“We’re visiting,” the little one said, as Jamie nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. We’re visiting.”
Michael was an expert in sizing up people, reading their expressions. He wasn’t buying that line of bull for a second. These two were runaways. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. Hadn’t they just said they’d been looking for a place to spend the night? He decided to see how far they were willing to carry the fib.
“Won’t the folks you’re visiting be worried about you?” he asked. “Maybe we should call them.”
“We’re not sure of the number,” Jamie said hurriedly, his expression worried.
“Tell me the name, then. I’ll look it up.”
“We can’t,” Jamie said. “They’ll be real mad, when they find out we’re gone. We weren’t supposed to leave their place. They told us and told us not to go exploring, didn’t they, Josh?”
“Uh-huh.” Josh peered at Michael hopefully. “You don’t want us to get in trouble, do you?”
Michael faced them with a stern, forbidding expression that worked nicely on the employees at Delacourt Oil. “No, what I want is the truth.”
“That is the truth,” Jamie vowed, sketching a cross over his heart and clearly not one bit intimidated.
“Honest,” Josh said.
Michael feared he hadn’t heard an honest, truthful word since these two had first opened their mouths. But if they wouldn’t give him a straight answer, what was he supposed to do about it? He couldn’t very well leave them in the barn. He couldn’t send them packing, as desperately as he wanted to. They were just boys, no more than thirteen and nine, most likely. Somebody, somewhere, had to be worried sick about them. Maybe he could loosen their tongues with a bribe of food.
“You hungry?” he asked.
Josh’s eyes lit up. His head bobbed up and down eagerly.
“I suppose we could eat,” Jamie said, clearly trying hard not to show too much enthusiasm.
“Come on inside, then. Once you’ve eaten, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
In Trish’s state-of-the-art, spotless kitchen, they turned around in circles, wide-eyed with amazement.
“This is so cool,” Jamie pronounced, his sullen defiance slipping away. “Like in a magazine or something.”
“There’s even a cookie jar,” Josh announced excitedly. “A really big one. You suppose there are any cookies?”
“We’ll check it out after you’ve eaten a sandwich,” Michael said. He poured them both huge glasses of milk and made them thick ham and cheese sandwiches, which they fell on eagerly, either in anticipation of home-baked cookies or because they were half-starved.
Watching the boys while they devoured the food, Michael realized he needed advice and he needed it now. He needed an expert, somebody who understood kids, somebody who knew the law. Even as that realization struck him, he had a sudden inspiration. He knew the perfect person to get them all out of this jam. He walked into the living room, grabbed his portable phone and punched in a once-familiar number.
Grace Foster answered on the first ring, just as she always did. Grace was brisk and efficient. Best of all, she didn’t play games. If she was home, why act as if she had better things to do than talk? He’d liked that about her once. Heck, he’d liked a whole lot more than that about her, but that was another time, another place, eons ago.
Now about all he could say was that he respected her as a lawyer, even if she did make his life a living hell from time to time.
“What do you want?” she asked the instant she recognized his voice.
“Nice to speak to you, too,” he countered.
“Michael, you never call unless there’s a problem. Since we don’t have any court dates coming up, just spit it out. It’s Friday night. I’m busy.”
“Whatever it is can wait,” he retorted, troubled more than he liked by the image of Grace being in the midst of a hot date, one that might last all weekend long. He preferred to think that she led a nice, quiet, solitary—maidenly—existence.
Although he’d intended only to ask for advice, instead he said, “I need you to get on a plane and get over to Los Piños tonight.”
He said it with absolute confidence that she wouldn’t refuse, not in the long run. She might grumble a little, but once she understood the stakes, she wouldn’t turn him down. He wondered just how little he could get away with revealing. Maybe just the lure of sparring with him would be enough. His ego certainly wanted to believe that.
“Excuse me? Why would I want to do that?” she asked. “It’s not like your every wish has been my command, not for a long time now.”
She employed that huffy little tone that always turned him on although she intended the exact opposite. He could envision her sitting up a little straighter, squaring her shoulders. She had no idea that her efforts to look rigid and unyielding only thrust out her breasts and made her more desirable than ever. He bit back a desire to chuckle at the mental image. Grace was a real piece of work, all right. She might be pint-sized and fragile-looking, but she had the soul and spirit of a warrior. It was a trait he suspected was going to come in handy.
“You’ll come because you know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important,” he told her patiently. Then he dangled an impossible-to-resist temptation. “And you can hold it over my head for the rest of our lives, okay?”
“Now that is an intriguing idea,” she said with considerably more enthusiasm. “Care to fill me in?”
What a breeze, he thought triumphantly. Even easier than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t even had to pull out the big guns and tell her about the kids.
“I’ll fill you in when you get here. Can you be at the airport in an hour? I’ll have the Delacourt jet fueled up and ready. The pilot can see to it that you find me once you land over here.”
“Michael, really, there has to be someone else you could call, someone closer.”
“There isn’t,” he assured her.
“But I have plans. I’ve had them for ages. I hate to cancel.”
Damn, she was still trying to wriggle off the hook. “No,” he said firmly. “It has to be you. This is right up your alley.” He sighed heavily, then added as if it were costing him a great deal to say, “I need you, Grace.”
“Hah! As if I believe that for a minute. You’re overselling, Michael.”
“Trust me. You’re the only one for this job.”
This time she was the one who sighed heavily. “Okay, okay. When you start laying it on this thick, my curiosity kicks in. But I have to finish up what I’m doing here. Make it ninety minutes,” she said. “And, Michael, this is going to cost you. Big time.”
“I never
