Just what in the hell had I gotten myself into? Cleaning up that whole damn cabin with just Ashley to help me? I mean, I appreciated the fact that she wasn’t acting like some spoiled brat about all this, just trying to throw money at her problems. Even respected it. She could’ve been crying and bitching about all this, but was instead sticking her middle finger up at the world and telling it she could take care of herself.

But, shit, this cleaning thing was going to take all day.

I grumbled to myself as I headed out through the little deck area, with its expensive fall patio furniture and wrapped up umbrellas, and stepped into the woods behind the house. I saw Jake through the woods, his white shirt not giving much camouflage, and went out to meet him.

As I skirted a tree and some underbrush, my mind went back to the business of cleaning that whole damn place. Not that I minded. Like I told her, I’d grown up on a farm and been in the service, and my uncles had taught me what hard work meant. And, believe me, if you weren’t hurting from the work by the end of the day, you’d be hurting from them catching you shirking your responsibilities. Their hands were just as hard as wooden spoons and smacked twice as hard.

No, in comparison to calving and branding, or mucking out the pens, this was going to be a cakewalk. Just a little glass and stuffing to deal with, vacuuming and sweeping and the like. I’d swept plenty of barracks during basic, and could handle that. No problem.

Didn’t mean I had to like it, though.

I crossed over a log, pausing to look around again at the size of the property. Nah, there was no way anyone would have seen someone way back here. Even with it being fenced in and all, someone could have slipped in while she was out or waited until she’d gone to sleep. And, if they had enough patience to sit and watch the cabin that long, that meant they were calculated and potentially dangerous.

Patience was what made a man or woman dangerous. Put a plan together, wait for the perfect opportunity. That’s what the criminals who didn’t get caught, the generals who won battles, and the predators who got their prey all had in common. Knowing when to strike at the best time, and when the your opponent both least suspected it and was least prepared.

Whoever this was, they had that virtue of patience. And that, right there—that made them something to be worried about. Unfortunately, without knowing who it was, or what exactly they wanted, I couldn’t take the fight to them and put them on their backfoot. We were stuck in a defensive posture on this.

That was, of course, if they were even still around. Maybe last night had been their move? There was only one way to fight out, and that was by being patient.

And, through all this, I was going to be stuck cleaning. Of course, helping her did help with what I was doing.

After Jake showed me the little hidey-hole back behind the house, I’d begun to have the creeping feeling that she needed some sort of protective detail. This was more than just some teenagers breaking in to cause a mess. How much more, I had no idea. But Goddamn if something didn’t smell fishier than a Catholic’s kitchen on Fridays during Lent.

But something told me she wouldn’t accept a protective detail. Not yet, at least, on just a little bit of evidence. She had a prideful streak a mile wide.

“Everything sorted?” Jake asked as I came upon him poking through the woods.

I nodded. “More or less. She decided she wants to clean the house herself. Gave the cleaning lady a tip for driving out and sent her away.”

“Good for her. Big job. She having her girlfriends come over? That Sheila friend of Jessica’s?”

I shook my head, stamping closer through the underbrush. “Nope. I’ve been volunteered. Or lassoed and brought in. Not sure which.”

He grinned from ear to ear. “You? Man, she’s got some nerve, doesn’t she? Almost admirable.”

“It all just happened so fast, man,” I explained helplessly.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m sure it was real hard for her to get you wrapped around her finger.”

“I’m serious, Jake! She could talk circles around a lawyer or a conman. Remember that one we busted for that little old last year? Swear she’d have given him a run for her money. She kept using this, ‘so that’s what you’re saying’ technique.”

He gave a short bark of laughter. “Well, what did the conman always say? He wasn’t stealing, or taking anything they didn’t want to give?”

Maybe he was right. Maybe I’d been suckered in because I’d made it easy on her. “Regardless,” I said, “I think she needs to be watched.”

“Safe house?”

I scratched my chin and looked back at the cabin. “Maybe? Right now, though, I feel like if we tried to squirrel her away we’d been cutting off some of our leads. She doesn’t know what someone would want here, and I tend to believe her.”

“Because you think she’s honest?” he asked. “Or something else?”

I shot him a look. “Because I don’t think she has anything that doesn’t belong to her daddy, that’s why. You ready to head down?”

Jake looked around at the earth tones of the trees the rocks, and sniffed the air again one last time. “Think so. I’ve been up and down this place, but haven’t found any more clues except for how the guy maybe came in. A little spot over that way leads down to a side road. Haven’t had a chance to go down and check tire tracks or anything.”

I nodded, and we both headed back down to the mansion side-by-side as we waded through the lush bushes and high grass.

“You think it has to do with her pops, right?” Jake said after a moment of silence. “Walk me through it.” Jake liked to do it this way, and I hated it. Even if it did work. He’d honestly taught me more about detective work than any of the crime novels or detective fiction I loved so much. Hell, he’d probably taught Peter a thing or two, and the boss man had spent time investigating bombings in Iraq and running intelligence gathering missions on insurgents.

I cleared my throat. “Alright, first off, if they were trying to get something from her, they’d have a damn sight of a time trying to get it. From what she’s told me, she spends a lot of her time traveling. Perp would have to do the same, don’t you reckon? What are the odds he’d know about where Ashley was going to be at this exact moment, and that she’d have whatever they were looking for?”

“That’s fair, grasshopper.”

“Shut the hell up. If you’re Master Po, I’m Mowgli’s mom. Secondly, like I said earlier, she ain’t got nothing lest it belongs to her daddy. Far as I can tell, she’s just letting life blow her around from place to place. Whatever sounds good at the time, that’s where she’s headed. Bonnaroo? She’s there. South by Southwest? Okay. Burning Man? Why not?”

“I get your point.”

“Well, would you entrust something to her, even if you were her daddy? Not as much as that man has on the line.”

He nodded. “You’re pushing for a protective detail on this, aren’t you? Why?”

I drew up and stopped, hands on hips as I looked around the property. I looked Jake square in the eyes. “I don’t think they found it.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t go through a house from top to bottom the way they did, looking every which place possible if you’ve already found what you want. I’m surprised they weren’t knocking holes in the damn walls in there, the way they tore everything up. If they’d had more time, they might have.”

He nodded, looking off into the distance as he took his turn to scratch his chin. “Your argument’s got merit, I’ll give you that. But who’s to say she doesn’t have something someone wants? Young women like this, the jet setting traveler types, they get mixed up in drugs, accidental smuggling, muling. All just for a laugh, because they got too much damn money to care. You remember all that Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton shit? Girls like that can go crazy. Believe me, saw it all the time out in LA.”

Either one of us could be right. Maybe, though, it was a combination? I grunted and looked back at the cabin, catching sight of Ashley as she appeared at the back door and looked at us both just standing there like bumps on a log. “What’re you saying?”

Ashley pulled open the back door and stepped out onto the patio. Beside me, Jake spoke in a low voice as she waved to us. “Saying she might not be as innocent as you think, that’s all. She could be into something, and barely have any idea she is.”

I nodded and waved back. “Could be. Either way, I reckon she probably needs our help. And someone around her at all times, even if she doesn’t know they’re there as a bodyguard.”

“Yep. That’s what you're good at, though. Right?”

Ashley cupped her hands and yelled. “Hey, Frank! You almost ready to go? I wanna get my clean on!”

“Just a minute,” I hollered back. I turned to Jake as I pulled my keys out. “Reckon it’s in my wheelhouse. Stick around and backtrack that trail, see if there’s tire marks, whatever?”

“Really?” he asked as he looked down at the keys to my baby. “You’re going to actually let me drive it.”

“Don’t let everyone know I let her cheat on me,” I replied with a jingle of keys, “else even Richard’s gonna wanna give her a spin. And he’s practically a married man already.”

Jake laughed as I tossed him the keys.

“Let Peter know what we found out when you get back to the office?”

“Sure thing,” Jake said as I headed down to the deck to meet Ashley, who was standing there with hands on hips and purse slung over her shoulder. “Oh, and Frank?”

I turned my head slightly but kept walking. “Yeah?”

“Have fun on your date to the grocery store.”

I gave him the finger.