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“Here,” she said, pointing to the bent, covered elbow in the picture. I squinted.
“That’s an elbow,” I pointed out the obvious, feeling particularly stupid.
“Goddess, you really never paid attention to anyone but me, did you?” she said, partial annoyance and partial happiness in her voice.
“What’s wrong wit—” I stopped when her words finally processed, and I tried looking at the picture again. “How can you tell it’s a woman?”
“Right under the elbow, you can see a bottom swell of a breast,” she pointed out. I squinted more and finally saw the curve of a breast in the hoodie.
“How the fuck did you see that?”
“I was looking at it sideways from the desk,” she said sheepishly. “It just popped out at me, pun intended."
“So the mole is a woman?” I said, contemplatively looking at the list of names on the other monitor. “I think twelve is manageable. We can set up some warriors to tail them when they’re headed out of the pack grounds and set up someone to monitor their incoming and outgoing communications?” I asked her. Evie nodded somberly.
“I’ll put some people on it tomorrow,” she said, making me pout. I wanted her to myself all weekend, but this was definitely more important.
“Grab a couple of warriors if you need someone to wade through stuff. I’ll forward you the list of people we trust. Let’s go get some dinner.” We were heading toward the elevator when Evie’s phone rang.
“Hey, Dad, what’s up?” Evie answered her phone. There was mumbling on the other side, and Evie looked at me with an apology showing in her eyes. “Yeah, I can do that. Send him over, and I’ll meet him there.” There was a pause as Evergreen responded. “Love you too, Dad.” She hung up, and we stepped into the elevator. “We need to stop at Dad’s on the way home. Adrien needs a program on Dad’s personal computer and he’s out on a date with Mom.”
“Okay, but I’m stealing some snacks. I’m hungry,” I warned.
Adrien showed up a few minutes after we arrived at Evergreen’s house, and we headed down to the basement, which we’d always referred to as his hero headquarters growing up, but it was more of a man cave. He had a home office set up for the days he worked from home and when he played around with software for his personal projects. It was an impressive setup with two computers and a port box connected to five monitors.
When we were little, and he was tired of us running around like monkeys, he would unhook a few monitors, set them up with a different show on each, and pass around blue-tooth headphones while he worked on whatever project he needed to complete. He learned to lock the door after a few instances where we ran off and hid from him.
Evie and Adrien started talking about what program he needed while she unlocked her father’s computer and started looking for it. I lost track of their conversation as I fell down memory lane while eating my granola bar, until I heard Evie cursing and Adrien ooooh’ing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, watching an angry Evie pick up her phone and wait impatiently for someone to answer.
“Dad, get your ass home right now before I wipe all of your computers, including your back-ups.” There was silence, then rapid speaking from the other end of the line before Evie interrupted him. “You can’t ground me, and you’re in so much fucking trouble. Get your butt back home, because you have a lot of explaining to do.”
I’d never heard Evie talking that way to her father, so I looked at Adrien for help, but he was trying so hard to keep a straight face, and he burst into laughter when our eyes connected.
“It’s not funny, Adrien. How would you like it if Aunt Kassie or Uncle Gonzalo did that to you?”
“Oh, honey, I marked my mate weeks before they did. They couldn’t if they tried. I’m sure he meant well.”
“What did he do?” I asked, but neither one paid attention to me. Adrien continued to chuckle while Evie was pacing the room angrily.
“Meant well, my ass. That’s such a controlling dick move. I can’t believe he did that,” she grumbled.
“Guys...”
“Evergreen has always been overprotective of the people he loves, that’s all. Give him a break,” Adrien said, going over to look at whatever folder was open on the screens. “Looks like he hasn’t done it in–Oop, never mind, that one’s from last year.”
“Guys...” I tried again, getting up to peak at the document Adrien was opening. “Why am I looking at background checks?” I asked a few minutes later when I figured out what I was looking at.
“Becau—” The door slammed open and closed from upstairs, and I heard Evergreen and Valeria walking down the steps.
“Why were you looking into my private folders, Munchkin?” Evergreen was frowning, and Evie’s eyes practically fell out of her face as she gave her father a look of disbelief.
“Are you kidding me? After what you did, you’re asking me why I clicked on a folder labeled ‘Munchkin’? Seriously, Dad?”
“It could have been a surprise project for you,” he said, shifting uncomfortably while Valeria looked as lost as I was.
“What is going on? Evergreen, what does she think you did?”
