time and held it, while he focused on her bright blue eyes. They were intense, almost the color of sapphires, and they didn’t change color the longer he held her gaze, no darkening or lightening or anything that often happened when moods changed in people. It hit him that she might be wearing contacts-the kind that changed a person’s eye color.
“Uncle Perry is one of the best cops in the Kansas City area,” Dani bragged, shifting her attention to Kylie. “He’s always curious about everything.”
“Is that so?” Kylie’s voice returned to its soft, alluring, come-fuck-me tone.
He’d give her this: she was one unique woman. As much hesitation and trepidation as he swore he read in her body language, there was something else there, too. In the way she watched him, the tilt of her head, the way her hands moved from clasped in front of her to her palms brushing over her thighs. Perry made his living reading people, and this woman either didn’t know her own mind or was intentionally covering up sexual interest with other emotions to throw him off guard.
Dani shifted her attention from him to Kylie and then back to him. “Kylie’s never seen how people chat on YouTube, you know, in the comments section?”
“Dani, your uncle doesn’t care about this,” Kylie whispered.
He cared now. “Better show her before someone else takes your computer,” he said.
Dani looked surprised and Kylie wary. All the more reason to witness this little scenario play out. “You can show me, too.”
“You already know,” Dani grumbled, and turned, grabbing her backpack off the table and then leading the way through the stacks toward stairs that took them to a row of computers set up for public use.
Kylie glanced at him and he gestured for her to follow his niece. He brought up the rear, and didn’t mind the view of her miniskirt swishing back and forth and her ass swaying in front of him. He didn’t doubt for a moment that she gave him a show intentionally. And he found it interesting that as he watched, he imagined what Kylie would look like in tight-fitting jeans, high heels, and found that image much more arousing.
Dani hopped down the stairs and Kylie followed, her sandals slapping against each stair as she ran her painted fingernails over the banister like she was stroking it on her way down.
“Why do you care about comments on YouTube?” he asked her before they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“For my thesis.” Kylie didn’t look at him until she reached the bottom of the stairs. “It helps hearing Dani explain in her words.”
“How so?” He walked alongside Kylie now but focused on his niece, who was several paces ahead. “She really knows something about YouTube that you don’t?”
“I’m about to find out,” Kylie said, glancing up at him with a sly smile before moving around Dani, who’d already plopped into a chair at a computer. Kylie pulled the chair from the table behind them over and sat next to Dani. “I really appreciate you doing this, Dani,” she said quietly.
“It’s no big deal,” Dani said, shrugging off the gratitude. “I just wish Uncle Perry weren’t making it feel as if it was.”
He stood behind them, fixing his attention on the computer screen, and crossed his arms. His niece and the college lady sat close, heads almost touching, and whispered to each other. He managed to catch almost everything they said.
“You’ve been to YouTube before, right?” Dani asked Kylie, turning her head so the two of them stared at each other briefly.
“Of course,” Kylie said in that soft, sultry tone of hers.
“What videos do you watch?”
Kylie’s grin was almost apologetic. “I check to see if episodes I like are on there. Sometimes there are news reports or different angles on current events.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “Boring,” she drawled, and then shook her head while making a tsking sound with her tongue. “You have so much to learn about being a teenager,” she began.
There was something akin to a satisfied smile on Kylie’s face, her expression pulling more curiosity out of Perry as he studied her while she focused on Dani.
“What would I watch?” Kylie asked.
“Music videos, dude.” Dani opened the main page to YouTube and then clicked so the cursor blinked in the search bar. “And the videos linked to our Facebook profiles or Twitter.”
Perry growled and Dani quickly waved her hand dismissively in the air. “I don’t have a profile of me on either site. But I can show you one we all made up and use it to link to YouTube videos. Personal videos are the bomb, though.”
“Personal videos?” Kylie asked.
“Yeah. Some of them are so obviously bogus.”
“Okay,” Kylie said slowly. “What are personal videos?”
Dani looked over her shoulder at Perry and then leaned back to survey Kylie. “Dude, you know what personal videos are. Everyone knows what personal videos are.”
“Show me,” Kylie suggested, nodding to the screen.
“Okay.” Dani placed her fingers over the keyboards and then her fingers moved expertly, proof again that teenagers these days seemed to be born with secretarial skills intact. A new page opened and then the video began. “I don’t know these people, so don’t throw a fit, Uncle Perry,” Dani said, and pointed at the screen. “Some guys I know know the people who made this.”
“These are the kids’ names in the video?” Kylie pointed to a description of the video on the side of the box where a group of boys and girls danced in a parking lot to a rap song.
“Beats me.” Dani shrugged. “But this is what I was talking about.”
She scrolled down the page while the video continued playing. The sound was low enough that Perry couldn’t quite catch what was being said. He had a feeling he didn’t want to hear it, though. He moved closer, resting his hands on the back of Dani’s chair, and leaned over her to read what she pointed to. “See, people talk on YouTube.”
Underneath the video, there were posts, individuals making comments about the video and commenting on what other people said in response to the video. It was similar to reading a printed conversation, although the posts were typed in slang with intentionally incorrect grammar and spelling. Several of the comments came from people who appeared to know those who made the video. There were several others, though, that seemed to come from strangers, with comments typed that suggested how they would love to do sexual acts with some of the girls in the video. Perry fought a growl as he read through some of the lewd and incredibly inappropriate comments made toward high school girls who were most definitely underage, judging just by the looks of them.
“Learn something new every day,” Kylie said, and then moved her chair to the side, away from both of them. “Thank you, Dani.”
“No prob.” Dani X’d out of YouTube and turned sideways in her chair, sliding her backpack over her arm. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
Dani slid out of her chair and walked into Perry. He backed up as she grabbed his arm and started guiding him to the stairs.
“Bye, Kylie,” she said over her shoulder.
“Suddenly in a hurry to leave?” he grumbled under his breath, noticing how obvious his niece was being in dragging his ass out of there.
“You’re in the hurry.” Dani didn’t let go of him when they reached the stairs.
But Perry stopped her and then turned to see Kylie slowly raising the strap to her purse up her shoulder. She looked up, meeting his gaze, and for a moment he saw how lost in thought she was. Her expression relaxed almost immediately. The easy smile she gave him would make most men think she didn’t have a care in the world. He knew better.
He understood how time-consuming and difficult it would be to balance keeping grades up along with working enough hours to survive and pay bills. Even though he only spent two years and got his associate’s degree before entering the police academy, he remembered the all-nighters studying for exams. He’d also helped his sister finish her college degree and respected the hell out of her for sticking it out. There was more than drive and confidence in those bright eyes that took him on without blinking. Perry saw interest. Whether it be simply that he was the apparent guardian of a teenager Kylie was interested in or something else, something erotic and enticing, he didn’t want to speculate.
He waited until Kylie approached them. “Did you learn everything from my niece that you needed to know?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet and pleasant sounding.
Dani glared at him and then stomped up the stairs.
“Your niece is a wonderful young lady.” Kylie held his gaze for only a moment and then followed Dani up the stairs. “I’m sure there is so much I could learn from her.”
“Oh, really.” He opted to follow a few paces behind.
The view was mouthwatering. That short dress Kylie wore showed off slender legs all the way up to her thighs. If her dress were less than an inch shorter, he’d have one hell of an ass shot. As it was, he found himself wondering what kind of underwear she wore underneath it.
“What else is there you hope to learn from her?” he asked, once he and Kylie hit the main floor.
“As much as she’ll share with me.”
“About what?” He glanced ahead as Dani pushed open the glass doors and disappeared outside.
“About being a teenager.” Kylie didn’t elaborate.
Perry held the door open for her and searched the dark parking lot until he spotted Dani heading for his Jeep. He pulled out his keys and pushed the button, causing his Jeep to beep and unlock. Dani didn’t flinch at the sound but reached his Jeep, pulled open the passenger door, and plopped down inside.
“How many other teenagers are you interrogating?”
Kylie paused at the curb and turned to look up at him. “Is there some law you’re concerned that I might be breaking?”
“I have a feeling you would know if there was.”
“You think so?”
“If you’re doing your job right, yes.” He searched her face and was impressed that nothing changed in her expression.
Kylie laughed softly and then ran her fingers over her blond hair, brushing a strand behind her ear. “There are days when writing a thesis feels like a job. I’ll leave Dani alone if it bothers you that I’m talking to her,” she offered. Her lips curved into a small smile, one that he swore appeared victorious. “But you’ll have to explain to her why I’m not seeking her out anymore.”
“And what if I told her the sensuality seeping from you might be more than I want her exposed to at her age.”
Kylie’s smile didn’t fade. “I have no doubts she’d give you an earful regarding her opinion on that matter.”