LITMIR.BIZ

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smiled at that. “He had it coming.”

      “He did.” Her voice softened. “And he knows it. He’s not a cruel guy, Amy.”

      “Sometimes thoughtless, insensitive and selfish amount to the same thing.”

      “Yes. But he’s still my brother.”

      “So you forgive him?”

      Hayley grimaced. “I didn’t say that.”

      Amy was glad to hear that, given she thought what Walker had done—or not done—unforgivable. But she didn’t say that as they crossed the street at the stop sign and headed toward the water. The street they were on now dead-ended at an overlook, where some community-minded citizen had built a bench where people could sit and watch the passing marine traffic in the sound.

      “And even if I did,” Hayley added, “Quinn hasn’t. I was afraid to leave them alone last night.”

      “Too bad. I would have liked to have seen that,” Amy said drily.

      Hayley laughed. “I had to...lure him away. Much more fun, I promise.”

      Amy smiled. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you so happy. I’d love your husband for that alone.”

      Now that they were farther away from Walker’s unsettling presence, she felt calmer. Although she wasn’t convinced that wasn’t in part due to the dog, who seemed glued to her side just now. And when they sat on the bench he sat beside her, again putting his chin on her knee in that way he had.

      “Your dog is very sweet.”

      Hayley laughed. “He is many things, and sweet is often one of them. And,” she added with a pointed look, “he is very perceptive, especially when something’s bothering someone.”

      Amy sighed.

      “Out with it, girlfriend,” Hayley ordered.

      “We shouldn’t do this now. It can wait. You need to have it out with your brother. And you haven’t seen him in so long.”

      “Let’s see,” Hayley said with exaggerated thoughtfulness, “drop everything to deal with someone who left to wander the country years ago, couldn’t be bothered to show up or even call when his own mother died and then skipped his only living relative’s wedding...or help the one person who has ever and always been there. Tough call.”

      Any smiled suddenly. “I love you, too, you know.”

      “I do.”

      “If I hadn’t had you and your family for an example, I would have been seriously screwed up.”

      “And instead you’re my wonderfully sane, beautiful best friend. So what did you find on your boss’s computer?”

      She sighed. “Two things. Neither one alone is anything odd, but together...” She took a breath. She’d come here to do this, hadn’t she? She plunged ahead at last. “First thing, a month ago, was in his encrypted, password-protected files, where the file I needed was. A document creating a fictional corporation offshore, in the Virgin Islands. Which in itself isn’t that odd—we do that all the time for various reasons. What was odd was that he had it hidden like that.”

      “It’s not usually?”

      “No. There’s no reason it should be. It’s a routine kind of thing that he handles all the time. And I actually only know what it was because the file I needed was next on the list and I clicked on the wrong one by accident.”

      “What was the second thing?”

      “I found it just last week. A record of a bank account, also in the Virgin Islands, opened in the same fictitious business name, in the same week the filing was finalized. It started issuing checks immediately to another business name in LA.”

      Hayley leaned back against the back of the bench. For a moment she was silent, then she asked, “What exactly are you thinking?”

      “After I saw the bank statement, I did a little checking. That business that the checks were going to? As far as I can tell, with what research I was able to do...isn’t a business.”

      “What?”

      “They don’t do anything. They don’t make anything, they don’t sell anything, not even advice or information. They don’t have a website or even a business listing anywhere. There’s no public information on them anywhere that I could find. Even their snail mail address is just a mail drop, one of those rent-a-box places.”

      “Odd,” Hayley agreed.

      Amy let out a compressed breath. “I know it’s not much, and I didn’t dare risk copying the file so I don’t have any proof, although proof of what I don’t even know. It may be nothing, it may be completely legitimate, but...”

      Hayley was silent for a moment when she finally trailed off. Long enough that Amy wondered if she was thinking her friend had turned into some kind of conspiracy theorist. She couldn’t blame her; now that she’d said it out loud it sounded very thin. There was more, but it was even more ephemeral. She had no proof at all to validate her feelings of being watched and followed, and was convinced it was only what she’d found that had brought them on.

      And then she stood up. Slowly, Amy rose in turn. And Cutter, who had been plopped at her feet, happily sniffing the various breezes that wafted by, got up and looked at both of them.

      “Come on,” Hayley said.

      “Where?”

      “I think it’s time to introduce you to the full wonder that is Foxworth.”

Chapter 6

      He hadn’t gotten the prodigal son’s welcome home, but he hadn’t expected that. But then, he hadn’t expected that uppercut from his new brother-in-law, either. But it could have been worse. He could have used that gun.

      Walker rubbed at his now-shaven jaw. He’d waited until now, when Hayley and Amy had gone for their walk, to use the guest bathroom. He poked at the sore spot, wondering what it would be like to get in a knock-down, drag-out fight with Quinn Foxworth.

      It wouldn’t be pretty.

      But then, none of this was pretty. And Quinn had been no angrier at him than he himself had been when he’d finally surfaced from his five-year nightmare and found that the life he’d left behind didn’t exist anymore. When he’d learned what they’d withheld from him so he wouldn’t be “distracted,” he’d been angrier than he’d ever been in his life, except for the day his father had been killed.

       So you left home angry, and you came back angry. Great.

      But what was he supposed to feel when all they’d had to say was that they couldn’t compromise the mission?

       Oh, by the way, there were a couple of things we couldn’t tell you, because we couldn’t risk compromising the mission. Your mother’s dead and your sister got married. Here’s your phone with the messages.

      Admittedly, it hadn’t been quite that blunt or cold, but it might as well have been. He should have suspected when they’d made him hand over his old pay-as-you-go cell phone, saying it was for his own safety. He’d learned that lesson now, that anytime the government started talking about taking things away for your own safety was the time to be wary.

      At least they’d kept the phone active, ancient though it now was in technological terms. Although he doubted it was for his benefit, given that they’d used it to send short, meaningless texts to his sister, maintaining the fiction that he was still wandering. And they hadn’t deleted anything, which at first had made him laugh wryly at the scruples.

      And then had come the painful jolt of listening to Hayley’s strained voice telling him of their mother’s illness nearly five years after

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