Page 52 of Operation Protector
“We’ll beat her this time, too,” Ali said, very conscious of using “we.”
And Colby’s gaze seemed to heat slightly as she said it, enough that she was glad when Quinn stepped out and came over to them. He’d been inside looking for something, although he hadn’t said what.
He stopped beside Colby. “Call in your girl for a minute, will you?”
Ali noticed he didn’t even hesitate, but called out to Grace to come over. The girl did, still looking wonderfully happy as she told the two dogs to keep on playing, she’d be right back. Ali saw Hayley notice what her husband was carrying, and give a very slight smile, as if she understood. All Ali could see was that it was a small tubelike thing in silver metal.
Quinn asked Grace to go inside with him. Ali liked the way she looked at her father first, not taking another step until he nodded. Then he moved to follow her. He glanced back at Ali, questioningly, and she in turn looked at Hayley.
“Go ahead,” Hayley said. “I’ll stay out here for…demonstration purposes.”
Now she was really puzzled. But she followed the trio inside, curious.
Quinn ushered them to one side, away from the glass back door. So they couldn’t see? Or couldn’t be seen?
“Hear how quiet it is inside here?” he asked Grace. “How you can’t even hear Ziggy barking?” The child nodded, looking as puzzled as Ali felt. Then Quinn handed her the little silver tube.“Here. Take this end, and blow through it, three times quick and short.”
And suddenly Ali knew. She waited as the child did as instructed. And as she now expected, Ali heard nothing. It was as quiet as before in the well-built headquarters building.
“It didn’t do anything,” Grace said, looking at the thing in her hand. “Did I do it wrong? I did just like you said—”
A sound came from the back door, and Ali felt a rush of cooler air from outside and knew it was open. A split second later Cutter was racing into the room, coming directly to Grace and inspecting her urgently.
“A dog whistle,” Colby murmured.
“Yes,” Quinn said.
“But Daddy, it didn’t whistle,” Grace said, looking at him for an explanation while she petted Cutter, who was calmer now that he could see for himself she was all right.
“Not so we could hear it, no. But Cutter could.”
“How?”
“Dogs can hear much better than we can. And they can hear sounds we can’t hear at all. Like really high-pitched sounds.”
“And that,” Quinn said, “is what that whistle is designed to do. Put out a sound so high we can’t hear it, but dogs can.”
Grace was smiling now. “That’s cool! Like a secret signal or something.”
Ali saw Colby give Quinn a startled glance, as if he’d realized what this was really all about.
Quinn nodded in affirmation. “You hang on to that. Keep it with you, all the time while Cutter’s staying with Ali. And if anything bad happens, or you get scared, you blow it. Cutter knows what it means, and he’ll do what he just did. Come running.”
Grace’s eyes widened. “He’ll come to help me? And…she won’t know I called him, because she can’t hear it either?”
“Exactly,” Quinn said with a smile. “And nothing will stop him. Like now, he ran right past Hayley, because he knows keeping you safe is his job.”
“But if I’m in the house and can’t get out,” Grace began.
“He’ll raise such a fuss it’ll interrupt anything going on. And believe me, unlike that whistle, everybody within a mile will hear that boy bark if he wants them to.”
“Which means I’ll hear him and call for help,” Ali said.
Quinn smiled and nodded. “You use that phone we gave you, and whoever’s closest will head that way.” He shifted his gaze to Colby. “You’re the one who has to be careful. You don’t want to give her any excuses, so unless there’s physical danger to our girl here, you hang on until one of us gets there.”
Ali saw Colby’s jaw tighten. Clearly he did not like that idea of staying back when his girl was hurting or scared.
“Trust us.” Hayley said it softly as she came up beside them.
