Twilight Shadows by Emilie Richards

Author:Emilie Richards [Richards, Emilie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emilie Richards

Chapter Eleven

Two recently retired police detectives, with experience and skill at blending into shadows, skirted the edges of Griff and Kelley’s lives. She knew when each man was working and where he was because she stayed alert to everything around her. She didn’t think Griff was aware of them most of the time. She hoped that Tara wasn’t aware of them at all.

The days after the incident with the van fell into a routine that made the brush with death seem like a distant fantasy. She and Griff got up before dawn and drove to the set, varying their routes and times of departure. One of the men routinely followed several car lengths behind. The cars the men used varied, although Kelley always knew what they would be driving, so that she wouldn’t think the worst. Since Griff’s Volvo was at the shop, he-drove a variety of rental cars, trading them in every few days to help confuse would-be attackers.

A third man had been hired to come in as Griff and Kelley were leaving and stay at the house until it was time for him to drive Tara to school. Mrs. Robbert had agreed to pass him off as a brother who was doing her a favor. He picked Tara up after school, too, and stayed around to do gardening and other chores until it was late afternoon and time for the second detective to take up his station outside the house. The first detective followed Kelley and Griff home and left as soon as he was sure his replacement was already on duty.

A week after the accident, Kelley got up earlier than usual to make coffee before the long drive to location. Tara sat at a small oak table that Griff had recently added to the decor, staring out the window into the darkness. Neuf lay in the doorway watching her.

“Up so early?” Kelley asked. “You don’t have to leave for school for hours.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Kelley thought she heard leftover tears in Tara’s voice, but she knew better than to mention her suspicion. She had backed away from Griff’s daughter much as she had backed away from him. Strangely, though, the maneuver, meant solely to maintain objectivity, had somehow made it easier for Tara to reach out to her. It had happened so slowly, at times Kelley hadn’t been sure she wasn’t imagining it. But little by little some of Tara’s hostility toward her had disappeared, replaced by something that, on the surface, looked much like yearning.

Now Kelley went right for the ordinary, as if she hadn’t noticed anything unusual. “Would you like some juice?”

“That would be nice.”

The positive response was a small thing, but relationships had been built on less. Kelley poured orange juice into two glasses and took them to the table. “I used to like to get up early sometimes when I was your age. The house was always quiet; and I could think without anyone bothering me.”

“This house is always quiet.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Kelley sat down across from Tara.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.