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As Scott clued her in on Destiny’s Annual Paintball Extravaganza, her insides tingled nice and warm.
She would wait for the perfect time to tell him. That just wasn’t right now.
Chapter Nine
Eric watched Josh pick the lock on Megan’s house.
Josh was the son of Takahiro, who preferred to be called “Hiro,” and Melissa Phong, the owners of the Chinese restaurant in Destiny. Eric and Scott had known Josh since elementary school. He favored his mother’s Italian heritage more than his father’s Japanese, though his eyes appeared more Asian.
This Dallas neighborhood was circa 1940s. Under a thousand square feet was apparently the norm here. Most of the homes were pretty dicey, and a few were even boarded up. Megan’s wasn’t the worst of the lot, but only by a little. Three of her windows didn’t have screens. The paint was peeling off.
His gut tightened at the thought of her living in this dilapidated area.
If Josh couldn’t pick the lock and get the door open, it wouldn’t stop Eric from going inside and getting her modem. The door was hollow-core, which wasn’t meant for exteriors let alone to act as a front door. Breaking it down would be easy and might help tamp down his frustration, like thirty minutes punching a bag at Destiny’s Boxing Gym did most of the time. Megan was in real danger, and he needed to know who was behind it all so that he could direct his anger to the guilty person.
“Almost got it.” Josh continued working on the lock.
Eric looked up and down the street. No sign of anyone, but he was certain they were being watched from behind some windows. Would any of them call the police? Maybe. He didn’t care. They wouldn’t be here long enough for that to matter. In and out. Get the modem and be gone.
Josh stood up and pushed the door open. “After you.”
“What other skills do you have that I should be worried about?”
Josh smiled. “More than I can count.”
Eric walked in and stopped in his tracks. This was her home. Hers. Megan’s. Kip had lived here with her for a few weeks. He clenched his jaw at the thought.
“You okay, buddy?” Josh said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t. Just in the front door in a tiny entry area, he could see the place was neat, as he expected it would be. Megan was that kind of woman. But neatness didn’t change the fact that living here must’ve been hard for her these past five years.
The floors were pine and in really bad condition. Two poor patch jobs took up half the entry’s boards. To his right was a utility room with washer and dryer hookups but no washer or dryer. To his left was a very short hallway—smaller than the tiniest of closets in his home in Destiny. The passage led to three doors that were all hanging open, revealing a bathroom through one, an empty room that was likely meant to be a bedroom through another, and through the last door, he saw a futon.
Megan’s room, the place she slept.
His pulse pounded in his temples and his heart ached for her and the suffering she’d endured. If he and Scott hadn’t left Kip to run the Dallas office, she would’ve never met him, never been brought so low.
Instead of going down the hall to those rooms, Eric moved forward into the living room. It was narrow, only eleven feet wide but twenty feet long. It had to be the biggest room in the tiny house. The only furniture here was a card table with four metal chairs. Three boxes, one with books inside and the other two empty, sat in the corner. An ancient-looking television that looked more like a box than a set was on top of a plastic crate. Next to it was the modem he’d come to Dallas to retrieve.
“Was she robbed?” Josh asked, clearly confused by the lack of items here.
“Only by her fucking husband and his crimes.” This might’ve been a beautiful home at one time but it wasn’t now. It didn’t have even the simplest of bare necessities. “Let’s get what we came for and get out of here.”
She was never coming back here. He would see to that. He would make sure whoever had piggybacked on her IP to hack TBK’s systems would be found and brought down. He would make sure she was safe, and he could see himself doing that for the rest of his life.
“Should we see if there are some personal items Megan wants us to bring back?” Josh asked.
“That’s why I brought you here with me,” Eric said. “You know me. I’m a nuts-and-bolts guy. Sentiment is often lost on me.”
“That, and you trust me to keep my mouth shut.”
Eric nodded. “True. Don’t disappoint me.”
Josh smiled. “I never have.”
He pulled out his cell but remembered she and Scott were still in the air. They wouldn’t be landing for another hour. “You know what? Instead of picking and choosing, let’s take everything back with us.” He grabbed one of the empty boxes.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll load up the stuff in here.” Josh lifted up the television. “You should be the one to check her closet and bathroom.”
