She’d made her way to the kitchen, filling the steamer with automatic movements that went beyond habit and into the bone. “Like, now.”
“Just say the word.”
She contemplated him, her hot gaze flicking over his body. “You didn’t have to hang up for me.” Her hair looked like one of the clumps of brush out back, tangled golden brown thicket with a life of its own. “You really don’t have any family, people you talk to on a regular basis? I don’t expect you to give up your life entirely.”
It had to be hard for someone like Cady to imagine, but the department was the only family he had. Maybe that was the other reason Hawthorn chose him for this gig. Most everyone else had a family to go home to, people who would miss them if they were assigned to a long-term close protection assignment. He had no one. “I’m good. My friends know I disappear, but I always turn up.”
“What have you been up to?”
He shrugged. “Not much. Took a shower. Watched some NASCAR.” Pored over the psychos file, then Jordy’s file. Tried to figure out who in the Demons had the kind of access to beat up a Stryker in police custody and hang it on him. Both files were on the kitchen island, but he didn’t reach for them. He’d learned that drawing attention to the scars over what you wanted to hide only made people that much more likely to poke at it.
But Cady wasn’t looking at either file, just plugging in the steamer and reaching for her towel. He didn’t understand that, either. If he was on the receiving end of a file like that, he’d track down each and every anonymous troll and make them pay. Cady seemed content to just do her thing. “Who won?”
He wrenched himself back to the moment. “Kyle Busch. He’s first in points, too.”
“I’m more of an Indy car fan myself,” she said. Her voice was muffled by the towel. “But I’ll take NASCAR when the Indy season is over.”
“Want to watch some racing?”
“I thought the race was over.”
“I meant at the airfield.”
She flipped the towel back and stared at him. “You’re still racing this late in the year?”
“As long as it’s dry, we race.”
“Yes.” She gave a delighted little laugh. “God, yes. That’s perfect. Let me get dressed.”
He called Shane while she was changing her clothes. She came out of the bedroom wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater, with her hair caught back in a braid and covered with a hat. She stomped her feet into fur-lined boots, and pulled on her down coat, gloves, and a scarf.
“Chris won’t like this,” he said.
“What Chris doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she replied as she pulled the scarf up over her nose and mouth.
“When did you hire Chris?” he asked, thinking about the website, and the sparring he’d seen at the precinct.
“The second he offered me representation. Agents weren’t exactly beating down my door. Are you always this suspicious?”
“In this case, yes. So as long as you’re acting in his best interests, he’s got your back. What happens if you insist on taking a big risk at this stage of your career? Then your interests don’t align with his anymore.”
“Are you suggesting he’s trying to ensure I do the financially lucrative thing for his own benefit?”
She could read him so easily he wondered if a news feed scrolled across his forehead. “I’ve seen people shot dead for the price of a cheap carryout pizza,” he said. “I assume you’re talking about a lot of pizzas.”
“Many, many high-end pizzas, made with organic ingredients and the cheese from goats fed ground-up unicorn horns,” she said. “I know Chris looks like a slick snake oil salesman. He pushes me, I push him. But in the end, I trust him completely.”
He waited until they’d left her gated community and were heading south on Highway 75 before he brought up Emily. “Has your sister always been that … high strung?”
A smile flashed across her face at his diplomatic choice of words. “You really don’t know any teenage girls, do you? Patience has never been Emily’s strong point. She’s impulsive, and emotional. She’s ready to be done with high school but has to finish in order to get to college. She’s trapped here, full of dreams and ambitions, but stuck. It’s enough to make anyone irrational.”
“You know how she feels.”
Cady nodded. “Our mom wanted a house and a job and kids to look after. Our dad was the big dreamer, and when little Lancaster and our little family of little girls got too small for him, he moved on. We inherited his drive.”
She spoke lightly, not bitterly, but he knew how much that kind of equanimity cost. “She’s got plenty.”