Page 33 of I’ll Be Watching You

Jack stepped into the office. “I agree. Until this is over, I’m moving in with you.”

Mom shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”

“It’s not up for discussion,” Jack said, his face firm. He wasn’t backing down any more than I was. “I just spoke to Logan and Laura. Logan’s bringing in a security team and Laura and the kids will go to his house in Cave Creek. He already has a good security system—the personnel is just as a precaution. The kids aren’t going to school the rest of the week.”

“Did you call Whitney and tell her about the sudden change in plans?” Mom asked. Better Mom than me to ask about Jack’s bitch of an ex-wife.

“Yes. I didn’t tell her about the potential danger, but since it was my weekend with Austin and he has good grades, she was surprisingly okay with letting me take him for a long weekend. If this goes on past Sunday, I’ll have to tell her everything.”

Jack glanced at me. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to San Diego to talk to Georgia in person, since she’s not answering her phone.”

“Why don’t you take Cal with you?” Jack asked.

“Because he has a job and I’m not going to ask him to drop everything. I’ll take Luisa, good?”

Jack nodded. “I’ll call in Nate to keep an eye on Tess.”

Nate Lorenzo worked on and off for Angelhart Investigations. I’d known him practically my whole life. He grew up in a house with two people who should never have been parents. Two years younger than me, Nate bolted the moment he graduated high school and enlisted in the Navy.

Back then, he was sarcastic and fun—a little moody, but in a way that made people laugh. After the Navy, the moodiness stuck, but the laughter didn’t. He hadn’t wanted to leave the service, but he’d been seriously injured when his ship was attacked by the Houthis while escorting merchant vessels through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Jack later told me that Nate had been hurt saving two young seamen trapped belowdecks. That was Nate; he’d never leave anyone behind, even at the cost of his own safety.

I hadn’t seen him in months. Outside of working part-time for us, I wasn’t sure what he did. His parents had passed away while he was deployed, and he’d moved back into the house he grew up in, though “moved back in” wasn’t quite right. He’d gutted the property inside and out, remodeled everything. It looked nothing like the place we used to know.

Maybe that was the point.

“I should have thought of that,” Mom said.

I wanted to talk to Jack alone, but I also wanted to get on the road as quickly as possible. I had no intention of staying in San Diego overnight.

Aunt Rita approached, and Jack moved out of the doorway to let her into Mom’s office.

Rita immediately went over behind Mom’s desk and hugged her. “Ava, I am so sorry this is happening. How are you holding up?”

“I will be better when we have answers.” She looked up at Rita, hopeful. “Did you find out why Cooper was transferred? When can we see him?”

Rita looked pained. “Langford received a call late yesterday afternoon from the AUSA office that there was a threat against Cooper that they believed was credible.” Bob Langford was the current county attorney. He had worked for Mom when he was a prosecutor and she was the county attorney, and he had remained close to our family. “They’re following up, but in the meantime, they felt Cooper would be safer in a federal penitentiary until they could determine exactly what was going on. Langford thought the AUSA had contacted me, otherwise he would have called—he feels awful that we were caught unaware.”

“What was the threat?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know,” Rita said. “No one would tell me, just that they believe it was credible. That’s the portion of the order that is sealed. Langford confirmed what the warden told you, that the transfer was supposed to happen Friday morning, so he doesn’t know why it happened in the middle of the night. I also confirmed that they have me listed as his attorney. I notified the Florence Penitentiary that I would be visiting tomorrow and expect to meet with my client when I arrive.”

“I’m going with you,” Mom said.

“Of course.”

“I don’t think either of you should be traveling anywhere,” Jack said.

Mom seemed like she wanted to object, but considering she had just pushed for me to have a partner on my drive to San Diego, she couldn’t very well insist she was capable of going out of state with her sister who wasn’t a trained bodyguard.

“Alright,” Mom said carefully, “but you need to stay here, Jack.”

“We’ll find someone to go with you,” Jack said.

“Rita,” Mom said, “we need to tell the family. With this happening to Cooper so suddenly, what if they go after someone else?”