“Is he upset about something?” Dalton asked.
Yeah, me.“He’s just like that.” Andrew turned to Dalton with a rallied smile. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on. After I’m finished looking over things here, maybe you can join me for lunch on my way back to the office.”
“That’d be great! I have a few other things I wanted to talk about, actually.” He glanced over Andrew’s shoulder as if to be sure Steven was out of earshot. “Like my dad.”
Andrew hated to admit it, but there had only ever been one thief who could get away this clean, and Ford had been keeping tabs on the police and their progress with these investigations. “I know you won’t want to hear about him being a suspect—”
“It wasn’t him.”
“I’m not saying it was.”
“Besides, if it was Dad, he’d know what to take. He wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving something important behind. He would have done his research.”
“That’s… true.”
“And he wouldn’t do this to me. He is militant about keeping that part of his life separate. Annoyingly so, in fact.” Dalton scowled, which opened a pit of guilt in Andrew's stomach for even considering Ford might be involved.
Then he realized how much Ford would hate that he was there. He'd hate all of this. Dalton’s research had been targetedspecifically. It was too coincidental when his father was an ex-thief who now did security. “That’s why you called me instead of him.”
“Well, yeah. Plus, I figured you might actually let me help.”
“Help?”
“This research is important to me. I have to help. You have an engineer working for you, right? He can help too.”
Dalton also did his research. Kevin had left a job in engineering because he didn’t want to work for anyone corporate.
“You two would probably get along like brothers separated at birth,” Andrew admitted.
“Is he your new Bones?”
“Technically. Though Kevin prefers Spock.”
“Ah, so you’re saying there’s room for both of us on that couch for the nextStar Trekmarathon?”
Andrew laughed. “He’ll want to vet you first, but I don’t foresee any issues.” In fact, Andrew sort of loved the idea of introducing his friends and having a movie night. He didn’t take time off very often anymore.
“It’s a date,” Dalton said. “But there is one other thing I wanted to mention before you got to work.”
“Yeah?”
“About Dad.”
Andrew’s stomach dropped. Why had Ford said they dated? “Look, if there are details about the two of us he didn’t want to share—”
“It’s not that. Things didn’t work out between you two. I get it. And I know it seems like he’s been doing really well with his business.”
Yeah, stealing clients fromme.
“But it’s hard. There’s still so much stigma. A lot of potential clients turn up their noses at them just because Dad and hispartners have records. It would go a long way to helping them realize they chose the right path if they had someone with more clout to vouch for them.”
“What are you thinking?” Andrew asked skeptically.
“I think Doctor Vallancourt needs to increase security, especially after all this. That’s why I called you. But given how talented the thief is, we might need more than one consultant.”
“Dalton,” Andrew felt the hammer about to fall, “I know you asked for me because this is complicated with your dad—”
“It is, but if he thinksyouasked for him, it could be different.”
