“How would you do it?” Mo asked Meredith.
“Simple, really. We all pay Bronwyn a visit. She always comes to us so this time, we go to her. We hang out for a while. And maybe while we’re there, she asks Cal to look at something in her office.” Meredith grinned at Bronwyn. “Didn’t you tell me the other day that you wanted a new desk setup and you were hoping someone would help you with that? Like, someone who does beautiful custom work? A local craftsman?”
Bronwyn hadn’t expected to laugh today, but she did now. “Did I say that?” She’d never said anything of the sort.
“Well, you haven’t yet. But you will before we leave today. Then we’ll all traipse over there. Mo will come along because even though he’s always sitting at a computer and needs to be out in the sun more, he does have some woodworking skills. Then we’ll all go in your office.”
“And while you’re there...” Bronwyn could see it.
Mo held up a hand. “For the record, the kind of work I do doesn’t get done in a few minutes. This isn’t TV. Real-life investigations take time. Hours and hours of time.”
“But does it take hours and hours to copy a hard drive?” Cal asked.
Mo narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“So, we go in, and you duplicate everything on the computer and put it on something portable. You bring it back home and work on it. Problem solved.” Cal brushed his nails against his shirt. “That was easy. Why didn’t you think of that on your own?”
“Yeah.” Meredith grinned. “All these years of supposedly being the smart one on the team and you can’t come up with something so elementary. You’re slipping, bro.”
Mo looked at the sky. Bronwyn could almost hear him thinking,Lord, grant me patience.
“Would that work?” Bronwyn asked the question to the group even though she knew Mo was the only one who could answer.
“If we did that, it would still take me several days to go through it. And if I find something”—Mo glanced at Meredith—“hinky, then I would need to access more files. Eventually, I’d need to be on-site again. And I don’t think I heard Bronwyn address the issue of her physical safety earlier. Did any of you? Because if she’s already concerned about that, having me show up and start poking around is going to throw fuel on the fire.”
Three pairs of blue Quinn eyes settled on Bronwyn.
She broke. “I’m so scared. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I think someone might try to kill me.”
Four
Twenty-Five Years Earlier
“Can Bronwyn come?” Eight-year-old Mo Quinn looked at his mom and did his best to be adorable.
His mom’s face fell. “Sweetheart, I wish she could, but I don’t know...”
“Her parents aren’t even going to be home.”
“Where will they be?”
“New York. They travel a lot.”
“Yes, they do.” She sounded sad. “I would have her here in a heartbeat, but...”
Mo was willing to beg. He wouldn’t do it for just anyone, but for Bronwyn, he’d do anything. He wanted her at his birthday party. “Can we at least try?”
“I’ll talk to your father.”
That was the best he could hope for. “Thank you, Mama.”
“You’re welcome. Now go find Cal and do something outside.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He tried to find his cousin. He ran over to Cal’s house and knocked on the door, but no one answered. Meredith was spendingthe day shadowing the town dentist because she was weird that way.
He rode his bike to Papa and Granny Quinn’s house. Granny and Aunt Minnie were getting ready to go into town, so one quick phone call to his mama later, he joined them.
