The Job (Auctioned) by Cara Dee (highly illogical behavior txt) 📕

cousins ended. Darius and Ryan wouldn’t be caught alive in a sterile environment like this. Why even have bookshelves if you didn’t own books? Excuse me, there was a single stack of what appeared to be coffee table books on one shelf. The rest was overpriced knickknacks called art.

There had to be a rule somewhere about African art. It seemed so stereotypical. Nevertheless, for some unknown reason, AJ had a thin bronze statue of a giraffe between two chairs.

It was safe to say that AJ didn’t have any kids in his social circle. ’Cause all I saw were hazards where Ace would’ve hurt herself as a toddler. From the sharp edges of the glass table to the staircase without a railing. The black steps shot out from the wall with nothing in between.

I shook my head and refocused. Down on one knee in front of the door, I inspected the lock and nodded to myself. I was gonna need about half an hour.

“What kind of lock is it?” Boone asked.

“Double-cylinder deadbolt,” I replied, opening my backpack.

Boone hummed and disappeared from my periphery.

Okay, time to get down to business. I wanted Ace to be proud of me. We’d practiced this together a lot. I’d have a set of locks lined up on the coffee table at home, and she’d time me to see how quickly I could pick them.

I brought out my kit for deadbolts and—

“Or we can use this window over here,” Boone said.

I felt my brows knit together and annoyance flare up. Windows were no fun at all. “What kind of lock is it?” There was a pillar in the way, preventing me from seeing the window in the first place.

Boone smirked. “I’m not sure it matters. It’s open.”

To hell with that!

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped irritably. What kind of moron spent tens of thousands of dollars on security and left the goddamn window open? On the first floor! I rose from the ground and stalked over there, legitimately pissed. Not only because AJ was robbing me of the fun of putting my skills to use, but because this shit made me wary. It made no sense to leave a window open in this heat.

Fine if you were smoking a joint with your brother—you popped the window for a bit and then closed it again. You didn’t fucking leave the house.

Sure enough, the window was ajar.

“I don’t like this.” I dug through my bag to fetch my modified pliers with extra-long grips. “What if it’s a setup?”

“What’re the odds of that?”

Fuck if I knew.

I found the pliers and handed the bag over to my brother. Then I snuck the pliers and my arm as far as they went, and I squirmed around a bit to reach the latch on the inside.

“I’ll check the tablet and tell Jay to kill the alarm,” Boone said.

I grunted in response, my arm twisting uncomfortably, and managed to turn the latch.

“He’s still parked at the golf course,” he told me.

Yeah, well. This was the type of crap that made me paranoid. What if he’d found the tracker? What if he’d left it at the golf course to catch us? He could be pulling into the driveway right now.

We’d just have to be more careful. If we left a room, we brought our shit with us, in case we had to make a quick exit.

A couple minutes later, I got the go-ahead from Boone’s buddy. The security alarm would be off for the next two hours, and I didn’t waste a second. I pushed myself up and climbed through the window, and I landed on a polished hardwood floor in front of the staircase.

I held my breath for a few seconds, all my focus on my surroundings. Not that I didn’t trust this Jay guy, but…I didn’t trust this Jay guy. I could hardly trust my brother when I was busy running paranoid fears through my brain.

So far, so good.

I removed my shoes, shut the window enough to turn the latch again, then headed over to the patio doors where Boone waited with our gear.

As I let him in, I drew a deep breath and registered the faint smells of wood, soap, paint, and cigar.

“I’ll start upstairs,” I said quietly, shoving my shoes into my backpack. “You be on the lookout for anything strange down here. Holler if you see movement on the iPad.”

“Of course. This isn’t our first time, Case. We got this.”

I nodded once. He was right.

After grabbing my bag, I went up the stairs and got my ducks in a row. AJ would have a home office somewhere; I was sure of it. And at the top of my list of shit to do was planting a transmitter in there so we could get an audio feed. My feet hit soft carpet on the second floor, and I looked around me.

Interesting—there was a cross breeze up here. More windows had to be open. Two doors to the left, three to the right. The latter three were fully open and revealed bedrooms, so I veered left and hit the jackpot on the first try. The door was already ajar, and I poked my head into the room.

This was an impressive office. Damn. The design was similar to the rest of the joint, sterile and trendy, but this was where AJ showed some personality. The wall behind his desk was filled to the very last slot with books. The wall across the room had a minor collection of photos.

Speaking of, I had to take pictures of everything. Details could be studied later when we were home again. But first things first. I retrieved my AirPods—or one of them—and inserted it so I could get some music. I worked better when I had good tunes accompanying me.

I pushed play on some sweet Redbone, then spent the next few minutes with my camera. I photographed the bookshelves, the family pictures, the furniture… Hmm. I paused at the coffee table between the two chairs and