“Simple. I tried to hack them.”
Both Alyssa and Drew set down their forks at that one.
“You what?”
“On a dare. See, there was this buddy of mine, who didn’t believe they were who they said they were. All that fighting for the little guy against impossible odds stuff was bull, he said.”
Eating resumed. “How did he even know about them?” Alyssa asked. “I thought they went on referrals only.”
“They do. Some relative of his got in trouble over some stupid law. He actually saved a kid’s life, but he trespassed on government property to do it, and they arrested him. Foxworth stepped in, and made it go away. My buddy didn’t believe that’s what they did, and for free.”
“And you set out to prove that?” Drew asked.
“No, he did. I set out to find out the truth.” He glanced over at Luke, whose interest had faded a bit since they’d left the fascinating subject of armadillos, which Alyssa had promised him they would look up after dinner.
When he saw Luke seemed more interested in his dinner, Liam went on. “I had...a history of poking around where I shouldn’t, computerwise. Got in trouble a couple of times. I wasn’t on a good path, as my momma used to say.”
“How much trouble?” Drew asked, not in an accusatory way, but more curious.
“Enough. Detective Dunbar is a lot nicer.”
That easily, he’d admitted to Drew, who hadn’t heard his confession to her, that he’d been in trouble with the police, but in a way that Luke wouldn’t figure out. Alyssa appreciated that, although she wasn’t sure it might not be a good thing for Luke to know being in trouble once didn’t mean you had to stay there.
“Then I met Quinn,” Liam said. “Well, he sent Rafe after me first, to bring me in to talk, and believe me, that was enough to scare me straighter than any arrow.”
“Rafe?”
“Rafer Crawford. You haven’t met him. He’s back in D.C. on a private thing for Quinn.” Liam took a sip of water before adding casually, “He’s our sniper.”
The forks went down again. Drew and Alyssa stared at him.
“What’s a sniper?” Luke asked.
“Let’s work on the armadillo, first,” Alyssa said, recovering quickly.
Her distraction succeeded.
“So you met Quinn,” Drew said, skipping over the comment that had made his brows shoot upwards.
“He gave me a chance, a bigger chance than I ever expected. First just at the tech end, but I wanted more. Once I’d proved myself, he saw that I got trained, and put me on his own team.”
“So you’re not ex-military.”
“Nope. A lot of Foxworth personnel are, but not all. But they trained us, so we’re good. We—”
He stopped as his phone chimed. He excused himself and went out to the deck to answer.
“Did you know his mom and dad have a bunch of dogs?” Luke asked. “Not like Cutter, he said, there’s only one of him, but they have a bunch of hunting dogs. I’d like to go to Texas and see them.”
“I think you just want to see the armadillos,” Drew teased.
“Them, too!” Luke exclaimed just as Liam came back into the room.
“Quinn,” he said, gesturing with the phone. “He and Hayley want to see you. Apparently, they’ve figured out the phone call.”
Alyssa looked at Drew, then at Luke, uncertain. She trusted Liam, because she trusted Hayley and Quinn and they trusted him, but also because he was so good with Luke. But her common sense told her not everyone who was good with kids had good intentions.
“Can’t they come here?” Alyssa asked.
“They could,” Liam said, “but if our guy’s anywhere around and sees them, he might get suspicious. Think you called the—” He stopped, glancing at Luke.
The cops, Alyssa realized he’d been about to say. “But you’re here.”
Liam laughed. “Quinn’s the one who looks like a cop. Or Teague. Rafe looks like he just came off a battlefield. Me, I’m just the kid next door.”
“But—”
“I’ll keep him safe, Alyssa,” Liam said, and as he met and held her gaze, there was suddenly none of the kid about him. “I’m trained and prepared to do whatever it takes.”
She believed him. And a glance at Drew told her he did, too.
“Take Cutter with you,” Liam said.
“Aww,” Luke said.
“I think Hayley misses him and would like a visit,” Liam explained to him. “You get that, right?”
“Okay,” Luke said reluctantly.
“C’mon, bud. We’ll find something to do.”
“Can we look up armadillos?” Luke asked.
“We sure can, buddy. There are different kinds, you know. And the giant armadillo is bigger than you are.”
Luke’s eyes widened anew, and he leapt to his feet.
“Can we go now?”
“No,” Liam said. “We’re going to clean up the kitchen first, like my momma taught me.”
Luke groaned. Alyssa laughed. “Okay, I’m sold. He can stay.”
But as she and Drew went to the garage and got into his truck, letting Cutter hop into the small backseat, she wondered just what Foxworth had discovered.
And if Baird was even closer—and more dangerous—than she feared.
Chapter 14
“Thanks for coming,” Hayley said as they sat around the fireplace once more. Cutter, after his effusive greeting to her, had plopped happily at her feet. Alyssa marveled anew at the dog, who was clearly devoted to her, yet had insisted, in his clever way, on being with them. “I know it’s hard to leave Luke just now, but Liam will take very good care of him.”
“They get along very well,” Alyssa said.
“Sometimes Liam’s just a big kid himself,” Hayley said. “But he’s very good, and that innocent face is a good disguise.”
“I get the feeling he’s a lot tougher than he looks,” Drew said.
“He is,” Quinn said as he sat down in the chair opposite Hayley, “as tough as he needs to be.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” Alyssa said, “it’s just that I’ve never left Luke with anyone else.” She grimaced. “There is no one else.”
“I’m sorry about the rift between you and your parents,” Hayley said gently. “I wish they would have listened.”
Alyssa pulled back slightly. “Listened?”
“To Drew. It’s their loss, not even getting to know their grandson.”
Alyssa looked at her husband. There was something about the set of his jaw that told her he hadn’t expected this, would have been happier if it had never been said. And wasn’t about to say anything more himself.
She shifted her gaze back to Hayley.
“Drew...talked to them?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No. I didn’t.”
Hayley glanced at Drew. “You didn’t tell her? That you tried several times to patch things up?”
“I didn’t see the point. They said no. Why hurt her more?”
Alyssa turned now to face the man seated a couple of feet away from her on the couch. “You talked to them? About me?”
He sighed. He hadn’t thought about the other things Foxworth might uncover, he’d been so focused on them proving the truth about Doug.
“I told them how you’d changed, you’d grown up, what a great mother you were.” His jaw tightened. “I wanted you to have somebody besides me, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“Things happen.”
It took her a moment to realize what he meant. When she did, an icy chill swept through her, a chill no fireplace could beat back. Something happen to Drew? Impossible. The man truly was a rock.
“Besides, I wanted Luke to know his grandparents, the only ones he has left since my folks died.”
She stared at him. She didn’t know how much time passed, silently, as no one said anything else. She understood, she couldn’t think of a thing to say herself. Finally she managed to speak, her voice tight.
“I could have told you it was pointless. My parents, especially my narrow-minded, cold-hearted mother, will never change.”
“I realize that, now.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, as if he were trying to ease a tension nothing could really ease. “I should have realized it sooner. They didn’t listen when I talked to them back then, either.”
Alyssa froze. He’d talked to her parents back then? “What do you mean?”
“When I told them that by trying to break you and Doug up, they were only driving you closer together. But they slammed the door in my face then, too.”
She felt more than a little stunned. She’d had no idea. “I...I’m sorry,” she said rather lamely.
He shrugged. “My folks weren’t happy, either. They didn’t like the fact that you were only sixteen and Doug was twenty. It was the only time I ever saw them actually criticize him, the only time they ever stood up to him.” He sighed. “And they blamed themselves—and me—from the moment you two ran off.”
A hollow ache rose to replace the chill inside her. It was a physical thing, an empty feeling that had become familiar now, she’d felt it so often in the last year or so. It was an odd sort of ache. Not pity, not even really sympathy. All she was sure of was that he was a good man, the best kind of man, something she’d never appreciated when she’d been young and foolish. Something she had in fact disdained, preferring Doug’s carefree, laid-back attitude to his older brother’s overblown sense of responsibility.
That sense of responsibility that had saved her life, and saved Luke from foster care, and given them a kind of security and comfort she never could have provided on her own, not then. And now she knew he’d tried to help even back then, even when he should have been wrapped up in his own life at what, twenty-three or -four?
And here he is, she thought, trapped, shackled to a woman he doesn’t love, for the sake of a child he does.
Cutter moved then, got up from his bed by the fire and walked to the couch. He sat between them, looking from Alyssa to Drew with that intent expression she found both amusing and unsettling. Instinctively she reached out to stroke his dark head. To her surprise, as soon as her fingers touched the soft fur he twisted his head, and with exquisite care caught her wrist with his teeth. He tugged her hand, gently, until it was on the cushion between them. Then he went to Drew and nosed at the hand that was resting on his knee, nudging it in Alyssa’s direction.
Cutter persistently pushed at Drew’s hand. They realized at the same instant what the dog was doing. Alyssa’s gaze shot to Drew’s face, just as he glanced at her. He looked back at the dog, then, tentatively, reached out and touched her hand.
“Is that what you wanted?” he asked.
But the question wasn’t necessary. The moment their fingers connected, the dog stopped. He sat once more, watching, and Alyssa wondered if they separated if the dog would begin again. She had a feeling he just might. Apparently so did Drew, because he curled his hand around hers and left it there. Because of the dog, she told herself. Certainly not because he felt the same little jolt she felt.
“Well, I see Cutter agrees with me,” Hayley said.
Alyssa turned to look at the woman who already felt like a friend. “Agrees with you?”
“That you two need to take a long look at exactly how you feel.”
Alyssa flushed. Instinctively she started to pull her hand free. But Drew held on. She flicked him a sideways glance.
“Dog,” he said, as if it were explanation. And while perhaps it was, there was something else in his expression, some suddenly unbanked heat in his eyes, that made her wonder if there was more to the way he kept her hand in his warm clasp.
“In the meantime,” Quinn said brusquely, “Two things. Taylor, our tech guru, figured out exactly how Oliver found your cell, Alyssa.”
She felt a sudden tension in Drew’s fingers as he shifted his focus to Quinn. “How?”
“He’s not as smart as I feared,” Quinn said. “Or as good at hacking. Tyler, on the other hand...”
“Are you saying Liam isn’t the only former hacker you’ve hired?” Drew’s tone was dry as his mouth quirked upward at one corner.
Quinn smiled. “It’s a fact of life these days, you need people who know their way around. And having people who know what the bad guys can do and how is even better.”
“Especially,” Hayley added, “when they’re good guys at heart, and love the challenge of taking down the bad ones.”
Quinn smiled at her before going on. “Tyler found that a series of numbers issued by your provider were called in rapid succession over the course of seventy-nine minutes. All from the same burner phone. And all numbers in close proximity to your number, Drew.”
Drew’s fingers tightened around hers. “You mean he took my number, the one from the website, and just started...calling?”
“He clearly assumed that both your phones would be from the same provider,” Hayley said, “and chanced that the numbers would be close.”
“They were,” Drew said grimly. “They’re on the same plan. And only two numbers apart.”
Quinn nodded. “Since the prefix was the same for all numbers issued in this area, he started with varying the last number in the sequence. Then the third. And so on, until eventually he got it right.”
“Damn,” Drew muttered, and sank back into the couch cushions. And finally he let go of her, lifting his hands to rub at his eyes as if they’d suddenly become impossibly gritty.
“Like I said, not as smart as he thinks he is, but apparently he’s dogged. Pardon the term, Cutter,” Quinn added when the dog, who had settled near Drew and Alyssa’s feet, lifted his head to look at him.
Alyssa suppressed a shiver. How could she have been so stupid? “So if I hadn’t admitted who I was when he called, he would have just kept calling other numbers?”
“Likely,” Quinn said.
A different kind of chill swept her. “Oh, God. This is all my fault.”
Drew bolted upright. “Like hell. If anything it’s my fault for putting my number out there like that.”
“That’s just good business,” Quinn said. “And one of the reasons your reputation is what it is in this county.”
“He’s right,” Alyssa said, trying not to shiver. “I’m the one who blithely said yes when he asked if I was Alyssa Kiley. I should have known.”
“You couldn’t have,” Drew said.
She lost the fight and the shiver seized her. Drew moved then, pulling her against him. She let him, in fact went willingly, needing his steady strength, his warmth at this moment more than she needed her next breath. And refusing to admit even to herself that maybe, just maybe, she wanted more. That was a complication that might just lose her even this much comfort.
“But I should have realized, once I found he’d gotten out,” Drew said.
“You didn’t know him,” Alyssa said. “I did.”
“It’s no one’s fault,” Hayley said quietly. “No one living a normal life expects it to explode like that with a simple phone call.”
“And assigning blame doesn’t solve the problem,” Quinn said briskly. “Here’s where we are. Oliver wants money. He knows roughly where you are now, and it’s a small town. He knows you two are together. And he knows you have Luke.”
Alyssa shivered anew, more fiercely. Drew tightened his arm around her.
“The sheriff’s office knows about him now,” Quinn continued, “and Dunbar at least is taking it seriously. But there are only so m
any of them, and as you said, he hasn’t done anything yet but make an unspecifically threatening phone call. Borderline extortion at worst.”
“What about the guy near the park, and the car I saw?” Drew asked.
“Rental, found abandoned near the ferry landing on the island. Out of gas.”
Drew frowned. “Headed which way?”
“Away,” Quinn said.
“So he may be gone?”
“Or want us to think he is.”
“So what do we do now?” Alyssa asked, hating how her voice trembled but unable to help it. She knew Liam was with Luke now, but she couldn’t beat back the feeling she should never have left him. Once she had him back within reach, she never would again.
“Option one is we take you all to a safe house, where you stay under guard until we or law enforcement find this guy. Downside to that is that Seattle’s a big city, and easy to get lost in, and over here there are a ton of places to hide and not be seen by anyone, let alone the police. It could be a very long haul.”
“And he may really be gone,” Alyssa said, realizing even as she said it how naive that probably sounded. And she of all people, she who knew how slimy and downright evil Baird Oliver was, should know better.
“Maybe,” Quinn said, and she was thankful there was no criticism or judgment in his tone. But she knew he didn’t believe it.
Neither, apparently, did Drew. “If he was stubborn enough to keep calling number after number like that, I doubt he’s going to give up so easily. Even if that was him, and Cutter scared the heck out of him.”
The dog woofed softly at the mention of his name, but didn’t move from his appointed spot at their feet. He really was something, Alyssa thought.
“If he thinks Cutter is ours, he might think twice about trying to find us at home after he chased him,” she said.
Quinn nodded.
“But that doesn’t help us catch him,” Drew said. “And even if we did, what could we do? He hasn’t really done anything yet. The sheriff—”
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