Page 37 of Operation Protector
“You really can keep this secret?” Ali asked, leaning down to look Grace in the eye. “Because that’s very, very important.”
As if she sensed the truth of this, Grace sat up straight. She gently put Ziggy on the floor, then looked directly into Ali’s eyes. “I can,” she said firmly.
“Your mother’s pretty sneaky,” Colby warned. “She’ll get you talking about something else and try to make you slip up.”
“I know. She does that all the time. I’ve heard her. It’s how she gets secrets out of people.”
Ali gave a wondering shake of her head. “Are you sure you’re only seven?”
Grace grinned suddenly. “I’m a smart seven.”
“That you are,” Colby said fervently.
The first day after their meeting at Foxworth, Ali put up a blue piece of the construction paper she sometimes used for mock-ups in the window. Within ten minutes Grace was racing across the yard. She and Hayley met her at the back door, where Cutter was already waiting.
Since it was a Saturday and they hadn’t seen Liz leave, she was careful to ask the child, “You talked to your mother?”
Grace made a sour face. “Yes. She said I could come.”
“Okay, Grace,” Hayley said. “Now we need to call your mother.”
That startled the child. “Why?”
“Not because we don’t believe you, we do. We know you wouldn’t lie to us. But you know how your mother wants everyone to obey her?”
“Daddy calls it bowing down to her.”
Ali couldn’t help smiling. “And I’d agree. But she needs that. I think…” She hesitated, but telling herself the child had more than proven herself smart enough to understand, she went on. “I think she likes it when people are a little afraid of her.”
Grace simply nodded. “I know. I see her sometimes when she’s yelling at somebody on the phone. She sounds really mad, but…she’s smiling.”
Ali felt a jab of repulsion at the twisted mentality that would take. But it vanished in the wave of admiration that followed, for just how smart Colby’s little girl was. The emotion was touched with a bit of sadness, however. No child this bright and precious should have to deal with a mother like she had. Her own had been no mother-of-the-year nominee, but she hadn’t been vicious.
Ali had to steady herself before she made that call.
“It’s Ali next door,” she said with all the bright cheer she could muster. “I wanted to double-check that Grace cleared her visit over here with you, like she promised.”
“She did,” Liz said. “But good for you for checking. Wise decision.”
Gee, thanks, Your Highness.
“Just wanted to be sure,” she said.
“If she gets to be a nuisance, send her home.”
“Cutter’s tolerance level is pretty high,” Ali said, managing a fairly credible laugh. “But I’ll make sure she’s home in a couple of hours.”
For a moment after the call she stared at her phone. A nuisance. Nice.
“It’s supposed to start raining in about an hour,” Hayley was saying to Grace. “Until then you and Cutter and Ziggy better play out here in the backyard, where you’ll be visible. Then when it does start to rain you can come inside and she shouldn’t think a thing of it.”
Ali reached into the basket that sat beside the back door. “Here,” she said, handing the girl a rubber bone.
The girl looked at the slightly gnawed-on toy. Hayley laughed and explained, “I think Cutter is trying to teach Ziggy to fetch, but he needs somebody to throw it so he can show him what to do.”
“I can do that!”
Grace looked deliriously happy. Ali wondered how much of that was simply because she didn’t have to hide it over here.
