His body language, she saw with a slight jolt, was typical Quinn. Already, he’d taken on some of the traits of his foster family. That hip-shot stance, hands tucked into pockets, head angled.

She fought back an annoying spurt of resentment and ordered herself to focus on the experiment.

It took just over a minute for the first person to stop beside Seth. She recognized the big woman with the gray-streaked hair who manned the counter at Crawford’s. Everyone called her Mother. As expected, the woman shifted her gaze, tilted her face up to follow Seth’s line of sight. But after a quick scan, she patted Seth on the shoulder.

“What’re you looking at, boy?”

“Nothing.”

He muttered it so that Sybill edged closer to try to pick up his voice on the tape.

“Well, hell, you stand there for long looking at nothing, people’re going to think you’re pixilated. Why aren’t you down to the boatyard?”

“I’m going in a minute.”

“Hey, Mother. Hi, Seth.” A pretty young woman with dark hair stepped into the frame, glanced up at the hotel. “Something going on up there? I don’t see anything.”

“Nothing to see,” Mother informed her. “Boy’s just standing looking at nothing. How’s your mama, Julie?”

“Oh, she’s a little under the weather. She’s got a sore throat and a little cough.”

“Chicken soup, hot tea and honey.”

“Grace brought some soup over this morning.”

“You see she eats it. Hey, there, Jim.”

“Afternoon.” A short, stocky man in white rubber boots clumped over, gave Seth a friendly swat on the head. “What you staring at up there, boy?”

“Jeez, can’t a guy just stand around?” Seth turned his face to the camera, rolled his eyes for Sybill and made her chuckle.

“Stand here long, gulls’ll light on you.” Jim winked at him. “Cap’n’s in for the day,” he added, referring to Ethan. “He gets to the boatyard before you, he’s gonna want to know why.”

“I’m going, I’m going. Man.” Shoulders rounded, head down, Seth stalked back to Sybill. “Nobody’s falling for it.”

“Because everyone knows you.” She switched off the camera, lowered it. “It changes the pattern.”

“You figured that would happen?”

“I theorized,” she corrected, “that in a closely knit area where the subject was known, the pattern would be that an individual would stop. They would probably look first, then question. There’s no risk, no loss of ego when questioning a familiar person, and a young one at that.”

He frowned over toward where the trio continued to chat. “So, I still get paid.”

“Absolutely, and you’ll likely rate a section in my book.”

“Cool. I’ll take a cookie dough cone. I’ve got to get to the boatyard before Cam and Ethan hassle me.”

“If they’re going to be angry with you, I’ll explain. It’s my fault you’re late.”

“They won’t be pissed or anything. Besides, I’ll tell them it was, like, for science, right?” When he flashed that grin she had to resist an unexpected urge to hug him.