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His father nodded at his pickup. “You sure you would have found it?”
“Not a hundred percent, no. I need to take a look inside, too, even though I kept the doors locked.”
Michael shrugged. They both knew how easy it was to pop a window and unlock a car or truck. Patrol officers carried a tool to help them do exactly that for citizens who’d locked their keys inside their own cars. Seth, for one, could do it in twenty seconds or less.
“Robin cooking again?”
His father scowled. “I offered to grill, but she insisted. Seems to think she owes me something for letting her and the boy stay here. As if they’re any kind of burden.”
Seth grinned. “When the truth is, you’re enjoying the company.”
“Nice lady who cooks, great kid. Of course I am.” His father smiled. “Remember how whiny Ivy was? And that stretch when I swear the only word Sara knew was no?”
Laughing now, Seth said, “Yeah, I think that’s why Grace brought the girls out here that time. She was ready to tear her hair out. Huh. Jacob is bound to learn the power of ‘no.’”
They were both chuckling when they returned to the house, where spaghetti was once again on the menu.
Robin apologized. “I made way too much sauce. I don’t know what I was thinking. Usually at home I freeze it in small batches, and I could have done that, but I thought why not have it another night?”
“Sghetti,” her son said happily.
Jacob was less enthusiastic about the broccoli until Seth held up a clump and said, “Look, a tree,” and gobbled it like a monster. Jacob gleefully followed suit.
Robin shook her head. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”
They all laughed.
His dad said, “So what’s this I heard about a shooting today?”
Robin’s alarmed gaze swung to him.
“A stupid teenager, what else? He was mad because the baseball coach suspended him after he was arrested at a kegger. He just wanted to scare him a little in payback. Apparently the kid hunts, and insists he made sure he didn’t hurt anybody.”
“I hope he wasn’t eighteen,” Michael said.
“Had his birthday in January. Boy’s in trouble. I don’t think he gets it.”
Seth saw Robin eyeing Jacob with some wariness, clearly concerned for him.
His father declared that he’d take KP duty tonight, and Seth sat Robin down to talk. They went outside onto the deck so Jacob could run around on the lawn and she could keep an eye on him.
“Do you know whether Richard kept an investigator on retainer?” Seth asked.
“Like a firm, you mean? Why would he?” She made a face. “Before he set out to find me, I mean.”
“He may have other ongoing problems. You can’t be the only person who has seen behind his facade.”
She seemed to be thinking about that, but shook her head in the end. “I don’t know about that. Anyway, wouldn’t his law firm employ investigators?”
Not ones Winstead would dare use for sleazy work. “Did he ever receive threats?” Seth asked.
“Not that I know of, although he did—”
She covered the alarm quickly enough to make Seth doubt what he’d seen. “Did what?” he prodded.
“Well, I was going to say that the house is well-staffed. That would provide protection when he was home.”
“It might. Did he drive himself, or have a driver?”
“Sometimes he’d have someone drive him,” she said slowly. “Mostly not.”
Seth made a mental note to have Hammond look into Winstead’s employees.
“Did he have any employees you’d classify as bodyguards?”
Robin jumped to her feet. “Jacob?”
Seth had been keeping an eye on the kid, too, and had seen him go behind the big cedar tree. Before he could tell her, the boy peeked around the trunk. “I hid,” he told her proudly.
“No more hiding,” she said firmly. “Stay where I can see you.”
Seth said, “Hey, I saw a soccer ball in the garage. Let me go get it.”
Once he brought it out, he spent a few minutes showing Jacob how to kick the ball and move with it. It was a kid-size one, another leftover from his nieces’ visits.
