Chapter 24

When she arrived at work, Lyric found Alex and Grace in the conference room, looking like they were having a serious discussion. The first thing she noticed was the alluring scent—an intense burst of citrus mingled with spice and cedar—which had to be Alex’s new cologne.

Jesus. The boy was gorgeous in a neat, classical, lean-and-wiry sort of way. When she moved in, she focused on Janice as Lyric tried to figure out what kind of foster mom she would be. At first, Lyric had thought Alex was some kind of jock, a pretty boy who wasn’t worth her consideration. Then he showed he was a nerd at heart.

Ever since she’d broken up with Ethan and heard that Alex had become single, she’d taken a step back and considered him more than just a housemate.

“If you want to find him, you’re going to have to trust her,” Grace said.

“Find who? Trust who?” Lyric asked in rapid succession.

Alex had a pained expression as he thought for a moment.

“I need your help, but I have to know if I can trust you ... or not?”

Lyric wanted to smile, but something told her not to gloat that they finally needed her hacker skills.

“Doing what?”

“Can I trust you?” Alex repeated.

Lyric could see that he was deadly serious, and this felt important. She needed to do something if she ever wanted to be truly inside with him and Grace. This might be what got her included in the non-boring stuff, the sort that Grace only let Alex do.

“You can trust me.”

Alex looked her in the eye. Satisfied with whatever he saw, he continued.

“My dad was at the church potluck last night and left me a note. I want to find him.”

The office phone rang, so Grace answered it. After the brief phone conversation, she looked at Alex.

“The pawnshop’s security system is throwing an error message. Can you go figure it out for them?”

“No problem. While I’m gone, get Lyric up to speed with whatever you think she needs to know,” Alex said, then grabbed his canvas toolbox and left.

Grace began to tell Lyric everything about Alex and his dad, Stretch. What Alex shared when confronting the former sheriff only scratched the surface. Even though she’d heard his confrontation with the ex-sheriff and then the Russians, she’d chalked it up to him being stupid lucky. What Grace said made Lyric realize that Alex was made of sterner stuff than she imagined.

Grace shared some of the intricate heists Alex had planned to help Lyric understand how his mind worked, which made her wonder if he was even more intelligent than she was. What boggled her mind was how Grace explained Alex’s ability to blend in or bend people’s will to his way of thinking. Grace chalked it up to him doing it since he was a kid. Stretch had used his son to gather info on jobs because no one would suspect a child of casing the place.

The more Grace shared, the more pieces began to fall into place, and things that had puzzled her became clear. The funny part was that all notions of a romantic nature left her mind. It was replaced with a yearning to work with Alex and learn everything she could from him.

It also explained why Grace valued him so much.

Alex arrived at the pawnshop and was taken back to the main security board. It was showing an error, but not one he’d expected. The security system could automatically test itself for power failures, low batteries, nonworking sensors, and communication troubles with the central monitoring station.

To silence the trouble beeps, Alex pressed CANCEL twice. He then had to enter his user code and press 1 so the police didn’t show up.

This error dealt with the back door. Alex had instructed them to replace the original door with a metal one on which he’d installed a roller-ball contact sensor attached to the hinged side of the door. The roller ball could spin freely within the contact casing and was pushed inward when the door closed, completing the circuit.

He checked the door and found someone had duct-taped the ball to make it look like it was closed. The problem was that the tape didn’t allow the ball to roll freely, which triggered the error.

Alex went outside and found cigarette butts scattered in the back alley. Someone wanted to sneak a smoke break and had figured out how to keep the alarm from going off.

He called Grace to find out how she wanted to handle it. Early on, they’d found that she had to be the face of the company, or the customers didn’t take them seriously. She decided to come to the shop and speak to the owner. Alex was surprised when she brought Lyric with her.

Based on what Alex had told her, Grace was able to show the owner how someone had bypassed the system, leaving them vulnerable. When she pointed to the butts, the owner’s face got red. He explained that it looked like they belonged to his wife.

As they were leaving, they met Saul Goodman, who owned the jewelry store next door. He wanted CIS to create a security system for his store. Grace took his info and promised to set up a meeting the next day.

When they returned to the office, Rusty Scruggs was waiting with Mandy.

“Sorry, we had to handle a problem at the pawn shop,” Grace said. “Lyric, why don’t you work on the problem we discussed this morning while Mandy does some more background checks? Rusty, I’ll have Alex get you up to speed on how we research property layouts for security contracts.”

“Come to my office. We have a potential client who owns a jewelry store,” Alex said.

When Rusty entered his office, the man looked unhappy.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

“I didn’t know I would be working for a kid. Why don’t you tell me what they want, and I’ll figure it out on my own? I’ve been in the sheriff’s office for eighteen years and know more than you could possibly know about how to make a place safe.”

“Fair enough. How would you go about it?” Alex asked.

“We need to go to the store, see their current system, and figure out how we can improve it,” Rusty said.

“Let me get the go-ahead from Grace. If she says it’s okay, we’ll go check it out,” Alex said.

“I’ll ask Grace,” Rusty said and exited the office.

While he did that, Alex put the property address into the county website to begin his investigation. Ten minutes later, Rusty was back.

“Let’s go.”

Rusty hadn’t said a word to Alex on the ride to the jewelers. He could tell the older man was barely tolerating having him along. Alex was sure Rusty had gone to Grace and tried to cut him out of the project, but she’d not gone for it.

When they pulled up, they’d gotten lucky and snagged a parking spot in front of the store. When he got out of the car, Alex began to assess the store. He saw a display in the window of expensive watches and diamond rings. With a glass-breaking hammer or gloves, he could’ve stolen them all in under thirty seconds.

The gloves were his old crew’s preferred tool. They looked like regular gloves but had a pointed metal tip in the palm. All you had to do was press your palm against the glass, and it would shatter. It was perfect for doing a smash-and-grab from a parked car. Pop the window, grab the purse or something of value, and be gone in seconds.

They walked inside, and Alex began to scan for security measures.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” the sales clerk called out.

She was working with a couple looking at diamond rings. There was a tray of them on the counter.

“Do you have anything in a princess cut?” the bride-to-be asked.

“We just got some in. I’ll be right back.”

Alex had to remind himself that they were in the middle of nowhere because the display case was unlocked, a tray of rings was lying on the counter, and the clerk had left everyone alone. He might not need a crew to hit this place.

The only camera he saw was an old black-and-white model probably hooked up to a VCR in the back. He might have taken a moment to grab the tape before leaving with everything in the store. Then again, it was even odds that the camera didn’t work. It could just be a nuisance deterrent, like a sign that said the place was protected by Smith and Wesson with a picture of a gun.

Alex nudged Rusty and pointed with his chin at the couple. The supposed groom was in the process of slipping a ring into his pocket.