Page 20 of Operation Protector
“And then she’ll go to any length to take them down.”
Ali thought for a moment, then looked at Hayley. “I’m thinking maybe Cutter’s my therapy dog? Emotional support dog? He’s certainly got the knack.”
“That he does,” Hayley agreed. “And that’s a good idea, especially since he’s actually certified as a therapy dog, with clearance to visit hospitals and rehab facilities.”
Colby moved suddenly, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He’d been looking decidedly edgy about this from the beginning, but now he was slowly shaking his head.
“Colby?” Ali asked gently.
He looked up, and the concern in those eyes of his touched her to the core. “Just be careful,” he said in a pleading tone. “If you got hurt somehow trying to help us, I…”
He let out a long breath that sounded exhausted. She sat down beside him. He clearly cared, so much, and was worried. And she knew now that it wasn’t solely for Grace, but for all of them. He truly was not used to this kind of help, or maybe any help that could or would stand against the Hollens, and that alone made her even more determined.
She wanted to hug him. To hold him, to reassure him. And it had nothing to do with the fact that, to her eyes, he was gorgeous. Yes, physically, tall, built, obviously strong with that thick dark hair and those brilliant blue eyes, but for her it was the caring that did it. The risk he’d taken for his little girl. Now the worry for her, for all of them. That was what appealed to her on the deepest level.
Cutter walked over to him and nudged his right hand. Seemingly automatically he reached down and stroked the dog’s dark head. Then he went still, staring into the dog’s dark eyes.
“I think,” Ali said very quietly, “the therapy dog thing will be an easy sell.”
He looked up at her. “It’s…amazing.”
“Between him and a bottle of this ridiculously spendy wine, how can we go wrong?” she asked lightly.
She saw him let out a long breath, and he closed his eyes for a moment, with his hand still on Cutter’s head. Then he looked up at her.
“Can you drop he’s also a guard dog, please?”
“I can do that,” she promised, and gave in to the urge to put her arm around those broad shoulders. Shoulders that had carried this unpleasant load alone for too long.
But he wasn’t alone anymore, and she was going to see to it that he knew that.
And in the end, Liz Hollen would know it, too.
It went much more easily than she’d expected. From her purposely hesitant introduction at the door—“I hope you don’t think I’m imposing, I know someone like you probably doesn’t have much time, but when I heard your name I couldn’t help but want to meet you.”—she seemed to hit the right notes.
And when she introduced Cutter as her emotional support and guard dog, she saw something flash in the woman’s dark eyes that told her Colby had been exactly right. Liz Hollen liked women who were, in her eyes, weaker than her. And Ali knew from the way she took charge of the meeting at that point that she’d found the right way in.
Her mind was racing to assess, with too many brain cells searching for how and why Colby had ended up with this woman in the first place. But when Liz went over to her well-stocked wet bar and was focused on opening the bottle she’d brought, she remembered to slip the note Colby had written to Cutter. Amazingly, the animal took it carefully in his teeth and kept his wet tongue away from it—how on earth did you teach a dog to do that?—as she bent and whispered “Find.”
Cutter’s nose had been twitching since they’d walked in, and Ali guessed he knew his goal, Grace, was here. She had also noticed him watching Liz like the guard dog she’d said he was, as if he knew without being told that this was someone to be wary of. The enemy, even.
The instant she whispered the command, the dog quietly headed down the hallway. A moment later she thought she heard a slight sound that could have been a door opening. Then an exclamation that she tried to cover as her own with an exaggerated “Oh!” as she walked over toward the wet bar, acting as if she were fascinated with the framed print that hung on the wall above it.
“Is that a Hector?” she said.
“Well done,” Hayley said in her ear.
Liz, who had looked up at her words, set the now open bottle aside as she got two glasses out of the cabinet.
“Yes,” she said, “it is. An original. I met him at an exhibition in LA, and he practically gave it to me.”
It took all she had to say with what she hoped was the right level of admiration, “I’m sure. It would be great publicity for him to be able to say someone like you had one of his pieces.”
Ali had to physically stop the eye roll she wanted to make. She was familiar with the current fad of cartoonish drawings turned into what the man called art, and privately thought he likely had to give them away, because who’d want to buy them? But she knew she was thinking too logically, and that with a fad like this, the desire was to be in the crowd that treasured trappings more than reality.
Then she heard the slight sound of Cutter returning, and the dog came back to her side. Mouth empty, she thought, just as he gave her what she would have sworn was a nod, indicating mission accomplished.
And apparently Grace both understood and accepted her assignment. She could just imagine the child reading that note.
