“What? Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said be the attorney for Dave that Cooper had. Do your job and get him off. I know you can do it. What’s going on? I can hear you moving around.”
“Just watching some guy walking the grounds.”
She moved to another window, this one in her bedroom, pushed the blinds apart with her fingers and peered down.
“What’s he doing?”
“I’m not sure. I saw him here over the weekend taking pictures. I just thought maybe he worked for the McGregors and was doing something for the property owners. But he’s back now and taking more pictures. Of all the buildings and the grounds. Even has a ruler out as if he’s measuring something like a crime scene.”
“If you see him again, call the McGregors and see if they’ve sent anyone over. Or I can come down to visit you...in my uniform.”
She laughed. “Always my big brother to the rescue. I’m not worried about anything. You know me, I’m just people watching. Been doing that most of my life.”
“Looking for tells and clues for your next big win,” Ford said. “I know. I remember.”
“You’re just mad that I could always argue my case as a kid and get out of things that none of you boys could.”
“You got away with as much as you had because you were the only girl,” Ford said. “Don’t let anything else go to your head.”
She laughed. Being the fourth child of five, and the only girl, she got cut more slack.
But in other instances had it harder.
She wasn’t just watched over by her father, but her brothers too.
Did she have to work as hard on the farm as the boys? Not in terms of physical labor, but she put her time in the same as them, just in different forms.
“Don’t be jealous,” she said.
“Of you? Never,” Ford said. “Did I do a good enough job of pumping your ego and putting you in a good mood to go kick some ass?”
“Always,” she said. “Thanks.”
She hung up with her brother and followed the stranger moving along the grounds. Maybe she’d take a walk and see what he was up to.
You know, people watching and all. It’d be nice to go by the beach. She had access, but rarely used it. Who had time to suntan? Definitely not her.
What better excuse than curiosity to see what might be going on around her. If she wanted to stay on top of things, she had to get involved, even if from a distance.
3
TORE HIM APART
Two days later, Rory made his way into the courthouse.
No one had returned his call or his emails. Talk about frustrating.
He’d been back in Lake George for three days. As much as he would have loved to stay at the cabin his family rented fifteen years ago, it was under new ownership and not for rent.
Probably for the best. He wasn’t sure his psyche could take that much of a memory shoved down his throat.
He got a place two blocks away, not on the water, but it didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t here on vacation.
He wasn’t looking to fish.
Something he hadn’t done since the day they found his sister’s body discarded like a piece of trash thrown out of a car window racing down the street.
