Chapter 9
Ali clipped on the second earring, glad that they were a subtle style. They looked so normal she was almost startled when she heard Hayley’s voice in her ear.
“Copy?”
“You’re loud and clear,” she told her as she came out of the bedroom and into the great room.
The time was getting close. Her new neighbor had returned home from work or wherever she’d gone for the afternoon—did women on her level really work?
—and Grace was ensconced back in her bedroom, according to the new camera aimed that way.
Everything was in place. While Quinn would also be listening, they’d decided Hayley would take the lead in the communications.
“She’s the best at picking up the subtle stuff,” Quinn had said. “And she understands women better—” he’d thrown his wife a loving glance “—much better than I do.”
“Your biggest problem,” Hayley said now, “and I speak from experience, will be not automatically answering verbally when I say something. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum, so you don’t get too distracted. I’ll feed you background info we’ve gathered, if it seems appropriate, and might help.”
“And I’ll feed her ego,” Ali said, remembering their earlier discussion.
“Yes. And play up to her, like you’ve heard of her family and you’re impressed.” Hayley shifted her gaze to Colby, “Any goals or causes she’d be particularly receptive to?”
He let out a short, sharp laugh. “Anything that makes her feel more important. Her family supports a few charitable causes, but it’s all for the PR.
She doesn’t really believe in any of them.
In fact, it annoys her to have to pretend she does.
Even her grief organization to help widows and orphans is about making her feel she’s better, stronger than they are. ”
That jabbed Ali deeper than she wanted to let on. Colby had no way of knowing, of course, so she kept her gut-level reaction hidden.
“Interesting,” Quinn put in. “We have a contact who dealt with that organization say much the same thing, that Ms. Hollen seems to be in it for the photo ops, that when it comes down to actually dealing with or even talking to the people she’s supposedly trying to help, she’s mostly absent.”
“What about close women friends?” Ali asked.
Colby turned his head to look at her. “She doesn’t trust anyone, male or female, who might be…tougher than she is. Doesn’t want them around her.”
“Because they might show her up?” She was guessing, but from what she’d heard so far it seemed to fit. And Colby nodded.
“And then she’ll go to any length to take them down.”
Ali thought for a moment, then looked at Hayley. “I’m thinking maybe Cutter’s my therapy dog? Emotional support dog? He’s certainly got the knack.”
“That he does,” Hayley agreed. “And that’s a good idea, especially since he’s actually certified as a therapy dog, with clearance to visit hospitals and rehab facilities.”
Colby moved suddenly, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He’d been looking decidedly edgy about this from the beginning, but now he was slowly shaking his head.
“Colby?” Ali asked gently.
He looked up, and the concern in those eyes of his touched her to the core. “Just be careful,” he said in a pleading tone. “If you got hurt somehow trying to help us, I…”
He let out a long breath that sounded exhausted.
She sat down beside him. He clearly cared, so much, and was worried.
And she knew now that it wasn’t solely for Grace, but for all of them.
He truly was not used to this kind of help, or maybe any help that could or would stand against the Hollens, and that alone made her even more determined.
She wanted to hug him. To hold him, to reassure him.
And it had nothing to do with the fact that, to her eyes, he was gorgeous.
Yes, physically, tall, built, obviously strong with that thick dark hair and those brilliant blue eyes, but for her it was the caring that did it.
The risk he’d taken for his little girl.
Now the worry for her, for all of them. That was what appealed to her on the deepest level.
Cutter walked over to him and nudged his right hand. Seemingly automatically he reached down and stroked the dog’s dark head. Then he went still, staring into the dog’s dark eyes.
“I think,” Ali said very quietly, “the therapy dog thing will be an easy sell.”
He looked up at her. “It’s…amazing.”
“Between him and a bottle of this ridiculously spendy wine, how can we go wrong?” she asked lightly.
She saw him let out a long breath, and he closed his eyes for a moment, with his hand still on Cutter’s head. Then he looked up at her.
“Can you drop he’s also a guard dog, please?”
“I can do that,” she promised, and gave in to the urge to put her arm around those broad shoulders. Shoulders that had carried this unpleasant load alone for too long.
But he wasn’t alone anymore, and she was going to see to it that he knew that.
And in the end, Liz Hollen would know it, too.
It went much more easily than she’d expected. From her purposely hesitant introduction at the door—“I hope you don’t think I’m imposing, I know someone like you probably doesn’t have much time, but when I heard your name I couldn’t help but want to meet you.”—she seemed to hit the right notes.
And when she introduced Cutter as her emotional support and guard dog, she saw something flash in the woman’s dark eyes that told her Colby had been exactly right.
Liz Hollen liked women who were, in her eyes, weaker than her.
And Ali knew from the way she took charge of the meeting at that point that she’d found the right way in.
Her mind was racing to assess, with too many brain cells searching for how and why Colby had ended up with this woman in the first place.
But when Liz went over to her well-stocked wet bar and was focused on opening the bottle she’d brought, she remembered to slip the note Colby had written to Cutter.
Amazingly, the animal took it carefully in his teeth and kept his wet tongue away from it—how on earth did you teach a dog to do that? —as she bent and whispered “Find.”
Cutter’s nose had been twitching since they’d walked in, and Ali guessed he knew his goal, Grace, was here. She had also noticed him watching Liz like the guard dog she’d said he was, as if he knew without being told that this was someone to be wary of. The enemy, even.
The instant she whispered the command, the dog quietly headed down the hallway.
A moment later she thought she heard a slight sound that could have been a door opening.
Then an exclamation that she tried to cover as her own with an exaggerated “Oh!” as she walked over toward the wet bar, acting as if she were fascinated with the framed print that hung on the wall above it.
“Is that a Hector?” she said.
“Well done,” Hayley said in her ear.
Liz, who had looked up at her words, set the now open bottle aside as she got two glasses out of the cabinet.
“Yes,” she said, “it is. An original. I met him at an exhibition in LA, and he practically gave it to me.”
It took all she had to say with what she hoped was the right level of admiration, “I’m sure. It would be great publicity for him to be able to say someone like you had one of his pieces.”
Ali had to physically stop the eye roll she wanted to make.
She was familiar with the current fad of cartoonish drawings turned into what the man called art, and privately thought he likely had to give them away, because who’d want to buy them?
But she knew she was thinking too logically, and that with a fad like this, the desire was to be in the crowd that treasured trappings more than reality.
Then she heard the slight sound of Cutter returning, and the dog came back to her side. Mouth empty, she thought, just as he gave her what she would have sworn was a nod, indicating mission accomplished.
And apparently Grace both understood and accepted her assignment. She could just imagine the child reading that note.
Gracie,
Your friend Ali is helping us. Her puppy brought us some friends, including this dog, Cutter. Ali is pretending Cutter is hers, and you need to pretend you don’t know her until you meet her now, okay? Just wait a few minutes after you get this, then come out.
We’re going to make it better, sweetie. I promise.
Love, Daddy ?
“What was he doing?” Liz asked, a little sharply.
“Cutter? Oh, I hope you don’t mind. He likes to look around, but he’s done now,” she said, hoping Hayley got the message.
“Message delivered,” Hayley said on the other end, confirming her hope.
Liz shrugged. “I don’t mind dogs. People tend to trust people with pets.”
Well that’s an interesting and ice-cold assessment of the benefits of dogs…
Ali went on, gushing a bit but trying not to go over the top. She was already a little amazed at how the woman seemed to eat it up, or rather, take it as her due. “I can’t blame him. Your home is so beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Liz said. Then, in what Ali guessed was, for her, a polite tone, she said, “Your place is rather cute, in a diminutive way.”
Zap!
This was where she normally would write someone off. No, be honest, Ali told herself, you would have written her off the moment you walked in this overdone mass of fakery.
“It’s nothing compared to this,” she said, again trying to judge just how saccharine to get. She had a feeling the woman’s ego required a lot of feeding.
Now that a few minutes had passed, Liz poured a bit of the wine into her glass and tried it. She nodded in approval, and looked at Ali with what she thought was a bit of surprise.
Because of course us peons know nothing about good wine.
Then the woman picked up the bottle and looked at the label. “I didn’t realize they’d come this far,” she said. “I’ll have to let my father know. He might want to invest.”
“Subtly letting you know how bucks up they are,” Hayley said in her ear, her tone so dry it was all Ali could do not to laugh.
Liz topped off her glass, and filled one for Ali.
She gestured out toward the grand salon—she really, actually called it that!
—and they went to the big, luxurious couch and sat.
Frankly, she thought her own was much more comfortable than this overstuffed, polished leather thing you slid all over every time you moved.
Cutter came and sat politely at her feet.
“He seems very well-behaved,” Liz said, sounding as if she were still reserving final judgment.
“He is. And very tidy.”
“You mentioned he’s also a guard dog?”
“Yes, he is. A good thing for a woman living alone, I think?”
She went with the uptick at the end, as she had been doing, since it made it sound like everything was a question, which in turn made her sound more uncertain and less of a threat.
“You may be right,” Liz said, studying Cutter more intently now.
“And I just love him,” Ali gushed. “He’s so good with my new puppy. And you should see him around children, he’s a great playmate. And he makes sure nobody bothers them.”
Liz’s head came up. “So he’s protective of kids?”
“Very.”
“Would he warn you if…someone he didn’t know was around?”
“Absolutely. He wouldn’t even let them get close. Sometimes I—”
She broke off at the sound of footsteps in the hallway Cutter had vanished down earlier.
Grace had not missed her cue.