Chapter 1: To Catch a Thief
Rolling out of bed, Dan Walker headed straight for the shower after turning the coffee maker on. Ten minutes later, he carried a cup of coffee as he walked out onto the patio at the back of his small house to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. However, the instant he set foot outside, he stopped, his smile disappeared and a frown took its place.
"Oh hell!" He swore, almost silently. " Someone stole another one."
The neat display of plants that sat on a small bench on his deck had another obvious empty space in the neat pattern of colourful pots. Another of his collection of small cacti was missing and this one had been in full flower. That was the fourth missing cactus in two weeks
Sighing deeply, he sat down on a deck chair and seethed. There wasn't much he could do about the petty thefts and he knew that he was simply a victim of opportunity, yet to him it felt that he was being targeted. He sat there in frustration, four separate thefts, four plants were gone and there wasn't much more he could do.
A glance at his back fence confirmed his suspicions that someone had once more managed to find a way to open the locked gate and enter his back yard. What good was a ten-foot high privacy fence that cost three-thousand dollars and an additional four-hundred dollar gate with a two-hundred dollar lock, if some creep could open it when they wanted and take what they pleased, then leave the gate partly open as if to flaunt the theft? Yet it wasn't the dollar value of his investment in the fence or even the loss of the plants that frustrated Dan; it was the idea that his personal space had been invaded with impunity which annoyed him most.
He'd already talked to the cops at the local police station and knew that they couldn't do anything other than increase the patrols in the area which seemed useless to Dan. Since he was away from the house for a twelve-hour stretch doing his job as a fireman and since he lived alone, there was plenty of opportunity for the thief, but surely there was something he could do.
Setting the empty coffee cup just inside the sliding door, Dan walked down across that back yard and looked at the outside of the lock on his backyard gate in the high fence. This time there were no scratches, no marks and the little strip of security tape over the keyhole wasn't damaged, yet the gate wasn't fully closed. That meant it had been opened from the inside. Since the interior of his house was fully alarmed, that meant the thief had to be climbing over the back yard fence, grabbing a plant, then letting themselves out through the gate.
A quick glance into the narrow alley behind his property proved his suspicions. The thief had moved one of the neighbour's garbage cans next to his fence, then had used it to climb over the fence. In fact the garbage can was still there. Dan stepped back inside his gate and closed it carefully, then he glanced around his yard and slowly his expression changed
All that day and into the late afternoon hours, the neighbourhood was disturbed by the sounds of hammer, saw and drill as Dan worked industriously in his back yard. When he was done, he stood on his deck and visually surveyed his small back yard. A satisfied look crossed his face, then a deep chuckle rose from his throat as he grinned almost maliciously. Spinning on his heel, he went inside, then carefully closed and locked the sliding door.
Not long later, some of his neighbours may have been watching as he loaded a duffle bag into his pickup truck like he always did when he went to work, then he hopped into the truck and drove away.
Many hours later a small hooded figure moved surreptitiously in the shadows of the alley. Making hardly any noise, the figure disappeared from view in the deep shadow near the fence, then as if by magic a hooded head appeared above the top boards of the fence itself. The head swung slowly and cautiously from side to side, taking in the changes that had been made that day as Dan had worked.
The supports for the deck were now enclosed by a solid wall. The sundial and birdbath that had stood in the lawn were now gone, so was the little enclosure that had held the garbage cans. There was no furniture of any kind on the back deck and now instead of sitting on a bench, the potted plants were lined up along the edge of the deck.
A quick glance at the dark house, then one more up and down the alley and the figure slipped to the top of the fence, swung around, then dropped down and scurried toward the edge of the deck and the plants that were displayed there. Just as a hand reached out toward one of the pots several things happened at once. A ringing sound could be heard inside the house as an alarm sounded, the lights along the back of the house came on and completely illuminated the back yard, then to top it off, the underground sprinkler system came on.
The hooded figure spun and looked around frantically, then dashed for the gate. However now, instead of the handle that had been there before, the gate seemed to be held solidly closed by several huge screws through a large metal plate. As a sprinkler swept toward it, the figure spun to dash one way, then the other. After being repeatedly doused by the sprinklers and finally realising that the only dry area in the yard was the raised patio behind the house, the figure leaped up there to escape from the cold spray.
Just then Dan's figure appeared behind the glass of the sliding door. As the sliding door rumbled open and his large frame stepped forward, the hooded figure seemed to shrink, slowly slumping down to sit dejectedly on the bare deck and staring up at him from under the hooded jacket.
The hood allowed enough of the face to be seen that Dan could see it was a kid. He calmly pulled a cell phone from his pocket and held it in front of him, one finger of his other hand poised over the keypad.
"There are two ways we can handle this." He said quietly, his voice a deep bass rumble. "I have the local police station's phone number on speed dial. If I press one button, I'll have them online and they will be here inside of ten minutes. You will be charged with forced entry because you had to use an object of some sort to get over the fence and probably with attempt breaking and entry because I have you on videotape as you leaped upward to get into my house. If they investigate, and they will, and if they discover any of my plants in your possession, you will be charged with theft.
"I don't know the law well enough to even guess what else they will add to that list, but I assure you, they will find additional charges. You see, the cops like me, because I've saved some of their lives while I was on the job. They'll make sure that they charge you with something that will send you away and they'll make sure that the charges stick. On top of that, my sister is a lawyer, in fact, she's a local prosecutor. The judges like her and because I'm a fireman who risks my life and limb to protect people's lives and property, they like me as well. That's going to make defending you in court a very difficult job for any lawyer who might be forced into doing it."
"Oh God no." The hooded figure whispered. "B-but, you said there were two ways. What's the other way?"
"The other option is that you stay right there on the deck until tomorrow morning, while I go back to bed. When I wake up, I will sit right there at the table and have a nice breakfast. When I'm done, you will put on a label or a sign will proclaim you to be a thief, then we will march along the street to your home. There, in front of your family, you will apologise to me for stealing my plants. After that, carrying one plant at a time, we will walk back and forth between our homes until you have returned everything you stole. As we walk through the neighbourhood if any people ask what is going on, you will apologise for disturbing them, then you'll explain to them why you are wearing the sign that declares you to be a thief."
"Fuck. That's even worse!" The small voice whispered.
"Oh no it isn't and you will mind your language while you are on my property. There will be no further swearing. Now slide that hood off, I want to see who has been stealing my property. Don't do anything else though. Just take off the hood, but stay where you are."
The offender's hands slowly lifted, then the hood was slowly pushed back to reveal a very pretty teenage girl's face. Perhaps fourteen years old, she had rusty blonde hair, freckles and dimples, definitely not what Dan had been expecting. Tears were cascading down her face as she stared up at him and sobbed softly.
"Now to get back to our discussion, do you know what would happen to you if I called the police right now?" Dan said slowly and menacingly.
"No." She whimpered, shaking her head from side to side.
"You would be taken downtown, photographed, fingerprinted and charged. You would definitely be searched, perhaps you'd even be strip searched. Most of that sort of work is handled by women officers who really like pretty young girls and who love to do strip searches, if you understand what I mean. They often do a full cavity search if they have any excuse that a young woman is being uncooperative and I've heard that they are not exactly gentle about their job. After all that was done, you would be allowed to call your parents, who would have to arrange for bail before they could get you out of jail. Until they arrived, you would be placed in a cell.
"Now normally, you might be in a cell with only one or two inmates, but since there is a push on by the mayor and council to clean up the town, the police are out to crack down on youth prostitutes. They probably wouldn't have enough cells to treat you with kid gloves. Instead you would be placed in a cell with whatever other young women had been arrested tonight. Most of those young women and girls would likely be prostitutes who were drunk, on drugs, sick, injured and perhaps very horny.
"Unfortunately, you are a very pretty child. It's very possible that before your parents got there, one or more of the most aggressive of those prostitutes would decide that you looked like fresh meat that they'd like to try out. They might think they could score big points with their pimp by bringing you back to him as a new recruit or they might just decide that you would be a great toy to while away their time as they waited through the long hours of the night. Either way, you could end up with any of a variety of STD's. Some of the local ladies of the night have AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, vaginal warts and who knows what else. All it would take would be one tongue kiss or a little finger work to pass one or more of those things on to you.
"I doubt if you'd enjoy the experience, not even if you were treated with kid gloves."
Having said all that, Dan simply stopped speaking and the only sounds he could hear for several minutes were her quiet sobs. Several times he was almost ready to give up on maintaining his harsh act and simply reach out to cuddle the little kid, but somehow he managed to keep his resolution to scare hell out of her. Finally she managed to get control of herself enough to slow her sobs, then use her hands to wipe away some of the tears on her face.
"Oh please. I'll do almost anything." She whimpered as her pleading face looked up at him.
"Yeah! Sure!" He said sarcastically, managing to keep his voice in character. "You just stay right there and don't even think about moving or I press this button and the cops will be on the way to get you."
"But I can't be arrested. Mom would be devastated and we're all alone now since she and Dad split."
"Too bad. You should have thought of that before you started stealing things." Dan growled. "However, I have a soft spot in my heart for single mothers. They have a rough enough time of it as it is, without problems from their kids. She's probably worried about you already, so before we go any further, I need your name and a phone number to call your mother. That way I can let her know you're still alive."
"Oh Please! You can't call her!"
"Well, I guess it's the cops then." He lifted the phone and poised his finger over the button.
"Oh please, don't. Anything but that. I'll tell you her number, but she's at work."
"I'll need her work number and your full name."
"Oh God!"
"Language!" He barked.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She whimpered, then moaned. "Oh, I just peed myself."
"Too bad." He tried to make his voice as unemotional as possible as he stepped back just inside the door and picked up a pen and pad of paper from the table near the door. "Name?"
"Lisa Franklin." She whispered, shifting her bottom uneasily.
"Your home phone number and address?"
She gave it to him and he wrote that down.
"Your mother's work number?"
"I don't know it off by heart. Just call the reception desk at the General Hospital and ask for Dora Franklin." She sobbed loudly.
Since she was wet and it was cool out, she'd begun to shiver, but Dan knew that he had to leave her like that while he made the phone call, even though he didn't really want to.
"I want you to stay right where you are. I'm going to close this door so you can't get away by running through the house. I'll have to go into the other room to find the phone number for the hospital, but I'll still be able to see you through the door, so don't move. Don't even think about moving, not even one inch."
"Where could I go? I can't get out of the yard. The fence is too high." She moaned. "I know I'm sunk so I'll stay. But, please, can't I come inside, I'm freezing."
"I'll call your mother. If she promises me that I can trust you, I'll let you sit in the kitchen. You'll have to sit on one of the deck chairs since you're so wet, but if you're good, I'll give you a blanket."
"Mom's gonna ground me forever." Lisa whimpered.
"As a parent, that's her right." He growled. "If you were my kid, I'd probably do more than that."
With that he slid the door closed and turned away, walking slowly into the darkness of the interior of the house.
Lisa watched him go and knew she'd made a terrible mistake. She just knew her life was ruined. What was worse, she knew it was her own fault. She broke into almost hysterical sobs. She was so scared and she felt so helpless.
Dan walked back into the darkness of the living room and then turned to look back at her. In a way he felt sorry for her, but he knew she had to be taught a lesson and forced himself to carry on with the hurried plan that he'd cobbled together.
As he was dialling the phone number, he realised that he knew who her mother was. He'd seen her at the reception desk of the hospital at least one time when he had ridden to the hospital with the EMT's. He sighed deeply as he held the phone to his ear and waited for an answer.
"General hospital reception desk. May I help you?"
"Could I speak to Dora Franklin please?" Dan asked.
"May I ask what this is about?"
"It's about her daughter." Dan replied. "She's in trouble."
"Oh My. Hang on. I'll get her."
He was placed on hold, but only a moment or two later he heard someone else pick up the phone.
"Hello? This is Dora Franklin. What's wrong with Lisa?"
"Hello Ms. Franklin. Your daughter gave me this number to call to let you know where she is. She's presently sitting out on my back deck, waiting for my decision whether I should call the police to have her tossed into detention or whether you and I should decide what she deserves in the way of punishment. Your daughter has been climbing over my back fence and stealing my cactus plants. Tonight she found that I had increased the security on my back yard and she was unable to escape."
"Is she hurt?"
"Not unless wetting her pants is considered an injury. She is getting chilly because when the intruder alarm went off , it turned on my sprinkler system and she got completely soaked." He said calmly. "However, since she is underage, I really shouldn't let her into the house without another witness here who can attest that I'm not harming her in any way."
"You haven't hurt her have you?" The tone of her voice sounded as if it was full of fear.
"No, Mrs. Franklin, you can trust me on that. Good lord, you even know me. I'm a fireman and you were introduced at the reception desk a few weeks ago. My name is Dan Walker."
"Oh God! And Lisa has been bringing me your plants?"
"Bringing you my plants?"
"Yes, we lived in the desert for a while and in many ways, that was the best time of our lives. When she brought them home, those plants remind us both of where we lived and what life was like then." She paused and sighed deeply. "Oh God, what am I going to do now?"
"Well, if you can book off work, you can come here and take her off my hands. Right now she's terrified that I'm going to send her to juvenile detention. Actually, I've done my best to make sure she thinks I'm a cold-hearted bastard who really doesn't care what happens to her. I would like her to be disciplined in some way, but she's your child and that's your decision not mine. To be honest, I just want the thefts to stop."
"Oh, I'll book off right now and come for her. I just need your address."
Dan gave her his address.
"I can be there in thirty minutes at the most. Could you let her come inside, please. She'll be simply terrified and if she's cold too, it'll be so hard on her."
Dan really didn't really like the way she was sounding because ti sounded as if she was taking the kids side against him and decided to push her buttons. "Well when you get here, if you immediately act like she needs sympathy, she'll use that to justify her actions you know. She needs some kind of parental controls and a bit of discipline, so you'd better build up a good mad on the way."
"Now just a minute, just what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm annoyed, and I'm sure you can understand why." He held his voice as flat and neutral as possible. "What I'm telling you is that your child has admitted to theft. Hell, you're almost as guilty as she is; you accepted stolen goods from her as a gift. Did you even ask her where she got the cactus?"
There was a moment of silence.
"No. I never thought to ask her that." Her voice sounded almost apologetic. "Please don't lose your temper, Mr. Walker. I'll be there as quickly as I can. I promise that Lisa and I will repay our debt to you and that you will get your plants back."
"Thank you. Now did you say I was allowed to let her inside? If I do, it's on your approval and you'll have to be responsible to me for anything she does if there is any damage to my home."
"Oh certainly, I'm sure she'll behave herself. You tell her that I asked you to let her inside and please, since she's chilled, could you see that she gets something warm to drink?" Her voice was signalling a lot of her care. "I don't suppose you have anything dry for her to change into, do you?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm a large man, anything I have would be much too large for her." Dan sighed in exasperation. "I'll tell you what, why don't you go home and pick up something for her to wear before you come here. However, please don't bring the plants right now. I want her to bring them back herself. In fact, I want her to carry them back by herself, one at a time."
"Oh!" It sounded as if she gasped, then her tone changed. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Mr Walker. I'll get her some clothes and see you as soon as I can make it."
"Don't hurry so much that you have an accident." Dan said shortly. "I won't let her leave and I promise she won't come to any harm before you get here either. Did you want to talk to her?"
"Oh, thank you for the offer, but in the mood I'm in, I want to speak to her face to face. I'll see you shortly." She said, then hung up the phone.
Dan sighed softly, then grabbed an old blanket that he'd used for years to cover an old armchair. Moving into the kitchen, he turned on the heat under his teakettle, then shifted one of the plastic deck chairs into the middle of the room. After that was done, he walked to the sliding door and opened it.
Lisa was huddled on the deck and lifted her head. She glanced at him, then bowed her head silently, her lower jaw quivering as her teeth chattered. Dan didn't know if it was from the cold or from fear.
"Wh-wh-what'd M-M-Mom s-s-say?" Lisa shivered.
"She said I could let you come inside my house to warm up." Dan said quietly."There's a plastic chair for you to sit on and here's an old blanket to wrap yourself in."
"Oh th-thank you, Sir." She shivered, getting to her feet quickly, reaching for the blanket, then pausing to look down at herself. "Oh, I-I-I'm all w-wet and if I wr-r-rap up in that, th-th-then the b-b-blanket will be w-wet too and I'll just s-stay c-c-cold."
"The blanket can be washed and dried. Just kick off your shoes and get inside for now." Dan growled. "I don't want the mud from your shoes on the floor."
"Y-y-yes, S-sir."
"Hah, that's one more thing we need to remember isn't it?"
"Wh-wh-what's th-that?"
"We'll have to remember to tell your mother about your footprints in my garden and the flowers you've damaged out there while you were running around wildly." He growled. "I think someone is going to have to do some gardening."
"Oh." She whimpered.
When she finally managed to get her sneakers and socks off, then stepped inside, he offered her the blanket again. She took it, but set it on the seat of the plastic chair, then her eyes looked up at him pleadingly.
"Could I borrow a t-t-towel? A-a-and m-maybe a damp cloth, t-to w-wipe the gunge off w-with? I p-promise I won't g-g-go anywhere or t-touch anything."
Dan frowned, then decided she really meant it when she said she'd stay right there. She was very wet, in fact her clothing was actually dripping on her bare feet. He turned and went to the bathroom to grab a towel, then paused to run a washcloth under the hot tap for a minute, then he wrung it out and returned to his kitchen.
He stared at her in surprise. She was turned away from him and bent over as she struggled to slide her tight jeans down her legs. The rest of her was already bare except for a tiny white thong that was very wet and almost transparent. Even though her pussy was hidden under the wet thong, it was quite visible between her legs and drew Dan's eyes long enough for him to realise that sexually, she was a fully developed young woman.
"What are you doing?" He blurted.
"G-g-getting out of my f-f-freezing wet c-clothes." She shivered.
In just seconds, she succeeded in working her wet, clinging jeans down to her ankles. Kicking them off, she used her foot to drop them onto the pile of wet clothing near the sliding door. Dan was simply speechless as she turned and held out her hands for the towel and washcloth.
"Thanks." She whispered as he handed them to her automatically.
He just nodded, voicelessly. Her eyes never lifted to his and he decided that right now it might be a good thing. If she didn't look up at his face, then she couldn't see the sheer lust his face must be radiating.
He couldn't stop himself as his eyes roamed over her body and he instantly upgraded his estimate of her age from early teens to mid or even late teens. Her curves and her stance proclaimed her to be a woman, not a child. Although she was short, she had nice plump breasts, topped by little pink nipples that were standing out like oversized pencil erasers. Everything about the rest of her figure was an erotic dream. Below her beautiful breasts, her body narrowed into a tiny waist, then widened into the broad hips of a fully developed woman. To add to her erotic appeal, her stance provided him with a view of a perfect camel toe, scarcely hidden from his gaze by that tiny thong that had faded to near transparency because it was wet.
The sight of her shape and especially her pussy peeking through the wet clinging thong screamed 'Danger, Sexy Woman' to his stunned mind. He found he still couldn't speak, all he could do was stare open mouthed as she began wiping her legs with the washcloth, then she paused.
"Eeuchh." She grimaced. "My p-panties are j-just s-s-soaked."
With that, she turned away from him and simply pulled them down. As she bent forward and spread her legs slightly to slide her thong down her legs, her plump pussy virtually winked at him when she lifted one foot after the other to slip it off. Then she was using the wet washcloth to wiping the flesh of her legs and thighs. She widened her stance as she wiped higher, causing Dan to suck in a deep breath. The soft bulge of her sex was hidden for several swift passes of the wet cloth. Finally her legs slipped together and she quickly stood straight.
The wash cloth joined her wet clothes in the pile and she grabbed the towel, quickly drying herself from head to toe. She alternated standing on one foot or the other as she lifted the other leg to wipe her lower calves and feet, each time giving Dan a different view of her little bubble butt and her delightfully shaped sex. Then bending forward one last time, she twisted the towel around her wet hair and grabbed the blanket to whip it around her nude body before she seated herself.
"Th-th-thank you for the t-towel and b-blanket, Sir." She said through chattering teeth, but still didn't look at his face.
Having her speak seemed to release him from the spell her sweet body had put him under, his eyes could look at something besides her delicious body. Suddenly he could hear the whistle of his teakettle screaming madly, but when he tried to move, he found that he had to shuffle. His dick had swelled into an uncomfortable position and he had to wriggle his hips as he moved, just to release it from the bind in his shorts. Even so, the few steps to the counter were painful.
Once he was facing the counter and turned away from her, he managed to use his hand on the outside of his jeans to adjust it properly.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" He asked quietly.
"Oh yes, S-sir. Not t-too strong and w-with some s-sugar and a b-bit of milk, if you have it, p-please."
Dan managed to make tea for both of them, pouring it into large mugs and somehow Lisa managed to keep herself wrapped in the blanket while holding the mug in both hands. Neither of them spoke other than Lisa's brief 'thank you' as Dan passed her the mug. She sat staring out the sliding door at the array of plants on the deck, her face set in an impassive stare. Dan's eyes roved as he tried to think of anything else other than the young girl's sweet body he had seen. He was having a hard time of it since he knew she was still sitting there, the only difference was that now her body was hidden under the old blanket.
Both of them jumped as the doorbell chimed a few minutes later.