Page 28 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
He sighed but didn’t argue. “You’re probably right. Okay, then, get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And instead of leaning down as if to kiss her, he waited for her to lean up.
“You too,” she said, and then she mustered every nanogram of will she had, and turned and walked away from him, out the door into the cool perfection of a West Texas night. Bugs were whirring and chirruping and in the distance, and a coyote howled a long, warbling love song.
Maybe she’d made a huge mistake giving in to her baser urges and sleeping with Gringo Sombrero. But that didn’t matter. What was done, was done.
Her mission now was to find out what the hell he was up to.
What was he looking for in Quinn?
Chapter Six
“I still don’t get why you don’t just ask him,” Drew said. She was standing by the dry fountain behind the former Bluebonnet Inn.
Willow was on a stepladder near the back door where a security camera was mounted. “Because he’d be as likely to lie as tell the truth,” she replied. “And I don’t trust myself not to believe him purely because I want to.”
The cameras had been installed on the vacant house many years back, after some kids started using the backyard garden as a party spot. Drew had downloaded an app. Willow got the password from Juanita, and now they would be able to monitor anything within range.
Drew held her phone, and called. “A little to the left.”
Willow moved the camera.
“No my left,” Drew said.
Willow moved it again.
“Right there, perfect.” As Drew said it, she moved around the fountain, watching herself on her phone. “Yep, best view of the spot Jeremiah seemed most interested in, and most of the backyard, too. Tighten that thumbscrew so it stays that way.”
Willow was already tightening it.
“I hope it’s as good a view after dark,” Drew said. “He’s not gonna dig up private property in broad daylight, after all.”
“Probably not.”
Drew stood there, arms crossed, tipping her head (and ponytail) left and right, still watching her phone as she moved around the backyard. “It’s an out-of-date system. No battery backup, it’s hardwired right into the house. I wish we had better equipment.”
“Doesn’t your mom have better equipment?” Willow asked. Penny Brand was a PI, after all. She’d assisted the women of Quinn County in a pile of divorces.
“She has it all right. Has it locked up. Orrin and I get the cast-offs, which are no better than what’s here, so…” She shrugged. “And during the bonfire, I’ll get a look at his phone. But you’ll have to distract him. Think you can manage that?”
Willow averted her face, turning to walk back toward the house, but not inside. They had no key, and she didn’t want to tell her secret to more people than necessary, so she hadn’t consulted Cat.
They went through the garden gate, which was white-painted wrought iron, in need of a fresh coat, some straightening, and some squeaky hinge oil. They’d parked in the driveway, rather than out by the road where their vehicles would more likely be seen.
Drew drove a little EV. She was the most modern-minded member of the whole clan, and maybe the most strongly opinionated. She was also the youngest cousin, so the rest of them tended to look out for her.
Aunt Penny, Drew’s mom, a PI and lifelong sleuth, and had planned to name her baby girl Nancy, after Nancy Drew. According to family lore, the baby girl had wailed every time her mamma’d called her Nancy, until one day, before leaving the hospital, her daddy had called her Drew. The baby smiled and she’d been Drew ever since.
Her young cousin followed her to her pickup. She had taken Willow’s phone, and was tapping its screen. When she handed it back to her, she showed her a new icon on the screen. “Here’s the app. All you have to do is tap it, and then tap its camera icon to bring up the live feed. I’ve already put in the password, which we will delete as soon as we finish. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. It’ll backup the recordings to my secure cloud until we tell it to stop.”
“You have a secure cloud?”
“And a VPN,” Drew said with pride. “Well, Mom does.”
Willow didn’t know for sure what a VPN was. She opened her pickup door, but Drew didn’t move toward her own small, white vehicle. She looked like she had something else to say, so Will faced her again, and asked, “Whatever it is, spill it. I have an appointment with a sketch artist at nine.”
