The small green space at the end of the street drew even more people, especially those who’d just made a purchase at the bakery on the corner and wanted to use the benches Drew and his father had installed, or look at the various sculptures they’d acquired over the years from local artists and craftsmen. It had turned out to be a good use of that oddly shaped bit of land. He was proud that had been his idea, and that his father, doubtful at first, had finally told him it was brilliant.
But it also gave a lot of cover to an intruder with burglary on his mind. Not something they normally had to worry about here. And hopefully never again, after this was over, he thought. Then he spotted Cutter trotting toward him. The dog came to a halt and sat, looking dejected. Quinn was right behind him.
“You were supposed to stay in the car.”
“I did, until Marcy came outside. She runs the real estate office two doors down and was working late. I was afraid she might walk into something.”
Quinn studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Good call,” he said. Drew felt oddly pleased by the praise. He was out of his element, and man enough to admit it, but having Quinn agree he’d done the right thing eased the discomfiture a bit.
“No sign of him?”
“Only this, maybe. This look familiar to you?” He held out a plastic bag with a small piece of green fabric.
Drew took it, then looked back at Quinn’s face.
“Where’d this come from?”
“Cutter found it on a blackberry bush just outside the back fence. Can’t be sure it’s connected.”
Drew looked at the piece of heavy green cloth. Turned the bag over. The fabric looked different on one side than the other. Treated somehow. Waterproofed, most likely.
“It’s the same color as the jacket he had on the day I chased him,” he said. “But it’s not a rare color around here.”
Quinn nodded. “We’ll hang on to it.” He put it into his pocket. “If you find something, the deputy will make a report and we’ll hand this over.”
“You didn’t find anything?” Drew asked.
“Appears secure,” Quinn answered, “I don’t think he got in, but we’ll need you to take a look. Deputy’s just waiting for that.”
They were at the foot of the walkway when Liam emerged from the trees between the office and the park. “There’s a hideout,” the young man said when he got to them. “He was there for a while, waiting. There’s a plastic tarp there that might have some evidence on it. I left it in place.”
“You mean he was watching?” Drew asked, a chill creeping over him. “From where?”
Liam gestured behind him. “About twenty feet back in. Probably waited until you left this evening. At least that’s what Cutter indicated.”
Drew barely blinked, such had his faith in the dog grown even in this short time. “Did he?”
Quinn nodded. “He knows who we’re looking for. He ignored the old man we came across gathering downed wood, just made a beeline through the trees.”
Quinn looked at Liam. “Where did Cutter lose the trail?”
“Backside of those trees. There’s a stream there, with a wooden walkway next to it.”
“It’s a salmon stream. Protected. We built the walkway as part of the development,” Drew said. “It goes out to the street below.”
Liam nodded. “Cutter tracked him to the end, where there’s a small parking area. One car there, probably the old guy’s. Cutter cued on a spot near the road, but the way he was acting I’d say our guy was long gone.”
“He probably took off the moment the alarm went off,” Quinn said.
“Why would he risk it?” Drew asked. “There’s a sign about the alarm out front.”
“Maybe he thinks you’ve got that cash stashed in there,” Liam said.
“After more than three years?” Drew shook his head.
“I wouldn’t put a guy with his record of petty thefts, robbery and drugs in the smart category,” Quinn said. “But I’d say it was more likely he was looking for something else.”
Drew knew what he meant. “You mean he’s looking for where we live. That’s why you asked before if there was anything here.”
Quinn didn’t try to reassure him with a lie. “Yes.”
“He’s hunting us,” Drew said. Anger was finally beginning to grow, thawing the chill with its heat.
“Seems likely,” Quinn agreed. “Let’s check the building, and then we’ll go over our options.”
Drew walked around the outside, checking every door and window. He was about to pronounce it untouched when he noticed a small, narrow dent in one of the windowsills.
“That’s new,” he said, gesturing at the depression that hadn’t even quite broken the trim paint.
“And that window’s alarmed?”
He nodded. “It’s the file room. Permits, plans, EPA reports, going back years.”
Quinn glanced around. “And it’s out of sight of everyone except people in the park, whose view is obscured by the trees.”
“Yes,” Drew agreed, the anger uppermost now. “If I hadn’t left early, if I’d been here, maybe I could have—”
“He probably wouldn’t have tried at all,” Quinn said. He glanced around, then pointed at the small sign with the alarm company’s name. “I noticed you don’t have any signs or stickers advertising the alarm at home.”
“Lyss didn’t want them. She thought it would just be advertising we had something worth stealing.”
“She has a point. It could be a toss-up,” Quinn said. “I gather you didn’t tell her the real reason? That you knew Oliver was getting out?”
Drew gave the man a rather sheepish smile. “No. We’d been getting along really well, and I didn’t want to mess that up.”
Quinn only nodded, as if he understood. Drew doubted that; the man had a woman who loved him so much it made the air between them practically crackle. Envy spiked through him. He didn’t like the feeling.
* * *
“Would paying him get rid of him?”
Drew’s blunt question was the first thing he’d said since he’d told Alyssa what had happened at the office. They’d been there awhile. Quinn had explained once the deputy had seen the hide Cutter found, and the pry mark Drew had spotted, he’d become seriously interested and obviously moved it out of the category of false alarm to attempted burglary. A call from Detective Dunbar had only cemented his attitude.
“Dunbar seems to think we know what we’re doing,” Quinn had said. Now he answered Drew’s question. “For a while. But judging by my experience, if he gets easy money out of you once, he’ll be back.”
Alyssa sighed inwardly. Quinn was right, she knew. Baird would never give up an easy source of cash. Easier than robbing convenience stores, anyway.
Drew walked over to the window and stared out across the clearing toward the trees. She watched him, standing there, tall, strong, determined. Then he turned halfway back, and the light coming through the window washed over him, and she saw the tension in him, the tightness of his eyes, his jaw.
She’d done this to him, she thought. It was her life, her past coming back to haunt him, to drive him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, almost unaware she’d said it out loud.
Drew spun around the rest of the way.
“What?”
“This is my fault. I brought this down on us. On you. I—”
Drew was there in an instant, crouching before her. “You did not. This is Doug’s doing. He hooked up with this guy. If anybody brought this on us, it’s him.”
For once she didn’t argue with him. She realized it was because she was so relieved he didn’t blame her, in fact was defending her. And that realization made her...not uneasy but aware that something fundamental had changed. When had Drew’s
opinion of her become more important than preserving Doug’s memory?
He put his hand over hers, and only then did she notice hers was icy cold. Instinctively she curled her fingers around his, realizing only now the strength she always took from his touch.
“Drew,” she whispered.
His head came up as she spoke the name. His expression changed, shifted as if under a whole new kind of tension. She felt something odd, some tenuous connection between them, new and strange.
“Options,” Quinn said briskly, snapping her back to the matter at hand.
Drew seemed as reluctant as she to give up this tentative link. But after a moment he moved. But he sat beside her this time, not the usual two feet away. That change alone somehow had the power to rattle her.
“First option,” Quinn said, “you leave town. Go someplace safe until we or law enforcement round this guy up.”
“Good idea,” Drew said. “You and Luke can...take a vacation somewhere.”
She was considering it, picturing selling it to Luke as a family trip, until he said it that way. “What about you?”
“I’m not going anywhere until this is resolved.”
“And we’re not going anywhere without you.”
Drew blinked. Looked surprised. She was a little surprised herself at her own vehemence. The tenuous new bond she sensed grew, tightened. He was looking at her so intensely she found herself scrambling for something, anything, to say.
“Luke feels safe with you.”
Something changed in his expression then, the bond between them seemed to evaporate. She didn’t understand; he loved Luke as if he were his own. But somehow saying that then had been the wrong thing.
Or the right thing, she thought, if she wanted things to stay as they were.
But did she?
“If Luke’s welfare is our primary concern, which it is,” Hayley said, “then I agree you should all stay together. Luke needs his father with him. He needs his family. So if you go, you should go together.”
Drew scowled. “I want them safe. But I want to help take this guy down. He’s threatening my family, damn it.”
Drew, she realized, was angry. More, he was furious. He so rarely got angry, really angry, it startled her to realize he was there and had been for a while now.
“Well,” Quinn said, rather mildly after Drew’s outburst, “I did say that was option one. Option two is we continue as we are. We’ve got Rafe back in the mix now, and as soon as Teague’s back from checking on that rental car, that’s full coverage 24/7, with somebody left to go hunting.”
Drew perked up at that. “About time he was on the receiving end,” he muttered.
“Agreed. We can see to that.” He looked at Drew consideringly. “If we don’t turn him up, then we may have to go to option three.”
“I was wondering if there was one,” Drew said.
“Option three is we keep Luke someplace safe but local—with Cutter to rip the throat out of anyone who tries to hurt him—but you keep to your normal routine, maybe even become a bit more visible, see if Oliver makes a move.”
Drew didn’t even blink, just nodded calmly. Alyssa stared at him, then looked back to Quinn. With an effort she kept her voice level.
“This is my responsibility,” she said. “If anyone’s going to act as bait to lure Baird out, it should be me.”
“I told you, Lyss, this is not your fault,” Drew said, somewhat urgently.
“If not for me, Baird Oliver wouldn’t be here.”
“You don’t know that. He’s blaming Doug for losing his share of the money, maybe he would have decided to come get it out of me anyway.”
She hadn’t thought of that. And from what she knew of Baird, it wasn’t an unlikely idea.
“But he’d be more likely to come after me. I’m just a helpless female, after all.”
“Helpless my ass,” Drew said. “You’d take on a wolverine with a feather duster to protect Luke.”
Alyssa blinked at the outlandish analogy. And stared at him, feeling impossibly warmed by not only his words but the confident tone of them.
“Yes, I would. But he doesn’t know that. He knows only who I was, the quiet, submissive shadow of Doug’s, who always did what he said, even if it got me into trouble.” She met his gaze straight on. “He has no reason to think I’ve changed.”
“Whereas I know you have.”
In that moment she wanted more than anything else to throw her arms around him and hug him with the fierceness that was welling up inside her at his defense of her.
And she realized, not with fanfare or shock, but with a quiet awareness, as if it had been there for a long time just waiting for her to notice, that the good opinion of Drew Kiley meant more to her than anything except her son’s love.
Chapter 23
They compromised, in the end, on a combination of two and three. They would continue as they were for forty-eight hours, and if by then they didn’t have Oliver wrapped up, they would move to option three.
Drew wasn’t happy, but he knew there wasn’t much he could do about it. His will to keep his promise to let Foxworth do what they did was beginning to fray. And he was having a little trouble balancing the urge to break it and hunt Oliver down himself, and the urge to do as Quinn had first suggested and take Alyssa and Luke and get them out of there.
He’d never wanted to run from trouble before.
But he’d never wanted to protect anyone so much before, either.
It had been a long day. An unsettling day. He was still wrestling with the decision of whether to keep the office open at all. They only had one project going at the moment, a large one down in Port Orchard, far enough away that people weren’t coming into the office first as they usually did. His crew didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they knew he was dealing with something, and had stepped up to give him the time he needed.
First thing he was going to do when he got back to work when this was all over was look and see if he could afford to give the guys a bonus. But right now, he was just wishing that moment would come soon. Real soon.
Alyssa was upstairs organizing Luke’s bath, under the watchful eye of Cutter. While the entire house was under the watchful eye of Rafer Crawford. Now that was a guy who’d make you think twice before doing damned near anything, Drew thought. Unlike Quinn and Teague’s brisk, military sharpness, or Liam’s boyish, Texas charm, Rafe’s demeanor was quiet, almost withdrawn, and yet he managed to unsettle you with just a look. The man had seen things, done things, that Drew could only imagine. He wasn’t even sure how he knew that, but he did. He would not want to cross Rafe Crawford.
And he was very glad he was on their side.
The man had declined the offer of shelter inside. It was dry enough tonight, and he worked better with some room around him, he’d said. Drew suspected he just preferred not to be that close to people, although he was polite enough, and good-humored with Luke.
As long as he kept his family safe, Drew thought, he’d put up with a lot worse than the man’s reticence. Liam would take over early in the morning, Quinn had said, until Teague arrived. Drew noticed Quinn didn’t say who would then become the hunter he’d mentioned.
Too restless to settle, Drew went upstairs. Cutter was stationed in the hallway outside the bathroom door, lying upright, watchful. The dog looked over his shoulder at him, but went back to sentry duty immediately. Drew could just glimpse Luke, half into his pajamas, protesting as Alyssa dried his hair with a towel.
“Don’t rub so hard, Mom!”
“Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to.”
It was the simplest of exchanges between a mother and son, yet it filled Drew with an emotion that was almost painful. He loved them so much. Both of them. And the thought of them in danger was beyond wrench
ing.
He wondered if her parents would change their tune now, knowing she and the grandson they’d never met could be in trouble. Probably not, he thought. They’d probably say she’d brought this on herself, by hooking up with the likes of his brother. There had been a time when he would have said that himself.
As if triggered by his thoughts, Luke spoke again, abruptly.
“Why is all this weird stuff happening?”
Drew tensed. “Weird?” Alyssa asked.
“It’s because of my father, isn’t it? My real father?”
Drew had thought he was long past the jab of pain when Luke said that phrase. My real father. The boy had no idea how it stung. He was just a kid, he had no intent to hurt.
Quit whining about your feelings and focus on what mattered. How had the boy put that together? He was smart, Drew knew that, but they’d been careful. How had he realized that this upending of his life had something to do with Doug?
Alyssa wrapped the towel around her son and pulled him close. “Your real father is here in this house, Luke Kiley. The man who’s given you—and me—everything, the man who saved us, the man who takes care of us, who’s there for us every step of the way.”
Drew felt nearly weak in the knees. He’d never heard her say anything like that to Luke, she had always responded to his remarks about his father with a defense of Doug. Never him.
“Because he loves us,” Luke said.
Drew held his breath. Waited. Did she know? Had he betrayed it in these crazed, up and down, terrifying days?
“Don’t ever forget how much he loves you,” Alyssa said after a moment, dodging the plural as she helped the boy pull on the top of his pajamas, emblazoned with images of his favorite comic superhero. “He’s your father in every sense of the word but one, and that’s the one that matters least.”
Drew almost stepped back, out of sight. But something made him stay, and when Alyssa stood up and turned, the sudden color that flooded her cheeks told him she knew he’d overheard. There was a look in her eyes, something that pulled at him, made him glad he’d stayed. And something else, he noticed with a little shock.
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