Over the Edge

Though her dad was just as healthy and attractive as he’d always been—a man who women routinely went to pieces over—the passage of time had marked him physically. Distinguished silver shot his black hair at the temples. Laugh lines around his mouth and eyes scored his olive skin more deeply than ever.

But despite this evidence of age, Mallory only saw her dad, a timeless, larger-than-life man who laughed easily, lived life on the edge and loved her more than anything else in his world.

“No risk of failure, no fun.” She contributed a new addition to their collection of motivational sayings.

Lifting her gaze to the remaining thirty feet of wall shooting above her head, she reached for her next handhold.

Each time she planted a booted foot on a hold, she shifted her weight and thrust her body upward. Her muscles strained, and she forced herself to concentrate so she didn’t misstep.

As a sport, rock climbing was half technique and half muscle. Though she was barely of average height, the muscle part of the equation wasn’t an issue. The more Mallory practiced her technique, the more strength she built.

Which didn’t mean squat at seventy feet.

The muscles in her thighs had rebelled a good while ago. Of course, she’d arrived at the Vertical Playground earlier than her dad to warm up by bouldering—challenging climbs that she made without the benefit of protection or aids. She relied solely on her technique and strength to get her to the top and down again.

The top in that instance had only been twelve feet, but the activity had contributed to the sweat now soaking through her shorts and ribbed T-shirt.

“Well, tell me what Trinity said.” Her dad steered the conversation right back around to the one subject she didn’t want to discuss.

“I haven’t talked to him yet. We’re consulting after I’m done in the gym.” She didn’t sound much less winded than her dad, each word coming out as sort of a breathy grunt.

“Did he detail what he’s looking for in his proposal?”

“He wants me to pinpoint the holes in the prototype of a new security system he’s designed.”

“How does his new system look? Anything interesting?”

Interesting meant cutting edge. Staying on top of the latest security developments was a crucial aspect not only of Mallory’s security consulting business, but of her dad’s.

They were two sides of the same coin. Both their business cards read Hunt Security Specialists. Both their business cards had a phone number. Anything more would have been overkill since their reputations grew each year, a tribute to the power of client satisfaction and word-ofmouth referrals.

But that was where the similarities ended.

Mallory handled only legitimate jobs, so she didn’t have bars looming in her future. She consulted about security for commercial businesses and worked as a troubleshooter for the engineers who designed the systems. She’d also been working with several law-enforcement agencies recently, projecting how professional burglars might have entered various properties to carry out crimes.

Irony at its finest.

Her dad…well, for Duke Hunt, old habits died hard. Like Mallory, he consulted about security, but he consulted for professional burglars while they planned their heists.

On the fringes of the law, but not prosecutable. And there was no denying that her dad’s consulting business was a natural fit. Before his forced retirement, he’d spent his adult life working as a professional burglar, specializing in infiltrating commercial properties and cracking safes.

He’d trained Mallory at his knee from as far back as she could remember. By age thirteen, she’d taken her place as a member of his crew, starting off by scouting egress routes and disabling telephone lines. Eventually she’d graduated to disarming motion and heat sensors and had been training to monitor video stations when they’d been busted.

As Duke Hunt’s only child, she’d had an unconventional upbringing that she wouldn’t have traded away one second of—except for the four years her dad had spent in prison.

All because of her run-in with Jake Trinity.

“How’d Trinity hear about you?” her dad asked.

“From the work I did with Triple Safe.”

Duke shot her a smile that epitomized a pride in her abilities that far surpassed normal parental standards. “You were prime on that job, babe.”

She returned the smile. She had been prime on the Triple Safe job. The company had lucked into a chance to bid on a large account here in Atlanta. They’d contracted her to consult, and she’d blown meteor-sized craters in their proposal and helped them redesign their entire system. They’d won the account, established themselves in the industry and generously added to her portfolio and reputation in the process.

“Trinity’s prototype has a few new features. Of course I won’t have a bead on how new until I see the specs,” she said, hoping a minimum of information would satisfy his curiosity. “I did notice in his proposal that he was minimizing the risk of false alarms by using passive infrared and active microwave sensors together in the same units.”

“Sounds good. Nothing worse than a twitchy alarm.”

“You’re right about that.” Twitchy sensors could activate an alarm at the most inopportune times—a major inconvenience.

“Think you’ll accept the job?”

“Don’t know until I talk to the man.” The lie tumbled off her lips easily, considering she didn’t usually lie to her dad.

“Well, here’s hoping he offers you a challenge, then. No doubt you’d love the chance to blast holes in his new system.”

No doubt. And while Mallory appreciated her dad’s vote of confidence in her abilities, the simple truth was there was no such thing as a fail-safe security system. People designed the systems, and people weren’t fail-safe. Clever burglars—and accomplished security specialists like herself and her dad—could always find ways around new precautions.

Jake Trinity, CEO and founder of Trinity Security Services, known throughout the industry as TSS, might be Atlanta’s golden boy in the security industry, but he wasn’t any more fail-safe than his systems.

Mallory intended to prove just how fail-safe he wasn’t.

“Did Lance ever make it home last night?” she asked to divert her dad from his interrogation.

“How’d you hear?”

“Polish Paul called me on my cell. He wanted to know if Lance had contacted me.”

“Had he?”

“No.”

Duke frowned, and Mallory knew he was worried about their friend’s seventeen-year-old son. Polish Paul had been part of her dad’s crew since long before Mallory had been born, and he’d crossed the line to become family-by-love somewhere along the way. He’d stuck by her dad’s side through thick and thin, through flush years and lean, and was still sticking around ten years after Duke had retired from burglary.

Mallory wished Lance had contacted her. Once upon a time, they’d been close, too. Or as close as a young boy could be to an older almost-sister. While they weren’t related, they had lived together for a few years after Polish Paul had sprung Mallory from foster care during her dad’s incarceration.

“Well, don’t worry, babe. Paul promised to call as soon as Lance shows up.” He exhaled heavily. “Damned kid is going to be the death of him yet.”

Mallory wished she had some reassurance to offer, but she didn’t. Lance had grown into an angry teen who was determined to buck his father at every turn. He’d shut out all the people who cared for him, all of Duke’s crew and her, too. Once upon a time, they’d all been one big happy family—the only family she and Lance had ever known. But time and circumstance seemed to be pulling them all in different directions.

“Just call me when he shows up, okay?” she said.

“And you let me know if you accept Trinity’s offer. Working with TSS will look good on your résumé.”

“You think?” She swallowed back a sigh. They were back here again. “I kind of thought my endorsement on Trinity’s new system would look good on his résumé.”

Her dad gave a hearty laugh, tossing his head back in a gesture that would have knocked most climbers off their center and sent them gliding toward the floor.