Читать книгу Operation Alpha - Justine Davis - Страница 12

Chapter 3

“His name is Dylan,” Emily said. “Dylan Oakley.”

“What makes you think he’s in trouble?” Quinn asked.

“He’s been very different lately. I mean, he has reason, but...”

When she stopped, swallowing tightly, Ria knew why and stepped in. “His mother was killed in March, in a hiking accident.”

It was a moment before anyone spoke.

“You know him? Is he a student of yours, as well?” Quinn asked Ria.

She nodded. “I’ve had him in classes for two years. And the difference in him is...marked.”

“And it’s been getting worse lately, not better,” Emily said.

“Sometimes it happens that way,” Hayley said, her tone gentle with understanding. “Grief has its own path, and it’s different for everyone.”

Emily’s gaze shifted to Quinn. He nodded. “She knows, too.”

Even the dog sat up from his spot near Emily and plopped his chin on the girl’s knee, making her smile as she reached out to stroke his fur.

Ria felt oddly out of place. As if she’d stumbled into a club she gratefully lacked the qualifications for. She’d never lost anyone really close to her. Even both sets of her grandparents were still kicking, a couple of them off playing in a seniors tennis tournament in California. Her parents were still running the family hardware stores and her two older brothers were busy with their lives—one producing the much-desired grandkids for the parents while he managed the accounting for the stores, the other following his dream of being an airline pilot. She had aunts and uncles scattered all over the country, and cousins abounded.

She knew she was lucky, but nothing had brought it home like this moment, sitting here among people who had dealt with the kind of loss she’d never had to face. Yet.

Ria toyed with one of her earrings, the tiny silver crossed saw and hammer that was the logo for her family’s stores. She glanced at Liam, wondering. But it was there, too, that look. That understanding. It changed his open, innocent appearance, and suddenly he didn’t seem quite so young. But his expression was also tinged with something else. In fact, for a moment she thought she saw guilt before he lowered his gaze.

And belatedly she realized that when she had looked at him, he’d already been looking at her. She gave herself an inward shake and focused on the matter at hand.

“But Dylan used to talk to me,” Emily was saying. “Because I got it. I knew how it felt, losing his mom. But he stopped. And he doesn’t even talk to his best friends anymore.”

“He’s a smart kid and used to be well prepared. But his grades have dropped dramatically in the last couple of months,” Ria said. “He’s even missed some classes, which he never did even right after she died. In fact, he seemed to dive into his studies even more.”

“It’s a good way to avoid thinking about it,” Quinn said. His voice held the self-knowledge they all seemed to share but her.

“I read tons of books,” Emily said.

“So did I, after my mother died,” Hayley said. “It was my escape.”

Emily looked at Liam. “What did you do?”

He gave the girl a startled glance. “What makes you think—” He stopped, and Ria saw his jaw tighten and then release as he said, “Computers. And sometimes I’d take off into the hills for a few days. Find something to track.”

There was silence for a moment. Ria looked at her student. She also obviously recognized he’d been through this particular hell. But, then, Emily was very perceptive.

“He’s also dropped his other activities,” Ria 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?” Emily asked.

“Our tech guy at headquarters,” Hayley said. She smiled. “They have a bit of a competition going on. But together, there’s never been anything they couldn’t find.”

“He won’t know, will he?” Emily asked anxiously. “If Dylan knew we were poking into his life...”

“Not a trace,” Liam assured her.

Quinn went on then, asking about any new friends Dylan might now be hanging around with that he hadn’t before.

“None at school at least,” Emily said with assurance. “Cove Academy is small, I’d have noticed.”

“We’ll have to see about elsewhere, then,” Quinn said briskly.

“Dylan’s good with tech stuff,” Ria said with a quick glance at Liam that felt oddly as if she were sneaking a peek at something tempting but forbidden. “And math. But he does—or did—well in English, too. He won a state prize last term for an essay he wrote.” Her mouth tightened. “His mother died the same day it was announced. He never even went to get it.”

“Does he drive?” Liam asked.

“He doesn’t have his license yet, just his permit,” Emily said.

“So no car?”

Emily frowned. “No. He thought he would get his mom’s car, after, but his dad got rid of it.” The frown deepened. “Practically gave it away, Dylan said. He was really upset.”

“His father was grieving, too,” Ria said. “Maybe he couldn’t bear to see it.”

“I get that, but he should have thought how Dylan would feel, too.”

“Clear thinking and grieving don’t always go together,” Liam said. “Sometimes they fight each other so hard neither wins, but you lose.”

Ria drew back slightly. That had been an almost lyrical way of putting it. And she saw by Emily’s expression that he had reached her. Slowly the girl nodded.

“So what do we do?” Liam asked, looking at his boss.

“Computers, martial arts, a stranger,” Quinn said, summing up the discussion as he looked at Liam. “I think you may need to go back to school.”

“What?” Liam looked so startled Ria almost laughed.

“We’ll think of a good cover. Ria will help, I’m sure.”

“Of course,” she said, barely masking her amusement at his reaction.

Then she realized that this meant she would now apparently have Liam Burnett in her world. Up close and personal.

And that was a lot more unsettling than funny.