Carla Neggers - Stonebrook Cottage

“We’re not fugitives.” Lillian was blinking back tears, clearly exhausted. “We didn’t break any laws.”

Kara studied the two tired, frightened children. Something was wrong. Their story didn’t add up, but they hadn’t run off just because they were bored. Maybe Big Mike’s death was too much for them—maybe they’d overreacted to innocent events and created some wild scenario involving secrets and grave danger and were so wrapped up in it that, at this point, they couldn’t distinguish fiction from reality.

Regardless of their motives, however real their fear, they were here now, and they were her obligation. Her sole obligation. Nothing else mattered. Connecticut politics, bluebird theories, concerned authorities in two states, not even their mother. If Allyson wrote the letter, she had to be out of her mind. If she didn’t write the letter, she would expect Kara to do her best to sort out the situation and get Henry and Lillian safely home as soon as possible.

“We could call your mom on her cell phone—”

“No!” Henry yelled in panic, and Lillian almost cried. “We can’t call her. She told us not to call. We’re supposed to have you take us to Stonebrook Cottage and wait. Aunt Kara, please, you have to believe us!”

“All right, all right. Look, you two need baths and a good night’s sleep. I only have one bedroom, but you can share my bed. I’ll sleep out here on the couch.” Kara hugged them, one arm around each one, as they got up from the couch. “Let’s get some rest and come at this fresh in the morning.”

Henry looked up at her, his thin face etched with concern. “Then what?”

“I don’t know, but I’m on your side. Okay? Do not doubt that for one second.” She thought a moment, the bare bones of a plan coming together. One way or another, these kids were going back to Connecticut. “Unless I have good reason to do otherwise—you tell me it’s a forgery, or I find out by other means or get new information—I’m going to do what it says in your mother’s letter and get you to Stonebrook Cottage.” She thought of the trail they’d left and didn’t imagine they had much time if they were going to keep this little adventure among themselves and out of the public eye. But she needed to think. Staying a step ahead of Jack and Sam now that she’d enlisted their help—and aroused their suspicions—wouldn’t be easy. “Don’t be surprised or scared if I have to wake you up in the middle of the night.”

Lillian’s eyes widened. “Why would you have to do that?”

“Her brother’s a Texas Ranger.” Henry whispered as if the place was bugged. “Everyone at the ranch probably got nervous when they couldn’t find us and called the police or something.”

His sister gasped. “Oh! Does that make us fugitives?”

“It doesn’t matter. Aunt Kara will help us. Big Mike used to say she was the best defense lawyer he ever knew.”

“Big Mike exaggerated,” Kara said. “Go on, you two. Get cleaned up and get some sleep. I’m not worried about my brother.”

Well, she was, but she was more worried about Sam Temple. He’d made it plain he hadn’t liked the call from Zoe West. When he found out the missing Stockwell kids sneaked a ride to Austin—and he would—he’d be in full Texas Ranger, by-the-book law enforcement mode. Kara didn’t object to him doing his job, but his interests weren’t necessarily compatible with her sense of obligation to her godchildren. She needed to get them back to their mother as soon, and as quietly, as possible.

There was nothing by-the-book about this situation.

She led Henry and Lillian down a short hall to her bedroom and the bathroom. Lillian was the first in the tub, Henry next, and twenty minutes later, the lights were out and they were asleep.

Kara cleaned up their popcorn mess and flopped onto the couch, rereading the letter purportedly from Allyson. You’re the only one I can trust right now…don’t call me…I have no other choice.

It had to be phony.

And Henry not mentioning attorney-client privilege until after he and Lillian had told Kara everything—what a ploy.

“Smart-ass. He knew what he was doing.”

She ground her teeth and placed her palm on her lower abdomen, but her nausea had finally abated. It had to be seafood tacos, the heat, her still-palpable grief over Big Mike’s sudden death—she wasn’t pregnant. She tried to remember any slips she and Sam had made, but stopped herself short because it entailed replaying every move, every caress, and that was pure torture.

She thought of her towheaded godchildren asleep down the hall. They were so damn young. How could Allyson have sent them on such a crazy trip?

She didn’t.

But something was wrong—very wrong. Henry and Lillian weren’t bad kids. They wouldn’t deliberately scare their mother and manipulate their godmother if they weren’t frightened themselves. But of what?

Kara knew she had to think. She didn’t have much time, and she had to get this one right. Too much was at stake.

F atigue clawed at Sam and had already had an adverse effect on his judgment—after all, he was in Austin, not home in bed—but he continued up Kara’s walkway and onto her porch, anyway. A light was on. It was almost midnight, but he doubted he was getting her out of bed. Not that it mattered.

Henry and Lillian Stockwell had apparently conned their way to the Austin airport. Now, why could that be? It wasn’t to fly. No flights had taken off with them on board, and their mother was up in Connecticut still sounding the alarm.

Just as Sam started to ring the bell, Kara pulled open the front door. “Sam—scare the hell out of me, why don’t you?” She held up a pottery vase and smiled. “Consider yourself lucky. I was going to bonk you on the head. I don’t normally get visitors at midnight.”

“You don’t own a gun?”

“No way. I hate guns.” She hadn’t changed out of the work clothes she’d worn down to San Antonio earlier in the evening. Sam noticed her crisp blouse was a little rumpled. She set her vase on a small hall table. “Do you have news? I haven’t heard a word.”

She made no move to invite him in. Everything he knew about body language—and Kara Galway—told him she was trying to keep this exchange simple and short and get rid of him as fast as possible. There could be innocuous reasons for that, sensible ones that had nothing to do with the Stockwell kids.

But he was playing this one his way. “Henry and Lillian conned the shuttle driver at the ranch to take them to the Austin airport.”

Kara frowned. “Why on earth would they do something like that?”

Sam rested back on his heels, eyeing Kara. Something wasn’t adding up, but she was an experienced attorney, accustomed to not tipping her hand to the other side. And somehow, he’d become the other side. He’d felt it the second she opened the door. “The Austin police are checking with the airport, taxis, buses. The kids told the shuttle driver they were meeting their mother. They claimed to see her and took off. He didn’t realize anything was wrong until he got back to the ranch.”

“Allyson knows? Someone called her?”

“The people at the ranch. Jack talked to her brother-in-law, Hatch Corrigan. He’s some kind of adviser?”

Kara nodded, her dark eyes distant, unreadable. “He must be having fits. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into Henry and Lillian—” She sighed, breaking off. “What’s your involvement? Austin isn’t your jurisdiction.”

“Wrong. All of Texas is my jurisdiction.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re stationed in San Antonio—” She stopped herself, squaring her shoulders as she eyed him coolly. “Sam, is this an official visit?”