“Sounds like a plan.” She turned to the boy. “Hey, bud, you need a bath.”
“Really? I had one yesterday.”
“I remember that. I had a flood to clean up, but you need a bath every day.”
JJ curled his lip and let out a grunt. “Yes, ma’am.” He headed into the house, and they followed.
Reid heard the water run a few minutes, then shut off.
A moment later, Quinn returned and sat next to him at the small table. “Should we go to the police station and see if they’ve got anything new?”
“It’s best if we stay put. The less you and JJ are out, the less likely you’ll be attacked.”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with us.”
Reid tried to interject, but she raised her hand.
“Hear me out.”
He nodded.
“Yes, they are after me and JJ, but obviously, we don’t have anything they want. I’m a single mom who works at a diner and rents a duplex from an elderly woman. I think it has to be because JJ is Joe’s son. Maybe, they came after us to get Joe to talk or do something for them.”
Her thinking was logical. “But Joe’s dead. Why keep coming?”
She shrugged. “Okay. Maybe, they don’t want to use us as ransom. Maybe, it’s revenge. He destroyed their lives.”
Definitely a possibility. As private investigators, they tended to make enemies, always getting blamed for ruining lives. In reality, they didn’t ruin anything. They just brought people’s indiscretions to light. It wasn’t like they forced people to do said indiscretions. “I’ll see if I can get a copy of his black hat list.”
“Black hat list?” She tilted her head.
“A list we keep of people who are troublesome or could be troublesome. It’s been used in cinema to distinguish the good guy from the bad guy. The good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black hats. While we wait, I think it would be a good idea if you kept JJ out of school and you stayed away from the diner for a couple of days.” He didn’t want her to feel like a prisoner, but the fewer routine things they did, the less likely that an attack would occur.
She nodded. “I’ve already thought of that.”
“Momma,” JJ bellowed from the bathroom.
She disappeared into the bathroom, only to return a minute later. “He couldn’t find the soap. The bar sitting right in his line of sight.”
“Perhaps after the last twenty-four hours, he’s a bit scared. Wants to make sure you’re still here.”
“He could be. I can’t blame him for being scared.”
CHAPTER SIX
What are we going to donow?Everything was a big question mark. They didn’t know who was after them or why, and they didn’t have any leads. JJ was missing school, and she was missing work. Their life was at a standstill.
Quinn shook her head. She shouldn’t be focusing on the negatives. Positives—those were the things she needed to remember. They were safe for the time being, thanks to God and the man sitting beside her. A man she didn’t know, but he still worked to protect her and JJ.
Worked. He was a private investigator like Joe had been. Maybe, he had an idea about what to do. “Now, what do we do?” She turned to face him.
“We think.”
What kind of response is that?“And what are we supposed to be thinking about? Because I have a lot of thoughts right now, and none of them are helping.”
“We go back to the beginning and think about everything. There’s a connection somewhere. We just have to find it.”
“Is that what you do on all your cases? Think?”
