"You know her?"

  "Uh, yeah."

  "So your dad knew her?"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh." That sort of soured the milk, Jason thought. But he was also surprised that he hadn’t been more aware that they had known each other before. "So in a good way or—"

  "She was one of my mom’s friends. She was widowed and I think she believed she could slip into Dad’s life and take over my mother's role after my mother died."

  "Don't tell me. You messed that up for them."

  Erin gave him a cutting look. He knew as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had said the wrong thing.

  "Of course not. He did what he wanted to do. I think he felt wary of her motives, and he cut ties with her. Anyway, I haven't seen her in years. I have to admit she looks great." Erin buttered a piece of the bread.

  "Maybe he's ready to move on now when he wasn't before. How do you feel about that?"

  "She's nice enough. She was always nice to me, but you know how things go. People can be on their best behavior until they get their hooks into the one that they want to have."

  Jason laughed. "Sounds like you have trust issues. Or you might be projecting a little."

  She scoffed. "I've never been interested in a guy beyond a date or two. They've got supersized egos, are arrogant, carrying around tons of baggage, or self-centered, you name it. I don't intend to be saddled with any prima donna."

  He smiled.

  "What about you?"

  "I haven't been around too many big cats to find one I'd be interested in settling down with. No prima donnas that I've ever met."

  "Lucky for you. Did you ever feel you missed out not having your family to raise you?" She sounded serious now, as if she were truly interested and he guessed her father had told her how he had been raised by humans in foster care.

  "Yeah. I think that's why I acted out so badly when I was a kid. I needed a jaguar dad—or mom—to knock some sense into me. We're part wild animals, as you well know, and we need someone to set the rules for us the only way that one of our kind can."

  "I have to agree with you there. My mother was the one who disciplined me, swatted me with her paw when I did things that could have been dangerous for me."

  "And your father indulged you."

  "He grew up with two brothers. So yeah, having a little girl in the family made a difference."

  "I'm sorry about your twin brother and your mother."

  She nodded. "Thank you. It was really hard on both Dad and me. And I think because of it, he was softer on me. But I still turned out all right."

  Jason smiled. "Yeah, even without jaguar parents, I think I did too."

  They saw her dad looking around the restaurant, but he was no longer with Laura. Jason realized that he must have smelled their scents. If Cannon and his client had come in first, Jason and Erin could have slipped in unnoticed. Maybe. Unless her dad and Laura had been sitting where they could have seen them. Jason had figured it had been a doomed mission from the first, as far as not getting caught went. And he suspected Erin had known that. But she’d wanted to see who her dad was with no matter what the consequences.

  Chapter 4

  When Erin’s dad finally spied them in their booth at the restaurant, Jason hoped Cannon wouldn’t be too peeved with him for bringing Erin here. Here it was the first day, hell, first hour she’d been here, and already she had gotten Jason in trouble.

  Cannon was alone so Jason suspected he was coming to speak with them privately. Since Laura knew Erin, Jason suspected that she realized Cannon's daughter was here also. That was the trouble with being able to smell scents so well.

  Cannon smiled at them though. Jason had assumed Erin wouldn't get into trouble for it, like Jason would be for letting the cat out of the bag.

  "You didn't want to go to the other restaurant?" Cannon asked Erin. “It’s your favorite.”

  She rose from her seat and they hugged. "I love this place and haven't been in years. I figured since I had just gotten in and was starting a new job, I would celebrate before I got to work. I had planned to tell you I wanted to go here. But then Jason was the only one to greet me at the airport and you had a mission for lunch, so I figured I'd go with Jason instead."

  "And he told you my mission happened to be here?"

  "Yes. I can't tell a lie. It’s so packed, I didn’t think we’d see you."

  Jason sighed.

  Her dad smiled at him. "She would have coerced the truth out of you somehow once I didn't pick her up at the airport and stood her up for lunch for her homecoming."

  "We thought we could help you with your case, but we also figured you would be working on this other with the Potter boy and wanted to hear what you had to say about it," Erin said.

  "Laura hired me for a case concerning the manager, Bristol Donager. He’s the one she needs me to investigate. And yes, she knows him and she actually had dated him."

  Erin sighed. "You know, Dad, if you're dating her now or are interested in dating her, I'm happy for you."

  "Okay, thanks. But it's not my intention. I just planned to work the case for her."

  "Whose idea was it for you to have lunch here with her and not just check things out on your own?" Erin didn’t seem to buy into his supposed disinterest in Laura.

  "Hers."

  "So do you need our help?" Jason asked again, because he was ready to work on the Potter case, but if her dad needed help with this one too, he wanted to know of it. Besides, he was ready to get himself out of the boiling stew he felt he had become immersed in and wanted to switch topics.

  "No, enjoy your lunch. I'll meet you back at the office later. Sorry I didn't meet you at the airport, Erin. Or have lunch with you. We can have dinner and celebrate your homecoming." Then Cannon gave her another hug and left their table to return to his lunch guest.

  "Shoot, I should have asked him if she was picking up his tab," Erin said. "Do you think she's only interested in the case and not in my dad?"

  "I believe she's interested in your dad. She could have gone to any PI agency in the city, so who does she choose?"

  "My dad because she knows and trusts him."

  "Right, but also because he's widowed, a big cat like her. So yeah, I'd say even if she has a case that needs to be investigated privately, she still is interested in your dad."

  The server brought their food out and it smelled divinely of spicy salmon, mahi-mahi, broccoli, and buttery potatoes. Jason was glad that Erin had wanted to come here.

  "You think that maybe she doesn't really have a case of fraud?" Erin was frowning now as she picked up her knife and fork.

  "I’m sure she does have a legitimate case. She probably knows your dad would learn the truth and then he wouldn’t be pleased that she’s wasted his time. That wouldn't go over well with your dad."

  "What if he is the one who made up the case?"

  Jason stared at Erin for a moment, chuckled, and then shook his head. "I don't think so, but hell, you know your dad probably better than me."

  "Well, I'm hoping that he's not making up stuff, because he most likely would realize I want the best for him."

  "Right."

  They began digging into their meals.

  "This is sure good. I haven't had mahi-mahi in forever, and they really make it right here," she said.

  "I agree. I need to come here more often." Jason hadn't thought he'd be enjoying the company also.

  "You're invited to dinner whenever we have time to have it," Erin said, as if he should come to the celebratory feast too.

  "You probably need some alone time with your dad—"

  "Nonsense. We're working together at the office, and it wouldn't hurt to celebrate tonight after work."

  "I hadn't expected you to work right after you got here." He admired her for that. He had expected her to spend some time getting settled in.

  "I'm excited about it. Since he's doing the financial cases and you're doing background issues, after we resolve the case of the missing boy, I can take all the dangerous ones." She smiled at him and then took another bite of her fish.

  "With one of us serving as your backup." He didn't have a problem with taking her with him, being that she was highly trained in the field, but he definitely wasn't letting her do a dangerous mission on her own. That was if they realized it could be dangerous. Some of the most benign situations could turn volatile, depending on who they needed to speak to about a case.

  "Of course. I always took precautions when I was on the job and had backup when I went on a hazardous case. I'm not some gung-ho Xena woman."

  He smiled at her. She was petite, in good shape, but wasn't muscled like the warrior princess. "Good to know."

  "Where do you think we should go with this investigation into the boy’s disappearance first?" she asked, glancing at her phone again.

  "We talk to all the relatives first. And then his friends." He got a call from a potential client and answered it.

  "Hi, I'm Melanie Whitcomb and I need to talk to an investigator about looking for my niece who vanished about three hours ago." Another abduction case?

  "Have you called the police?" Even though he was willing to search for another missing child, the police needed to be involved too since they had a lot more resources.

  "Yes, but since she's a teen and she's run away from home a number of times, they believe that's probably the case with this. They questioned my sister, Samantha's mother, briefly and her mother's current live-in boyfriend. Samantha has only been missing a short while, but I’m really worried about her. I don't trust the police to take this seriously. I thought a private investigator could look into the situation before any harm comes to her. Not only that, but her cousin is Henry Potter, the boy who is missing also."

  "Cousins? Yes, ma'am. We'll be at the office in about half an hour. If you can meet us there, bring a recent picture of Samantha, and tell us all you might know about the case. We'll get started on it right away."

  "We? I can only afford one PI."

  "We'll only charge you for one, but we have a recent addition to our staff who is a former FBI agent, and she has worked these kinds of cases before. I'll be going with her to make sure she knows all the rules."

  Erin raised her brow in response to Jason’s comment.

  He smiled at her. She’d have to abide by a set of different rules now that she was working as a PI. Though she had gotten her PI license before she came to stay with them so she would be familiar with them.

  “Henry’s parents hired us to check into his disappearance. It could be they’re related,” Jason told Melanie.

  "Oh, I'm so glad that you have a partner to work with on this and my brother has hired someone to look into Henry’s disappearance also. I'll see you soon."

  Then Jason told Erin about the case. Her eyes widened. "Omigod, I wonder if Samantha has gone looking for him.”

  “That’s what it could be. For us, this sure was a good day for you to start working at the agency. We can use all the help we can get.” Jason finished off his meal and so did she. He wished he could have had a more leisurely lunch with Erin, but a job was a job. He went to pick up the tab, but she did instead.

  "The agency will take care of it," she said. "I came here to help my dad with his assignment and conduct business on the other case. He dismissed us, but we still had ordered lunch, so it's on him."

  Jason smiled at her, thinking that working with the boss's daughter might just have some perks.

  "I love your car, by the way," she said, as they left the restaurant. “I’ve never seen a Jaguar coupe with a yellow stripe down the hood. It reminds me a little of a jaguar’s colors.”

  “Thanks. They had a black Jaguar with an orange racing stripe that reminded me of a jaguar’s colors even more, but I thought the one with the yellow stripe was more striking.” It was great for dates. He texted Cannon to tell him that they were on their way back to the office and had a possible teen abduction case in addition to the other one that could be related.

  Cannon texted back: Keep my daughter safe.

  Jason texted: Will do.

  He figured that Erin might be the one keeping him safe. When they reached the office, another car pulled up and they greeted the occupant. She identified herself as the woman who had called them.

  But then another car pulled up, and Erin sighed. "Looks like it's getting busy around here."

  "Which means it's good you finally showed up." He really hadn’t thought he would feel that way. Then they went inside, and Jason motioned to Erin's desk, a nameplate on it already. "That's your desk."

  "You are new?" Melanie Whitcomb asked Erin.

  "Yes, she just arrived today."

  "Good. Maybe her FBI training will help with the case," Melanie said.

  Then a man walked into the office and Jason asked, "Can I help you, sir?" He figured Erin could get started on learning about the missing teen and he could see what the man wanted in the meantime.

  "Yeah, I need to hire a private investigator to look into my wife's claims that she needs alimony because I'm divorcing her. Yet she hasn't even attempted to get her education, though I've paid for courses several times and she just quits the classes after a while. She's really smart, but she just doesn't want to put in the effort to work on her courses. She uses me as an excuse for not finishing her classes. She did the same thing with work. She'd work at a job and quit it and start another and quit it. She spent every dime I made too."

  "I can get a subpoena for her college transcripts through the agency's lawyer. Do you have a lawyer?”

  "No, we were trying to do this amicably."

  "Okay, well, we'll take care of you."

  The guy looked immensely relieved. "Thank you." He signed a contract with Jason, and then the man left.

  Jason was about to join Erin and Mrs. Whitcomb, who was dabbing her eyes with a tissue and obviously distraught over this whole business, when he got another call. It was another case of checking out the backgrounds for some more potential employees and he told the personnel manager, "Sure, just fax them over. I'll get on them right away." But he was helping Erin with the two missing kid cases first. When they had a lull in business, he always caught up on his other work when it wasn’t as high a priority.

  He joined Erin just as Melanie and Erin rose from their seats and she shook Melanie's hand. Jason shook the woman's hand also, and would learn all the details from Erin. As the woman left the agency, he hoped that they could find the girl and the boy quickly.

  Erin immediately was texting her father. "I'm letting him know we're headed out the door. I'll give you all the details on the way to Samantha's home. Samantha and Henry Potter are first cousins."

  “That sounds like too much of a coincidence to me for the two of them to go missing—if Samantha truly is—for the cases not to be linked.”

  “I agree.” Erin got a text back. "Okay, my dad says that he's on his way back to the office and so he'll manage things from there while we're out of the office. I texted him the information about Melanie’s niece’s case. He’s going to do some online investigating in the meantime into both cases. How did the two of you ever manage without me?"

  "Most of the time we were good, but there are times like this when having another investigator can really make a difference. How are you feeling about Samantha’s case?"

  She explained to him what the woman had told her. "I have to say from what Melanie said about her sister, she's not to be trusted. It's all because of the boyfriends she keeps picking up. Melanie said she has wanted to adopt Samantha because she has three children of her own and all the cousins love getting together. Samantha would have a loving family and Melanie’s sister could do whatever she wants as far as it goes with her revolving door of boyfriends. Henry is Melanie’s brother’s son, and she thinks the two cases are related. She said Samantha and Henry were really close, despite their age difference. She’s afraid she’s gone out to search for him and will get herself in trouble. As to the boy, Melanie says Henry was just walking to his friend’s house and never arrived. I like to keep an open mind about any and every possibility when I work a case like this. You never know what direction it will go in," Erin said.

  "That's for sure. I think that's true of just about any case we work, including the more mundane background investigations I do. I found a case where a woman was trying to get employment at a department store and had murdered two people. Her fingerprints were in the system so I got a hit. Now that was a surprise. She got a jail sentence instead of a job. She was so astounded. She said she'd applied and been hired for several jobs and couldn't believe she'd finally been caught up by it. It proves we have to be thorough in our investigations."

  "My dad is lucky to have you. You set your standards to reach at a much higher level than some, I'm sure."

  "When the news mentioned our agency had helped the police finally catch the woman and send her to Tennessee for trial and ultimately to jail, we ended up getting a ton of background requests for employee applications. I'm sure the other agencies have also beefed up their investigations so we don't leave them behind in the dust."

  Erin smiled. "So for dinner tonight, what are you going to grill for us? I want steaks."

  He laughed. "I thought your dad was supposed to be the one putting on the feast."

  "He'll grill, but you can help him."

  "All right. And I'll make some drinks for us."

  "That sounds good."

  When they finally reached Samantha’s home, Erin said, "I didn't expect you to have such a flashy car. Do you do all your surveillance in the Jaguar?"

  "No, I have a non-descript car I usually use, but I—"

  "Wanted to impress me?"

  "Take it for a ride because I don't normally drive it to work."

  "You wanted to impress me."

  He chuckled. She was astute, he’d give her that, even though he hadn’t thought he’d be picking her up from the airport. He’d thought she’d just see it when they got ready to leave the office to go home to their respective residences that night.