The Least Among Us by Gwen Florio

Author:Gwen Florio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

28

JULIA STOOD AT the base of the ladder, watching as the locksmith installed the final security camera.

It pointed at the front door. The house now had cameras by the back and front doors, two-way views on each corner, and motion sensor lights so bright she thought about warning the neighbors in advance.

He climbed down and dusted his hands on his pants. “That should do it. Are you good with the app?” He stood beside her, nodding as she scrolled through the various features. “Looks like you’ve got it. I’ll email you the bill.”

“I suppose there’s an extra charge for coming out on a Sunday.”

He laughed and headed for his truck, calling back over his shoulder, “FOW.”

FOW? Oh. Friend of Wayne. She vowed to add something extra when she paid the bill.

She’d spent most of her weekend doing everything she could to turn her charming cottage into a virtual fortress. Even though it wasn’t really hers. She hadn’t bothered to email Leslie Harper’s sister for permission to install the cameras, let alone ask if she could have a break on the month’s rent.

“What next?” she asked Jake, who gamboled about her feet, tugging at her shoelaces. “Razor wire atop the picket fence?”

He yipped enthusiastically, which was how he responded to anything she said. One of his positive qualities. Every time she found another object chewed into unrecognizability—her favorite wooden spoon, snatched from the counter, had been his latest victim—she reminded herself of his exuberant good nature, the way he alternated between her bed and Calvin’s at night, snuggling close and staring soulfully into her eyes upon waking. At a time when even Calvin’s adoration was intermittent, Jake remained unwavering.

She scrolled through the app again, all the various black-and-white views of their home.

“A smart investment,” Wayne had assured her. “You won’t regret it.”

Maybe. But she did regret the fact that she’d have to give up her lattes at Colombia for weeks on end to even out the expense.

“Mom! Can you see me?” Calvin mugged at the back door, sticking out his tongue and contorting his face.

She put her phone away and walked back through the house, throwing the deadbolt behind her even though it was three in the afternoon. Calvin waited for her in the kitchen.

“Can we walk Jake now?”

Jake, whose intelligence was a double-edged sword, went into paroxysms at the word walk, scrambling to the wall beside the door where his leash hung on a hook.

“We’ve already walked him twice today.” When she’d agreed to take the dog, she’d hadn’t thought his care would entail much beyond feeding him and picking up his messes in the yard, chores immediately delegated to Calvin.

She hadn’t reckoned on the need for seemingly constant exercise, something that carved even more time out of her day. On the plus side, her calves, which at first had screamed at the unaccustomed clip and distance demanded by an energetic, half-grown dog, were firming up nicely. At this rate, she thought, she’d soon be able to keep up with the slow people in Cheryl Hayes’s running group.

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