Chapter 25
Robyn was consulting with the installation tech as he finished up, telling her about the keypad operation. She was familiar with the system, but listened anyway, in case there had been any changes in the functions. There weren't. As she took the literature, preparing to put it aside for Sam, her cell phone rang.
She waved to the man as he gathered up his equipment and looked at the screen on her phone. Her father was calling from his cellular. She pressed the talk button as she closed the front door and locked it behind the vacating installers. Noting with a quick glance at the clock that she had barely an hour before she was due to get Beth from school, she spoke into the receiver, "Hi Dad."
"Robyn. Is Sam there with you?"
The question caused her pause and she frowned. "No. I thought you were following him in to work today." She remembered that having her dad follow him to work was the only concession that Sam would make, refusing the offer to allow someone to remain there with him. Sam seemed to want to believe that everything that was happening was simply a matter of coincidence. But she could tell that somewhere deep down he was also desperately worried that it wasn't.
She was beginning to wonder if he refused the added level of protection because that would be an admission that there was truly a problem.
"I did follow him," Jeff confirmed the plan. "And before I left, he agreed to call me when he was ready to leave for the day . . . " Her father's voice trailed off. "I think I found a loop hole."
Robyn was lost, her mind having still been on Sam's motivations. "Loop hole? In what? Is something wrong?"
"Probably not, but I have no way of checking until he decides to show up. Research came across some interesting information to do with the Sauderbrandt estate. I wanted to ask Sam a couple of questions about it. But when I called his office, I was told that he wasn't in. The receptionist was reluctant to reveal where he was. I also tried his cellular, but he didn't answer. Since it's not his normal quitting time, technically he didn't have to call. Loop hole."
"Next time be more specific," Robyn said, laughter in her voice. It was something that he had emphasized with her. It felt good to push it back at him.
"Yeah. I must be getting too old for this," he joked.
"If you are, I am." Robyn was convinced that Jeff Sommers was just as sharp, if not sharper, than he had always been. "Anything you want to share right away? Something I need to look out for?" she continued, referring back to the information that the research department had found.
Despite their teasing banter, Robyn couldn't shake a deepening worry from settling into her bones. Was Sam truly all right, or had something happened to him? The thought disturbed her, and not just because he was a fellow human being. She was beginning to wonder if she might not need to back down. If one was too attached, focus could be lost.
"No. It'll keep," Jeff assured her. "I'll come by later -- after I leave here and we can all go through it then."
"Okay." Robyn pushed her worries aside. "I'll have dinner ready at about 6:30, 7 o'clock. How does that sound?"
"Pretty domestic," Jeff replied, pin pointing her own doubts.
Robyn opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say immediately. Normally she might have joked about it, but the comment had caught her off guard.
Her dad sighed in the ensuing silence before he spoke again, "I can see why you would find this family very appealing. You'd be surprised at the number of studies done on human nature, and how daughters are often attracted to men bearing traits similar to their fathers."
Hearing it psychologically analyzed wasn't overly helpful, but she did find her voice again. "Are you saying that I'm just a little girl trying to take care of her daddy?" She half chuckled as she knew the comment would invoke memories of her childhood when she had indeed attempted to do just that. But Jeff Sommers had always been a very capable man. And she knew now that on the many occasions that he'd given in to her childish ministrations, he was imply allowing her to have a measure of control over her rapidly changing young life.
"No," Jeff returned a chuckle as he answered her question. "I am saying that you are a woman having a natural response to a man. It's hard for us to admit sometimes, but our daughters do grow up. And if we're truly fortunate, like I am, we can trust their judgment and know that they will come to us if they need to."
"You're the best. You know that?" Robyn smiled warmly, though she knew he couldn't see her.
"I know this," Jeff replied, a smile in his voice as well.
Robyn paused for several moments, allowing the line to go quiet, then, "Dad, I think I may be getting a little too close on this one. It matters too much." She didn't say the words out loud, but in her mind she wondered if this was more than just a simple attraction.
"So what do you want to do? How do you want to play it?"
"I don't know what I can do, really. Bringing someone else in will just upset Beth's life more. She doesn't need that right now."
"So then you stay." He made it sound so easy. But then he continued. "I'll be near."
"Okay." Robyn felt warmed even further. To her those words meant that he father would be paying more than the usual attention, that he would be open and on the look out to help her. He would be immediately available until she no longer needed it, and then he would quietly back off.
"Bye Honey. I'll see you later."
"Bye Dad."
Robyn clicked off the phone and remained thoughtful for several moments. Her eyes drifted past the clock again. Forty five minutes until she was due to get Beth. She thought briefly of going back to her laptop, but the sense of worry returned in the silence of the house. Where was Sam?
Mark had hinted that he thought that Cassandra Wright could be behind the goings on. Robyn had no reason to disbelieve such a theory, until the woman in question had shown up on the door step. The woman might be self-absorbed and flighty, but Robyn felt that deep down, she still felt something for Sam. She may even have always assumed that he would be there for her to come back to. The idea that he might actually have moved on seemed to never have occurred to her.
But when she'd looked into the other woman's eyes and seen the fear that she might have actually lost him forever, Robyn had also seen something else. A vulnerability. Gut instinct told her that the other woman had nothing to do with the things that were happening around Sam. And Robyn did not believe in coincidence in this situation. That left a vast, unknown and potentially lethal criminal element.
She decided to try Sam's cell again, just once more for her own peace of mind. She looked down at her keypad at began to dial.