Noah Parks had followed Deidre to the club that night. Maybe he’d been worried about her safety, but Deidre was more than capable of taking care of herself. More likely, he hadn’t wanted her out of his sight. And after watching him with her earlier and seeing his barely concealed dislike of Coop, Piper thought she knew why.

The minutes raced by too quickly. His laptop wasn’t in his office at the rear of the house. She raced upstairs and poked her head into the bedrooms. Parks was too much of a workaholic not to have a computer in his house, but where was it? And what was on it?

She’d pickpocketed Noah’s cell phone right after the police had left and hidden away with it in the first-floor powder room. Like a lot of busy people who are always on their phones, he’d neglected to bother with a password, and she’d quickly found and memorized one interesting piece of information. But she needed more, and she could stay in Deidre’s powder room for only so long. Leaving the phone on the patio where he’d think he’d dropped it, she’d excused herself from spending the night, rushed back to the city, and now here she was, undertaking her first break-in.

She ran back downstairs again, the scream of the alarm system frying her nerves. She couldn’t afford to stay any longer. One more sweep. She cut through the living room, the den. Nothing. She had to get out before the police arrived. Now. She passed through the kitchen again. And there it was. On the granite counter. She grabbed it, ran out through the rear and down the alley to her car.

Once she got back to her office and stopped shaking, she made a pot of strong coffee to keep herself alert. Then she settled behind her desk and began the work of cloning the laptop’s hard drive.

An hour later, she was in.

***

Her cell rang. She jerked her head up from her desk and fumbled to pick it up. Eight a.m. She’d fallen asleep less than an hour ago. “’Lo,” she croaked.

“Nice to know how much you care.” The uncharacteristically sulky note in Coop’s voice reassured her as nothing else could have.

“Yeah, well, I had things to do, and I called your attorney, didn’t I?” She grabbed her mug, took a slug of cold coffee, and shuddered.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

She rubbed her eyes. “About what?”

“I’ve been accused of a sex crime!” he exclaimed. “I’m currently out of jail on bond!”

“Oh, that.”

“You think this is some kind of a joke?”