quite desperately, for him to pull her closer, until her body bumped up against his. She wanted him to kiss her.
And she knew letting that happen would be stupid. He was only here for a little while, and she suffered enough every time a child left her. She couldn’t bear anything else temporary in her life. He could hurt her if she let him.
So I won’t.
She eased her hand free and said, “Good night, Conall.” Lia was proud of how firm she sounded. How unaffected.
Proud, that is, until he said, “Good night,” and sounded so utterly indifferent, she knew without question that she’d imagined any chemistry between them.
Grateful she hadn’t given herself away, she preceded him into the house. By the time she turned the dead bolt, he was already halfway up the stairs.
* * *
CONALL HEARD THE SOUND of a vehicle engine first. Noise traveled well at night in the country. There wasn’t much traffic out here at—he pressed a button to illuminate the numbers on his watch—3:18 in the morning. Conall guessed he was hearing a pickup truck, maybe diesel; the roar was too deep for a car. From this window he couldn’t see the gravel road, but he expected to see some suggestion of headlights through the woods. Nothing.
Not another neighbor coming home late, though; this truck or SUV had passed the other driveways, then Lia’s. The Dobermans began to bark and raced to meet the… Yeah, a dark colored pickup with a black canopy. Using night vision, he watched the vehicle roll to a stop in front of that triple car garage. No headlights.
“About time,” he murmured. Somebody had come calling.
And was expected. One of the garage doors rolled up. A light was on somewhere inside, probably a single bulb. Two men came out, one of them speaking sharply to the dogs who both dropped to their bellies. Passenger and driver’s-side doors opened and the two newcomers got out. They went around to the back and opened the canopy on the pickup. After some conversation, all four began unloading…something.
Conall felt a chill. The wooden crates they carried in didn’t look as if they contained drug manufacturing paraphernalia and seemed unnecessarily large and sturdy to hold packets of cocaine or heroin ready for distribution. He had a really bad feeling about this. Those crates looked to him as if they held guns. Big guns, and a hell of a lot of them.
He rubbed his burning eyes briefly, and resumed watching. Faces weren’t real distinct, but he was letting footage roll so he could watch it again and try to zoom in on the scene: on the faces and in search of any marks on the wooden crates.
One of the men looked familiar. Conall couldn’t swear to it, but a couple of times… The way the guy turned his head, gesticulated, hunched his shoulders like a bull ready to charge… “Goddamn,” he said under his breath. “I’ve seen him before.”
It would come to him. It always did. He had a near-photographic memory, another of his strengths. He could almost always get the girl, he rarely forgot a face and he was an icy-cold son of a bitch, which meant fear had no hold on him. He took risks the agents with families waiting at home wouldn’t.
Images of Lia whispered through his mind. The woman who seemed to have a bottomless heart. He and she were polar opposites. She cared, he didn’t.
He had to keep his distance. Conall did try not to hurt women. He steered clear of the home and hearth kind. She wasn’t quite that, though; he wasn’t sure he’d ever encountered a woman exactly like her, willing to give endlessly of herself to other people’s children. At the table tonight, he kept watching her thinking, What’s in it for you? He still didn’t know. Money? The state did pay her to care for each kid, but was it only a job for her?
Focus, he snarled at himself. The men all disappeared inside the garage. The dogs stayed where they were. Half an hour passed, one breath at a time. Conall waited with the patience of any hunter.
Behind him Jeff let out a couple of snorting breaths and then covers rustled as he rolled over in bed. They had no damn privacy up here at all. Conall for one was looking forward to the day little Julia and Arturo went away and freed up the bedroom. Conall didn’t sleep well when he wasn’t alone. He rarely stayed