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Someone was beating on my front door. Badger was howling and barking at whomever had decided to wake up my entire household. The phone downstairs was ringing and my cellphone was beeping as well. What the hell? I asked myself, sitting up in bed. I felt sluggish and slow. I could hear mom swearing at the dog, the person knocking, and the phones ringing. Then I noticed her phone was ringing, too. Good Lord, Armageddon had arrived!
I grabbed my shoes and put them on my feet. I was waiting for Mom to yell up to me that I had company. The clock that I still kept beside my bed said five a.m. So maybe not Armageddon, just bad news. Armageddon would only start in the dead of night, not at the crack of dawn, and it would be dawn in an hour or less. Mom would have been up in less than half an hour anyway. I grabbed my shoulder holster off its custom resting spot on the head of my bed and put it on. Then I grabbed a long-sleeved flannel shirt that was red, black, and purple and headed downstairs toward the commotion.
Someone was crying hysterically in my living room. There were about ten other voices, all talking much more quietly than the crying. I came down the stairs and entered my living room to find all the members of my SCT Unit, plus Nadine, Zeke, Anthony, and Alex crowded around the room. Toward the very back, standing in the open doorway, was Melina Daniels with the impressive figure of her huge son, Ivan, behind her.
The crying was coming from Nadine. I looked at her. I’d never seen her cry before, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Should I ask who I needed to kill? Should I give her a hug? Not knowing for sure, I stared at her instead as she sat in a heap on my couch and bawled. Then I checked my phone. I had seven missed text messages and 15 missed calls. Apparently, I’d been sleeping really well. The fifth text was from Gabriel and it said, “Get over here!!!!!!!” I clicked the screen back off.
“I guess I was sleeping really hard,” I said to the room. “What’s going on?”
“You took a sleeping pill, didn’t you?” Gabriel asked in an accusing tone.
“We aren’t on a case, so yes, I did.”
“Well, we’re on a case now,” Gabriel said. “We’re running point on the family annihilator case. He hit in two different jurisdictions tonight. We’ll be coordinating with Raytown, Lee’s Summit, and Kansas City Metro on the case from here on out. We need to catch this guy as fast as possible.”
“Sure,” I said, stretching a bit as he spoke. “I obviously missed something really important. Does anyone want to fill me in?”
”Remember our conversation yesterday?“ Zeke asked.
“My memory’s bad, but it isn’t that bad,” I replied.
“Well, I was correct, he is targeting clients of Daniels’ Security and Nadine directly,” Zeke answered. Gabriel shoved his phone at me. On it was a picture of a white wall with black marker lettering that said, “Tell Nadine I’m coming for her.” I stared at the words as if they could give me an image of the killer via psychic connection. They didn’t.
“He hit two different houses tonight. At the first house, only the mother was home. He killed her and wrote ‘Sorry to miss you’ on the walls and then he went to another house and killed two adults, a 17-year-old boy, and a seven-year-old boy,” Lucas told me. “The first house was in Lee’s Summit, the second was in KC Metro. Ivan caught the second, where the killer wrote he was coming after Nadine.”
“Since the house had one of Daniels’ Security’s ‘protected by’ stickers, I knew he meant Nadine Daniels,” Ivan said, pushing his mother into my living room.
“I know I joked yesterday about Nadine moving in with Ivan, but I truly think Nadine and Zeke should stay here for a little while. I don’t really think my house is big enough for seven dogs and three bobcats, but we’ll make it work,” I said, now that I knew why Nadine was bawling her eyes out on my couch.
“Oh good, because we were all a little worried about whether or not we could protect her,” Anthony said. “We’ve had a slew of contractors and laborers running in and out of the compound for a month now, and frankly, it’s hard to remember all the faces and names, even with sign-in procedures.”
“Ace, we can leave the animals at the house, we’ll just need the family to go by and feed and water them every day,” Zeke replied.
“Well, I’d agree to that, but I don’t feel right leaving them to fend for themselves, plus Nadine may need them for comfort. I have a spare bedroom for you guys and your dogs get along with Badger, so it should be fine. The bobcats are really the only worrisome part,” I told him.
“He did kill a cat,” Ivan chimed in.
“That settles it, you’ll all come here,” I said.
“Alex and Sebastian can have my spare room,” Gabriel said. “We should really empty the compound until he’s caught. If he’s killing clients to get to Nadine, then killing her family would be even more ideal for him.”
“I’m agreeable with hosting Kenzie, Baby Nadia, and Anthony,” Lucas said. “I know Trevor will be thrilled about it. It will give us the baby experience before ours gets here.”
“Or make you realize you don’t want one,” Alex said with a grin. “I will go home, pack clothes for me and Sebastian, and Anthony can figure out how to move the tyrant and baby. Nadine, what do you want me to bring back for you?”
“Nothing,” Nadine said, wiping at her tear-streaked cheeks and bloodshot eyes.
“I’ll go home and get the animals. When I do, I’ll bring her back clothes, don’t worry about it, Alex. Gabriel’s correct, with the compound still under construction it would be better for all of us to move somewhere safer for a little while. I’ll also have Mitch put Daniels’ Security on lockdown,” Zeke said.
My mom took a seat next to Nadine on the couch and took hold of her hand. Melina moved into the room and flanked her, making Nadine the filling of a mom sandwich. I wondered if there was a safe house I could move into. However, Zeke and Nadine had sheltered me when the FGN had been under construction for the rebuild, so I figured I could return the favor without much grumbling.
“Hey Lucas, you do remember Kenzie has both pregnancy psychosis and post-partum psychosis, right?” Alex asked. “She tends to break plates when she gets upset.”
“I’ll have Trevor put the china in the attic and I’ll have paper plates delivered this morning,” Lucas said as he texted Trevor.
“Dude, put up all the glassware and anything else that is breakable,” Anthony said, and we all looked at him. “She doesn’t just break plates. We currently have no glass bakeware. Last week she went crazy on the Pyrex after her doctor told her she’d gained too much weight with this pregnancy.”
“How do you gain too much weight with a pregnancy?” I asked, blinking. “I mean, she’s eating for two and she’s carrying an extra half dozen pounds of baby around in her body. As long as she can still move around without needing a furniture dolly, it seems like it should be fine.”
“Whatever you do, don’t ask her that.” Anthony said in response. I made a mental note to not ask Kenzie about her weight, not that it was ever in my plans anyway.
“I’m off to the coroner’s again,” Xavier said. “Anyone want to come?” Nobody moved, so after a couple minutes, he left alone.
“Why don’t I make breakfast for everyone. We can eat and then you can go get what you need to stay here,” my mom said. “Oh, I should have suggested it before Xavier left,” she said, putting a hand to her mouth before standing up and getting to work on breakfast. There was going to be a banquet laid out this morning. My mom cooked when she needed to feel productive and having all these people gave her the perfect excuse for over-cooking.