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“You don’t owe me a thing. Just keep your eyes peeled whenever you’re flying wingman for Darcy.”
“Don’t let Wren hear you say that or she’ll deck you.”
Darcy poked her head through the kitchen bar opening and waggled a fruit roll-up at them. “I heard, anyhow. Wrestling match later, Max. Me and you,mano a mano.”
“Looking forward to it.” Max winked, then thumped Daniel’s back. “We’ll take good care of them. You just take care of the two of you, and we’ll be ready to throw another party by the end of next week.”
“I hope so.”
“I’ll be in touch with you via the secure line 24/7 with updates about the boys and…anything else that comes through.”
Daniel nodded.
“Hey, Darcy,” Max called, hitching his Technicolor swim trunks higher on his hips as he strode toward the kitchenette, “don’t forget to pack some of those juice box things, grape-blaster flavor. Baker here has gotten me hooked on them.”
Max rounded the corner, dodging Trey ducking back into the living room. Trey clutched a fistful of red licorice in his hands, eyes broadcasting more questions with each step toward the sofa. He owed Trey a boatload of eggplant for keeping his little brother occupied today.
Daniel scrubbed a hand over his face, prepping himself for Trey’s next round of questions. He wanted to be upfront with him. But as much as Trey put on that hoo-ya brave face, he was still just a kid.
A persistent kid. Interrogations in the Air Force training mock POW camp were a cakewalk compared to the inquisition of two little boys.
Plunking down on the leather couch, Trey waited, his eyes demanding answers with the same imperious right-to-know their old man had mastered well.
Daniel dropped to sit beside him. “Trey, I’m sorry about all of this.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, big guy. It’s not. But I’m going to do my best to make it okay again.”
Trey peeled a strand of licorice off. “Is Mary Elise in trouble?”
“She didn’t do anything wrong, if that’s what you’re asking.” Other than not come to him in the first place, but then that was as much his fault for closing the door between them years ago. “But yes, things are a mess for her right now, and she needs a friend.”
Trey unraveled another strand, slowly, then another. “My dad was trying to help her, wasn’t he?”
Mydad? Daniel wondered why the kid had the power to rile him with onelittle pronoun. “Yeah, Trey,” Franklin Baker the third, “your dad was trying to help her.”
“Help her with what?”
His brother couldn’t be bought off with a video-game promise. Honesty worked for a reason. He just hoped the kid could understand something that bemused him. “Her ex-husband isn’t a nice guy. He wants to hurt her, and I can’t let that happen.”
“Kind of like how you kept me and Austin away from Uncle Ammar back in Rubistan.”
And to think he’d worried about the boy understanding. Life had given Trey a crash course in life’s injustices. “Exactly like that.”
One day, when he’d ensured the boys’ safety, he looked forward to making sure they saw the beauty of their mother’s heritage, as well. Man this parenting gig was a complex bag. But he didn’t want his brothers’ view of a part of themselves to be tainted by experiences with their uncle.
Trey nibbled the end off of a strand of licorice. “Well then, I think it’s probably a good idea for me and Austin to go to North Carolina.”
Daniel let the pride build inside him. Yeah, the kid had to make it seem like his own decision, but no problem. He could live with that. He clapped Trey on the shoulder. “Thank you. I’m trusting you to take care of Austin. It’ll hurt Mary Elise to think he’s popping out those tears.”
Trey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, two of those big fat leaky ones and Mary Elise was crawling inside the crate with us.”
The enormity of her sacrifice nailed him dead center like an on-target missile, no warning. He’d respected her bravery before, but he’d been clueless on how difficult it must have been for her to risk a return to the States, to expose her sanctuary with the call for help in the first place. Anonymous or no, the trail was there.
Her call. His father’s call. His father’s death.
Pieces of information jostled in Daniel’s head, searching for edges to make a clean fit. Except connector pieces were missing.
