“Do the dig, just don’t send me what you find until I ask for it,” Rocky clarified.
Liam’s dark brows were still pushed inward, and the skin between his eyes had bunched together. “Again, I have to ask why. I mean, don’t you want to know everything you can about the woman living right next door to you?”
“I know I sure as hell would,” Cade muttered from his place at the table.
“I do, too.” Rocky nodded. “I just…I’d like to hear it from her first.”
Bringing himself closer to the table, Cade rested his elbows on the smooth wooden surface, loosely linking his fingers together in the process. “You know, Rock. I get that reading people is like your jam and all, but you really think this woman’s going to fess up if sheisinvolved?”
“Maybe.” He gave a slight shrug. “Maybe not. But if I go to her directly, before the feds or anyone else question her again, I’ll be able to see how she reacts fresh out of the gate.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Christian’s head bobbed with a nod. “If we bring the Perry woman in here for questioning, or the feds decide to conduct a formal interrogation and call her down to the field office, she’ll have a heads-up. And that means she’ll have?—”
“Time to think,” Brody finished for the man in charge. “That’s a good point. This early into the investigation, the FBI would probably call and ask her to go down to their field office rather than showing up at her door and hauling her down there themselves.”
“And that would give her plenty of time to come up with an alternate but believable story that could clear her of any involvement,” Liam joined back in.
Jagger’s tone was as casual as the look on the man’s rugged face when he looked straight at Rocky and asked, “How much time have you spent with this woman?”
“Her name is Raegan.” Rocky’s correction came without conscious thought. “And we met the day after we got back from Mexico.”
“Did you approach her, or was it the other way around?” Christian asked next.
His chest grew tight as he answered with a truthful, “She approached me. I was working on my roof, and she came over. Said she had a clogged sink and asked if I’d take a look.”
“And?” Liam pushed for more.
“And nothing, really. I went over to her place and fixed the issue with the sink, and she invited me over for dinner as a thank you.”
“Dinner, huh?” Mischief lit the blues in Cade’s eyes as his lips curled into a sideways grin. “What all did you…eatwhile you were there?”
“Pizza and wings, asshole.” Rocky shot his insinuating teammate a glare. “We had pizza and wings; we talked for a while, and then I left.”
He didn’t dare reveal the part about how he’d laid in bed for hours afterward, imagining what would have happened if he’d thrown caution to the wind and kissed her.
“How did she seem when you were at her place?” Brody inquired.
Seeing where the other man was headed, Rocky told their second in command, “Fine. We talked and laughed as we ate.”Tell them about the locks.“I did notice she had a couple of extra locks installed on her front door. They were newer than thedoor’s regular hardware. And she was pretty reserved when it came to sharing anything personal, but?—”
“Bingo.” Cade nodded confidently.
The guy acted as if Raegan’s desire not to share a lot about herself with a perfect stranger somehow solidified her guilt.
“Look, Raegan may have her secrets, but she didn’t strike me as the domestic terrorist type. And when I saw her right after the robbery, she had a bruise on her cheek from going hand-to-hand with the asshole, and she seemed…” He blew out a breath and shook his head. “I don’t know. She seemed genuinely shaken up.”
“We all know and trust your ability to read people.” Christian’s brown stare landed on Rocky’s. “If you don’t think she’s hiding anything, then?—”
“Oh, she’s definitely hiding something,” Rocky admitted. “I’m just not sure it has anything to do with the robberies or Delta.”
Liam swiveled his own red leather seat around to face Rocky more fully. “You really think you can get her to talk?”
“I’d like to try.”
Because his gut said she wasn’t involved in the robbery scheme. Nor did he think those extra locks were to keep the authorities at bay.
“You’re right.” Christian finally gave him the green light. “If the feds call her down to their field office for more questioning, she’ll have plenty of time to come up with a believable alternate story before she ever steps foot in an interrogation room. But you drop by her place as a concerned neighbor, just to check on her after today’s ordeal, then she may slip and say something that will lead us in the right direction.”
“Or I’ll discover she’s just a woman who likes to keep her private life private.”