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To his left, Tai snored loudly.
“Sleep in peace, buddy.” He mouthed the words at the ceiling, adding a heaping dose of envy for his friend’s legendary ability to sleep anywhere, anytime.
But the big security specialist’s dreams weren’t to remain uninterrupted. Tai’s phone sprang to life on the nightstand between them, buzzing and shrieking and blinking wildly.
The big man jolted awake with a snort and grabbed the device. His dark face glowed eerily in the blue light from the screen. “Security breach at the store,” he announced, his voice thick with sleep.
Bridger threw off the covers and leapt to his feet. “I’ll wake Jane.”
“Copy that.” Tai rubbed his face and grabbed his laptop. “I’ll check the videos. And send up a few drones. You might wanna start some coffee.”
Bridger pulled on his pants, grabbed a tee shirt, and headed out the door.
Jane answered his knock immediately. The coffee was barely trickling into the pot by the time she joined them in the kitchen. The electric pink robe clashed with her stony look of concern.
Tai waggled his thick brows. “Nice robe. Cheeky.”
That drew a small smile. She curtseyed gracefully. “Exactly the effect I was going for.” The humor drained away immediately. She tilted her chin at Tai’s laptop. “Did someone trip your alarms?”
He shook his head. “Not a person. A thing.”
He swung the computer around so she and Bridger could see the screen and punched up a video.
Bridger stared at the footage. Even in the dim light from the motion-detecting light above the front door, the picture was perfectly clear. A light-colored object flew into the frame and hit the front window. The sophisticated microphone in Tai’s equipment caught every tinkle as the glass shattered.
An engine roared off-camera.
Tai jabbed a finger at the screen. “Wait for it….”
There. A flash of taillights, the driver’s side bulb considerably dimmer than the passenger side. Alerted by the movement, the camera panned in the car’s direction. A dark compact sped away.
Bridger leaned closer, but he couldn’t make out the license plate. “That could be Peckham’s vehicle.”
“Yup.” Tai agreed. “The drones didn’t make it there in time to track the car, but it’ll be easy to check.”
With a few keystrokes, he enhanced the image, captured the license number and plugged it into one of the super-secret databases he’d hacked into.
A long, slow whistle told Bridger everything he needed to know. “Billy, Billy, Billy,” he murmured.
Jane stared hard at the image, as if burning the string of numbers and letters into her brain. “Why would he vandalize my store?”
Bridger didn’t much care at the moment. “He’s crazy. Why does he do anything?”
Jane turned on her heel. The plush pink robe swung out from her trim ankles. “I’ll get dressed. We should get down there.”
Tai eyed Bridger. “We?”
He rubbed his tired eyes. “We can’t leave her here.”
“Excellent point. You want me to alert the sheriff now, or wait until we get there?”
Bridger didn’t hesitate. The sheriff was already iffy on their participation in this. No reason to make more of an enemy. “Call it in now.”
Sheriff Hammond himself pulled into the parking lot right on their heels, making Bridger glad he’d had Tai make the call.
The man hitched his pants up under his substantial belly, his gaze on the jagged hole in the window. “What do we got?”
Bridger tipped his head at Tai. “Why don’t you show the sheriff your footage. Jane and I will check out the damage.”
