Page 67 of Hiding Hollywood

“Got bad guys to stop and paperwork to complete. Thankfully in Statem, it’s usually more paperwork than bad guys. Although I do need to go over the latest surveillance footage.”

She ran her hands over his shoulders and rose on her toes giving him one hell of a kiss that made him almost call in a favor to another deputy on their Sunday morning off. He’d never hear the end of it from the guys at the station.

“I’ll get two cups.” She stepped away from him and opened a cabinet.

“Sorry about the mess.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Her eyes narrowed. “But don’t think I’m like one of those magical girlfriends that clean up after you and thinks your messiness is cute. Those are the unicorns of our species. I’m more of a look-the-other-way kinda gal and try to find something clean to use.”

Girlfriend. The title started to twist his insides around until he looked at the openness in her expression. No lies. No games. He ran a hand over her hair. “No unicorns here. Got it.”

She held up the cups. “None of your dishes match. Is that some kind of country chic thing?”

“More like a hand me down thing. If you’ve noticed, I don’t have anything that matches.” He finished scooping the coffee and clicked it on. The smell filled up the kitchen. “I have to warn you. Most people hate my coffee.”

“How can you ruin coffee?”

“It’s possible. Becky and Juliana suffocate theirs with sugar.”

“Sugar is good, but not necessary. I drink coffee any way you brew it.”

“I remember you saying that.” He shook his head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Hungry?”

Her eyes locked with his. She gave his shoulder a nip with her teeth. “Is that code for something?”

“Might be code for honeybuns.”

Her eyes sparkled as her finger traced his tattoo. “I might be up for a honeybun.”

After a quick glance at the clock, thirty minutes until he needed to leave, he bent down and lifted Addie over his shoulder. “Honeybun it is.” She squealed as he carried her back to the bedroom. He could do a lot in thirty minutes.

Stretchedout across Cameron’s bed, Addie configured the new laptop he’d given her in the exact way she wanted it. The programs she added gave extra safeguards against someone tracking her movements. In less than an hour, she’d rerouted her connection three times, made another pot of coffee, and rummaged through Cameron’s closet to find a questionably clean pair of pajama pants. He hadn’t exaggerated when he said nothing in his house matched. The towels were various colors. His sheets and pillow cases didn’t match. The entire house screamed bachelor.

She pulled up theWhite Rabbit’sserver and shot a message toMiss Alice.

Finally got a good connection. I’m on it now.

Miss Alicemust devote her life to doing nothing but monitoring the message center. A response came back.

About damn time, Hollywood. Last chance.

Addie lifted her fingers to type something back but let the issue drop. No use in sending her excuses. She’d do better to get her butt into gear and figure out how to get intoSunflower’sserver.

Gaining access to the system could be done in several ways. Since the fancy Mr.Sunflowerwas so sophisticated, she’d do a straight phishing scheme. Three hours of research later and she’d emailed four members of his gang to their personal accounts offering a discount on top of the line perfume. Now she had to wait.

“Time for a refill.” She rolled off his bed, laughing as Lacy jumped up with a bark and raced to the back door. “Need to go out?”

Addie grabbed the leash, clipped it on, and let Lacy meander wherever. It felt nice to get up and move. Typically, a hacking job took hours, days, and coming up for air, or food was rare. She’d adjusted her schedule around Brian being home, keeping it all a secret and running it mostly at night, but now she didn’t need to do that.

Freedom tasted good.

But she’d wasted so much time at this point, the quicker she found the information to hand over the better. She wanted this job. Being out of work and without a place to live made her a little antsy.

Jogging back inside, giving them both a boost of energy, Addie headed straight to the kitchen for the coffee. It wasn’t quite as strong as Cameron’s had been, but close enough.

She returned to the computer. No emails. Only one ofSunflower’sgoons needed to reply to her email fromSunflower’sIP address. Then, she could go into the original version of the message which gave the IP address and information needed to locate the physical origin of the email. A simple cut and paste into another program, and it began tracking the location and server that sent the message. As long as the thug sends a signal fromSunflower’sinternet, she could trace it back.

Once she had the server information—

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