H & J Mysteries

Hugh met Jackie, formerly Jack, a con man, while on an undercover assignment in Fort Worth. She now helps him solve crimes. Follow their continuing adventures in this series. If you want to know the story of how they met, then read Jack of All Trades, Jack Be Nimble, and Hugh Don’t Know Jack, chps 1-6.

Episode #1:

Hugh Better Be Good –

After a four and a half hour flight, Jackie thought for sure her prince charming would meet her at the airport and transport her to a splendid assignation in the Big Apple. As she sat in baggage claim at JFK, she pouted reading her email on her phone. Hugh, her love struck detective, couldn’t come for her as he had promised before the flight.

Instead, she was forced to take a grungy ride in a dirty cab to a filthy door she had been to before in another life. Walking into the 130th precinct was much different this time. Last time, she was four or five inches taller and muscular build with fat fingers coming to rob the place. Last time, she was here, she looked like a burly man with tattoos, a scruffy beard, wiry black shaggy hair, dark brown eyes thanks to colored contacts, and a mono-brow thanks to heavy makeup. She spoke with a mid-west accent with a malformed set of teeth and, through some throat lozenge added trickery, sounded like a gravely baritone.

Today, she walked in as a winsome and elegant lady whose seductive gams turned many a gaze into a slap from a jealous girlfriend as she approached an appreciative but bored middle aged desk sergeant.

“Excuse me, sir, I am here to see Detective Hugh Horner.” She cooed nicely to the drooling officer who was undressing her with his eyes. He stopped himself as he considered answering by suggesting a personal and intimate interrogation of her to wipe his face with a napkin and put his glazed donut down and get his mind right first.

With a stutter, he replied, “S-sorry, Ma’am. He is participating in a city wide video conference. You will have to wait out here.” She looked around the grungy waiting room with a scowl on her face that implied, ‘Do I have to sit here?’ The desk sergeant took pity on her if only because lust outweighed his judgment and he hoped his helping her might be in his best interests. “But, we do have a waiting area for V.I.P.’s and I assume you are one?”

“Oh yes, Detective Horner won me in a raffle in Fort Worth just the other day and simply ran out on me. And, I mean to be collected. Nobody that handsome jilts this lady!” she said sternly and in her best southern drawl.

The desk sergeant laughed, but was disappointed that he wasn’t the object of her desire. “Well, we can’t have him run out on you, Ma’am.” He made a quick phone call for an escort. “Can I have some I.D. please, I will make a visitor’s pass out for you.” She produced her driver’s license, which had been updated to read female instead of male, as well as her new name, Jackie Fiene Hallard. “I see you are from White Settlement, Texas. He was just out there on assignment.”

“I know. I liked how he interrogated me for hours. He asked me to come here for further interrogations. What can I say? It is my civic duty.” She shrugged her shoulders and winked at the officer whose jealousy was growing.

He grinned and motioned to an officer to come over. “Officer O’Malley, take this poor creature to the waiting room for V.I.P.’s and tell Detective Hugh Horner a Ms. Hallard is waiting for him.” The young officer took her luggage and she presented him her arm. He took it and led her down the hallway to a very nice room she had walked by before in her earlier life. She smoothed out her skirt and sat down picking up a Guns and Ammo magazine and thumbed through it.

About thirty minutes later, a handsome figure stood in the doorway and looked at her with hungry eyes. “Hey Sweetie, I missed you. See anything interesting?”

“Of course. I never knew center-fire rifles could be so sexy.” she giggled. He walked over to embrace her. She put the magazine down and they embraced which turned into a passionate kiss.

Capt. Connolly came in and said, “Hey you two, find a hotel room!”

She reluctantly let go of their locked lips and said, “Hello, Sir!” Jackie shook his hand and smiled pretty at him. It seemed to work.

“Nice you to see you again Jackie. Couldn’t stay away from our boy, eh?”

“No,” she put her arm around Hugh, “I couldn’t resist being interrogated by him.”

After the pleasantries, Hugh asked, “Late lunch?”

“Sure, just no donuts and coffee. It doesn’t help me keep my girlish figure.” she winked and swayed her hips.

Eating at a Subway sandwich fast food place, Hugh lamented, “They have put me on this jewel thief detail. There is a thief who has been striking at random the homes of victims. In most cases, the theft isn’t detected for days. The lady goes to put on some jewelry from her safe and finds her safe has been emptied. Funny thing is, that she has an alarm, which often times she forgets to set. There are no signs of forced entry. No neighbors reporting anyone strange. And no common denominator between any of the victims.”

“Common denominator? As in what?”

“Health club, insurance company, or anything else like that which could tie them together.”

Hugh took her bag and brought her to his place. “I assume we are staying in the same room.” he said.

“Unless I kick you out for not paying attention to me, yes.” she giggled.

“Sadly, I just may. So many of the women who were robbed have connections that all the detectives assigned to the investigation are to give it their top priority. I have no idea of what I can do to help. I have been given a list of ten women, each of whom have been robbed.”

“Well then, let’s talk about it.” She took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom. The next morning, after a good nights fun, Hugh was dressed in boxers and a tank top at the breakfast table in his small apartment looking at crime scene photos on his laptop when Jackie came in wearing one of his dress shirts.

She grabbed a cop of coffee and looked at the screen as his flipped from one image to another. “I don’t see a damn thing in common in these images either. Nothing stands out.” he said. He got up and said, “Would you like some eggs, bacon, and toast my love?”

“Yes, please. You are so sweet.” she said. He grinned and went into his small kitchen. She reached over and turned the laptop to her. She kept flipping through the photos and her eyes grew wider and her smile wider as something hit her. “Hugh, does this assignment let you drop everything else and focus just on following leads and solving it first?”

“Yes, but it also means I won’t have time for you as much?” he lamented.

“Is there anything against my going along with you if you need to talk to one of these women?”

“You will have to stay away from them, but you could wait in the car?”

“Get dressed after breakfast then, we have to visit the morgue as soon as possible.” she announced and got up to got take a shower and get dressed first. She got a quick shower and cleaned up nicely. She didn’t look as glamorous as before in jeans and a blouse, but that wasn’t her purpose. “Thanks for cooking me breakfast. Hurry up. I have an idea.”

“Want to share it?”

“Not yet. It is just a hunch.”

Hugh went in and got cleaned up. He found she was as neat as a pin in his bathroom. If only he knew that as a grifter, cleaning up was integral to her former profession. Cleaning up hid clues and prevented someone from knowing too much about Jack. He came out with his gun holster, checked his gun, hooked on his badge, and put his gun in its place. She smiled at him and gave him a big wet kiss.

“Hmm, you make that badge look sexy!” she said in her sultry way.

“Say that again and we will never get out of here.” Hugh grinned and kissed her back. “So, you need to talk to the coroner. I don’t see how she can help?”

“No, not that morgue, goofy. The newspaper morgue at the library.” They headed down to the local branch of the New York City library. “Do you have a list of those names?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to call each of the last ten victims and find out if they were in the paper at anytime over the last few months. Get the dates. Then we need to find the articles that cite them.”

Hugh nodded. He knew that she saw something in the photos had caught her attention. He made the phone calls and came back into the library and gave her a list. “How did you know?” he said.

“You’ll find out. Just trust me. Let’s track down those articles and see what they are.”

A couple were in obituaries, several were wedding announcements, and the rest were some sort of charity function. “None of these are the same thing. There is nothing in common.” Hugh lamented.

“Quite the contrary,” she said, “they all are in the paper. And if I am right, that is the first thing to look for in solving this crime.” Hugh looked at her. It was like she was on a mission.

“Call your boss. Ask him if you solve it if he will give you a few days off with me?” She winked at Hugh. “I am going to see if I can get a library card, okay?”

Hugh called Capt. Connolly agreed to the terms and he found her at the counter discussing library cards with the librarian. She said, “Of course, I am out of town. This is Detective Horner. Show him your badge Honey. Detective Horner needs to know who manages your software for maintaining your library database.” Hugh looked at her, but realized she was up to something.

The clerk gave him the contact info and the two returned to his car. “Okay Jackie, clue me in on what you saw in those photos.”

“None of the photos showed a bookcase filled with lots of books or things like that. But, in the photos of each victims place there was at some point a book being read on a coffee table, or side table, or somewhere in the room where someone would place a book or sit down and read a book. And they all were hard backs.”

“Hard backs?”

“Yes, hard backs books. Which means that it was either purchased brand new or were on loan from a library. And since there doesn’t appear to be a lot of books in most of the places, I figured out that they were library books. You need to be careful at this point. Call the ladies you just talked to and find out when they visited the library last and which library. If they all went to the same one, which I doubt, your thief works at that library. If they went to different libraries, then your potential thief works in IT and would know we are on to him or her.”

“Okay, but why the newspaper articles?”

“That is how the librarian determines his or her victims. They know anyone in those articles would tend to have wealth they just inherited because of a death, a distraction because of a recent wedding, or is working on a charity. They can easily look up that person’s name in the database. If they are there and check out books on a regular basis, then they have a profile of when they can attack the victim.”

For the next hour, Hugh called victim after victim on the list of victims he was to work with given to him by the captain. Each one confirmed that they did check out books and yes, the crime did happen around the time they checked out a book from the library. He also found that each one of them had a habit of using the library’s software online to check out the book and would head over to the library when they had been given a time frame on which to pick it up. Sadly, he thought, they all went to different branches.

“All the better!” said Jackie. “That narrows down the list considerably.

Hugh was confused. “How?”

“Simple. In talking to the librarian at the branch, I overheard another librarian talking to a patron. The ability to see if another library had a book on hold for her wasn’t granted the employee. In other words, she couldn’t see the Will Call queue at another library. Which means that our thief has to have administrative rights.”

“What do you suggest then?” Hugh was impressed.

“The librarian told me the company that created their software. I pulled up their information on the web from my phone. It turns out that Dewey Stark Library Systems is a subsidiary of Chelsea Haltham Books, which is located here in NYC. I think a visit to their software department would be of great benefit.”

“Let’s go.”

Hugh opened the car door for her and received his reward of a kiss. “My gallant Yankee!” He blushed.

Entering the company, Hugh and Jackie found only about five people in the place. They were directed to talk to a Phyllis Carlton who is the software liaison to the NYC library system. Ms. Carlton was a bit overweight and clearly had been a looker when younger. She was about fifty and didn’t mind the grey in her hair. Her office was pretty plain. She had the normal bevy of family photos on her desk. Around the room were posters for Broadway plays. Some old. Some new. Hugh was admiring the Phantom of the Opera poster when Jackie took control of the conversation.

“Ms. Carlton, I am assisting Detective Horner here as an informant. I have some knowledge of how the criminal mind works from some nefarious acquaintances of mine. I believe that someone in the library system is using you software to identify victims for larceny. The problem is that in order to prove that, we might tip them off.”

Hugh turned his attention back to the ladies. Ms. Carlton was intrigued to be included in a police matter. “How can we help? And, please, call me Phyllis.”

Jackie’s knowledge of the working of business impressed Hugh. He smiled at her giving her a nod to continue her control of the conversation. “I assume you help backup their system, Phyllis?”

“Yes, we do.”

“I also assume you keep a test system here for determining flaws in your software.”

“Oh, yes.” Ms. Carlson said proudly.

“Can we access the test system with the backup data from the NYC library system to test our theory.”

“Well, I assume you would need a search warrant for that.”

Hugh interjected showing his acumen this time, “Normally yes, Phyllis. But, this is a city owned system and I am a duly authorized representative of the city. I could do it at the library with no warrant at all, but that would alert a potential criminal if we were to go there. Jackie suggested to me that your company could be of great assistance in helping us not alert the criminals. Oh, and please call me Hugh.” Hugh caught on to why they were there.

“Understood, Hugh. I guess that makes things available to you.” She lead them down a hallway to a room with an analyst by the name of Stewart Granger. After being told what the problem was, he set up the system with the last backup from the library and turned to Hugh and Jackie to let them know he was ready.

Hugh said, “Okay, what I need to do is to check to see if ten women checked out a book on the day they were robbed.” For the next ten minutes, they found each woman in the system. She had reserved a book and checked it out during the likely period she was robbed. After thirty minutes, Hugh had proof that the library system was part of the criminal assault on the women all neatly printed up and ready to show Capt. Connolly.

While sitting patiently as they worked, Jackie had an idea. “Do you have access to their log files?”

“Yes. What do you need to know? It won’t show me who was doing what. Just that someone was online.”

“Who was logged in on those days during the times the ladies were in the library?”

Stewart quickly compiled a list for each day and then started to eliminate names until he had a common set. “We need more names to further limit the list.” Hugh said.

“Not really. Stewart, how many of those logged in are using a terminal versus a computer?”

Stewart thought for a moment. “I can see by isolating their login to their IP address. If it is DHCP owned, then it isn’t a static machine.” He filtered the list down. “Now there are five names.”

“Of those five, who has unfiltered Internet access?” Jackie asked.

“Three names. Here they are.” Stewart passed a piece of paper to Hugh.

“Okay Stewart,” Jackie stroked his shoulder and smiled at him, “we need a little help. Putting a key logger on these three will be impossible. But, could we sniff their traffic instead? What have you got that can check to see if they are running a VNC server or an SSH server?” Hugh looked at Jackie with surprise. She turned to smile at Hugh and winked.

She turned back to Stewart. “Whoever is doing this needs to run a remote terminal from their work station. They are either using a remote desktop or a remote terminal. Do you have a network sniffer?” Stewart nodded and grinned at her like a Cheshire cat who swallowed the canary.

“I have a Raspberry Pi. With it, I can plant it on the network and sniff it. It can sniff their IP addresses and send me a text if it detects outbound traffic using ports 22 or in the 5800 or 5900 range. I can even have it disguise itself as a existing printer by attaching a USB cable to it and being the interface for the printer, so if your criminal is looking for network changes, he or she won’t see any.”

“When can you get the sniffer on the network?”

Stewart said, “Looking at these users, since they are using the same neighborhood NID and therefore the same router, I can do it this afternoon. It will take a bit to program it to be part of the library system’s VPN first. Luckily, I have to run a quick diagnostic once a month. They are due this week. I will just go in now and say that I am headed out of town for a vacation and came in a few days earlier.”

Satisfied that all was proceeding well, they said their goodbyes and headed out. “Well, that will identify the villain, that is for sure.” Hugh said to Jackie on the way out.

Jackie warned, “No, it won’t. It will only identify the machine being used. Not who is using it. Once you find the machine, then you need to know who has access to it. You are not out of the woods yet. Best to collect all the information you can before you show up and blow it. Someone this sharp will only let you have one chance. They likely likely use someone’s machine to cover their tracks.”

“Then why let Stewart do anything?”

“Because he will do it right. Stewart is a CISSP*, in case you didn’t notice his certificate on the wall. He has been trained to disguise his investigations of corporate espionage. Case in point, he knew to hid his device on the network as an existing device. He will spoof the MAC address of the printer and no one will be the wiser. He is as good as a lead detective with twenty years of experience on stakeouts.”

Hugh was impressed. “Where did you learn all of this?”

“From my little brother, Mark. He is a total nerd and loves to talk tech. I indulged the clever twerp by listening to him describe how he networks gaming machines and how his friends bypass parental firewalls during his high school days. I won’t tell you what he did to the school computer either, but his grades improved.” Jackie giggled.

Several hours later, they were in a private conference with Capt. Connolly. “Once we find out the machine, you can determine who has access to the machine and take it from there.” Jackie said.

“Surely, it has to be one of these three people?!” Connolly said.

“No, social engineering, one of the three could have been duped. I found out from Stewart, the system requires them to change their passwords every forty-five days. Which means that the person who is using the system has to get that password from one of these three people by some means. Often, older workers will write their password down and keep it in a drawer.”

“Then what what do we do when we get this information?”

“You could put a tail on the staff when a rich lady comes in. There is a pattern of that. However, the thefts occur within three months of their having been published in the newspaper, but no earlier than two months. Hugh and I are going back down and sifting through the papers at the morgue. We will then compare the list with the test system and get a list of ladies who check out books. I hope the list is small. Then we can see if you can use that lady and you can tail the staff and stake out the house too.”

“So, you two are headed off to the morgue again?”

“Yes.” Hugh said.

“Nice work Jackie.” Hugh looked at him and sniffed.

“Really, Hugh, you know her extended family is a bunch of scam artists. She really is a good informant and you are the one getting the credit anyway. But behind closed doors, and when we are alone, she gets all the credit.” Connolly chuckled. “Now get along you kids before I have someone change your diapers.”

Jackie took Hugh’s arm, “Well. I need a special escort since I am an awesome informant.”

Hugh sighed, took her arm, and said, “That you are!”

When they got to the car and drove off, Hugh’s bluetooth car phone rang. “Hello, Stewart, that was fast.”

“I ran the diagnostic and placed the appliance on the network. Its initial sweep produced an SSH challenge on port 465 on a Mr. Snodgrass’ machine. Whoever is doing this is smart enough to spoof an email encrypted port so that no one will notice. So, I have identified the computer. I will let you know when it is used.”

“Thanks Stewart for putting your CISSP* to work for us.” Hugh said.

“Wow, I didn’t even think you noticed. Do you cops even know what one is?” Jackie looked at Hugh and winked.

“Well, when you become a detective, you notice these things. You should have been a cop, Stewart.” Hugh rolled his eyes, which, of course, Stewart couldn’t see. Jackie scrunched her nose and stuck her tongue out at Hugh. He grinned. She bit her lip to keep from giggling. After Hugh hung up, he conceded, “I know it is all you, but if the big boss finds out ...”

“You’ll be out of a job. I understand. You’ll just pay me back in bed.”

“Nooo problem!” He grinned. “So, what is the plan now?”

“Get to the morgue and create a list of potential victims.”

For the next several hours, they poured through the newspaper and found about twenty names. Hugh took them along with Jackie to the precinct and did research on each individual. He then sent an email to Stewart with the names he determined still lived in the area and met the criteria. Stewart then emailed back that eight of them were patrons of the library.

“Sir?” Hugh knocked on the captain’s door. “Come in Hugh. What do you have?”

“We think that these eight women are the next targets. Stewart is monitoring the network and will let us know when Snodgrass’ computer gets used. According to his email, he expects what he calls the SSH pipe to become active once the thief has chosen a victim. He anticipates he will see it access the computer about every fifteen minutes during library hours and once ever two hours when it is closed. He expects the three names at the top of the list to be the most likely to be targeted since they use the library frequently.”

“Can he trace where the computer accessing Snodgrass’ computer is?”

“He figures that the thief is using hot spots throughout Manhattan to disguise his true location. He would rather see when one of the woman reserves a book if there is increased activity to let us know we are on the right track and a theft is about to occur.”

Connolly said with a big smirk on his face, “Good. You have earned some time off for good behavior. Go home with Jackie. Go have some fun. And tell her thanks. And be sure to get a good night’s sleep too.”

Back at the small apartment. She grabbed her medical bag. “You have to do that now.” Hugh whined.

“Well, yes, and for the rest of my life.” She pulled out her medications and took them. Then she grabbed her dilator and said, “I need to take an hour’s nap while this does its work.”

Hugh looked at the dilator and said, “Would the real thing work better?” Jackie dropped the dilator and then her dress. She came over and gave him a long and sensual French kiss. For the next two hours, she was dilated again and again by one of NYPD’s finest.

After cleaning up, Stewart called Hugh who put it on speakerphone. “I have the list and there are three women who show up as potential marks, if that is what you call them.” Stewart rattled off the list and Hugh wrote down their names.

“Thanks Stewart, you have been a valuable asset to this investigation. I will be sure to get you a letter for your files since Jackie tells me it would help you with your CISSP*.”

“Thanks Hugh. That means a lot to someone in my profession.”

After they hung up, Hugh asked, “What do you think we should do now?”

“I would suggest that the three ladies check out a book online. Then we watch their homes.”

“Why not the people at the library?”

“It still could be one that works in the library. No, best to do it right. Have them each come in and discuss it as a group. We will do it all at once and get it over with.”

“You are up to something Jackie, I can sense it.”

“Yes, but trust me. I have my reasons for suggesting you do it this way.”

In a meeting room at the 120th precinct, Jackie, Hugh, Capt. Connolly, and Capt. Hernandez of the 120th precinct, sat at a table with the three women. Jackie had a list in front of her and had told Hugh earlier that she would indicate which one of the three he was to do a stake out on. She wanted him to be there for the arrest so he would get the credit. But, she kept that one close to her cute and sexy vest.

Mrs. James, Mrs. Holston, and Mrs. Addison sat there transfixed by what they heard. “You mean that someone is targeting library patrons?” Mrs. James said.

“Yes. We need to stop this for the whole city’s sake.” Capt. Connolly said. “We believe with a high degree of probability that one of you three will be next. We want the three of you to go online at different times today and tomorrow and put a book on hold. Then we want you to got to the library as you normally do on Friday and pick up your book. Do you all have your library cards?” The three held up their library cards. On a pad, Jackie put a check mark next to Mrs. Holston and pushed the pad to Hugh who looked at it.

Hugh, bolstered by Jackie’s note, said, “Mrs. Holston, I will be in charge of watching your place. We will have two other detectives watching the rest of you ladies. You will be introduced to them shortly before you leave here. We already know that the standard pattern of the thief is that they wait for you to check in to pick up your book. All of you generally spend about an hour at the library, so we ask you to do the same as you usually do. You don’t need to worry about the employees. We are convinced that someone is hacking our system and isn’t an employee. Before we shut down his or her access, we want to try and catch them first. If this doesn’t work, we will remove their access anyway.”

The ladies agreed to the mission and it went according to plan. That night, Hugh asked, “Why Mrs. Holston?”

“Because her library card was on her keychain. The other ladies used a tradition card instead of the key chain type.”

“Why does that make a difference?”

“Because, when she checks out a book, your high resolution monitors capture her keys. From that, a copy of a key could be made. You mentioned that none of the homes show signs of forced entry. That means the criminal has a key.”

“You missed your calling. You should have been a cop.”

“No thank you. I would rather be interviewed by a handsome one.” She caressed his arm. “Care to help me dilate again?”

Hugh took her in his arms and began to take off her dress. She kissed him as he was doing it. As her dress fell to the ground, he said, “The things I have to do to get a confession out of you!”

The Friday stakeout was timed to be around two o’clock in the afternoon for Mrs. Holston. She went out as planned. Hugh and an officer had been secreted in the house since the late morning hours. Jackie and a few officers were across the street with cameras pointed at the building. Shortly before she checked into the library, Stewart called and said there was increased activity on the SSH tunnel into the library computer that day. About half an hour after she had checked into the library, a woman came slowly up the steps of Mrs. Holston’s brownstone. She was in a London Fog and wore a hat in an obvious attempt to hid her identity from prying eyes. The officer in the room with Jackie radioed Hugh to let him know she was at the door. The woman looked around and then put a key in the door, turned it, and opened the door and went in. The door shut. A few minutes later, Hugh led the woman, now in handcuffs, across the street to the lookout room with Jackie.

Jackie acted quickly. She went up to Hugh and said, “Honey, she is the accomplice, not the employee. We need to act quickly or you will lose the big fish.”

“What do you mean? The thief is going to run if she doesn’t show up soon or call in soon. In all likelihood, he is in the library with our victim watching her.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I need to put on her clothes and go to the library as soon as possible. Get some men there to watch Mrs. Holston.”

Hugh turned to the thief and said, “Come on Missy, the lady officer and our special officer here are going to do a quick strip search of you.” Officer Longstreet and Jackie went into the room with the thief. Ten minutes later, Jackie emerged wearing her clothes. She carefully pulled up the London Fog’s collar and then put on her hat. From a distance, she looked just like the thief. Hugh and Jackie then headed down to Hugh’s car and drove down to the library. Hugh went in first and sat down to read a paper observing in the distance Mrs. Holston who was reading her book. A moment later, on cue, Jackie walked into the library looking down.

A man nearby Mrs. Holston looked startled. Hugh watched him. Somehow, he knew that Jackie caught his body language too. She continued at an angle to the man so he couldn’t see her face and headed to a corner of the library. With her gloved hand, Jackie gave a casual wave and then put the hand back in her London Fog. The man, looking confused, got up to go after Jackie. Hugh spoke into his jacket mic to the men guarding Mrs. Holston. “Follow the man who just got up. He is our mastermind.”

Hugh and three cops converged on the man who began to run once he saw Hugh. Fortuitously, he ran right into one of the undercover men who had him on the floor and cuffed in a moment.

Epilogue –

Over dinner that night, Hugh gave Jackie the low down. Charles Cranford was a recent hire as a janitor at the library administrative office. He cleaned it at night which gave him access during the day to the library. He found in Snodgrass’ office the notepad he used to write down his passwords. Being a computer geek, he set up Snodgrass’ computer to give him access to the library computer. He would find a victim in the paper, check the security videos from the day the victim last checked out a book, and see if he could see her keys. Then, he would put a sniffer on their alarm system and get the code if it was needed. Once that was done, his accomplice, his sister Brandy, would go in and steal the ladies’ jewelry from the safe. She had special equipment that could open the safe in about fifteen minutes. If it didn’t, she would leave and they would wait for another chance or set up a means of cracking the safe.

Hugh said, “Bottom line was, they thought they would never be caught. And I get the credit for solving it thanks to you.”

“And my payment? Do I get a few days with you?”

“I get a few days off. I am the hero of the hour.”

“You are my hero. And you know, that was a lot of fun working with you!”

Poor Hugh. He had to go to Broadway plays, classy restaurants, and dilate Jackie every night.

Jackie returned to Fort Worth with a big smile on her face. But, before she left, Hugh announced that he was putting in applications to work closer to her. Apparently, he liked working with her too.

Copyright © 2017 by AuP reviner

* CISSP is an isc2.org certification meaning Certified Information Systems Security Professional