“It’s my house, Xander. My things. I’m not going to stand here wringing my hands while you go look under the damn bed for me.”
He’d have cursed if it wouldn’t have been a waste of breath. “Fine. We’ll go check inside.”
They went upstairs first, and she turned straight into her studio. Even the relief of seeing, at a glance, that nothing had been touched didn’t ease the anger.
Still, Xander checked the closet, the powder room, and began going systematically room to room.
“Nothing’s been taken or moved,” she told him. “I know where things are. When you’re in the middle of deciding what you want where, and where to keep it until, you know.”
“I’m going to check the basement.” When she gave him that look, he did curse. “I’m not riding the white horse, okay? Nobody got in here past the locks, alarm, the dog, but I need to check.”
He stripped off the suit coat, the tie. “Mason’s going to be here any minute. I just want to go down, take a quick look. You can change out of that dress or not, but if you want to walk around outside, see what the hell, you’re going to want to get out of those skyscrapers.”
She stepped out of the classic black pumps. “I’m out, but you’re right. No one got in here, and I appreciate your being thorough and checking the basement. I’ll change.”
“Good.” He hesitated. “You know, Lelo’s not as stupid as he looks.”
“He doesn’t look stupidand yes, he’s going to start putting things together when the police and the FBI come out here because somebody walked across the fresh dirt that’s my lawn.” She drew a breath. “You can tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“Whatever you think he should know. I’m going to tell Jenny and Kevin. I’m going to tell them all of it.”
“Good.” He took her face in a firm grip. “You crossed that border, Naomi, because you wanted to. This is part of being on the other side. I won’t be long.”
Alone, she changed into knee-length jeans, a T-shirt. She still intended to plant. Goddamn it, she’d plant her new containers. Maybe she was afraidshe wasn’t stupid either. But over that fear ran a strong, hard line of anger.
And that she’d hold on to.
She went out on the deck, saw Lelo and the dog playing throw it/fetch it, and stood, just for a moment, looking out at the blue and the green she’d made her own.
She didn’t have to tell herself she’d do whatever she had to do to keep it. She already knew.
Twenty-eight
She didn’t know the other agents in their dark suits and sunglasses, but she doubted they were much different from the ones who had swarmed over the house, the woods in West Virginia seventeen years before.
She hadn’t stood with them, as she did now, but had watched the news reports in the safe house when her mother slept.
Now she wasn’t a child; now it was her house, her ground.
So she brought out cold drinks and started a jug of sun tea on the deck because it reminded her of summers in New York and how Harry had added mint from his kitchen garden.
She didn’t interfere, didn’t ask questionsyetbut she was present.
If somehow he watched, through a long lens, through field glasses, he would see that she was present.
Sam Winston stepped over to her, adjusted his ball cap. “I’m sorry about this, Naomi. The fact is somebody could’ve taken advantage of the house being empty just to satisfy curiosity. Point Bluff’s got a lot of people curious.”
“But you don’t think that.”
He inhaled through his nose. “I think we’re going to take every precaution and turn over every stone. The FBI has people who can study those footprints, give us a sense of height, of weight, give us the shoe size, even the make. If this is who we’re looking for, he made a mistake.”
“Yes, he did.”
Maybe not the same mistake the chief meant, Naomi thought. He’d made one by coming into what was hers. He’d made one by helping her pump that anger over the fear.
She went over to Lelo’s truck. They’d be sending him awayas they had the others who’d come to work. She’d get the plants, at least take them around to the containers.
When she found none, she decided Lelo had taken them around for her already. With the dog again on a leash to keep him from rolling over the evidence, she took him around the far side of the house with her, and onto the deck.
Tears swam when she saw the flats and pots lined up on the deck, and her own garden gloves, spade, and rake beside them.
“He’s a sweet man,” she told the dog. “Remind me to stock some Mountain Dew. That’s our Lelo’s drink.”