Chapter Twelve
It was a little after one when Luna and Miley returned to the house. This time in separate cars.
What was left of a take-out pizza sat in a cardboard box on the kitchen table.
In addition to the pizza box there was a stack of unopened boxes that held all the equipment Ash had threatened to buy.
But it was the opened boxes that took up most of the room.
It was as if the men had ripped through them, pulled out all the packaging to grab what they needed, and then tossed the trash to the floor.
“Damn,” Miley said when she saw the mess.
“My brother was never great at keeping his room clean.”
“You should see what a trauma bay looks like after we’ve taken the patient to surgery,” Miley said. “At least here there isn’t any blood.”
“Yuck.”
“I’ll grab a trash bag from the garage.”
Luna found Ash and Nate in the back of the house. Nate was on a ladder, and Ash stood below with his phone in his hand, looking at the screen.
“You sure we don’t want this to cover the entire backyard?” Ash asked Nate.
“If you do that it will go off with every gust of wind and be ignored. At this angle only a person or an animal will trip the sensor and turn on the light.”
Luna stepped out, careful not to bump into the ladder. “How’s it going?”
Ash glanced at her, then back to his phone. “Slow, but we’re getting there.”
Nate had changed out of the sweatpants and into a pair of jeans. Something she shouldn’t have noticed.
“Any news about your car?” Nate asked.
“Kempski hasn’t called.”
“Sorry.”
Luna shrugged and moved to stand by her brother.
On the screen of his phone, she saw the both of them through the eye of the lens.
“Right there,” Ash said.
Nate stepped off the ladder and joined them. “That’s good.”
Ash looked around them. “I don’t know. I still think we need another one with a wider angle looking down at the house. Maybe on the fence?”
“We can, but I’m telling you it will go off so often it would rival the spam robocalls we all ignore. Some of that’s going to happen anyway. You’ll be adjusting the settings for a while to reduce the false alarms,” Nate insisted.
“This is connected to an alarm?” Luna asked.
“The outdoor cameras will alert you when there is movement. If a door opens or a window is breached when the alarm is set, an alarm will go off.”
Luna had seen enough movies to understand the basics of home security systems.
“What did you use with the Feds to obtain better coverage?”
“Nothing you’re going to find at Home Depot,” Nate said.
“How about some James Bond laser beam action?” Luna teased.
“I like that idea,” Ash said quickly.
With a roll of her eyes, Luna turned to walk back into the house to let the man-bonding continue. “Have fun.”
Back in the kitchen she helped Miley break down boxes and get rid of the trash.
“Your brother is out of control. There must be enough stuff here to protect the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.”
“Ash takes sheltering his own very seriously.” And it was easy to guess why.
“But all this?” Miley lifted the garbage bag that was quickly filling up.
“Do you want to lay a bet that he goes back for more?” Luna asked.
Miley shook her head. “I’d lose.”
After the last empty box was broken down and shoved in a bag, Ash walked in and grabbed two more boxes. “I would have cleaned that up.”
“We got it.”
Ash smiled and left.
“I should call Harper, let her know Ash is here.”
“I’ll make a list and get to the grocery store. We can’t live on pizza,” Miley said.
Luna headed up to her room while everyone else stayed busy.
She liked this. The way everyone in the house took part in keeping things moving. And not because they had to but because they wanted to.
Luna couldn’t help but wonder if this was the calm Jorden hinted at.
And if it was, when should she expect the storm?
Nate believed in protecting his family, but Ash took it to a whole new level.
They were currently modifying a door sensor to work on a bug screen.
That way Luna and Miley could set the alarm when they were home even with a window opened.
There weren’t many summer nights in Seattle that were hot enough to leave a window open all night, but when they happened, everyone liked taking advantage of it.
“Ash?” Luna yelled from downstairs.
“Yeah?”
“Harper is here.”
“Go on ahead, I’ll finish these up,” Nate offered.
Ash took him up on his offer, leaving Nate alone in Luna’s bedroom.
He put in the final screw on the screen he’d been working on before moving to the last one.
Upstairs windows were less likely to be breached by an intruder, but apparently Ash had responded to a call where a woman was assaulted by someone who had climbed up a tree, onto the roof, and into the bedroom.
Then he waited for his victim. The alarm never went off.
Ash had gone on to spell out the details, facts that churned Nate’s stomach.
After that he was completely on board with the second-story window sensors.
Nate did enjoy the work, but it was nice to see the end of the project.
He collected the tools but didn’t have enough hands to take the trash with him in one trip. Taking a final look at Luna’s personal space gave him a sense of calm. No one was getting in that house without alerting the people inside.
In the hall, sitting on top of the stairs, Midnight regarded him with a side-eye and a meow. “Where have you been all day?” he asked the cat.
With a whip of the tail, the cat led the way downstairs and into the kitchen, where all the voices were coming from.
“All done,” he announced.
“You have to be tired,” Luna said.
He was more hungry than tired. And the smell coming from the oven had his stomach rumbling.
“I’m good,” he said.
“Who are you?” Harper asked.
“Oh, sorry. Harper, this is Nate.”
She hesitated. “Mr. Venti, Nate?”
He fixed his gaze on Luna, who tried not to smile.
“Did you tell everyone about the coffee?” Nate asked Luna.
“She was the one I was picking up coffee for. Harper works with an attorney in the building,” Luna told him.
“What’s the coffee all about?” Ash asked.
“It was nothing,” Luna said before quickly changing the subject. “Where is Jerry?”
“He has a new job and is putting in long hours trying to make a good impression.”
“What happened to his old job?” Ash asked.
“It was a start-up that didn’t start,” Miley reported dryly.
“He’s done that a couple of times now, hasn’t he?” Ash opened the fridge and removed a longneck beer. He looked at Nate and offered it with a nod.
“Sure.” He needed to counter the energy drinks with something or he’d be up all night. “Who is Jerry?”
“My husband,” Harper said.
“Jerry is allergic to manual labor,” Ash told Nate. “He probably heard there was a project going on and chose to work late because of it.”
“Oh, shush,” Harper said.
Luna glanced at Nate. “Every family has their drama.”
“So, Nate . . . how is it you’ve known Luna for what, a week now? And you got roped into a full day of labor?”
“Day and night. He slept over to ward off any bad guys that might have come by,” Miley said.
“You stayed the night?” Harper sounded shocked.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Nate said.
Luna moved past her siblings and toward the oven. “Can we take this in the dining room? I want to eat while it’s hot.”
With Luna’s request everyone grabbed something from the kitchen island and hauled it to the other room.
“Nate, can you grab the wine?” Luna asked.
“Sure.”
Luna and Miley had made a baked ziti, and it smelled delicious.
Food was passed around the table, and the conversation never stopped.
Across from Nate, Harper kept the questions coming. “Luna said you worked with the FBI.”
“It sounds more glamorous than it was.”
“Investigating fraud is long and tedious work,” Luna said.
“Still . . . the FBI, that had to have some perks.”
“Sure . . .” Nate passed the garlic bread to Ash, who sat at the head of the table. “Delays in pay when Congress shut down. Long hours on salary without compensation. Understaffing. It had a ton of perks.”
“You didn’t like it?” Ash asked.
“It taught me a lot. Ultimately it was a stepping stone. Like being a beat cop.”
While Ash and Nate had worked, Nate learned a little bit about Luna’s brother’s ambitions. And working the streets wasn’t his ultimate goal.
“Any movement toward a detective position?” Luna asked her brother.
“I’m going to take the test in the spring.”
Harper, Luna, and Miley all spoke at once.
“That’s great.”
“You’ll pass.”
“About time.”
The last one was from Miley, but it was said with a smirk and a smile.
“Love your vote of confidence, Miles.”
“Miles?” Nate asked.
“Miles of trouble!”
“And don’t you forget it,” she said, shaking a finger in his general direction.
“What’s up with this?” Ash pointed to the beaded bracelets on Miley’s wrist.
Luna lifted her arm and revealed similar bracelets on her wrist. “Protection.”
“Excuse me?”
“Crystal energy.”
Nate tried not to laugh and failed. “I guess with a name like Luna I should have guessed that would be something you’re into.”
Luna picked up her glass of wine. “First of all, I didn’t pick my name, that was Nana. And second, you can laugh all you want but before the insurance adjuster came to look at the roof, I saged the entire attic, and my insurance is going to cover the cost.”
“That’s completely coincidental,” Ash said.
“I don’t know, Jorden is pretty convincing.”
“Who is Jorden?” Harper asked.
“The lady who owns the crystal shop,” Miley said. “She did a tarot reading on Luna today.”
Ash laughed.
“What did this woman tell you?” Nate asked, doing his best to act like he was genuinely interested. In reality he wanted to see just how into the cosmos his new business colleague was.
Luna opened her mouth and then stopped whatever she was going to say. Her eyes traveled up and down his torso and settled on his eyes. “Nothing that would make sense to you.”
“I don’t know. I’m open minded.” And if he was reading Luna right, she was hiding something.