Chapter 25
“Grace just sent me a message via Cutter,” Ali said into the Foxworth phone they’d given her.
Both Quinn and Hayley were on one phone, and Colby was on another.
They were set up for a video call, which made the three images rather small, but visible.
Ziggy was in her lap while Cutter sat at her feet, and she adjusted her phone so his head was visible, thinking he was as big a part of this as any of them. Maybe bigger.
“Is she all right?” Colby leaned in toward his own screen.
Ali hastened to answer. “She’s fine. She’s upset, but fine.
The note says—” she unrolled the curled scrap of paper again to make sure she got it exactly “—‘Daddy, she wants to mess up our day together. I heard her talking about going to the city again that day. On purpose.’” Ali set down the little note.
“Can she even do that, Colby? Take her away on your visitation day?”
“She’s done it before,” he answered, and she knew she was right about the bitter note in his voice, because it was matched by his expression.
“She always makes sure it’s for some ‘educational’ thing, so it’s hard to deny.
Threatens to take us back to court if I say no, because there’s some kind of override proviso in the agreement. ”
“What there is,” Hayley’s said, clearly angry, “is some kind of overreach. I think we might need Gavin to step in sooner than we thought.”
“Agreed,” Quinn said, sounding flatly irritated as well. “Ali, can you try and find out someplace public the mother—” they’d all taken to Grace’s terminology, and it made Ali smile in spite of everything “—will be one day soon?”
“Of course I’ll try,” she answered instantly. “I’ll have to watch for when she’s home, but—”
“She’ll be home tomorrow,” Colby cut in. “She’s always there when I pick Grace up, and there when I bring her back. She’s probably got an alarm set so she can call the cops if I’m a second late with her, like she always threatens to do.”
“So she’ll already be edgy,” Hayley said. “That could be good. Ali, if you pour on the empathy, how awful this is for her, having to hand her child over like that, she might open up a bit more. Be careful not to pour it on too thick, though.”
“But thicker than you’d think you can,” Colby put in. “Because she believes that of course everyone feels for her and wants to help her.”
“Because she’s just so darned special,” Ali drawled out in her best imitation of Liam’s accent, and had the pleasure of hearing Colby chuckle.
“Exactly,” he said.
“To quote our old friend, ‘The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself,’” Quinn said.
“Sun Tzu again?” Ali asked, grinning.
“There’s a reason he’s still relevant after over two thousand years,” Colby said, and she was glad to see a trace of a smile on his face.
“I’ll find what we need,” she promised. “And I’ll send her a message back with Cutter, saying we’re on it.”
“Tell her to act like she doesn’t really care,” Colby said. “To shrug it off.”
“Because the more upset she is, the more her mother will know it’s a good weapon?” Ali asked.
“And she won’t hesitate to use it.”
“All right. I’ll tell her in the note. And tell her you’ll explain more tomorrow, when you have your afternoon with her.”
“And tell her she can’t let it slip she’s been in touch,” Colby said.
“I think she knows that. She did a beautiful job the other day when we came back from our walk. She gave me the biggest wink then told her mother that the dogs made her almost forget about your day coming up.”
She smiled when she heard Colby chuckle. “Sometimes my girl is downright scary smart.”
“And the two of you together are quite a team,” Hayley said.
Ali liked the sound of that. And it made her even more determined to get the information they needed out of Liz tomorrow.
And in the end she did, much more easily than she had expected.
She waited until Colby and Grace had been gone for nearly an hour.
She’d spent half that time pacing the floor, going over and over it in her head until she was afraid she’d be so wound up she’d blow it by being too obvious.
Plus she had to quash the rather fierce desire to be with them.
This was their time alone together, and she needed to respect that. It wasn’t like she had any right to intrude on that precious interlude. No matter how much Colby kept thanking her.
She decided to take Ziggy and Cutter out to play in the backyard, hoping that would stop her obsessing about the task ahead.
And it did, because before long she was laughing at their antics.
Ziggy because he was such a sweet, silly puppy, and Cutter because the difference between this playful, gentle creature and the protective guardian he could become in an instant never ceased to amaze her.
Then she steeled herself, put the not quite housebroken Ziggy in his playpen with several toys, gave the pup a treat, then leashed Cutter and headed next door.
She figured the more Liz saw of the well-behaved canine the more she’d ignore him when necessary.
Plus, to Liz it probably made her seem weaker, unable to even come next door without the support animal at her side.
Which was exactly what Ali wanted her to think.
And in the end, it was easier than she’d dared hope.
She had her pretext, a flattering question about where she’d gotten that lovely, elegant dining table—which Ali in truth thought overdone to the point of being grandiloquent—and that alone did the trick.
Liz gave her the name of the custom shop down in the city that was the county seat, saying that it was across the street from the best restaurant in the county, where it so happened she would be meeting for lunch with a county official a week from Monday, about a new Hollen project.
She just can’t resist pointing out how important she and her family are.
That evening, after loading up both Cutter and Ziggy to make up for abandoning the pup this afternoon, she drove to Foxworth to report in.
She let herself enjoy for a moment that Ziggy greeted Colby delightedly, batting at him for more when he dared to stop petting him.
She started to take a seat on the other end of the couch, but Cutter was in her way and didn’t seem inclined to move.
In fact, he nudged her with enough energy that she almost had to sit down or fall down.
And so she ended up in the same spot she’d been in the other night.
When Colby had kissed her.
She had to yank her thoughts away from those vivid memories to face the Foxworths and lay out how it had gone with Liz.
“That’ll do nicely,” Quinn said. He looked at Colby. “We’ll just arrange for you and Gavin to be at a nearby table.”
“What if she doesn’t recognize Mr. de Marco on sight?” Ali asked. “She seems self-absorbed enough to not be aware even of someone on his level.”
“She’d know the name,” Colby said, “but you might be right she wouldn’t recognize him in person, especially unexpectedly.”
Hayley smiled. “No problem. So happens the manager of that restaurant is one of those people we mentioned. We helped out his son a while back. He’ll be happy to play the concerned host, personally making sure everything’s all right at the important Ms. Hollen’s table, and in the process mention how excited he is to have both her and the world-famous attorney in his restaurant. ”
Colby simply shook his head in wonder. Ali understood.
The expanse and power of Foxworth was amazing, and she loved that it was built on a foundation of helping ordinary people in the right, and how all those people became part of fighting back against self-appointed royalty like Liz and her family.
“Can you bring Grace here tomorrow?” Quinn asked. “She’ll need to know to tread carefully the next few days, so we should go over what’s coming.”
“I’ll get her here,” Ali promised.
Quinn and Hayley then went over to the office area to make some of those necessary calls, leaving Ali and Colby sitting in front of the cheerfully burning fireplace. She noticed he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves in the warmth from it, and that his arm was healing nicely.
“You won’t even have much of a scar, if any,” she said, nodding toward the mark that was down to a faint pinkish line now.
“I’ll just add it to the list.” He shrugged, still staring into the flames. “I’ve got a few.”
“Outside and inside,” she said quietly.
He looked at her then. “But now I’ve got hope,” he said. “And that’s in large part thanks to you.”
She smiled, but shook her head. “All I did was happen to be next door.”
“And help my girl. Even before you knew…anything.”
“She’s so cute and charming, how could I not?” Her nose wrinkled. “So very unlike her mother.”
“Thank goodness,” Colby muttered.
“I’d say it’s more thanks to you than anything. You’ve kept her sane and real and good amid Liz’s nastiness.”
She saw something in those blue eyes, something warm and wondering at the same time. She hated that such a simple compliment could mean so much to him, but at the same time was glad that it did.
And let herself hope that part of it was that the compliment had come from her.