Read Online For the Love of Pete by Julia Harper - Free Book Online

the name Savita Gupta, with an address and phone number. Both the address and phone number were different than the ones Kevin had given him from the car license plate.
    Dante smiled and reached into his inside suit jacket pocket, taking out the ballpoint pen and a small leather notebook he always carried. He copied the information from the bill before searching the rest of the office. There wasn’t much else to find—a few more bills, a newspaper clipping announcing the opening of an Indian market, and a few papers handwritten in a looping language. Dante pocketed these last.
    Back in the kitchen, the old guy was still talking up a storm and Zoey’s packet of Twizzlers was almost empty, but she had her head cocked toward the man, nodding every once in a while, as if she found every word he said terribly important. Dante paused for a second in the doorway, just watching her. She’d been a pain in the ass earlier, jumping on his car like a lunatic and telling him how to do his job. Yet now she was taking the time to listen to a stranger babble at her in a language she probably didn’t even understand. Her head was tilted, a little line between her brows, the multicolored ties from her reindeer hat hanging down on either side of her face. Her full cheeks were flushed from the cold outside, and she looked kinda sexy.
    She caught his eye and smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners, her lush mouth curving, a dimple appearing in one cheek. Dante found himself staring, remembering what that mouth had looked like sucking on candy. This was just bizarre. She was so totally
not
his type. The last few hours had been full of tension and adrenaline. That must be the reason for his fascination. Adrenaline. Everyone knew it was an aphrodisiac.
    Dante mentally shook himself and crossed to where she stood with the old man. “Let’s go.”
    She looked dubiously at the old guy, who was still talking. “Shouldn’t we offer him a ride home?”
    Dante raised his eyebrows. “You’re kidding, right?”
    She frowned at him. “No. It’s dark outside and the neighborhood isn’t safe. What if the kidnapper comes back? What if—”
    “Okay, okay.” Dante held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll give him a lift if you can figure out how to tell him that.”
    She shook her head like he was brain-dead, then turned to the old man. And somehow, without speaking the same language, she conveyed the offer of a lift to the guy. Either that or the man figured they were taking him out to dinner. In any case, he followed them outside the restaurant. He paused to lock the back door, and a few minutes later they were all piling into the BMW.
    “Nice,” Dante said as he pulled his seat belt out. “That was very nice. But I don’t know how he’s going to tell us how to—”
    From his position smack in the middle of the back seat, the guy pointed, straight-armed, dead ahead.
    Dante twitched a smile at the old guy and turned the ignition key. “Right.”
    “Did you find anything in the office?” Zoey asked.
    “Yeah, I—” Flashing blue and red lights suddenly reflected in his rearview mirror, and Dante felt his pulse kick into heart-attack territory.
    “Oh, my God!” Zoey was twisting in her seat to look behind them.
    There was nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. The police car was coming up fast on his rear. Dante started to press down the accelerator.
    And the flashing cop car sped by them on the left, drove another couple of blocks, and took a right farther down. The cops hadn’t been interested in them at all.
    “Jesus.” He eased off the accelerator, wishing his heart rate could calm down as easily.
    “Good thing I used that restroom,” Zoey muttered.
    Dante shot her a look. Her words were cocky, but her cheeks were pale, and the sight bothered him. She shouldn’t be frightened. She was the type of girl who took the world head-on. Much as her sarcasm and orders irritated him, he preferred them to the white face. He needed to get her