The Electrician's Code by Clarissa Draper Page A

another look in the living room, she continued, “I better be going now.”
    “Yeah.” He ran his hand across the back of his neck.
    A bang came from his bedroom. It wasn’t a loud bang and though Sophia looked toward the wall between her and his bedroom, she didn’t say anything. Why couldn’t Sarah just stay still for a few minutes?
    “My neighbor upstairs makes so much noise in the morning,” Liam shot off quickly. “How do you think I rise so early? He’s my morning alarm. Just ignore it.”
    She didn’t look impressed. “If I were you, I would’ve ignored the sound instead of making the excuses of a guilty man. Besides, the pair of woman’s heels are a dead giveaway. Unless there’s something I didn’t know about your kinky extracurricular activities.”
    “Look—”
    Sophia patted him on the cheek. “Liam, do something that surprises me. I expect this of you.” With that, she left.
    Shit. He was a bastard.
    “Is she gone?” Sarah whispered and poked her head from behind the bedroom door.
    “Yeah. You can come out now.”
    “How did she know I was here?”
    “Because you couldn’t keep quiet in the bedroom.”
    “I didn’t make a sound. I swear! The noise came from upstairs.”
    “Then she’s smarter than either of us put together.”

Chapter Sixteen
    T he bloody bastard.” Sophia slammed her hand down on the steering wheel of her Fiat 500. She really couldn’t blame him for sleeping with other women. How the hell did he find time to meet women? Must be someone from the office. The only person she could think of was Sarah. Sophia knew that woman had her eye on Liam for a long time. She made it apparent by her frequent stops at his office for the most trivial reasons. But Sophia felt so stupid. Why did she have to walk in on them?
    Her mobile phone rang. Liam. She threw the phone on the seat beside her. She had a job to do, and she was determined to get it done and done fast.
    What she needed was a boyfriend.
    A text message came through on her mobile and although tempted to ignore it, she couldn’t resist reading what Liam had to say. Only, it wasn’t Liam. It was from the last person she expected to hear from: Theo Blackwell.
    I could use your professional opinion. Would it be too much bother?
    Theo had moved up from Detective Inspector to Detective Chief Inspector after their last case together. She had wanted to congratulate him but couldn’t gather her nerves. On the one occasion she stopped by his house, he was just leaving with his wife. They looked happy and she didn’t want to interrupt, but in the end, she never returned.
    Now he wanted her help. Her professional opinion. What could that mean? She knew he was working on the Tipring case, and she knew the name sounded familiar. Perhaps there was something she missed in her search. She had the day to delve deeper.
    Where shall we meet? she texted back.
    He texted an address and a time—eight.

Chapter Seventeen
    T heo had agreed to pick Dorland up from his flat, his new flat, and arrived at nine on the dot. The flat wasn’t much better than his last poorly managed building. Paint peeled off the exterior walls and screens, perhaps torn open in attempted burglaries, flapped in the wind.
    From the moment he pressed send, he regretted texting Sophia. What was he thinking? What information could she possibly provide? It would become clear he was only trying to find a way to meet her.
    Theo had never met his partner’s step-sister, Jady, even though Dorland had mentioned her on numerous occasions. He had many brothers and sisters but as far as Theo knew, he was closest with step-sister Jady. Theo knew she worked as a swimming instructor at the local youth center.
    As expected, his fellow inspector wasn’t ready and before Theo could respond to the intercom, the door into the building clicked open. Theo turned his head to look at his car, trying to decide whether to walk the two flights of stairs or just return to the car. He