Operation Alpha. Justine Davis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ said. “He played baseball in a local league and was good at it, but he didn’t sign up this year.”

      “And he was just starting to get really interested in martial arts,” Emily said. “He was all excited, looking for a good school or coach or whatever they call them, and now he won’t even talk about it.”

      “Withdrawing from life,” Hayley said with a frown.

      “Exactly,” Emily said. “I’m worried about him. I even—”

      She broke off, looking embarrassed.

      “Truth is best, if we’re to help.” Quinn’s tone was mild, nonjudgmental.

      “I snuck a look at his phone,” the girl admitted. “I was afraid he might be...thinking of doing something.”

      She’d told Ria about her surreptitious checking of text messages and web history, and while Ria couldn’t officially condone the sneakiness and invasion of privacy, she understood the girl’s motivation.

      “I didn’t find anything,” Emily said quickly. “Nothing ominous, anyway.”

      “No searching for suicide hotlines or methods,” Ria put in, since that had been her main concern.

      “Or bomb-building information?” Quinn asked, his voice gentle.

      Emily’s eyebrows shot up, and Ria guessed hers had, too.

      “Of course not! Dylan would never. Ever.” Emily was vehement.

      Ria didn’t blame him for asking. How many times had people said, after some disaster, that they’d had no idea, that they couldn’t believe their nice, quiet neighbor/friend/relative could have done such a thing?

      “No insult intended, Emily. Just eliminating possibilities. Like before.”

      Ria saw the girl let out a breath, and then she nodded. Emily had told her how Quinn had asked a ton of questions, some of them shocking to her. But one had led to the awful realization that someone she’d thought a friend had been one of the thieves who had broken into their house on a night when they’d known she and her adoptive family would be gone.

      “Here, I can show you.”

      Emily sent a picture she’d taken of Dylan at a baseball game last year to Quinn’s phone, and followed it with one she’d surreptitiously taken just last week. Ria had seen them both, and the change in the boy was startling. He’d gone from a healthy, carefree, good-looking young man with a fun-loving air to a shadowed, hunched, too-thin boy who looked nothing less than haunted.

      Hayley looked at them as they came in, and Ria saw her eyes widen as she took in an audible breath.

      “I see why you’re concerned,” she said.

      “I think he’s not eating, too,” Emily said.

      “He’s lost weight,” Ria confirmed. “And he didn’t have much to spare, since he’d already lost some after his mom died.”

      “He said that was his dad’s lousy cooking,” Emily said.

      “He told you that?” It was the first time Liam had spoken. Emily nodded.

      “Yes. We talked a lot, back then. And really, if he’d just stopped talking to me, I would have understood. I would have thought I was just a reminder of loss he didn’t want to think about anymore. And that’s fine. You have to do what you have to do to get through.”

      Quinn gave her a long, steady look. “You,” he said, “have become everything I ever saw in you, my young friend.”

      Emily blushed, but she was smiling widely. And in that moment Ria quite liked Quinn Foxworth. Quinn nodded at the girl, and she picked up where she’d left off.

      “But he’s quit talking to everyone. And sometimes after school he goes up to the lookout—that’s a spot with a bench on the hill behind the school—and just sits there. For hours.”

      “Sounds like a guy with a lot on his mind,” Liam said.

      “Has he seen a counselor?” Hayley asked.

      “Yes,” Ria said. “I referred him to the therapist who consults for the school. He saw Dylan for a couple of months after his mother was killed. Of course, we didn’t discuss the actual sessions, but he said he was doing well. But then they stopped.”

      Emily looked at Ria. “He stopped going because his dad wouldn’t let him go anymore. And wouldn’t let his little brother Kevin go at all, said he didn’t need it.”

      “Sounds like Dad could’ve used some counseling,” Liam said rather sourly. Ria nearly smiled at that.

      “And four months later he’s like that,” Emily said, gesturing with her phone, which still showed that last, haggard photograph.

      “Something’s eatin’ at that boy,” Liam said. “He looks like he’s carrying the world.”

      “I don’t know what you can do,” Emily said to him. “But—”

      “We’re Foxworth. We’ll think of something. Right, boss?”

      Ria found herself smiling. She liked Liam’s easy, kind reassurance to the girl and the quiet but obvious respect for Quinn that she had a feeling was only partly because he was his boss. And she liked the hint of a drawl, as well. She wanted to ask where he was from, but this didn’t seem the time. Not to mention he unsettled her a bit too much.

      “We will certainly try,” Quinn agreed. “That boy needs some help.”

      “I just don’t know who he’ll take it from,” Ria said. “We’ve all tried. Almost everybody he knows has.”

      “Maybe,” Hayley said slowly, “it needs to be someone he doesn’t know.”

      Quinn looked at his wife. “Meaning?”

      “People under stress sometimes resist someone pushing to ‘help.’ And it can be easier to open up to someone who doesn’t know about all your baggage.”

      “That’s true,” Emily said and then looked at Quinn. “Remember how I poured my heart out to you when my poor parents couldn’t even get me to tell them what was wrong? I was afraid of hurting their feelings by wanting this—” she fingered the locket “—back so much.”

      Quinn looked thoughtful. Ria thought she saw him flick a glance at Liam, but then he quickly got down to business. Details like Dylan’s address, his family situation—just his father, little brother and a distant uncle left now—and the names of his friends.

      “I’ll get on those names,” Liam said. “See if anything pops.”

      “Liam’s not just our best tracker in the physical world,” Quinn explained at her questioning look. “If it’s out there in cyberspace, he’ll find it.”

      “Or Ty will, but it won’t come to that,” Liam said with a grin. That grin.

      “Ty?” СКАЧАТЬ