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“Who else’s would he be?” she snapped. “Melony gave birth to him. She brought him here. She’s paying me to watch him. If you’re looking for a ransom—”
“A ransom?” A sharp laugh left my throat. “For my own son?”
“It sounds like you’re working on some bad information, Sarah,” Denny said. “Maybe you could tell us what you think is going on here, so we can figure out where our wires are crossed.”
Her eyes narrowed slowly. “I’m not sure I should tell you anything.”
“And I’m sure you should.” I tried to keep my voice warm, calm, and level, like Denny’s was. It didn’t work, but at least I tried. “The baby you’ve been watching here is one half of a missing person’s case. Melony is wanted for kidnapping my twins—one of whom we rescued from your care yesterday. So, the way I see it, you can deal with us now, or the police when they get here.”
“And one of those conversations will be happening while you’re in handcuffs,” Denny added. “Whereas for this one…. You want another donut?”
She licked her lips again, then scrambled back to grab another pastry from the box in Denny’s hands. She picked it apart in silence for a few moments, like she suspected we might have hidden razor blades or sleeping pills inside.
Finally, she looked back up at us. “What do you want to know?”
“How about you start with why you think that baby is named Grayson,” Denny suggested. “And why you think he’s Melony Houghton’s son.”
“Um. Well…” Her eyes darted between us again, then she took a bite of her second donut. “Okay. A little over a month ago, I got a call from Melony. We had some classes together in college, but after graduation, we kind of fell out of touch.”
“What did she want from you?” Denny asked.
“Just to catch up. Honest. She saw on Facebook that I’d scored a job with Beau Monde. I guess she was interested because they were placing me with a shifter family up in Maine—”
“At Morrow Manor?” I prompted.
Her brows knitted together. “Yes, actually. How did you know?”
“Never mind that now,” Denny said. “Please, Sarah. Go on.”
“Well, we met up. I was staying at my mom’s place at the time, which was a little embarrassing, but Melony was really kind about it. I told her about the training I’d done with Beau Monde on how to take care of shifter babies, and how I was saving up money for my own place. Then she asked how much I’d be making, and when I told her, she offered me double to take care of Grayson when he was born.”
“When he was born?” That was a strange way to word that. “She was… pregnant when you talked to her?”
“Yeah, she was getting close to her due date and definitely needed the help. She was all alone since Grayson’s dad—” She paused. Her gaze focused on me with a glare. “Are you Xander Miller?”
“I am.” And I didn’t like where this was going.
“I thought so. Fuck you. She told me all about how angry you were when she got pregnant, and how afraid she was that you’d hurt her. That you’d hurt the baby. What kind of sick fuck—”
“Oh, I’m the sick fuck, am I?” I snapped, anger boiling in my chest at the blatant lie.
“Calm down. Both of you.” Denny sighed. “You quit Beau Monde and took the job with Melony instead?”
“Not exactly.” A flush rose to her cheeks. “I mean, I took the job with Melony, but I never officially quit Beau Monde. Melony kind of…convinced me to ghost them, I guess. She said it served them right for underpaying me. She was…empowering, honestly, and helped me throw out my uniform and everything herself.”
The pieces were slowly coming together. A nanny at the Beau Monde agency, assigned to Morrow Manor. A distant connection Melony had made and managed to manipulate. They were both blonde, about the same height and build. Similar facial features, even. And if Sarah had never officially quit, if Melony had known exactly where to get hold of the proper uniform, the proper ID card—
I bet if we checked that list of names Felicity had gotten from the agency, we’d find that on the day the boys were taken, Sarah had been scheduled to work.
Except, Sarah had never made it to Morrow Manor.
Melony had showed up in Sarah’s place to case the joint right under our noses in Sarah’s place.
“Tell me about when you started working for Melony,” Denny prompted.
“I just started yesterday, actually. Melony had a hard time getting down here. Said she was being hunted, that she had to travel in her wolf form for safety.” She shot me another glare. “It was the only way she and Grayson could get away from him.”
I glared right back at her. Flattering. As if two months ago, when Melony was a captive in Morrow Manor’s dungeons, I hadn’t argued against killing Melony. If I’d wanted to hurt her then, I would’ve done it.
