Page 72 of Shadow of Fear
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Dev watched his family and Kinsley set up a game of Monopoly on the coffee table. He remained in the dining room, trying to decide what to do after the information they received. The day had started off far too uneventful for his liking and had remained that way all through the tense coffee break he’d just shared with Kinsley and his family.
Uneventful when it came to Kinsley’s safety was good, but Sierra had said the fingerprint information for the drone would come in today. He’d hoped she would’ve called him by now and had identified Huff as their suspect, as he was their most logical one. That was, if his conversation on the lawn wasn’t staged. But Dev would be glad for anyone’s name. That would give him a lead to go on. A solid lead.
He would far rather have that than go into the living room and join in a game. Usually he loved Monopoly. Most times he won when he played his family, but today he couldn’t concentrate.
His phone chimed a text from Nolan.Located Caldwell. He didn’t hear from Huff and didn’t seem concerned. Tried to get him to understand the danger he was in, but he didn’t believe Huff would come after him. Claims he’s never heard of Kinsley, so had no reason to want to kill her.
You did your best to warn him,Dev fired back.Would be good if you kept an eye on him. For protection and in case he’s lying and has it out for Kinsley.
Roger that, but man, you’ll owe me for making me sit through poetry readings tonight.
Dev replied with aha-habut hoped he could find some way to pay the guy back.
Should he have had Nolan come back instead of keeping an eye on Caldwell? Dev really needed all the help he could get with Kinsley’s protection detail and couldn’t afford for Nolan to stay in Eugene. Would Dev come to regret that decision? Only time would tell. Something else to weigh heavy on his mind.
His throat seemed to close on him, and he needed some air.
“I’m stepping out on the porch for a minute.” He didn’t wait for anyone to reply but opened the door and joined Abby, who had the dayshift.
“All’s quiet,” she said. “I’m not hoping for anyone to break into the compound, but this is getting a little tedious.”
Dev felt sorry for her and appreciated her even more right now. “Better than sitting at the sheriff’s desk and doing paperwork, right?”
She stared into the distance. “Pretty much anything trumps that part of the job, and the higher I climbed in the ranks, the less action I saw. I was only called in when the problem was so big my sergeants and lieutenant couldn’t handle it. Often a disaster by then, and I had to make sure the public didn’t lose confidence in us.” She shook her head. “The job ended up being far more about politics and putting out fires than actual law enforcement.”
Dev would’ve hated that kind of job. “Is that why you left to join Nolan’s team?”
She shifted to look at him. “Actually, you got it wrong. It’s not Nolan’s team. Not really anyway. It was his idea, and we voted for him to be in charge, but each of us ponied up our fair share to start the business.”
“Seems like you know each other pretty well for having just formed the company.”
“We do. Went to college together, studying law enforcement.” Her eyes took on a fond look. “We formed a study group our freshman year to get through science prereqs and became friends. We had jobs with different agencies before we graduated, but we managed to go to police academy together too.”
“Sounds like you have a pretty tight bond.”
“We do, even though we went our separate ways and lived in different cities. But then Nolan contacted us and offered to provide the property where we live and work out of—an old inn with an attached lighthouse sitting on the point. He paid for it, and we’re renovating the main areas together, but doing our own rooms.”
“How’s that going?”
She shook her head and laughed. “Some of us are doing better than others.”
“The place sounds amazing. I’ll have to come by and see it.”
“It’ll be great all right.” Her lips turned down. “Oncewe get the renovations done. We’re doing them between jobs, and it’s taking longer than we hoped.”
“I’m sure Reid would agree to pay back your help here by our team coming to work on the place with you for a day.”
“There’s no need to repay us, but we wouldn’t turn it down.” She wrinkled her nose. “Took me a long time to accept help like that. Until God taught me a valuable lesson about trying to always go it on my own. And before you ask, it’s a long story. Just trust me when I say, I now know that accepting help is a good thing.”
Dev could take a page out of her book. He didn’t like to ask for help. Something he rarely did. Probably came from being the younger brother of an overachiever and wanting to prove himself. But protecting Kinsley had been an exception. He would take all the help he could get if it meant he could keep her alive.
So far, he and the others had succeeded in that area—the most important area—but they hadn’t moved very far in the investigation.
“Excuse me a minute.” He walked around the other side of the cabin.
He’d had enough of waiting and dug out his phone to text Sierra. He started typing, then stopped, letting his finger hover over the keypad. She and her team had gone out of their way to get here and to Kinsley’s apartment right away to collect forensics. It would be rude of him to try to push her along when he knew she was doing the best she could do.
