The Call of Bravery. Janice Johnson Kay
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the boys, and a smaller one that was obviously the teenager’s. It was little larger than a walk-in closet; maybe originally intended to be a sewing room or nursery?
“Sorrel understands that the attic is off-limits,” Lia said, her tone pleasant but steel underlying it. The teenager looked sulky but ducked into her bedroom as Lia led the way to the door at the end of the hall. Like all the others in the house, it had an old-fashioned brass knob. It also had an ancient keyed lock with no key in it.
Behind it was a staircase steep enough Conall wouldn’t have wanted to navigate it after a few beers. Lia’s hips swayed seductively at his eye level as she preceded him up.
Don’t look.
He couldn’t not.
It was a relief to have her stand aside at the top, where a huge open space was poorly lit by only four, smallish dormer windows. The dormers would allow them to stand upright in front of the windows, but the men especially would have to duck their heads in much of the rest of the space.
“Yesterday I washed those windows on the inside.” Lia sounded apologetic. “I can’t even get my hose to squirt that high on the outside.”
The two light fixtures up here didn’t do much to illuminate the attic, especially around the edges where the ceiling sloped sharply down. As in many old houses, it was cluttered with unwanted pieces of furniture, piles of cardboard boxes filled with who knew what, more modern plastic tubs stacked closer to the top of the staircase, and a few oddities and antiques. A naked female clothing mannequin with a bald head stared vacuously at them. Conall saw an old treadle sewing machine cheek by jowl with a gigantic plastic duck.
Lia’s gaze had followed his. “I think the duck rode on a Fourth of July float every year until my uncle died.”
“The mannequin?”
“My aunt owned a small clothing store in town.” She looked around as if she hadn’t thought about the contents of the attic in ages. “I don’t actually know what’s up here. Someday I should go through it all, but I always seem to be too busy.”
“The animals out there yours?” Jeff was peering out one of the windows.
“The horse and the pony are. They’re fun for the kids. I rent the other pasture out. Keeps it from growing up in blackberries.”
Conall found himself curious about her and wanting to ask questions, but none of them had anything to do with the job. Had she inherited the house? Why did she foster kids instead of having her own? Why wasn’t a woman who looked like that married?
Focus, he told himself. Lia Woods wasn’t the point here. Her neighbors were.
He walked to the second of the two windows looking to the south and saw immediately that they had a bird’s-eye view of the target. Except for the film on the outside of the glass, it couldn’t be better.
“Do these open?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
From the reluctance of the latch to give way, he could tell no one had tried in years. He muttered a swear word or two under his breath, scraped the latch open and heaved upward at the sash window. It groaned, shuddered and rose two inches before jolting to a stop.
“Hell.”
“Is this not going to work for you guys?” Lia sounded hopeful. And why shouldn’t she? She’d probably rather they got in their Suburban and drove away never to be seen again.
“We’ll loosen it up,” Conall said. He saw that Henderson was using his muscle to work on the other south-facing window. They’d need the damn things open, if only to get some air flow up here. Not surprisingly, the attic was stuffy and warm, and that was on a cloudy day with the temp reading sixty-nine when they passed a bank in town. If this op dragged on long, with spring edging into summer, it could turn hellish up here.
He was starting to turn away from the window when movement caught his eye. “Damn,” he muttered, and Henderson joined him. Oh, yeah, the neighbors definitely had a dog.
“You know those folks have a Doberman?” he asked.
Lia hurried over, catching a glimpse before the dog trotted around the corner of the other house. “No.” She sounded worried. “Maybe they put up an invisible fence of some kind. I haven’t seen it in the pasture. If I do, I’ll have to talk to them—” She looked fiercely at the two men. “I’ll have to do something if that animal scares my horses or attacks them.”
“Let’s worry about that if it happens,” Conall said.
She didn’t look happy, but finally reverted to tour guide, pointing out the bed she’d set up in the far corner. She had the polite thing down pat, and he imagined her giving much the same spiel to newly arrived foster kids. Except she’d probably offer it to them with more warmth than he was hearing. No, she wasn’t thrilled about their presence, the subtext was there. “I set it up yesterday and put fresh sheets on it. I gather that you won’t be sleeping at the same time?”
Conall said, “No.”
She nodded. “If it gets uncomfortable up here, there’s a twin bed in the room Julia and Arturo are in right now. I don’t expect them to be with me over a week. You can have that room once they’re gone.”
Right across the hall from hers. Conall imagined sleeping that near to her. Oh, yeah, that would be restful. He shot a narrow-eyed glance at Henderson to see if he was thinking the same, but he was looking around the attic with curiosity. Beyond his initial reaction, he hadn’t registered a lot of awareness of her. Conall’s shoulders relaxed slightly, which had him frowning. Another surprise; he hadn’t liked the idea that his partner might be slavering over her.
Like I am?
She was a sexy woman. So what? He’d had plenty of sexy women before. Getting them seemed to be one of his talents. Maybe it was the appeal of a man who didn’t really give a damn one way or the other. If a woman who attracted him made it plain she wasn’t available or interested, he shrugged and moved on. There were plenty of fish in the sea. Conall didn’t remember ever feeling anything approaching jealousy.
Lia might have a boyfriend or fiancé. He wondered if Phillips had thought to ask. A regular visitor here could threaten their anonymity. If that regular visitor was a man who felt possessive of her, he wouldn’t like their presence.
Conall wouldn’t like his, and definitely didn’t like the idea of a man having the right to go into her bedroom with her and shut the door.
“Do you have regular visitors? Family? Friends? Boyfriend?” His tone was abrupt.
Her chin edged up slightly and he saw a flare of irritation in those richly colored eyes. “Are you wondering how I’ll explain you?”
“Something like that.”
“These people next door are strangers. None of my friends have anything to do with them.”
“Are you so sure? Chances are they shop for groceries locally, pay their utility bills in town, wander the aisles in the hardware store, pump gas at the Arco or Shell station, stand in line to buy stamps at the post office. All they have to do is overhear a snatch of gossip. Maybe a word of concern about Lia, stuck with those feds doing a surveillance.”
She stared at him mulishly, but he could also tell that what he’d said had registered.
“What we need is zero gossip. No one can know we’re here.” He hesitated. “Our first and biggest problem is the kids. I presume they’re still in school.”
“The boys have been out the past two weeks. We’re close enough to the end of the school year, I think I’ll keep them home. You saw them. They’re not ready to go back.”
Good. Great. That left them with a teenage girl who would like nothing better than to have a dramatic story to share about the two federal agents spying on the neighbors from her foster mom’s attic.
“Sorrel…”