The two had a mock shoving match on the way back to their desks. Toby shook his head then focused on his partner. The humor left him as he looked at Anthony.
“Something up?”
“You could say that. Adam called a couple minutes ago. He said he had a call from one of the detectives in New York.” Anthony told him about the call. It didn’t take his best friend long to completely alter Toby’s mood and the balance in his entire world.
“When the hell did that happen?”
“About two weeks before we discovered we had a stalker.”
Toby slowly got to his feet. They were here, safe and secure in police headquarters. But their woman… “Mary.”
“Adam’s on his way to see her right now. We’re cleared to leave.”
“Good. Let’s move it.”
As Anthony drove, Toby ordered himself not to worry. Sometimes he could even manage to follow such a self-directed order. It didn’t take him long to know that today wasn’t going to be one of those times. He couldn’t stop himself from worrying.
Mary had had a very close call back in New York. That, and her feelings about what they all were facing with this virus? As far as he was concerned, she’d been through enough.
He let his mind form the picture of that moment when Mary had faced Thorncliffe. He’d often heard people boast that they were trained in the martial arts, and that was all well and good. But he’d come to a conclusion in his life about that very thing. A person could study self-defense for years, as Mary had, and even gain a proficiency, as she had. Mary held a second-degree black belt. But unless one was in a position to use that acquired skill in a real-time, real-life situation, it remained basically an untested quality.
Their woman had been caught completely off guard when Thomas Northcliffe had broken into her apartment. And because he had done that, because she had had to fight for her life, Toby knew one thing without a doubt.
Mary Kendall wouldn’t be caught off guard in that same way ever again.
He knew from his years of cop work, from years of dealing with people who’d been through close experiences like Mary’s—those experiences changed a person. In a way, it’s as if they lose their innocence. He hated like hell that Mary had experienced that. But in this circumstance, he was grateful, because now that she’d been tested, she would never again be in a situation where she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.
Toby figured he’d been silent long enough. “It's going to be all right,” he said. Not sure which of us I’m trying to convince, here.
“That’s been my mental mantra since Adam called. But I don’t feel as if it is, so I’m just getting us there as fast as I can.”
“Okay. So we’re both not convinced.” He turned and focused on Anthony. “Are our feelings of doubt based on something substantive, or do you think it’s just our feral-man fear for our woman?”
Anthony barked out a laugh that told Toby just how on edge his partner really was. “How the hell should I know? I always figured I knew how this was going to work out for me. I’d pretty much guessed a while ago that I was a lot like the men in your family—meant to share a woman. A wife. But then life tossed us a few extra curves at the same time we were setting our sights on her, and I honestly don’t know which fucking end is up anymore.”
“It does give me some comfort, brother, that we’re on the same page about everything that’s important.”
“Back at you. Okay, division of labor here. I drive. You pray.”
Toby wasn’t fooled. His partner was perfectly capable of doing both at the same time. Still, he immediately gave his assigned part his all.
* * * *
Mary had driven Kate back to the Big House and gone in for just a moment to say hello to Aunt Abigail. Two of the uncles, Caleb and Jonathan, had headed off earlier to meet with their friend and business partner Mike Murphy at the offices of Benedict-Murphy Investigations—a good-sized office housed at the Lusty airfield. Carson and Michael had driven to Dallas for the day, so she made a note to pop back in at another time to pay her respects to the men.
It was amazing how much better she felt. All it had taken was speaking up, saying how scared she was and finding a person in her Grandma Kate who listened, and who understood. I guess Kate’s right. If a person’s smart, they’re smart enough to know when to be afraid.
Fear wasn’t a bad thing. Mary had always believed that. It was a tool. A survival tool, one that had been instilled in human beings since the dawn of time. On the short drive back to her house, she wondered that she should have been so slow to get it. After all, as a writer of mysteries, she often delved into those instincts that caused humans to do what they did. The fight-or-flight instinct was a coping tool, one born out of fear and one that was a friend to every author who ever penned a suspense plot.
Even as she put her turn signal on, she saw him.
“Huh. I wonder what Adam wants.”
Mary pulled her Buick into the driveway. It didn’t surprise her that Adam came over and opened her door for her. Unlike back in New York, there was never a shortage of good manners here in Lusty.
“Hey, Mary. I hope you don’t mind that I was waiting for you.”
“Not at all. I took a few minutes to give Aunt Abagail a hug when I dropped Grandma Kate off.” She knew she didn’t have to explain more than that. There were times over the last month or so that she’d begun to wonder if her cousin Adam had a computer for a brain. His ability to keep apprised of where everyone was through
