Chapter 7
“Okay, we’ve got the basics set,” Quinn was saying as Ali brought the fresh pot of coffee she’d brewed out to the table. They’d made those phone calls they’d mentioned, and results were already happening.
Ali was feeling much more cheerful now. Foxworth, the Foxworth, was going to help. In fact, their clever dog already was; he’d been playing with Ziggy and keeping him out of the way while they organized things.
Quinn was looking at a rather sizable laptop he now had open on the table.
A young man with a trace of a Texas sort of accent had dropped it and some other things off ten minutes ago, pausing only for a brief introduction as the local Foxworth tech guy, Liam Burnett.
He was also apparently helping orient a new hire—from what Ali heard, a man who had helped them on that big-headline case with the senator last year.
“How’s Cort doing?” Hayley had asked.
“About as well as he could be. But he says he’d rather be working and learning than sitting at home grieving. Rafe’s taking him on for the next stage as soon as we wrap this case.”
Ali gathered the man had been widowed shortly after that headline case had wrapped, and she had felt an all too familiar jab of empathy for someone she’d never even met. Then Liam had headed back out to deal with the other case they were handling.
“You do a lot of multitasking?” Ali asked now.
“We’ve often got more than one case going,” Hayley said. “Liam’s in the final stages of his, so he’ll be available later if we need him.”
“And by the way,” Quinn said, looking over at Colby, “he noticed a crew installing security cameras next door.”
Colby sighed audibly. “I’m sure I triggered the rush, but she has been telling Grace she would. Saying it was for her sake.”
His expression made it clear he didn’t believe that. And frankly, at this point neither did Ali.
“Liam said just be aware, that the models they’re installing have an extremely wide angle of view.”
Colby went still. “Meaning they’ll cover down to Grace’s room?”
“Probably. And probably recording 24/7.”
“I guess I should be thankful she doesn’t have a video of me breaking that window. I shouldn’t have, but Grace…she was screaming, I thought maybe she was hurt—”
Quinn held up a hand. “We’ll deal with that, if we have to.”
“You mean if she has me arrested for trespassing or something,” he said sourly.
“Gavin’s up to speed,” Quinn said. “He’ll be standing by.”
Ali saw the look of awed wonder cross Colby’s face. She didn’t blame him, she’d feel the same way if she was looking at potential trouble and had Gavin de Marco on her side.
“And,” Hayley said, almost cheerfully, “we’ve got a counter ploy. Liam also dropped off a couple of similar cameras for us to set up, so we don’t get caught staring out the window at them all the time.” She glanced at Ali. “That is, if you don’t mind us putting them up outside.”
“No, of course not,” she said.
“Good. We can stream the feed from here to our headquarters as well. You can watch from there, Colby. I presume her employee over there would recognize you?” Colby nodded, but said nothing.
“Then at this point we don’t want you being seen anywhere near the house.
We don’t want her making any connection between you and Ali that might make her pull Grace back. ”
Colby nodded again as Quinn picked up the devices Liam had left and headed outside.
“And,” Hayley said, picking up something else Liam had left behind, a box with two cell phones that looked rather heavy-duty, “you each take one of these. They’re our own phones, with links to each of us and headquarters.
The red button here is the emergency call out to anyone close by, if you need it, or if you need a fast answer to something. ”
Ali nodded as she and Colby both took one.
Then he turned his head to look at Ali. She saw him swallow as if his throat were tight.
And there was a warmth in those blue, blue eyes of his that told her he meant what he said next, deeply.
“I…thank you. Again. For worrying about Gracie. For helping out now. For…everything.”
“I’m pretty fond of that little girl of yours,” she said with a smile. “And,” she added pointedly, “I trust her judgment.”
And I trust those eyes.
She couldn’t help thinking of the last time she had gone with her instincts on that particular thing. When she’d looked into a man’s eyes, trusted. And with that man she’d found love and an all too short three years of happiness before fate and illness had stolen it all from her.
And now in Colby Kendrick’s eyes she saw all she needed to see, the love and worry for his daughter, the desperation, the gratitude he was feeling.
It was all genuine, there was no wall around it, and it was no facade put up to fool others.
This man was for real, and even if all this was only visible because of his near panic about Grace, it was still real.
His heart was real.
Some part of her mind tried to point out that she’d met the man all of a couple of hours ago, and she didn’t disavow it entirely. Just mostly. Because it was outweighed by the memory of the pure adoration in little Grace Kendrick’s face as she spoke of him.
Judging by how quickly he was back, Ali guessed this wasn’t Quinn Foxworth’s first time installing security cameras. He went back to the laptop and worked on it for a moment, then nodded.
“All right,” he said. “We’ve got the entire back side of the other house on one, and the front and driveway on the other.” He looked out to her great room, then back up at Ali. “And if you don’t mind, we can cast this to the TV so we don’t have to always be in front of the little screen here.”
She nodded immediately. “Any movement would be more obvious, too, on the big screen, wouldn’t it?”
Quinn smiled at her. “Exactly.”
Moments later they were settled in the great room, on the couch in front of the fireplace and TV.
The previous owner of the house had included the rather complex setup in the sale, thankfully, since that was not at all her forte.
And actually, the evergreen framed view of the big house wasn’t unpleasant.
In fact, it could almost be an acceptable screen saver, if you were into that kind of thing.
She herself preferred mountains and wilderness, and this time of year, snow.
But then, that was why she lived here in the first place.
“When’s your next scheduled time with Grace?” Hayley, who had been reading things on her phone for a while, finally looked up and asked.
“Friday, after she gets out of school.”
“Do you pick her up there at the school?”
He laughed, and there was that bitter undertone again. “She won’t allow it. Wants me to come to the house to get her, so she can be there.”
“To remind you she’s in charge?” asked Ali with a grimace, starting to truly dislike the neighbor she’d barely met.
His gaze snapped to her when she spoke, and he looked both surprised and…grateful? What, that someone saw his side? Or was it perhaps simply that someone was listening to him? And actually wanted to help? Obviously it was taking him a while to get used to that, to having help.
“That’s our first step,” Quinn said. “We make sure someone is always with you when you pick her up. As a witness. We’ve got Liam, and Teague if he gets back from Oregon when scheduled.”
“I could help with that,” Ali suggested.
Hayley smiled at her. “I don’t think so. If Colby shows up with a woman, I’m guessing it’ll really set her off. And you being a neighbor might make her suspicious.”
Ali looked at him. He shrugged. “Yeah. No one could possibly replace her. Besides, she doesn’t want me, so of course nobody else would either.”
“So she lies to herself, too?” Ali asked, making her tone as saccharinely sweet as she could.
Colby blinked. He averted his gaze in an almost shy way. But slowly, a smile curved his mouth.
Sure, nobody would want to kiss that gorgeous mouth, Ms. Superior-to-us-all.
“I’m thinking maybe I should make solo contact,” Hayley said to Quinn. “We can come up with some pretext, so I can get close enough to feel out the situation. Get her to trust me with whatever plans she might have.”
“Pretext like what?” Ali asked.
Hayley shrugged. “We’ll have to think of something.”
“Or not,” Ali said. “Let me do it. I already have the perfect in, the new neighbor thing. I can make a downright nuisance of myself, when motivated.”
She was smiling now, liking the idea. Not just of helping Grace, but helping her father. She glanced at him. He was shaking his head, as if in wonder.
“Why would you do that? Why are you doing any of this? You don’t even know me.”
“Yes, I do. From everything Grace has told me about you. From that picture she showed me, of you pushing her in a wheelbarrow.”
“She has that? And showed you?”
“She’s saved it from her mother’s purge. And yes, she showed me. And she’s told me stories.”
He let out a compressed breath. “I’m sure she has. My girl’s a storyteller. She writes them all down. I think she’ll be a writer someday. She—” He stopped abruptly, paling a little.
“What?” she asked, aware that both Quinn and Hayley were listening to them.
“I…that’s how I first knew how bad it was.
The last time I was in that house, when I got there before Liz, Grace let me in before the housekeeper could stop her.
I saw a story she’d written back before the divorce.
About a little girl who lived with a monster and had to hide all day until her daddy came home and she was safe. ”
Ali gasped aloud. Hayley reacted visibly, and Quinn’s gaze narrowed into a stare Ali thought would intimidate anyone.
It took Colby a moment to go on. “That story showed me I’d never had the happy family I thought I did.
And it made me worry about Grace. About her safety.
Enough to fight for custody even though I knew I’d lose.
” He let out a long, weary sigh. “Enough to risk breaking that window today to get to her.”
“What were you going to do?” Hayley asked, sounding merely curious.
“I’m not sure.” Colby gave her a wry, almost embarrassed look. “I wasn’t exactly thinking straight just then.”
“Who would be?” Ali said quickly.
“Then we’d better get rolling,” Quinn said.
And from across the room Cutter gave a short bark that sounded oddly like “About time.”