Crime and Passion by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

to do. “Just leave it all to me.” He flashed her a smile. “Think of it as your tax dollars at work.”
    She dropped her hand from his wrist. Like an arrow with a homing device, the smile he’d flashed at her had gone right through her. She doubted that he knew the effect he still had on her, and there was no way in hell she was ever going to let him even guess. But having him in charge of the situation did make her feel better.
    “Why don’t you go and throw a few things together for you and the boy? Take some of his favorite toys so he doesn’t feel so uprooted,” he added.
    “I’m whisking him out of his bed in the middle of the night. How can’t he feel uprooted?” she challenged. She stared at the drawing he’d taken down from her window. Clay was right, even if this was just a warning, it had spooked her. And it could only escalate from here.
    “Because you’re whisking him away to another home. Trust me, he won’t be traumatized. My father’s very good with kids.”
    “Your father?”
    “I thought you and the boy could stay with him. Dad’s good with kids,” he repeated before he turned away to call his brother.
    Within a few minutes he had everything arranged.

    “Is this really necessary?”
    Ilene left the question open to anyone who wanted to answer it. Clay had just admitted two people into her house via the patio door. From what she could ascertain, the man and woman had entered via the backyard. Which meant that they had to climb over the fence, coming from one of her neighbor’s yards. How could they have done that without being detected?
    The same way whoever had left that warning had, she told herself. He’d been in her backyard before she’d heard him.
    Nothing seemed safe anymore.
    “This is all so cloak-and-dagger,” she protested when no one answered her question.
    The woman was the first to speak. Her eyes were kind and her smile looked as if it had been lifted directly from Clay’s face.
    “A lot more cloak, a lot less dagger,” she laughed. Extending her hand, she took Ilene’s in hers. “Hi, I’m Teri. Clay and I are twins,” she said in response to the quizzical look creasing Ilene’s brow. Then winked. “But I’m the pretty one.”
    The man standing next to her looked as if he could be another twin, as well, except that he appeared to be a little older. “Shaw Cavanaugh.” He nodded his head toward his siblings. “They’re both homely enough to stop clocks,” he interjected. “We all know the family looks ran out after me.”
    This wasn’t the time for an exchange of vague pleasantries, even though Clay did want to see the tension leave Ilene’s shoulders. Right now, she looked like a woman doing a tightrope crossing over an open cage of hungry lions.
    “We’ll do introductions and snappy patter later,” Clay told them crisply. “You bring the doll?”
    Teri nodded, producing it out of the backpack she’d brought with her. “Took a little digging.”
    Clay’s eyebrows drew together as he looked at the doll in question. “That looks like Miss Betsy.” Miss Betsy had been his youngest sister, Rayne’s, cherished first doll. She and the doll had been inseparable, and she’d carried it around until the clothes that had come with the doll had all but disintegrated. Callie had sewn her a new outfit.
    “First one I could find in the garage,” Teri answered glibly. “You said you were in a hurry and that it needed to be about the size of a four-year-old,” she reminded him. There was only one way the doll could remotely pass the test. Teri turned to Ilene. “Do you have a blanket handy?”
    Ilene looked around before she spotted the light crocheted afghan she kept on the sofa. Alex liked to cuddle up beneath it early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. Fetching it, she brought it back. “Is this what you have in mind?”
    Teri quickly wrapped the throw around the doll.
    “Perfect,” Teri pronounced, laying the doll on the table. She