“Can I be honest with you?” Emma sat down across from her and added cream to her coffee. “This is decaffeinated,” she said when Remi nodded. “I hope you’ve had a real cup already.” Her attempt at humor worked and Remi laughed. “I had lunch with Dallas, and I noticed something about her.”
Emma sounded so serious Remi hesitated before answering. “If she made you feel uncomfortable—”
“Remi, she didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. I felt sorry for her. Dallas is running from something, and the last thing she needs is for you to disappear.”
“What makes you think I’ll do that?” Her coffee sat forgotten, but Remi did run her finger along the cup handle to have something to do while she lay under Emma’s microscope.
“How do I know? Are you kidding?” She laughed, and some of the hair in her ponytail pulled loose. “I might have graduated from Tulane with a degree in English, but I have a doctorate in life when it comes to understanding Derby Cain Casey. You two are at different points in your lives, but in here,” Emma stood up and placed her hand over Remi’s heart, “you’re the same. It’s this,” she tapped the side of her head, “that gets in the way when it comes to situations like this.”
“You sound like you
“If you just change where we’re from, Dallas and I aren’t that different either. In the end we’re all running from something. If you care even a little about her, you need to find out what it is and make her want to run toward something.”
Remi smiled as she gave Emma a quick hug. From the time Cain had introduced them, Remi had liked the little firecracker. Suddenly she saw the allure of having only one woman in her life. “My mother could take lessons from you.”
The teasing comment made Emma chuckle. “How do you know I haven’t taken some from her? I’m just practicing. With a true-bred Casey upstairs and another one coming up right behind him,” she pointed to Hannah, “I can use all the experience I can get. Once all those hormones kick in, our house is going to be a zoo.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Remi opened the door to the yard and waved her through. “How about if I get some practice with a four-year-old until Cain gets back?”
“If everything works out you could use that.”
Emma was kidding, but is that what she wanted? She had a home, but she had never considered filling it with a wife and children, like Cain had. And if she did consider it, was Dallas the one who, like Emma, could make the perfect partner?”
The answers were like a fortune cookie, wrapped in secrecy. She just had to crack through what Dallas was hiding.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jimmy Pitre stood in Cain’s office breathing like he’d sprinted a mile. His eyes darted from Cain’s face to the multitude of holes in the walls. This room had been gutted first during the renovations because of all the bullet holes, and Cain was sure the FBI had taken full advantage of the missing drywall to wire the room in which she most likely did business.
“Beautiful day, don’t you think?” Cain asked him after fifteen minutes of silence. She gave him credit for keeping his mouth shut since he’d arrived. Usually the sobbing started five minutes in.
“I guess,” Jimmy said, his voice wavering.
“When you were dealing with my wife, she said you were always certain,” Cain said, staring at him until he dropped his eyes to the floor. “You remember my wife, don’t you? The cute blonde who gave you some pretty straight-forward directions.”
“I did my job, Ms. Casey. The house is almost finished. I fulfilled Emma’s wishes, and I didn’t leave any room looking like that.” He pointed to the holes.
“I see.” Her leather chair creaked when she sat back. In the quiet house it sounded even louder than usual, but still she could hear Jimmy’s breathing. “Do I look stupid, Jimmy? May I call you Jimmy?”
He whipped his head up and nodded vigorously. “No, ma’am, you don’t look stupid.”
“Then maybe when Emma hired you she misunderstood exactly what kind of work you do, or maybe you forgot to tell her about all those little things that set you apart from the other guys she could’ve gone with. Which do you suppose it was?”
He spread his hands out in front of him and smiled. “I do go that extra mile to make sure you’re satisfied. But don’t worry—there’s no charge for that.”
“I see,” she repeated and pulled away the kitchen towel she’d grabbed before he’d arrived, then rested her hands on the edge of the desk. “I imagine, then, that the main control for these is somewhere in the house. When you submitted your final bill, I didn’t notice any mention of them, so now that you’re here, explain them to me.”
“Those aren’t mine, and I don’t know anything about them,” he said, his voice going up an octave.
“We’ll get to who they belong to and how they got here in a minute, but first let’s talk about your last chat with Emma. Do you remember the fine she mentioned?”
“She said five thousand per infraction.”
“Right here then we have five hundred and eighty thousand dollars worth of infractions.” She had laid every bug Katlin had found in neat rows on her desk. “And we’re talking the first floor only.” She stopped and picked up two that lay to the side of the others. “Do you know where we found these?” She held them up and Jimmy shook his head. “On the new playground equipment I put up for my daughter. I realize some people consider me a monster, but do you really think if I were, I’d show that side of myself in front of my four-year-old?” She slammed the devices back down on the desk.
