“But you’ve still got March to go,” Eve added. “You were in Turks and Caicos last year, right?”
“Just before the tour started,” Cady confirmed.
Keeping Cady safe, let alone getting her any privacy, was going to be an impossible job. Anyone with access to the internet knew where she was, who she was with, what she was doing.
She gave him a bright smile. “Coffee, anyone?”
Everyone respectfully declined. It was interesting to watch Hawthorn, who was one of the most stone cold operators Conn had ever met, and Sorenson, who didn’t flinch for anyone, watch Cady out of the corners of their eyes.
“Really?” Cady said, “I’m making some for myself.”
“No coffee, Cady,” Chris said, the sharpness of his tone moderated by the fuzzy speakerphone sound quality.
“I’m sorry, Chris, I was driving under a bridge and didn’t hear that last bit,” she said, pouring beans into her fancy coffeemaker. “Come on, people. I don’t like to drink alone.”
“I’d love some,” Sorenson said. After that, the dam broke and everyone wanted coffee. Conn could almost smell Chris fuming away in Brooklyn as Cady happily scooped beans into the coffee maker’s reservoir.
“How’s the weather out east?” Conn asked casually.
“Typical December in the big city,” Chris said readily. “Yesterday it was in the fifties. Today the high is nineteen, and it’s going to get sloppy.”
Nothing anyone with a weather app couldn’t recite. Chris was no fool.
Coffees in hand, everyone clustered around the big island in the kitchen, Cady’s phone on speaker so Chris could hear everything and add to the conversation. Conn stood by Cady, both because he could, and because he wanted to keep one ear tuned to the background noise when he spoke. The guy was muting his end when he didn’t have something to say; there wasn’t enough static for the line to be open all the time.
They ran through official introductions so Chris would know who was who, then Hawthorn nodded at Conn. He flipped open his notebook and started the basic rundown of what had happened since he became Cady’s official bodyguard. It was embarrassingly short: threat level high, actual progress on said threat level low.
“Counselor, who knows Cady owns this house?”
Caleb didn’t bother to flip open the leather portfolio he’d brought with him. “All work and payments were processed through the limited liability corporation my firm set up for Cady. I know. My partner knows. Our paralegal knows. That’s it.”
Conn added three more people to his list of possible leaks.
“What are our next steps?” Hawthorn asked.
“We should install security cameras,” Conn said.
“No,” Cady said.
“I’m with Cady on this one,” Chris said from Brooklyn, or possibly from some hidey hole in the woods behind Cady’s house.
Conn’s gaze flickered to Hawthorn, who lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly. Cady missed this, because she was staring at the phone, coffee cup halfway to her lips. “Who are you and what have you done with my manager?”
“The best security you have right now is the fact that no one knows you bought this house,” Chris said. “If we involve a security company, that’s one more group of people who know someone important lives at that house. All we need is one curious tech starting to dig, ask questions, post pictures, and your privacy is gone. Then the security cameras are no longer optional.”
“People know where my mom lives,” Cady said to Conn. “That’s basically an open secret, and she doesn’t have security cameras.”
“Not that your mom’s not a lovely, lovely woman,” Chris said, “but no one really cares about her. Or your sister.”
“You’re pretty casual with the two people who matter most to Cady,” Conn said.
Silence from everyone around the kitchen island, and from Chris. Cady’s eyes were wide, unblinking. “You think this is a real threat. You’re not just being paranoid.”
“I’m absolutely, one hundred percent paranoid,” Conn said. “That’s my job. Over the last two weeks someone has taken down your website more than once and come into your home and stolen one of your most meaningful mementos. The attacks are getting closer. More personal. I’m making a very strong recommendation. You can choose not to take it, but if you don’t, you’re making my job that much harder.”
More silence.
“We can install the cameras,” Sorenson said. She was looking at Cady when she said it, not talking to Chris, or to Conn.
“We? As in one of your officers, who might also talk?” Chris asked.
“I can do it,” Sorenson said.
“Who are you? Have we met? How do I know you won’t talk?” Chris demanded.
Sorenson gave the phone a look that would have curdled milk. Dorchester hid a grin behind a cough. Hawthorn, as the ranking officer present, spoke. “The expression on Detective Sorenson’s face may not be translating well through the phone—”