Page 53 of The Guardian

Neither of us speaks again as we ascend the stairs to her bedroom. Before we’re through the door, her lips are on mine, her hands beneath my T-shirt, tugging to remove it. I walk her backward, pressing against her until she’s sitting on the edge looking up at me. I cup her face with my hands, running my thumb over her bottom lip.

“We both know we’re fucked, right?” She doesn’t respond, but I know she understands what I’m saying. “At some point,” I push her backward as I crawl over her, “when I’m not about to have you sit on my face, we need to have a conversation about things.”

Her back is already arching by the time my fingers are pushing her panties to the side and I’m dragging my lips up her neck.

* * *

“Mrs. Taylor?”

“You can call me Shauna,” she says, extending her hand out toward me. “Mr. Rockwell, correct?”

“Alex,” I say, shaking her hand before taking a seat across from her.

“What can I do for you, Alex? Whatever it is sounded pretty urgent on the phone earlier.” She folds her hands over her belly, her brows knitted together.

“Thank you for seeing me on short notice, I’ll keep it short and to the point. I’m one of the owners of Four Forces Security.” I reach into my wallet and pull out a card, sliding it across her desk. “I was recently hired by one your students’ parents for safety measures. My client, Juliette Pierce . . .”

An expression of recognition passes over her face. “Oh, Juliette. She is wonderful.”

“Yes, well, the other day, her daughter, Chloe, was approached by a stranger on the playground, on school property,” I say, “and was given some very inappropriate and compromising material.”

“Oh my goodness, what?”

“I won’t be sharing the exact contents of the envelope she was given, but it was blackmail material against her mother.” She gasps loudly, her hands covering her mouth. “That being said, I need access to your security cameras.”

“This is . . . unheard of. We’ve never had a situation like this. Is Chloe okay?”

“She’s fine. Thankfully, she didn’t open the envelope, so she didn’t see what was inside, but her mother is very shaken, as you can imagine. This pertains to a very high-profile case she’s working on.”

“I really wish I could do something, Mr. Rockwell, but unfortunately, for everyone else’s safety, I can’t just hand over security camera footage. I’m sure you understand.”

“I thought you might say that.” I lean forward in the chair, leveling my gaze at her. “I didn’t want to have to go this route, but I will take legal action if necessary, and as you can imagine, with my client being a lawyer at the top firm in New York City, it most likely won’t end up in your favor when a judge sees that a minor was given explicit material on your school’s property, under your watch.” Mrs. Taylor’s eyes turn into slits. “I can promise you, I will keep it quick, and I only need to see the footage from a specific time on a specific day.”

Thankfully, I don’t need to argue with her any further. Begrudgingly, she leads me to their security officer’s office, where I scan through the footage from the day in question.

“There,” I say, pointing to the screen. “Freeze and crop that.” The security guard obliges. I pull out my phone, looking at the image I took from the security footage at Juliette’s house of the man who entered while Terry was working. “That look like the same guy to you?”

“Sure does,” the guard mutters.

“Great. Can you print that for me?”

I take the photo and head back over to the office just as Jimmy is walking in.

“Good, glad you’re here. Wanted to run something by you.”

“Sure, what’s going on?” He sits down at his desk and I pull out the printed photo and the image on my phone and slide them across his desk.

“Same guy, right?”

He picks them up, his eyes glancing between the two a few times before nodding. “Either that or he has a doppelgänger. Who is it?”

“Piece of shit who not only got into Juliette’s house and planted a camera, but also cloned her phone. He took stills from the camera he put in her bathroom—naked stills—and gave them to her kid at school.”

“Oh, what the fuck?” Jimmy leans back in his chair, looking up toward the ceiling in exasperation.

“Yeah. Thankfully, Chloe didn’t see the photos, but Juliette is really shaken up, obviously.”

“How the hell did he get in her house?” He gives me a look, but I explain the situation.

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