Chapter 5 #3
“If I know Amy, that’ll be any minute,” he said drily, grateful to see Aiden was now fully asleep again. “She’s not one for idle conversation.”
Zach chuckled softly, leaning in to center the coffeepot perfectly under the drip of the steaming-hot java.
“What’s so amusing?” Sam moved toward the infant swing in the center of the dining room, where he’d never bothered to set up a table.
Gently, he lowered Aiden in it. To his surprise, the boy stayed asleep, settling his heavy head against one side of the cushioned seat, his baby Buddha belly stretching the snaps of his onesie.
“Just trying to picture the two of you talking if she’s the quiet one.”
In spite of himself, Sam grinned back at him.
“Compared to her, dude, I’m chatty.”
“Is that right?” Zach pulled two stoneware mugs off the wrought iron stand near the coffeemaker. “Heather did say that her sister’s invitation to come over consisted of about five words. And those were delivered via a call at two in the morning.”
He split the brew between the two mugs before searching Sam’s fridge for creamer.
Sam sipped his black, wondering why Amy had been awake at that hour. Was that unusual? Or had she been thinking about their conversation this afternoon?
He sure as hell had thought about it a lot last night.
But Amy hadn’t called him at 2:00 a.m. She’d called her sister—the one who was testifying against Jeremy and J. D. Covington at the end of the month. Had she been thinking about that?
“When is your sister flying in for the trial?” Sam hadn’t spoken to Gabriella in weeks.
It occurred to him now that if Amy had secrets about that last summer, maybe Gabby could shake something loose. Spark a memory.
“I don’t know how much time she can take off from work, but I imagine she’ll be here at least a week before the trial begins in order to prepare.” His coffee fixed, Zach returned to the counter stool. “Why?”
“Maybe we ought to get together everyone we can from that summer.” The idea took shape, feeling right as he said it. “The friends you hung around with. The other foster kids living in the Hastings’ house. Anyone who worked at the pizza shop.”
“Haven’t we already talked to a lot of them?” Zach opened his phone and flipped through the digital files that Sam had been sending him.
“The local ones. But how many people left town, the same way we did?” He wondered how he could hunt down those people. “Lorelei probably has contact information for everyone who’s gone through her house.”
Zach nodded. “It could be a great time for a Hasting fosters’ reunion.”
Why not?
“I’ll get on it.” He’d ask his foster mother to help him. But first he needed to speak with Amy.
“Good.” Zach’s phone chimed before he’d sucked down half his drink. “I’ll see if I can get Gabriella out here sooner rather than later.” Standing, he shoved his phone in his pocket. “Looks like Heather’s ready to go. It was a fast visit after all.”
No surprise there.
Sam walked his friend to the door. “I know you don’t want J.D. anywhere near your fiancée,” Sam observed just as Zach reached the door.
“I’ll kill the kid personally if he breaks that restraining order.”
Sam believed him. Zach wasn’t a fighter, but he’d held his own that day they’d found the Covingtons trying to kidnap Heather Finley and Megan Bryer.
“You’ll have my help, of course. But maybe so it doesn’t come to that, you could dip into that impressive Chance financial reserve and put a PI on the kid.”
Zach frowned, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t want to do anything that could harm the case. Aren’t there conflict-of-interest laws at work there? Me being the mayor and all?”
“Heather will be your wife soon. How could any court deny you the right to protect her however you see fit?” That area of the law was far too gray for his liking. But sometimes, common sense counted in the legal system.
“But any information a PI gathers is going to be tough to use as evidence when I’m footing the bill.”
Sam shrugged, rubbing the kink out of his neck.
“Not necessarily. All I know is that Heartache doesn’t have a dedicated police force, per se.
I don’t have enough manpower to keep constant watch on everyone in town.
We can’t even try the case in Heartache.
” Criminal matters were heard in a court at the county seat.
“You have a right to use your resources to make sure your family is safe.”
“I like the way you think.” He clapped Sam on the shoulder. “I’ll look into it this afternoon. But I know you’ve got another angle here that you’re not sharing with me.”
Oh yeah. The angle where Amy Finley was keeping something from him. But he couldn’t connect the dots enough to share with Zach yet. And he had a lot of angles to work before the pretrial screening in less than two weeks.
“Don’t look at me.” Sam held the door open, letting the cold fall breeze clear his head. “I’ve got a foster family reunion to plan.”
“Not in a million years would I have guessed you’d beat me to the land of family reunions and baby carriers.” Zach didn’t bother to hide a grin.
“Bite me.” Sam closed the door and padded back into the house in his socks, ignoring his friend’s laughter.
He was more interested in how soon he would see the woman who had never been far from his thoughts this week.