Then he abruptly pulled out of the kiss, leaving Savannah dizzy.
“Hold that thought,” he said.
He rounded the truck and helped Savannah from the car. On the walk to the back door of her duplex, he pulled out his phone and tapped into an app. An image of a dial filled the screen. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and leaned close. “This will detect the magnetic fields used by audio and video surveillance units. Don’t talk until I tell you it’s safe.”
Nerves tingled to the surface again, smothering the sexual need he’d rekindled.
He let her unlock the back door, then wrapped her hand in his and entered the house first, pulling her close behind him. It felt strange to return to a house with the lights on and the television playing.
Once the back door was closed, he paused and lifted his phone, scanning the room in a slow circle. The pointer that lay on one side of the circle labeled zero bounced a tiny bit.
After scanning the room, he met her gaze and shook his head, indicating there were no bugs. A little tension leaked from Savannah’s shoulders. On one hand, she really hoped Ian was wrong. She loathed the idea that Hank had been listening to, or worse, watching her. On the other hand, it would explain how he was always one step ahead of her and give her more control over what he heard and didn’t hear.
Ian let go of her hand and continued into the kitchen. His phone made a static sound, the pitch changing as he moved the phone over various surfaces.
Savannah crossed her arms and stepped into the kitchen, seeing the space with new eyes. Nervous eyes. She rubbed a hand over her face, turned, and wandered into the living room. She stood in front of the window, looking out at the black night and the cruiser parked across the street, waffling between fury and hopelessness.
She worried the edge of her sweater between her fingers as Ian made his way through the living room
and hallway.
He’d gone through the entire house in minutes. Minutes that felt like lifetimes to Savannah. When he came up behind her and put a hand on her back, she jumped.
“Sorry,” he whispered at her ear. “Let’s talk outside.”
She turned, and Ian took her hand in his again, drawing her from the house out the back door. The cold, quiet night closed in. Ian wrapped his arms around her, taking the brunt of the cold and lending his body heat to keep her from shivering.
“I found one audio-video surveillance unit,” he told her.
“Video?” Her stomach clenched as his mind raced back in time, trying to remember everything she’d said or done that could have alerted Hank to her plans. “Where?”
“The hallway. The camera is a micro CCTV unit pointed toward the living room. Even with a one-hundred-eighty-degree view, it only monitors the living room and the hallway. Because of the floorplan, the bedrooms, kitchen and laundry room are video-free zones.”
She exhaled, relieved Hank couldn’t see inside her bedroom, grateful he hadn’t found her escape hatch out the back. “Still, that’s sick. What about the audio? How good is it?”
“Hard to tell. Most units like that are designed to monitor one room well. But since the house is small, I’d guess it could pick up most conversations at a normal volume. The farther from the unit, the more degraded the quality.”
“Shit.” She buried her face against his chest.
“It’s not always on. It’s remotely controlled by calling in and activating it.”
“I don’t care.” She looked up at him. “I want it out.”
He stroked her back with one hand, her hair with the other. “If we take it out, he’ll know we found it, and that would only make him increase security on the house. You don’t want that. Besides, his illegal surveillance might be something you could use in court against him.”
She exhaled and closed her eyes, wishing she could force all this ugliness away. “I can’t live like this.”
“Why don’t you get some things and stay at my place tonight? I’ll take the sofa. We can talk out a plan.”
His suggestion added a whole new and confusing element to this mess. She didn’t want to drag him into a problem that wasn’t his. But she found herself grabbing hold of a lifeline no one else had offered.
She nodded and turned toward the house. But Ian turned her back.
“Just do what you always do. Act like you’re getting ready for bed. You need to make sure whoever’s watching thinks I’m out of the picture and you’ve returned to your normal habits.”
“Then how—”
“After you turn out the lights, get into bed. Move your pillows around to make it look like you’re there. Wait ten minutes, then slide out and stay as quiet as possible as you leave. My back door will be open.”