Free Unplugged by Lois Greiman Page B

I had remembered a sloppily delivered invitation.
    He’d been drunk off his ass and precariously seated on a bar stool at the Warthog, where I had worked for a couple lifetimes.
    “Anytime you need a little geek lovin’, babykins, I’ll leave the front door open.”
    “Not worried about some cocktail waitress murdering you in your sleep, Solberg?” I had asked.
    He’d given me his donkey imitation. It was always good, but when combined with six Jack Daniel’s and a Sex on the Beach, it was damned near perfect. I’d refrained from drowning him in his whiskey. “I’m a techno genius, Chrissy babe. Got me a security system could rule the world. Don’t matter how many keys I leave inside fake rocks, nobody gets past my HomeSafe.”
    Okay. I stood sweating like a bucking bull on his front walk. True, that conversation had taken place a lifetime and half a continent ago, but according to old wives’ tales, leopards don’t change their spots. I was willing to bet vertically challenged techno dweebs didn’t either.
    One more glance around assured me I was alone. But I still scanned the shadows as I dropped to my knees.
    Despite the security lights, it was pretty dark in the shrubbery. And prickly. I tugged a barberry thorn impatiently out of my bra and patted around the lava rocks that surrounded his bushes. Nothing.
    Shuffling forward on hands and knees, I continued my search, starting near the house and working my way out. I squeezed between two indistinguishable mounds of foliage, making my way toward the street, and there, tucked beneath a tenaciously blossoming camellia, was a rock the size of my fist.
    Breath held, I picked it up, and sure enough . . . it was hollow. I hunkered back on my heels and tried to control my breathing.
    I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I reminded myself. Hell, I was doing a friend a favor. In fact, I was doing the police a favor—doing their work. If I was discovered, I’d let them know they didn’t have to thank me.
    But apparently my respiratory system didn’t agree with my philanthropic state of mind, because I was panting like a fat man at a pie-eating contest.
    I waited a moment. My hands almost quit shaking. Chrissy McMullen, bold adventurer.
    The rubber stopper at the bottom of the faux rock popped out easily. A key lay inside. I dumped it onto my palm and felt a flush of victory. But it passed quickly, followed by a cold sweat.
    There was still the much-lauded security system to bypass. But it hadn’t been that long ago that I had hauled the little geek out of his azaleas, where he’d just deposited a half gallon of predigested alcohol. His voice had been slurred when he’d given me his security code. But it had been memorable. Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six.
    I pushed the key into the lock and tried not to think what it meant that I still remembered the numbers. Freud would have had a field day—but then, Freud had coined the phrase “penis envy.” Freud was a nut job—like I wanted one more droopy body part to worry about.
    The door creaked open. It sounded like the prelude to a horror flick, and even though the interior lights were bright enough to illuminate Dodger Stadium, I couldn’t help glancing nervously around again. Still no lecherous murderers or adulterous geeks waiting to do me in. I took a deep breath, closed the door, and punched in the inappropriate numbers.
    I found I was chanting Jesus’ name under my breath. He didn’t appear to save me, but after an interminable second or two, a green light blinked on. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I wilted against the wall, muttering thanks until I felt strong enough to wander into the bowels of the manse.
    I considered switching the lights off, but the idea of tottering around in the dark made my teeth go numb. So I turned unsteadily and pattered farther inside.
    I crept through the house as if it were land-mined. The kitchen lay off to my left, tiled in something that looked like Italian marble,