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We walked down a few halls, acting as if we had every right to be there—which, I guess he actually did, since he worked here. Huh. Sweet.
Then he opened a door into a dark office and flipped on a light as he entered.
“Is this her office?” I asked.
“Outer office,” he corrected, approaching another door, only to pause beside it and run his hand up the outside of the doorframe before he encountered a wire. Giving it a tug, he snapped it from its source.
“Umm.” My eyebrows shot up. “Don’t you think she’ll notice that?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He reached for the door handle, only to find it locked. “She’ll be in police custody before she realizes it’s been snapped.”
Lord, I certainly hoped so now.
He retreated to the secretary’s desk a couple feet away, searched for a second, then snagged a couple of paper clips. “She didn’t have this locked when I broke in Halloween night before I tried her apartment and ran into you. That’s a good sign she’s hiding something new in there, don’t you think?”
“Sure, it’s a decent sign,” I allowed. As he wedged the paper clips into the lock, I crept forward to watch in awe. “Holy shit. You know how to pick a lock?”
When the lock clicked, signally his success, he glanced toward me and winked. “I just got hotter to you, didn’t I?”
Not that I wanted to admit anything to him, but I couldn’t seem to deny it when I shrugged out a reluctant, “Maybe.”
A delightfully wicked grin lit his face as he opened the door and then stepped back to let me enter. “Ladies first.”
I held my breath as I breached the threshold, certain some alarm would sound with a high-pitched piercing sound, then red lights would flash and steel bars would slam around us, capturing us inside.
“We probably have fifteen minutes of safe time to search before either Lana or her secretary Shyla comes in for the day.”
“Right.” I nodded, realizing we needed to find something soon, or our entire mission would implode.
I hurried to the desk drawers, but they were locked as well.
“Oh, Mr. Lock Picker,” I sang, only to yelp when he came up behind me unexpectedly and grabbed my ass.
“You rang?” he asked in my ear, his voice full of amusement.
“Yes, I need you to stick your hard, pointy thing in. Right here.”
“With pleasure.” He reached around me, keeping me trapped between him and the desk, and he kissed the side of my throat as he unlocked the drawer without even watching what he was doing.
“Show-off.” I grinned over my shoulder at him and bussed my lips against his cheek before I stepped to the side so we could pull the drawer open together. Then I got down to business. “You look here. I’ll check those filing cabinets over there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He seemed happy to comply with my command, probably because he knew I was the one in charge here. Yep, the man recognized a real Robin Hood when he saw her.
Sadly, I didn’t find Lana’s secret box in my search of the top three drawers of the filing cabinet, though. And the fourth was locked, so I ground my molars because this meant I needed Hayden’s help. Dammit. He couldn’t be Robin Hood, could he?
Sighing, I mumbled a reluctant: “I need a sexy lock picker on aisle four, please.”
“Really?” He zipped me a confused frown when he saw which drawer I was motioning to. “That wasn’t locked on Halloween either.”
“Then get your ass over here, and let’s see what’s inside,” I hissed, waving him forward.
He stepped over and we knelt in front of the bottom drawer together. A handy poke of his paper clips later, and the locking mechanism clicked from within. We glanced at each other, holding a collective breath, before we both reached out. As we slid the drawer out, I gasped in shock.
“It’s here,” I rasped, my mouth falling open. “I can’t believe it’s really here.”
“I’m calling Gutierrez,” Hayden announced, already reaching for his phone in his pocket. But before he could even pull it free, it began to buzz with an incoming call.
“Holy shit, it’s the detective.” His eyes widened with disbelief as he read his screen.
