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A tiny smile flickered over Phoebe’s lips, then disappeared.
Two minutes later, they walked into Phoebe’s house. No one had cleaned it for a long time, and it looked as if basic maintenance had been neglected, too. The doorknob on the hall closet was missing, leaving only a hole in the door where the mechanism should be. Dated, stained wallpaper hung in peeling strips in the hall, curling at the seams.
Dark and tiny, Phoebe’s second-floor bedroom held a twin bed. A small dresser sagged against the wall, two of the drawers missing drawer pulls. All the furniture was old and chipped.
As Lainey surveyed the room, Phoebe opened drawers and pulled out clothes. Lainey took them and dropped them into the bags. Phoebe did the same to her small closet, and Lainey saw that many of her clothes were old and worn. She vowed they’d make another shopping trip soon. Maybe to Bozeman, a bigger city with more stores.
In the bathroom, Phoebe took an old-looking shampoo bottle, her hair dryer and curling iron, then scanned the room for anything she’d missed. Where were her products? Teenaged girls obsessed about their products. Damn it! Lainey should have asked her what she needed when they were at Target. She vowed they’d address that issue in Bozeman.
After dropping the generic shampoo into the bag on top of her clothes, Phoebe stuck her head into her bedroom and reached for the small jewelry box. “Any books you want?” Lainey asked quietly.
Phoebe spun around to the rickety night stand beside her bed and yanked open its drawers, removing five or six tattered books. “This is all I have,” she said quietly. “I get most of my books from the library.” She set them carefully in the bag on top of the shampoo.
Her heart aching for Phoebe, Lainey said quietly, “Anything else you need or want?”
Phoebe shook her head slowly, and Lainey’s heart contracted. What kind of life had this child led if everything she valued could fit into two plastic bags?
“Then let’s get out of here. Our stealth raid is finished.”
Shooting Lainey a quick, sad smile, Phoebe ran down the stairs. Yanked open the front door and peered down the street. Then ran full out to Lainey’s car.
Lainey pressed the button to unlock the car doors and hurried after her. Tossing the bags into the back, she slid onto the seat, started the engine and eased away from the curb.
As she reached the end of the block, a brown truck turned the corner at the far end of the block. Gripping the steering wheel hard, she watched as the truck pulled into Phoebe’s house. The garage door opened, and the truck disappeared inside.
“Oh, my God,” Lainey said as they turned left onto a busier street.
“What?” Phoebe said, spinning to face Lainey. The girl’s face was sheet white.
“Your father just pulled into your garage,” she said quietly. “Thank God you knew what you wanted and we got out of that house quickly.”
Phoebe slumped against her seat. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“I was going to suggest we stop somewhere for a snack. But I think it would be best if we went straight back to the ranch.”
“Yes,” Phoebe said, sliding her hands beneath her thighs. “Please.”
Phoebe didn’t have to say she felt safer at the ranch. Lainey understood, because she felt safer there, too.
* * *
Brody shook the gate at the entrance to the ranch, pleased by the solid sound and the way it didn’t budge. The scratches and dents he’d found on the gate made him certain someone had jimmied it open last night. Brody’d added reinforcements, and it would be a lot harder to pry the gate open now.
As he carried his tool box to his truck and loaded it in the back, he studied the additional motion sensors he’d placed eighteen inches off the driveway. If you didn’t know they were there, you likely wouldn’t notice them. To someone walking along the driveway at night, they’d be invisible.
In case someone knew about the sensors along the driveway and walked in the grass to avoid then, they were a second line of defense. One way or another, Brody would be alerted if the intruder returned.
Because he was sure someone had been prowling around the ranch last night.
The barn door had been unlatched this morning, and he always checked it before he went up to bed. Mud caked the front porch, too, mud that hadn’t been there last night.
More disturbing had been the axe. It wasn’t in its usual place in the barn. Instead, he’d found it close to the house, half-hidden beneath a lilac bush.
Gazing across his land toward the road, he knew he could build a taller gate. Make the fence taller along the road, as well. But he didn’t want to look out his window and feel as if he lived in a fortress.
Time to get together with Brett and the other men and come up with a plan.
As he swung into his truck, Lainey’s SUV slowed and turned into the drive. She opened the gate, and he stepped to the side. When she reached him, she rolled down her window. “Everything good?”
