Page 31 of Edge of Steele
“That I might not cheat like Bertha said, but I’d walk away.”
“You got me.”
“Will I ever live that down?”
She shrugged. “Guess it depends on our talk tonight.”
She caught the disappointment in his gaze, but she kept going. She couldn’t commit to forgiveness until she knew his full reason for treating her so badly. She knew as a Christian, she needed to forgive him no matter what, and she honestly thought she had. But today God had made it clear. She was still holding the breakup against Finn and had to do better.
Ryleigh leaned back in the passenger seat of Finn’s truck and read the group text from Russ. She quickly replied with an affirmative to Russ’s text then swiveled to face Finn, who was driving them to the daycare center to pick Avery up.
“Russ’s text says the warrant for Shadow Lake Logging’s office came in.” She dropped her phone into her pocket. “As an employee, you’ll have to sit this one out, but Russ wants me to join him. He’ll pick me up at your place.”
Finn didn’t even try to argue but gave a quick nod. “Even if he did include me, I’ll be watching Avery.”
She turned her attention to the late afternoon sun beaming over the daycare building just down the road. They’d finished their search by four-thirty, giving them plenty of time to pick Avery up before the center’s six p.m. closing time.
Finn turned the corner. “I wonder if Tobias is going to can me.”
So that’s what he’d been preoccupied with on the drive.
“Why would he do that?” she asked.
He flexed his fingers on the wheel, maybe relieving stress. “I’m in charge of security, and his whole operation was blown to bits. I couldn’t do a much worse job than that. I’d can me if I were in his place.”
Yeah, she might too. And what about Steele Guardians? “Same goes for our security services. He might dump us as well.”
Finn gripped the wheel. “I can’t help but feel like we deserve to be fired, but even in hindsight, I don’t know what we could’ve done differently.”
Should she have done a better job? “I probably should’ve called Nick or Colin to review the threats earlier on.”
“Maybe,” he said, as if he didn’t want her to think she’d failed.
She wished he would’ve totally disagreed with her, but even if he had, she knew she was right. She should’ve kept digging into the threats until she had at least one strong suspect to go after. But after the bomber didn’t follow through on the first threats and then they stopped coming, she’d foolishly believed they’d been idle threats. She’d let other things take her focus. And now a man had lost his life in a very gruesome way.
She resisted sighing as Finn pulled into the daycare parking lot and stopped his truck out front.
The bright primary colors of the building made the place look cheerful and inviting, and brightly colored playground equipment peaked above a sturdy wooden fence on both sides of the lot. Children’s giggles and joyful screams rang out.
“Avery has always gone here after school and in the summers.” He shifted into park. “I don’t really know how to evaluate the place, but she seems to like it. At least she doesn’t complain about coming, and it’s what she was used to, so no point in changing it.”
He took out the keys and opened his door. “Be right back.”
Well, that answered the question of if he expected Ryleigh to come inside with him. If she joined him, it would likely start tongues wagging. Probably why he was avoiding it.
Still, she was anxious about everything that was going on, so she slid out to pace. Ryleigh hoped staying at Finn’s house didn’t disrupt this child’s life any more than it had been. The poor thing. Losing her mom—her only parent—so suddenly.
The door opened, and Finn came out with a thin little girl wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and blue jean shorts. She had frizzy blond hair down to the middle of her back and no bangs. The sides were clipped back with bright blue barrettes. An excess of freckles dotted her high cheekbones, and she was missing two upper teeth, and the ones that had come in were spaced wide apart.
Now what did a seven-year-old respond to? Ryleigh had babysat when she was a teen, but that was ages ago, and her memory was vague.
Finn and Avery marched up to her. Finn introduced Ryleigh. A guarded look tightened the little girl’s face. Man, how rough to be seven and so uneasy. If the child smiled, she would be adorable.
“We’re working on an investigation together,” he told Avery.
She looked up at him, her cautious look changing to full-fledged worry. “What kind of investigation?”
“Just one at my workplace,” he said off-handedly.
