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“I sent him the information, but it could take days to get anything back. Has it been there all day?” he asked.
“It wasn’t parked out there when the kids and I got back from Beck’s this afternoon. I thought that they had left, and everything was good, you know—like we worried about nothing.”
“Well, it’s back now. What’s your security code?” he asked. “I want to arm your system.”
“It’s two, four, six, eight,” she said.
He groaned, “You can’t be serious,” he chided. “That’s almost as bad as zero, one, two, three.”
“Well, you try disarming the security system surrounded by shouting children, holding a toddler, and tell me how easy it is to remember anything more difficult than that.”
“We can come up with something just as easy and maybe a bit more secure in the morning,” he said. For now, he wanted to take Rainey up to her room and spend the night worshiping her, and hopefully, in the morning he’d have more answers as to who the dark sedan belonged to.
* * *
Slater woke up early the next morning, hoping to sneak out of Rainey’s house before the kids woke up. He needed to meet Knox at the casino by nine, as promised.
He made a pot of coffee and poured himself a mug, believing that he had just enough time to drink it, clean up after himself and leave. That was the plan, at least, until he turned around and found little Penny standing in the kitchen behind him, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“I’m hungry,” she breathed.
“Hi, Penny,” he said. “Um, how about I try to find you something to eat. Do you like toast?” he asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her little head.
“Okay, how about cereal?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Let’s try this another way,” he said. “How about you tell me what you’d like for breakfast, and I’ll make it for you?”
“Pancakes,” Penny enthusiastically announced.
“I can’t make you pancakes, honey. There’s not enough time for that,” Slater insisted. Penny crossed her arms over her little chest, reminding him so much of her mother, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Pancakes,” she said again.
“All right,” he said, giving into the four-year-old. He set his coffee mug on the counter and started rummaging through Rainey’s pantry. Penny sat up to the table as if to wait him out and he shook his head. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook for pancakes. In fact, she was going to oversee his progress herself.
“What are you making?” Sarah asked, walking into the kitchen to sit down at the table next to her sister.
“Apparently, pancakes,” Slater grumbled. “Do you know where your mom keeps the pancake mix?”
“Top shelf in the pantry,” Sarah said.
“We’re having pancakes?” Jack asked from the hallway.
“Yep,” Penny said. “Slater’s going to make us pancakes.” This was turning into a nightmare. He was supposed to be out of Rainey’s house before the kids woke, and instead, he was reluctantly agreeing to make them pancakes for breakfast.
He found the mix and put it on the counter, next to the syrup that he found in the pantry. “Mixing bowl?” he asked Sarah. She pointed to the cabinet next to the sink and he quickly found one. Jack walked over next to him and found the griddle, putting it on the counter and plugging it in.
“I can help,” Jack offered.
“Thanks, man,” Slater said. “I appreciate that.”
“What’s going on here?” Rainey asked. She was standing in the hallway holding little Ella and didn’t look very happy about the domestic scene that she had walked in on.
“We’re having pancakes,” Penny said. She handed Ella to Sarah and grabbed her a milk cup from the refrigerator.
