Page 4 of Deadly Deception


Font Size:

His answer didn’t surprise her. Not much did anymore. She’d learned a long time ago that creeps came from all walks of life.

“You mean like Viagra?” she teased.

He let out a huff of amusement before he drank another swig of beer. “Yeah, among other things. The company I work for makes everything from antifungals to experimental cancer treatments.”

“Wow, sounds exciting. I bet you’re really good at what you do.”

The ego stroke was enough to send Cody on a bragging tear about how great he was at his job, and how everybody else in the company paled in comparison. As he talked, his eyelids began to droop, and though he hadn’t drunk all of his beer, Essie took the bottle from his grip and set it on the small table by the aquarium.

“Why don’t we get comfortable?” The last thing she wanted was a call to 911 because he passed out and slammed his head on the coffee table.

He did as suggested, his arm sliding around her waist as they sank down onto the leather couch.

He moved in for a kiss, wet and sloppy, and it took just about everything she had not to gag or shove him away. His hand moved to her waist and steadily inched higher, but she grabbed his hand and dragged it down before it reached her breast.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Needing to put space between them before he made another run for second base, she hopped off the couch and crossed to where he’d set his phone on the dining room table. A press of a button, and the screen lit up. “What’s your password, honey? I want to take some pictures.”

His eyelids were heavy, his pupils dilated, his movements sluggish as he adjusted his position on the couch. It wouldn’t be much longer before the drug completely saturated his system. “What kind of pictures?”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s a surprise. I promise you’ll like it.”

Men were so predictable, especially when sex was on the line. A lazy grin stretched over his face as he rattled off the password.

A few swipes and she found his image gallery and the lurid photos she’d been tasked with destroying. In the grand scheme of things, they were fairly tame, but she understood his ex-wife’s desire to keep them off the internet. Not only could they kill her career, they also had the potential of attracting a lot of sick people.

Essie tapped on one of the more modest pictures and angled the screen toward Cody. “Who’s this?”

It took a moment for his glassy eyes to focus, and then his upper lip peeled back into a sneer. “Bitch ex-wife.”

“You got these anyplace else? Laptop, cloud?”

Confusion creased his brow. “Huh? No. Why would I?”

“Just curious.” Talk about amateur. If it were her, she would have stored multiple copies all over the damn place, just in case something happened to the phone. She gave a coy smile and unfastened the top button of her blouse. “I need to use the bathroom real quick. When I get back, I’m going to make you forget all about your ex-wife.”

By the time she came out of the bathroom, he was out like a light, his breathing deep and even and his head tipped back against the couch cushion.

At the sound of his snore, she reopened his phone, deleted the compromising images as well as the backups stored in his photos app, and then ran a program to overwrite all of the deleted data, making it virtually impossible for them to be recovered. The phone would work like it always did, but he’d never be able to use those pictures for blackmail.

For the sake of being thorough, she also checked his text messages and emails to verify he hadn’t shared the pictures with his buddies. Then she uploaded a program that would allow her to remotely access the device, just in case he decided to cause more trouble for the poor woman who’d made the unfortunate decision to marry him.

Finished with the phone, she moved to the bedroom. A quick search yielded a laptop. Same password—how sloppy—but it made her job easier, and she searched for copies of the pictures. Finding none, she shut down the laptop and returned it to where she’d found it.

Back in the living room, Cody continued to snore, his mouth wide open and his chest expanding with each deep, steady inhalation. In sleep, he appeared fairly harmless, which only proved how looks could be deceiving. If she still worked in covert ops, this would be the point where she snapped a few compromising pictures of her own, because why not? The jerk deserved it, but her ex hadn’t specifically requested it, so she’d take the high road and leave him in peace to sleep off the drugs in his system.

Besides, she had a mile walk to her car ahead of her, and she wanted to get home in time for a long, hot shower before she climbed into bed. She poured the last of Cody’s beer down the sink, wiped her prints off everything she’d touched, and headed for the door.

As she walked down the stairs, her thoughts turned to Jackson, and unwelcome warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with the Florida heat.

Damn, he’d looked incredible tonight, all smooth, dark skin and well-defined muscles, with shoulders broad and strong enough to carry the weight of the world if necessary. She thought of what that body could do, of how amazing he used to make her feel, and a warm shiver went through her.

Annoyed with herself, she forced the thoughts from her mind. That chapter of her life was long behind her, and she had no intention of repeating past mistakes. What’s done was done, water under the bridge, and all of the other things people told themselves to feel better about screwing up their lives.

She took out the burner phone she’d bought specifically for this job and called the only number programmed into the list of contacts.

“It’s done,” she said as she stepped onto the sidewalk along the main road. At this time of night, there wasn’t much traffic, but the occasional vehicle whizzing by kicked up the wind and rustled her long, dark hair. She supposed she could have ordered a ride, but considering the felonies she’d just committed, she’d rather not leave any kind of electronic paper trail.

She didn’t know the name of the woman on the phone, only that she was a friend of a business associate and Cody’s soon-to-be ex-wife. The woman didn’t know her name either. Essie preferred to keep it that way. The less you knew about a person, the less you could testify against them in court.