Page 92 of S.O.S. Perk

He was wide awake as he hit the shower, going over in his head the late zoom meeting the SOS and FBI teams had jointly held last night. They’d outlined Perk’s next course of action where the Nelsin’s were concerned.

It had been determined, that if at all possible, Perk needed to infiltrate Jennifer Nelsin’s office and download all her files off her computer. In that regard, Sarge would drop off a thumb drive at the house today while Perk was at school, leaving it with the two agents in residence who would arm Perk with it before he headed to Jeremy’s.

“Good morning,” Smalley grumped at him as he emerged into the kitchen. “Coffee’s made,” he added.

Perk walked directly to the pot, pouring himself a cup.

“And it’s forage for your own this morning,” Tertia yawned as she shuffled into the kitchen. “I’m not quite up to cooking. I, uh, may have overdone it a bit with the alcohol yesterday. My friends were very persuasive convincing me that we needed to celebrate the wrap-up of the holidays.”

As if on cue, Smalley closed his laptop with a loud thud.

Tertia groaned. “Seriously, Chuck? You can’t be a little more quiet?”

Chuck, huh?

That was the first time Perk had heard Smalley’s first name, and he wondered…

Nah.It couldn’t be. Perk had Mizzay and Smalley pegged for each other. Both had secretive pasts, and they shared looks that hinted at some kind of connection. There was no waythesetwo had hooked up. Had they?

Maybe Smalley had more game than Perk was giving him credit for.

Perk walked over to the cupboard where the cereal was kept, and pulled out a box of Oatie-O’s while surreptitiously watching the pair, but nothing else happened that would give him answers.

He smirked to himself as he poured a bowl. He’d be keeping an eye on them.

****

Fifteen minutes later he was on his way to school with instructions to come home right after his last class so they could give him the thumb drive and wire him up again before he went to the Nelsin house.

Yup.It was time to escalate.

But first, school.

****

Seven hours later, other than being bored to tears in his classes and receiving repeated, excited kudos from Jeremy in the hallways over the awesome luck the kid had breaking into the new phones, nothing of note had happened.

Perk had, however, made arrangements to go to Jeremy’s house after school.

Maybe, finally, they’d make some headway on the case.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Remember,” Sloane told Perk, as she, two of her fellow agents, and three operatives from Perk’s SOS team met several miles from the Nelsin house in a small, remote park, readying to approach their assignments. “If it looks like you find yourself in any kind of trouble while attempting to access Mrs. Nelsin’s computer, all you have to do is say the word.” She gently tapped his ear where the comm rested low in his canal where no one would see it. “We’ll be positioned in the woods around the house, and can be on you in less than a minute.”

Perk didn’t look worried. “I know, Sloane. This isn’t my first rodeo,” he told her gently.

Yeah, but it’s mine, Sloane wanted to tell him. Not that she hadn’t watched people go into places undercover. Hell, she’d done it herself too many times to count. But…This is the first time I’ve sent someone I really care about into possible danger,she admitted to herself.

And didn’t that suck. Here she was trying to remain objective. Professional. But all she could think about was how she’d feel if something happened to Perk.

After their eye-opening vacation where they’d spent nearly every moment together, it had been hard enough going back to living in separate places. To imagine that a single bullet might take Perk from her; that she’d never see him again…

No. Uh, uh.She couldn’t start thinking like that.

This was a routine operation that she and her fellow agents had performed dozens of times without jeopardy. There was absolutely nothing to worry about.

So why did it hurt to breathe?

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