“Not now, buddy.” Zander gives him a look that’s stern enough to make him shrink back into the couch. Charlotte nestles closer to him, taking his hand.
Zoey catches Cole’s eye, and he quickly stands. Logan, of course, follows him, and Dom jumps up as well, joining the adult circle.
“Do you have any idea the most likely places they’d go?” I ask.
“But I’ve looked everywhere!” Jane wails, sitting up to glance around the group. “We’ve been searching for forever.”
Nylah closes her eyes, leaning into Carson when he wraps his free arm around her.
“Harley runs when she’s upset,” he explains in a gruff voice. “She’ll find a hiding place and stay there until she’s ready to come out. But our place is small, you know? So it’s easy to find her. This mansion is?—”
“The back door.” Sienna runs into the room, her cheeks pale, her eyes bright with worry. “I just found the back door open.”
The air in the room suddenly turns icy, our mild concern amping up to crisis level.
“They wouldn’t,” I whisper. “I mean, would they?”
“Oh my gosh,” Blake whimpers while Grady hangs his head and mutters a soft curse.
“Kendall would. That kid’s fearless. If Harley told her she wanted someplace good to hide, Kendall wouldn’t stay within the boundaries of this house. Shit!” He runs a hand over the top of his head before bolting away from the group. “I’m going out to look for them.”
“We’ll help too!” Cole goes to follow him, but I quickly snatch his arm before he takes off.
“Just a sec, kid. We need to think this through.”
Grady pauses, spinning back to face us while Zoey turns to her dad.
“What’s the plan of attack?” she asks him. “This place is freaking huge.”
Zander nods, then shares a silent conversation with Grady before clearing his throat and laying it out for us. “Okay, any adult who’s capable of searching the property and surrounding area, suit up. Nylah and Wily, we’ll get you guys to stay here and watch the kids. And… Blake, you’re awesome at distracting this lot. Can you stay here too?”
She nods, crossing her arms with a sickly frown. She’s so pale I’m worried she might keel over. Seriously, she’s not responsible for this problem, although she’s acting like she is.
Zander points to the boys. “I’ll get you guys to search the house again.”
Cole tuts in disappointment, but I squeeze his arm. “We need you, buddy. You three can look in all the places we didn’t think to look before, okay?”
“Okay, Dad.” Dom nods, always up for a challenge.
I’m gutted that my knee’s not good enough to hike through the surrounding forest right now, but watching the kids is an important job too.
Shit. I hope those girls are okay. They couldn’t have gotten that far, right?
There’ll be footprints in the snow. Ways to track them. Won’t there?
Thank God Grady’s going out. He’ll know exactly what to do.
“Okay.” Zander claps his hands. “Everyone going outside, suit up and meet us at the back door in two minutes. Grady, you can give us a rundown of what we should be looking for out there.”
“Got it.” Grady turns and takes off upstairs while Carson pops Portia onto the floor.
“No. Daddy!” Her voice is urgent and she rushes after him, but he keeps moving, not responding to her cries as Nylah grabs their wailing daughter and pulls her back.
“I want Daddy!” Portia cries.
“You need to stay here with me.” Nylah tries to wrap her in a hug, but Portia wrestles against her hold.
“Daddy! I want Daddy!”
