Free Cavanaugh Judgment by Marie Ferrarella

reprogrammed after advising him of the change and the new code. She did it just in case someone at the security company’s home base had hacked into the system and acquired what was now the old code. Changing it, she’d told the judge, was going to be an ongoing daily proposition until the threat was over.
    Kincannon hadn’t looked overly happy about the idea of having to remember a new pass code every day, but at least he hadn’t offered any resistance. He seemed far more interested in having her leave his office so he could get back to working on whatever it was that had claimed his attention.
    She staked out the sofa, intending to spend the night on it. From there, she had a clear view of the door. Since she was an incredibly light sleeper to begin with, she had no doubt that any intruder attempting to enter the house would have her awake and on her feet in a matter of seconds.
    Finished with her preparations for now, she walked back into the living room only to have Alexander ask her, “What’ll you have, pizza or Chinese?”
    Greer stared at the barrel-chested man, caught off guard by his question. “Excuse me?”
    He raised the telephone receiver he was holding in the air as if to clarify that he was about to order in. “Food. So what’ll it be?”
    “You don’t have to go to any special trouble for me,” Greer protested.
    “This isn’t special,” he informed her. “This is what we do every night.”
    Her eyes narrowed as the meaning of his words sank in. “You order in every night?”
    “It’s either that, or starve,” the retired marine told her.
    She shuddered to think what ingesting processed foods every night had to be doing to their digestive tracts. But then, maybe the old man was just exaggerating. “You don’t have any food in your refrigerator?”
    “Sure we’ve got food,” he informed her matter-of-factly. “Leftovers.”
    “From the takeout,” she guessed. Alexander nodded his head. Didn’t either of them have any idea about the value of proper nutrition?
    “Well, yeah, sure,” Gunny replied as if the answer was a no-brainer.
    Very politely, she removed the receiver from his hand and replaced it in the cradle. “How long has it been since you had a home-cooked meal, Gunny?”
    The senior Kincannon paused to think. And then he smiled as the memory obviously came back to him. “Well, there was that cute little Fraulein in Berlin… But that was about two years ago.”
    “You’re kidding, right?” Greer said incredulously.
    “Why would he kid about something like that?” Blake asked. Drawn by the voices, he walked into the room. Now what was this woman up to?
    Greer shifted in order to look at both Kincannon men. “Let me get this straight, neither one of you has had a home-cooked meal in two years?” She stressed the last two words.
    “You deaf, girl?” Alexander asked impatiently. He began to reach for the phone again, but she rested her hand on the receiver, immobilizing it.
    “No, but I am stunned,” Greer admitted.
    “What’s the big deal?” Alexander wanted to know. “It’s all just fuel and it all turns into the same thing on its way out.”
    “Colorful,” Greer commented. “Be that as it may,” she continued, “you’re not doing yourselves any favors with all that takeout food.”
    Curious and wanting to see for herself, Greer passed the judge’s father and went into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator. There were several bottles of beer, domestic and imported, a partial loaf of white bread, the wrapper only loosely tied and most likely harboring stale slices, and a lone stick of butter.
    “You weren’t kidding,” she murmured under her breath as she shook her head.
    “So, what’ll it be?” Alexander repeated, on his way back to the landline. “Pizza or Chinese?”
    “Hang on a minute,” she called out. Crossing back to the living room, she took out her cell phone and went through the directory. She found the number she was looking for