Operation Alpha Read online

  “And saved your sorry ass,” he muttered to the reflection in the mirror.

  And that, he thought, was enough self-absorption for the week. He wasn’t sure what had set him off now. Maybe it was the girl, Emily. Maybe he was just hoping she wasn’t in trouble. But she’d seemed happy enough. Maybe the problem wasn’t hers.

  The teacher? Had Emily brought her because she was the one with the problem Foxworth could fix?

  He found he liked that idea even less. Which in turn unsettled him even more. She was a complete stranger; why would it bother him to think she had a problem that would need Foxworth? He was always glad to help people in trouble, he loved what they did, but this was a different sort of feeling, and he didn’t like it.

  He caught himself looking in the mirror again. His mirror gazing was usually limited to making sure nothing was grossly wrong, like dirt on his nose or pizza sauce on his cheek. Yet he stood there wondering how he had appeared to her, all grubby and sweaty from playing with Cutter.

  All right, that’s it. Now you’ve gone over the edge. Get the heck out of here.

  As he donned clean clothes from his locker on the back wall of the bathroom, he pondered. Maybe he should just go about his business. Maybe Quinn wouldn’t need or want him on this one, he reasoned. Emily was special to his boss, being the first case and all. He’d probably want to handle whatever this was himself.

  Besides, Liam had other things to do. Some stuff to send to Ty. He and the tech guy at Foxworth headquarters in St. Louis had been working on improving the in-house tracking system, installed on all the Foxworth vehicles. And he hadn’t been to the shooting range in a while; he needed to do that, too. He’d never had to actually use the handgun Quinn insisted he be proficient with, but it had been close a couple of times and he wanted to be sure he was up to speed. Even though he was much more at home with rifles, he’d turned out to be a decent shot with the Colt. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need to practice. And he’d promised Rafe he’d do an electronics check on the backup generator while Rafe was off in Alaska on that sabotage case. So he could do that, and then he could...he could...

  His list of reasons to avoid joining the group on the patio sputtered to a halt. He was trying to decide where to start when a low woof outside the bathroom door startled him. He hastily yanked on his boots—custom-made back home, his one splurge when he’d accepted the job here—and opened the door. Cutter stood there, waiting.

  “What’s up, hound?”

  The dog turned and trotted a few steps toward the patio, stopped and looked back over his shoulder. The customary “follow me” canine body language. Cutter’s vocabulary was much larger than most dogs, and given that Liam’s folks raised them he had some basis for that observation. But this one was pretty standard to most dogs. What wasn’t standard was how impossibly inventive the animal was when it came to getting his point across.

  And how impossibly stubborn he was when it came to getting people to do what he wanted.

  “Boss didn’t ask for me,” Liam pointed out, even though he knew resisting was useless if the dog’s mind was set. And the look Cutter gave him then was the canine equivalent of “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”

  Maybe Quinn had sent the dog for him, to hurry him up, Liam thought.

  He had a sudden vision of taking this guy home to meet his parents’ rather rambunctious pack of mostly tracking hounds and hunting dogs. Cutter would have them organized and herding longhorns, whether they were bred for it or not.

  The image gave him the laugh he needed and, feeling silly over his uncharacteristic burst of self-contemplation, he followed Cutter who, as he’d expected, headed straight for the patio where the others were gathered.

  * * *

  Ria Connelly was glad she had a glass of Hayley Foxworth’s delicious lemonade—no powdered mix here—to focus on when the Foxworths’ dog came back. Because he had with him the other Foxworth...agent? Operative? Whatever they called themselves. The one she’d met outside. Liam. Who had obviously been playing with said dog quite cheerfully. Part of his job? Maybe, but judging by the way he’d been laughing as they came around the building, it was a part he enjoyed.

  Of course, Cutter was a very beautiful dog, with a lot of personality. She’d seen that even in the short time she’d been here. She liked the way his head and shoulders were black but the color shifted to a reddish brown over the rest of his body, liked the thick, soft fur and most of all the amber-flecked dark eyes, so wise and knowing.

  And she wasn’t usually fanciful about dogs, but this one seemed different to her. If he was a person she would have said he had an old soul. So maybe that applied to dogs, too.

  As for his ball-throwing partner...

  She told herself it wasn’t that delightful grin or hair in that style she liked—short but a bit longer on top, where it looked like you could muss it any which way and it would still look intentional...

  And thoughts of messing with his hair led down roads she had no business going. He didn’t look that much older than some of her students. But, then, that was often said about her, too.

  Besides, it wasn’t that at all. It was simply that she liked that he’d been so happy over a simple thing like playing with a dog. Her world seemed to be overflowing with teenage angst these days, and seeing somebody so pleased with such a simple thing was like an antidote. And it had nothing to do with the leanly muscled body or the chest—and abs—that had been on display before he’d pulled his shirt back on. Hastily enough that she found the seeming self-consciousness rather charming until she remembered this was, after all, his place of work.

  When Quinn gestured to him to take a seat, he headed for one of the empty ones near his boss. The dog got in his way, though, and they seemed to try to dodge each other for a moment before he finally ended up sitting down in the chair closest to her. He gave the dog a look she couldn’t define, except to say it was as wary as if the animal had suddenly morphed into a wolf.

  “Cutter seems to think we’ll need you for this,” Hayley said, sounding amused, although Ria wasn’t certain about what. She had only just met Quinn’s wife, a pretty woman with lovely green eyes, but she already liked her.

  “Does he now,” Liam said with an expressively wry quirk of his mouth. Ria wondered where he was from, what place had put that slight drawl in his voice. “And just what is ‘this’?” Liam asked, shifting his gaze from the dog to Hayley.

  “We’re about to find out,” Quinn said equably. He looked at their two visitors. “Which of you has the problem?”

  “Neither of us, really,” Emily said with a glance at Ria.

  Ria smiled. “I’m just the wheelman, as it were. But I understand her concern.”

  She also had her doubts that this vague, nebulous job was something an operation the apparent size of Foxworth would take on. This building of theirs was expansive and well equipped, including a small kitchen and bath, a living area with fireplace that could be in any nice home and even a bedroom in the back corner. She also thought she’d caught a glimpse of a helicopter in that warehouse-looking building at the other end of the gravel parking area. Foxworth was much bigger than she’d expected.

  Emily’s explanation played back in her head. They used insurance money to start it, Mr. Foxworth and his sister. Their parents were killed by terrorists.

  So he understood loss. But even that seemed on a much grander scale. And yet...

  He never belittled me or the smallness of my request. He understood how important my mother’s locket was to me, how it was the only thing I wanted in life, to have it back, because it was the only thing I had left of hers. And he found it. He turned the thieves over to the police but only after he got the locket back.

  Emily’s heartfelt retelling of her story had been the final factor in Ria’s decision to at least give this a try. And
that’s what she should be focused on—Emily’s worries, not the distraction of the sandy-haired guy with the quirky grin sitting too close to her.

  “Emily?” Ria liked how Quinn said it. He was a big, powerful-looking guy, but he wasn’t afraid to be kind or gentle.

  “I think,” Emily began, hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I think a friend of mine is in trouble. Maybe bad trouble. Will you help?”

  Ria thought asking that before explaining was a bit hasty. But she had, it seemed, underestimated Foxworth. It was Hayley who answered, as if she knew perfectly well what her husband would say. As she apparently did.

  “Of course.”

  Chapter 3

  “His name is Dylan,” Emily said. “Dylan Oakley.”

  “What makes you think he’s in trouble?” Quinn asked.

  “He’s been very different lately. I mean, he has reason, but...”

  When she stopped, swallowing tightly, Ria knew why and stepped in. “His mother was killed in March, in a hiking accident.”

  It was a moment before anyone spoke.

  “You know him? Is he a student of yours, as well?” Quinn asked Ria.

  She nodded. “I’ve had him in classes for two years. And the difference in him is...marked.”

  “And it’s been getting worse lately, not better,” Emily said.

  “Sometimes it happens that way,” Hayley said, her tone gentle with understanding. “Grief has its own path, and it’s different for everyone.”

  Emily’s gaze shifted to Quinn. He nodded. “She knows, too.”

  Even the dog sat up from his spot near Emily and plopped his chin on the girl’s knee, making her smile as she reached out to stroke his fur.

  Ria felt oddly out of place. As if she’d stumbled into a club she gratefully lacked the qualifications for. She’d never lost anyone really close to her. Even both sets of her grandparents were still kicking, a couple of them off playing in a seniors tennis tournament in California. Her parents were still running the family hardware stores and her two older brothers were busy with their lives—one producing the much-desired grandkids for the parents while he managed the accounting for the stores, the other following his dream of being an airline pilot. She had aunts and uncles scattered all over the country, and cousins abounded.

  She knew she was lucky, but nothing had brought it home like this moment, sitting here among people who had dealt with the kind of loss she’d never had to face. Yet.

  Ria toyed with one of her earrings, the tiny silver crossed saw and hammer that was the logo for her family’s stores. She glanced at Liam, wondering. But it was there, too, that look. That understanding. It changed his open, innocent appearance, and suddenly he didn’t seem quite so young. But his expression was also tinged with something else. In fact, for a moment she thought she saw guilt before he lowered his gaze.

  And belatedly she realized that when she had looked at him, he’d already been looking at her. She gave herself an inward shake and focused on the matter at hand.

  “But Dylan used to talk to me,” Emily was saying. “Because I got it. I knew how it felt, losing his mom. But he stopped. And he doesn’t even talk to his best friends anymore.”

  “He’s a smart kid and used to be well prepared. But his grades have dropped dramatically in the last couple of months,” Ria said. “He’s even missed some classes, which he never did even right after she died. In fact, he seemed to dive into his studies even more.”

  “It’s a good way to avoid thinking about it,” Quinn said. His voice held the self-knowledge they all seemed to share but her.

  “I read tons of books,” Emily said.

  “So did I, after my mother died,” Hayley said. “It was my escape.”

  Emily looked at Liam. “What did you do?”

  He gave the girl a startled glance. “What makes you think—” He stopped, and Ria saw his jaw tighten and then release as he said, “Computers. And sometimes I’d take off into the hills for a few days. Find something to track.”

  There was silence for a moment. Ria looked at her student. She also obviously recognized he’d been through this particular hell. But, then, Emily was very perceptive.

  “He’s also dropped his other activities,” Ria said. “He played baseball in a local league and was good at it, but he didn’t sign up this year.”

  “And he was just starting to get really interested in martial arts,” Emily said. “He was all excited, looking for a good school or coach or whatever they call them, and now he won’t even talk about it.”

  “Withdrawing from life,” Hayley said with a frown.

  “Exactly,” Emily said. “I’m worried about him. I even—”

  She broke off, looking embarrassed.

  “Truth is best, if we’re to help.” Quinn’s tone was mild, nonjudgmental.

  “I snuck a look at his phone,” the girl admitted. “I was afraid he might be...thinking of doing something.”

  She’d told Ria about her surreptitious checking of text messages and web history, and while Ria couldn’t officially condone the sneakiness and invasion of privacy, she understood the girl’s motivation.

  “I didn’t find anything,” Emily said quickly. “Nothing ominous, anyway.”

  “No searching for suicide hotlines or methods,” Ria put in, since that had been her main concern.

  “Or bomb-building information?” Quinn asked, his voice gentle.

  Emily’s eyebrows shot up, and Ria guessed hers had, too.

  “Of course not! Dylan would never. Ever.” Emily was vehement.

  Ria didn’t blame him for asking. How many times had people said, after some disaster, that they’d had no idea, that they couldn’t believe their nice, quiet neighbor/friend/relative could have done such a thing?

  “No insult intended, Emily. Just eliminating possibilities. Like before.”

  Ria saw the girl let out a breath, and then she nodded. Emily had told her how Quinn had asked a ton of questions, some of them shocking to her. But one had led to the awful realization that someone she’d thought a friend had been one of the thieves who had broken into their house on a night when they’d known she and her adoptive family would be gone.

  “Here, I can show you.”

  Emily sent a picture she’d taken of Dylan at a baseball game last year to Quinn’s phone, and followed it with one she’d surreptitiously taken just last week. Ria had seen them both, and the change in the boy was startling. He’d gone from a healthy, carefree, good-looking young man with a fun-loving air to a shadowed, hunched, too-thin boy who looked nothing less than haunted.

  Hayley looked at them as they came in, and Ria saw her eyes widen as she took in an audible breath.

  “I see why you’re concerned,” she said.

  “I think he’s not eating, too,” Emily said.

  “He’s lost weight,” Ria confirmed. “And he didn’t have much to spare, since he’d already lost some after his mom died.”

  “He said that was his dad’s lousy cooking,” Emily said.

  “He told you that?” It was the first time Liam had spoken. Emily nodded.

  “Yes. We talked a lot, back then. And really, if he’d just stopped talking to me, I would have understood. I would have thought I was just a reminder of loss he didn’t want to think about anymore. And that’s fine. You have to do what you have to do to get through.”

  Quinn gave her a long, steady look. “You,” he said, “have become everything I ever saw in you, my young friend.”

  Emily blushed, but she was smiling widely. And in that moment Ria quite liked Quinn Foxworth. Quinn nodded at the girl, and she picked up where she’d left off.

  “But he’s quit talking to everyone. And sometimes after school he goes up to the lookout—that’s a spot with a bench on the hi
ll behind the school—and just sits there. For hours.”

  “Sounds like a guy with a lot on his mind,” Liam said.

  “Has he seen a counselor?” Hayley asked.

  “Yes,” Ria said. “I referred him to the therapist who consults for the school. He saw Dylan for a couple of months after his mother was killed. Of course, we didn’t discuss the actual sessions, but he said he was doing well. But then they stopped.”

  Emily looked at Ria. “He stopped going because his dad wouldn’t let him go anymore. And wouldn’t let his little brother Kevin go at all, said he didn’t need it.”

  “Sounds like Dad could’ve used some counseling,” Liam said rather sourly. Ria nearly smiled at that.

  “And four months later he’s like that,” Emily said, gesturing with her phone, which still showed that last, haggard photograph.

  “Something’s eatin’ at that boy,” Liam said. “He looks like he’s carrying the world.”

  “I don’t know what you can do,” Emily said to him. “But—”

  “We’re Foxworth. We’ll think of something. Right, boss?”

  Ria found herself smiling. She liked Liam’s easy, kind reassurance to the girl and the quiet but obvious respect for Quinn that she had a feeling was only partly because he was his boss. And she liked the hint of a drawl, as well. She wanted to ask where he was from, but this didn’t seem the time. Not to mention he unsettled her a bit too much.

  “We will certainly try,” Quinn agreed. “That boy needs some help.”

  “I just don’t know who he’ll take it from,” Ria said. “We’ve all tried. Almost everybody he knows has.”

  “Maybe,” Hayley said slowly, “it needs to be someone he doesn’t know.”

  Quinn looked at his wife. “Meaning?”

  “People under stress sometimes resist someone pushing to ‘help.’ And it can be easier to open up to someone who doesn’t know about all your baggage.”

  “That’s true,” Emily said and then looked at Quinn. “Remember how I poured my heart out to you when my poor parents couldn’t even get me to tell them what was wrong? I was afraid of hurting their feelings by wanting this—” she fingered the locket “—back so much.”