“The first guy on the list is out,” Victoria said. “And the second.”
Ford removed the eliminated candidates as they scrolled through the entire list. When finished, he sat back as Victoria did a quick count.
“Eleven men left,” she said.
“Yep. One of these Peter Sutters is likely the dickhead who had sex with my sister, got her pregnant, and then sneaked out while she was sleeping.”
She gave him a sideways look. “This is probably a good time to reiterate my don’t-do-anything-stupid-and-screw-up-my-case speech.”
“Maybe it is,” Ford growled. Because right then, he was trying to remember all the reasons he shouldn’t give Peter Sutter a swift kick in the ass when he found him.
Victoria leaned her elbow on the table, angling her body to face him. “Okay, so I can see you’re going into caveman mode or whatever. But remember, we agreed that we would do this my way. That means the professional way. So while it’s sweet that you’re protective of your sister, if we’re going to do this, you have to take off your big brother hat and simply be an objective investigator.”
Like that was even remotely possible. “Do you have a brother?”
She sat back and looked at him, as if already aware of what he was going to say. “No,” she conceded.
“Okay, your father, then. Think about how he would feel if he was in my shoes.”
“I haven’t seen the man in over twenty years, but fine—I get the point you’re trying to make. But can you at least fake being objective while you’re out and about and doing . . . whatever it is you’re going to do to track down the right Peter Sutter?”
He gave her a look that said, yes, he could be cool. He wasn’t dumb enough to do anything that might cause trouble for Nicole. “I can manage that.” He turned back to his computer and continued on. “All right. For each of the eleven remaining Peter Sutters, this report gives us a home address, phone number—which could be home or mobile, depending on what he’s provided to credit agencies—and a social security number. And with those social security numbers, I can run additional searches that’ll tell us all sorts of interesting things.”
She appeared amused. “You’re getting into this, aren’t you?”
“Hell, yes. I’m a journalist. Information is my currency.” He saw her smile. “What?”
“Nothing. I’m just picturing you at your desk at the Tribune, typing away with a little ‘Information Is My Currency’ sign framed on your desk.”
“Cross-stitched and everything.”
She laughed. “Really?”
“No, not really.” He raised an eyebrow. “But if these hot-reporter fantasies are something you have often, Ms. Slade, we could always explore that in more detail . . .” He smiled innocently at her withering look. “Or maybe we should just get back to the search.”
“Good plan.”
Hands hovering over the keyboard, he paused and looked over. “I’m going to begin typing now, so you might want to brace yourself for the onslaught of sexiness.”
“I’m braced.”
Rather enjoying himself now, he turned back to his laptop. “So, like I was saying, with the social security numbers, we can run additional searches for all these guys. I’ll go ahead and pull one up . . .” Using the first Peter Sutter as an example, he clicked on the link for “Premium Profile” and scrolled through the various categories. “Okay, so here we can see if he has an arrest or criminal record. Also, whether he’s ever filed for bankruptcy, has an eviction record, has ever had any judgments filed against him in a civil case, holds any professional licenses, is a registered sex offender, has any tax liens against him, and any outstanding warrants.”
“And people say there’s no privacy on the Internet.” When he didn’t immediately answer, she looked over. “What’s wrong?”
Ford frowned. “It says that this guy—Peter Sutter Number One—has a criminal record.” He went ahead and ran the search, which pulled up the man’s criminal history. “He served a three-year sentence for felony battery . . . Oh, and he also has two class B misdemeanor convictions for possession of a controlled substance.” His tone turned dry. “Ah, what every man hopes for in his sister’s baby-daddy.”
Leaning back in the barstool, he sighed. Great. Now he had to worry about whether he might be tracking down a criminal and bringing him into his sister’s and niece’s lives.
“It’s probably not him, Ford,” Victoria said reassuringly. She pointed to the computer. “For all you know, Zoe’s father is . . . Peter Sutter Number Six. And Peter Sutter Number Six is going to turn out to be a really good guy. He’ll be one of those dads who drives his daughter to ballet practice every Saturday morning while singing Disney songs in the car.”
“God, anything but that.”
She laughed, and their eyes held for a moment. Then she looked away and turned back to the computer. “This is great stuff, by the way. But how do you plan to figure out which one of these eleven guys is the right Peter Sutter?”
“Nicole thinks she could ID the guy from a photo, so I guess I’ll have to go to their home addresses and somehow get a picture of each of them. I’m not a professional photographer, but I know my way around a camera well enough.”
It took her a moment. “Meaning, you’re going to stake out these guys?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have much choice. Although first, I want to check out the bar where Nicole met the guy, to see if anyone knows a Peter Sutter. Maybe he’s a regular there and we’ll get lucky.”
“Huh.”
She was giving him a look he couldn’t read. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I mean . . . it’s not un-interesting, this idea of going on stakeouts and doing all this snooping around.”
His tone turned coy. “Having another hot-reporter fantasy? There’s always room in the car for two during a stakeout, Ms. Slade.”
Yep, that got him another withering look.
* * *
AFTER VICTORIA LEFT, Ford did a sweep of his loft and began packing up the Restoration Hardware boxes. The hole in his bedroom wall was patched and the shelves were installed. Now that Victoria was helping his sister and niece, he figured the least he could do in exchange was temporarily dial back the rest of his noisy home improvement projects. He’d probably gone a little overboard with that, anyway.