Kayla flushed. He hated doing it, but somebody had to protect her from herself, and right now he was the only one around.
The dog moved and, oddly, came to sit between him and Kayla. The animal looked from him to her and back, with an expression that looked for all the world like impatience. Dane shook his head; he loved dogs, but he didn’t usually impart human qualities to them.
“Quinn?”
It was the other woman who’d spoken, drawing his gaze. She looked the picture of innocence, which made him even more suspicious.
“Yes,” the man said. “I think so.”
Another stab of pain shot through him. He and Kayla had been like that once, able to communicate without words. But lately he’d quit trying, or even asking what she was thinking, because his gut knew one more admission that she was worrying about her brother would send him over the edge.
And it had.
“Walk with me,” Quinn said. Dane eyed him warily. “You have questions,” the man said in answer to his look. “I’ll give you all the answers you want.”
“And I’m supposed to just believe you?”
“No,” Quinn said. “I expect you to do your homework and then decide if you believe us.”
That surprised him enough to make him follow the man’s lead. And if he wanted to be out of earshot of Kayla, it could mean he wanted to hear the other side of the story.
“That note she got today…” Quinn began as they neared a stand of cedar trees along one edge of the park.
“Don’t bother. I know exactly what it said. ‘I didn’t do it. I love you. I’m sorry. Forget about me.’ Even as he keeps sending them so there’s no hope she ever could.”
Quinn stopped walking and turned to look at him.
“I know that sounds harsh,” Dane said, “given what she’s been through.”
“Crimes like that have a far-reaching ripple effect,” Quinn said. “They touch many more lives than just the immediate family.”
The rather detached yet undeniably true observation made Dane take a second look at the man. He was as tall as he himself, and while Dane biked and ran to keep in shape, he doubted he was as strong as this guy looked. He’d been thinking of adding some weights to his regimen, and just looking at the arms on this guy was enough to convince him.
“Look, I know she loved Chad, but he was…”
“Spoiled and manipulative?”
Dane’s mouth tightened. “Yes. Chad never once had to suffer the consequences of his actions in his entire life.”
“His parents protected him?”
Dane nodded. “He was the firstborn, and he was spoiled rotten. Until Kayla came along. He was jealous at first, but she adored him so much he finally decided he liked it. She would do anything for him, and he wasn’t above using that.”
“You didn’t know them back then.”
He didn’t sound particularly accusatory, but Dane was raw enough that he answered a bit sharply.
“Their father told me the first part. The last part I saw for myself. Chad used Kayla from the day he realized she was smarter than he was. I don’t know how many school papers he conned her into writing for him, even though she was two years younger. Or how many times he convinced her to lie for him, cover for him, with their parents. A couple of times she even took the blame for something he did when he was skating too close to the edge with their father.”
“How long did that go on?”
“Until I was able to convince her she wasn’t doing him any favors.”
Again Quinn studied him for a moment. “You’ve always had her best interests at heart.”
It didn’t seem to be a question, but it reminded Dane he should be worrying about those best interests now. “Who are you? And what’s all this crap about helping Kayla find Chad?”
“It’s what we do.”
“Find missing persons? You some kind of private investigator? Because she’s been there, and she got taken. I proved that and convinced her to give up on them,” he ended with a pointed glare at Quinn.
He didn’t mention the large insurance policy their parents had had, with Kayla and Chad as sole beneficiaries. It wasn’t a huge fortune, but it was enough to tempt unscrupulous types. Hayley Cole seemed innocent enough, but there was an edge about this man that made him wonder. He just hoped Kayla hadn’t been foolish enough to say anything about the money. He didn’t think she would; she might be foolishly obsessed, but she was far from a fool, and she’d learned her lesson after that P.I. ripped her off.
Of course, he also didn’t know how much of that money was left after ten years of pouring it into her endless search.
“No, we’re not private investigators,” Quinn said. “We don’t work for just anybody. Only people we believe in.”
“And you do it for free? Right.” He’d slipped from skepticism into outright sarcasm, but Dane didn’t care. He might be through with Kayla, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care at all; he couldn’t turn it off like a faucet.
“That’s why we’re very particular about what we take on.” The man’s mouth quirked wryly. “Unless it’s somebody Cutter brings to us.”
Dane blinked. “The dog?”
Quinn sighed. “It’s a long story. But the bottom line is, he’s better than a lie detector.”
The whimsy of that, coming from a man like Quinn Fox-worth, almost made Dane smile. But his own reaction made him even more wary; he knew predators often used animals to lull their targets into trusting them. They didn’t seem the type, but did the type ever really seem like the type? He shook his head before his thoughts got even more muddled.
“I think your canine lie detector misfired on this one,” he said.
“Kayla mentioned you and Chad didn’t get along. Were there other reasons?”
Dane’s jaw tightened. “Nothing that has anything to do with this. Why should I believe anything you say?”
Quinn looked at him thoughtfully. He pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “I’m not going to give you answers you’ll question. Find your own answers. Do that homework.”
“You can count on it,” Dane said, letting more than a hint of warning into his voice. “And you stay away from Kayla until I do.”
Chapter 4
Dane leaned back in his chair, staring at the computer monitor, tapping his pen on the note pad at his side. The top page was full of scribbled notes; his search had been easier than he’d expected. And quicker. It had only taken him a couple of hours to become convinced.
He’d ignored most of the stuff on the website for the Fox-worth Foundation. Anybody, as he knew better than most, could put together a website and put anything they wanted on it. It was a sad fact that if it looked genuine enough, far too many people took it at face value. The Foxworth site gave away very little information, however, as if anybody who went looking for it had to already know what they did.
But he’d noted the areas across the country that had contact numbers for them and then called local authorities in those places. Many had never heard of the foundation and some had heard of them but not had any contact with them, but a few had dealt with them directly, and it was those he concentrated on.
The