Page 21 of Operation Protector
Gracie,
Your friend Ali is helping us. Her puppy brought us some friends, including this dog, Cutter. Ali is pretending Cutter is hers, and you need to pretend you don’t know her until you meet her now, okay? Just wait a few minutes after you get this, then come out.
We’re going to make it better, sweetie. I promise.
Love, Daddy?
“What was he doing?” Liz asked, a little sharply.
“Cutter? Oh, I hope you don’t mind. He likes to look around, but he’s done now,” she said, hoping Hayley got the message.
“Message delivered,” Hayley said on the other end, confirming her hope.
Liz shrugged. “I don’t mind dogs. People tend to trust people with pets.”
Well that’s an interesting and ice-cold assessment of the benefits of dogs…
Ali went on, gushing a bit but trying not to go over the top. She was already a little amazed at how the woman seemed to eat it up, or rather, take it as her due. “I can’t blame him. Your home is so beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Liz said. Then, in what Ali guessed was, for her, a polite tone, she said, “Your place is rather cute, in a diminutive way.”
Zap!
This was where she normally would write someone off.No, be honest, Ali told herself,you would have written her off the moment you walked in this overdone mass of fakery.
“It’s nothing compared to this,” she said, again trying to judge just how saccharine to get. She had a feeling the woman’s ego required a lot of feeding.
Now that a few minutes had passed, Liz poured a bit of the wine into her glass and tried it. She nodded in approval, and looked at Ali with what she thought was a bit of surprise.
Because of course us peons know nothing about good wine.
Then the woman picked up the bottle and looked at the label. “I didn’t realize they’d come this far,” she said. “I’ll have to let my father know. He might want to invest.”
“Subtly letting you know how bucks up they are,” Hayley said in her ear, her tone so dry it was all Ali could do not to laugh.
Liz topped off her glass, and filled one for Ali. She gestured out toward the grand salon—she really, actually called it that!—and they went to the big, luxurious couch and sat. Frankly, she thought her own was much more comfortable than this overstuffed, polished leather thing you slid all over every time you moved.
Cutter came and sat politely at her feet.
“He seems very well-behaved,” Liz said, sounding as if she were still reserving final judgment.
“He is. And very tidy.”
“You mentioned he’s also a guard dog?”
“Yes, he is. A good thing for a woman living alone, I think?”
She went with the uptick at the end, as she had been doing, since it made it sound like everything was a question, which in turn made her sound more uncertain and less of a threat.
“You may be right,” Liz said, studying Cutter more intently now.
“And I just love him,” Ali gushed. “He’s so good with my new puppy. And you should see him around children, he’s a great playmate. And he makes sure nobody bothers them.”
Liz’s head came up. “So he’s protective of kids?”
“Very.”
“Would he warn you if…someone he didn’t know was around?”
