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"Not here. I'll tell you when we are back at Mel's and alone. For now...food. I am also starving. I wasn't hungry for breakfast. I'm starving now."
Which was good—Powell had lost weight since the abduction, too.
"Let's find food. And Mads, Zo, and Shelby. There might just be safety in numbers. I could use some myself." And Jarrod wouldn’t dare do anything right now—not with her friends around. For that matter, she might just spend the rest of the day hiding behind Daniel.
"What's going on with you and Jarrod?"
Well, that was a question she couldn't answer.
They took off toward the buffet table. Haldyn looked toward where she'd last seen her shadow. He was watching her.
Of course, he was.
The man took his job very seriously. And there was an intent look on that hunter’s face right there.
"We probably have thirty seconds before they catch up with us. Just tell me one thing—are you okay? Really okay?"
Powell hugged her fast. "I think I will be. As soon as all of this is over.”
Yes. Haldyn knew it. Powell was hiding something. Haldyn was going to make her tell just what—as soon as they were somewhere they could be alone.
36
She was a beautiful young woman. Definitely Gordon’s youngest. Quiet. Then again, so was her sister. The younger girl had crossed his path. He’d said hello, but she’d just nodded. Given a shy little smile before darting around him.
Scared.
Girl seemed to be scared about something. Sol would talk her to her daddy when he got a chance. Tell Gordon to check in on his girl, make sure she was doing okay and everything.
She was a woman now, around twenty or so, he thought. An adult. But that didn’t mean she should have to face the world alone, without her dad to protect her or anything. Gordon should protect his girls. All three of them. Appreciate them for the gifts they were.
Sol just watched her scurry away. Probably looking for her little friends, or something. He’d seen her earlier. With one of those nieces of Heather’s, he thought.
She was about the same age as Sol’s little girl would have been. Maybe a year or two older, at most. They’d played together when they were girls, he thought. Blake. Or was the youngest one Reid? He couldn’t quite remember.
Sol was starting to feel his age. More in the last two months. Since Maribeth. Two days after Christmas.
He’d never celebrate Christmas again.
His little Maribeth. He closed his eyes.
Sol hadn’t been the best father—the job made that nearly impossible. His wife had been right to take his girl and leave him when Maribeth had been thirteen. He was really surprised she’d made it with him as long she had. He become a part-time father, then.
Not that he’d been much of a full-time father before.
His girl had had a future. She should have had a future. Like Gordon’s girl. Like those teenagers taken in the Eastman thing four months back.
Sol just kept walking, a good ten yards behind Gordon’s younger girl. He watched her get with that teenager.
Definitely Heather’s niece. But not the one Sol had taken the missing persons’ report for. The other one. The identical twin, with the blue hair. That wife of Lake’s had raised that one, he thought.
That was some bullshit. That Eastman thing. That whole thing just disgusted him.
Sol saw Heather. He took a close look, made sure it was her and not that look-alike niece, Zoey Daviess. Well, Zoey Lake now. Zoey had always made him feel like a real slug. Or a dumbass.
And guilty.
Girl had come damned close to dying, and he had been part of it. Another stain on his already stained soul, that one.
