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“You’re right. Why couldn’t everyone be as easygoing as me?” asked Jac.
Levi held his grin. “I have no idea.”
The calls came in just after dawn. “This better be fucking important,” said Jac, as he stopped playing with his wife’s nipples. Sharlee moaned. “Shh, baby. I’ll make it up to you.”
Cash could hear muffled sounds over the phone. He was too angry to do more than feel a split second’s regret that he wasinterrupting the couple’s wake-up. “Do you have a new gate guard?”
Jac’s voice was instantly on alert. “No. What’s going on?”
“I’d like to say nothing, but the driveway has shit all on it.” Cash could hear his boss walking across the room. “Like what?”
“Debris. Nails, screws and scraps like someone raided a construction site before it was cleaned up. Or where a building was torn down. Concrete bits, rebar... just shit.”
“Fuck. I’m coming down.”
Levi and Cash looked up as the front door opened. Finley stood between them. All were in PT gear. Their boss stood in pajama bottoms with a shirt in his hand, a thunderous expression pinned to his face. “Fuck. Who’s on the gate?”
“Hector and he promised he did not know anything. He came on at six, just before dawn. We were going for a run and found it. It wasn’t him because these things have dew on them. Had to be before he came on.”
“Who did he relieve? And who was monitoring the cameras?”
Behind the men came Sharlee’s response. “Kaz.”
Finley snorted. “Kaz is known to sleep half his shift when he has the ten to six shift.”
Levi studied Finley’s disgust. That wasn’t like his girl. “How do you know, baby?”
She hesitated at the endearment, but then shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve come across him a few times.”
Jac gave Finley a hard look. “Why am I just hearing about it?”
“Well, he said he has a second job, and he didn’t get enough sleep between the two. I told him if I found him again, I’d report him.”
“Again, how do you know he’s done it more than once?”
Sharlee stepped in. “I’ve caught him a couple of times and told him to take a different shift. He did, and I thought that was all done with. Evidently, not.”
“Kaz doesn’t have another job and if he did, he was to report it to me for clearance. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances, he is to man his post awake. This isn’t over, you two, but I have things to do, so we’ll finish discussing it later.”
Cash leaned into his girl. “Fin, go get breakfast. I’ll come find you when we are done handling this. Don’t worry.”
She looked over at Jac as he dialed a number and walked off over the yard. Sharlee looped her arm in hers. “Don’t worry. Jac will just yell a little. He’ll try to bluster a little more with me, but I have the secret weapon to cool his temper down.”
“I feel bad about it and I know better, but Kaz is such a nice guy.” Finley looked toward the front gate.
“Well, I hope he wasn’t telling you a lie because he just lost this job,” said Cash. “He’ll need a backup.”
Finley nodded. “Hope I keep mine.”
Sharlee stopped and turned to grab both of Finley’s arms. “You are family now. The only way you won’t work here is if you quit, and even then, you’ll always be family. One isn’t dependent on the other.” She squeezed Finley in a side hug. “Besides, if that happened, you’re with Levi and Cash. The most likely scenario is that you’d be another spouse that Jac tries to recruit for his own uses in the agency.”
Finley forced her smile and nodded. It was amazing to belong, but she wanted to keep her job. Another reason for Jac to not trust her.
Sharlee spoke as the two walked toward the dining room. “Whatever that worrisome thought is, get rid of it. Jac respects a person who owns up to their mistake and makes changes. We’ll tell him that and he’ll be fine.”
“I hope.”
“I know.”