“I did not, not like she thinks.”
“Whatever. She’s angry at both of you. And I can’t help but be angry for her. You both know how hard it is for her to trust.”
“If anything that conversation clarified just how much I love her and the lengths I’d go to for her. She just didn’t stick around to hear the rest,” Barron said.
“That’s neither here nor there. Point is, other than a few of us, Barron and me, Emmalyn — believe it or not, we’re not all actively connected,” Brandt said, tapping his temple. “We need to be. You, too,” he said, indicating Kiernan and his family. “It’s much more efficient in the face of emergencies, or sudden news that needs to be shared. Does anybody have an issue if we start utilizing that part of our abilities to communicate rather than always relying on cell phones. Phones are great, but if I’m in the middle of an emergency, I’d rather be able to just think the information to you without having to type it out and create a group text to send it through, or ask somebody to send it on to everybody else.
“Agreed,” Ronan said.
“Everybody else?”
“Agreed,” everyone echoed.
“Good. Now, the thing with Emmalyn… we didn’t tell you girls because we didn’t want you to be on edge. First we didn’tknow if it was just our imagination like Everly thought when she first came to me, or if someone was actually watching her, and us by default. Main reason being that if there really was someone watching her, we didn’t want them to notice a difference in our daily habits and figure out that we were on to them. We don’t want them to leave.”
“Why wouldn’t you want them to leave? Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Abby asked.
“No. If they get spooked and leave, they can regroup and come back at any time, or pick another place and time to go after her without us there to help keep her safe. We need to…” he stopped and looked at Harley, who hung on his every word, looking more and more nervous, and the other two little ones in the room. “Maybe this isn’t for little ears.”
Angelle stood up, “I’ll take them into another room.”
“The extra bedroom is right there, off the kitchen,” Barron said.
Angelle went to Abby and extended her hands. Abby handed her the baby, then gave KJ some of his toys and sent him with Angelle.
“Harley, you go on and help Angelle with the babies, okay?” Analise said.
“I want to stay here.”
“Angelle needs help and this is an adult conversation. Go help Angelle,” Havoc said firmly, but not unkindly.
“I don’t like being a kid,” Harley grumbled, getting up and following Angelle out of the room.
“There’s a television in there. I’m sure there’s cartoons or something on it. I pay enough for the freaking satellite access,” Barron called out.
“I’ll find something,” Angelle assured him as she closed the bedroom door. A few seconds later they heard the sounds ofeverybody’s favorite big purple dinosaur and his friends pouring out of the television.
“I cannot believe they still have that show on,” Christian said.
“They’re animated now, but the voices and music are exactly the same,” Analise said.
“Animated?” Christian asked.
“Yeah, it’s lost some of its charm since it’s no longer people wearing big over-sized suits, but it’s still the same premise.”
“You watch it often?” Remi teased.
“Yes, I do. We have a little girl, remember?” Analise asked, tossing a throw pillow toward Remi.
“Oh, okay. Just making sure you didn’t have a thing for big purple dinosaurs. Because if you do, then I have to make sure Havoc is aware of that,” Remi said, winking at Havoc.
“Y’all are terrible,” Analise accused, shaking her head.
“Okay, anyway, if there is someone here, I want to take him out now. There will be no lingering threat. He dies. Here, and not only Emmalyn is safe from now on, so is everyone else that might have been his victim.”
“What did he do?” Christian asked. “How bad is this guy? And wouldn’t we scent a stranger?”
“Well, considering that he was an FBI agent, and was working on the team that was trying to identify him, I’d say he’s pretty slick. Add to that the reason they were trying to identify him was that he was collecting women and keeping them as part of his collection, like zoo animals in cages, I’d say the guy’s a freaking psycho,” Brandt said. “I have no answer as to why we haven’t scented him.”
