by Wren Weston
Lila had often wondered about that.
She also wondered how he had attained such a position while spending so much time in the gym. It was evident in every bulge and angle of his blackcoat.
She’d only met him once before, and she’d been greatly tempted to ask him out for a meal. Beautiful? Barren? A man who understood what it meant to be in the militia? A man who knew what it meant to lead multiple compounds stretched over a wide area?
How could she resist?
Chief Vance bowed to Lila, not because she was Chief Randolph but because she was an heir. Old habits and confusion over her status tended to obscure what should have been plain.
Lila inclined her head, acknowledging his bow.
“I heard you were looking into this case for your father,” Vance said, his voice deep and rumbling. “I don’t like a Saxon heir getting involved with La Verde state business. The point of the state militias is to keep our investigations free from the influence of the families.”
Yep, that was why she hadn’t asked him out. He didn’t trust her. She probably wouldn’t have gotten away with half so many things in the last few years if he and Shaw switched places.
“Her father wants her here for a reason. She’s—”
Lila cleared her throat, ending Shaw’s tirade before it could begin. “Chief Vance, let’s not pretend you’re pissed about jurisdiction or the sanctity of government investigations or even my father’s interference. The oracles won’t cooperate unless I’m here, and that pisses you off,” Lila said, hopping into the cart. “It would piss me off too, but there’s not much any of us can do about it. So let’s just save ourselves a bunch of hollering in the cold. You’ve given your official complaint. I have a two-hour plane ride home, a dozen compounds to run, and a stuffed inbox waiting on me. I suspect you can understand.”
Vance frowned as she crossed an ankle over her knee. If there was one thing most militia officers understood, it was work.
“This is highly irregular.” He slid into the cart as Shaw folded himself into the back seat. The small wheels lurched forward, and the struggling contraption rattled past the terminals toward a waiting sedan.
A three-legged pregnant turtle could have beaten them there.
Lila ducked into the sedan as soon as they arrived, the car thankfully roomier than the plane. She stretched her legs while Chief Vance dug into a pile of folders on the seat next to him. “I presume you’ve read our initial reports on the kidnapping?”
Lila shook her head.
Vance’s blue eyes narrowed, and he turned to Shaw. “You didn’t give her—”
“She knows the basics. Rebecca was taken from her foster home at midnight. No one knows or saw who did it.”
“That’s not the basics. You’ve told her nothing.”
Shaw raised his chin. “I’ve told her plenty. It’ll only her take five minutes at the scene to deduce what’s in your stack of reports.”
Lila nearly laughed. Chief Shaw might have been defending her, but it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the slight against his own judgment.
“This is highly irregular.” Vance leaned back in his seat. The leather of his blackcoat strained over his wide chest.
Lila had never been with a man a dozen years her senior, and never one who had spent so much time in the gym. She wondered what it would be like.
Then she wondered what it would be like for Tristan to wear the blackcoat. Perhaps the coat and nothing else. His erect cock peeking out as he entered her bedroom, ordering her to take off her clothes and toss them in a pile, ordering her to turn and face the wall as he slid in between her legs, grabbing her hips as he fucked her, forcing her to grip her desk and moan with each demanding thrust, both of them—
Lila blushed and stared out the window, glad the men couldn’t read her mind, glad they couldn’t tell how wet she’d just gotten. For oracle’s sake, she was visiting a kidnapping scene. A child had just been taken. A child who needed her help.
All she could think about was her lover.
This was why the highborn didn’t let themselves get attached.
Lila sank down low in her seat and wiggled her toes. Closing her eyes, she tried to think of anything but Tristan as they drove through the still dark suburbs of Sioux Falls.
She nearly dozed off, but the sedan lurched suddenly, stopping in a well-to-do workborn neighborhood. A two-story house with a metal gate rose above them, its blue paint too bright in the melancholy gloom. Sunflowers lined a small garden in the front yard, their heavy faces turning toward any friend who might appear for a visit. Little red shutters and a red door adorned the house, a collection of pudgy porcelain gnomes standing near the entrance and a freshly painted porch swing. The creatures smoked little pipes, some sitting, others waving at each guest or at one another.
The couple was that sort of workborn, infuriatingly jolly and kind.
At least the kidnapping would knock some of the edge off.
Chief Vance rolled down his foggy window as a Norrington guard peeked inside the sedan, prompting the nervous sergeant to open the metal gate in a rush. It swung forward with a rusty screech, the noise echoing off the sleepy streets.
The driver pulled forward into a line of Sioux Falls cruisers that filled the driveway.
“I’m your tech consult, Chief Shaw,” Lila said. “Don’t address me by name.”
“What am I to call you, then? Hey, you?”
“Works for me.”
Lila slipped out of the sedan. She buttoned her blackcoat over her family’s coat of arms and left her scarf in the sedan, the entire slash of fabric betraying her inclusion in the House of the Crimson Wolves. The local militia would already be on alert with Chief Vance looking over their shoulder. Having two guests from Saxony would only annoy them further.
Vance eyed the little gnomes down the walk. “The Thomases usually have anywhere from three to six foster children. Not children of oracles, mind you—workborn children, mostly.”
“Anything suspicious come up in a background search?”
“They’re anything but suspects.” Vance bristled. “They’re saints.”
“Everyone’s a suspect. How many kids are inside?”
“Currently, none. Up until last week the couple cared for three siblings, but the children’s parents completed all their classwork. After Family Protection Services assigned their live-in counselor, they moved back in with their parents to complete the trial period.”
“You think they’ll pass?”
“Four months is a long time.” Vance shrugged, leading the group toward the house. “FPS chose the Thomases as the perfect foster placement for Rebecca. Not only was their house empty, but the couple is extremely experienced and kind. They have remarkable rapport with children from all backgrounds. They didn’t even mind the Norrington patrols.”
Lila stopped. “Norrington patrols?”
“Yes.” Vance winced. “My men were here during the abduction. They noted some thrashing noises from the north and west sides of the property around change of shift. They investigated and found nothing. We suspect that’s when Rebecca was taken. It was quiet for the rest of the night.”
“So they fell for the most basic of distractions and didn’t think to check on the kid?”
“No, they did not.” He nodded at the blackcoat at the front door. The poor sergeant had crossed his hands over his chest, not to look imposing, but because he might send the gnomes tumbling around him at any moment.
Once inside the home, Vance led them toward the parlor, introducing them to the couple, both approaching fifty by the lines on their faces and the gray in their hair. Lila could have used her full name without the couple becoming suspicious. The husband merely scratched his beard and shook hands with anyone who offered it, and his wife barely lifted her gaze from the floor.
They tugged their robes closed at the neck as they sat down.
“Did you find something?” the woman asked, her voice trembling. “Did you find Rebecca? She’s alive, isn’t she? She’s okay?”
“We haven’t found her yet, Mrs. Thomas, but we’re doing everything we can,” Vance assured her kindly. “My two colleagues are here to help.”
Shaw sat beside Vance, perhaps keen to dive right in, asking the very same questions that the couple had been asked a thousand times that night.
Lila avoided the couch, choosing instead to sit on the coffee table directly in front of the couple. She took up the wife’s hand and gave it a sympathetic little squeeze. As a rule, she didn’t like interrogating witnesses, not unless she knew a person was guilty.
She tended to just talk. “I have a little brother. Ten years younger than me, Mr. Thomas. I don’t know what I’d do if he was taken in the middle of the night.”
Mr. Thomas nodded and bent his head, staring at a frayed cushion on the couch. While he grew lost inside his head, Lila pressed Mrs. Thomas’s hand once more. She said nothing more to either of them, just watched their faces, making her own as blank as possible.
Predictably, they began to speak, mostly to fill the awkward silence.
“We were just so tired,” Mrs. Thomas explained clearing her throat. “That’s no excuse for sleeping through it, though. I’m normally a very light sleeper. We’ve kept foster children for twenty years, and I’ve always woken up if one of my kids sneezes or sniffles. Some of them cry, you know. Either they miss home, or they’re nervous about what will happen when they go back. There’s a lot of calming involved in being a foster parent. Tears and tempers alike, especially before family therapy appointments. But I didn’t wake up this time. When it counted the most, I slept while someone took that baby.”
She gripped Lila’s hand even harder. “Oh gods, she must have been so scared.”
“She probably was. You feel horrible for it. I hope I would feel horrible too if someone took my little brother while I was asleep. I suppose that’s how you feel when you care.”
“I do care.” A tear rolled down the woman’s cheek, but she didn’t brush it aside. “I don’t know why I didn’t wake up. Why tonight? I always wake up. Why did it have to be tonight?”
“Like you said, I suppose you were just tired.”
“We both were,” Mr. Thomas said, giving a little cough. He noticed the tear falling down his wife’s cheek and pulled a cotton handkerchief from his robe’s pocket, putting it in her free hand. She smiled up at him for his kindness and dabbed at her eye.
Oracle’s light, they were in love. Real love. Not just soul mates or friends or playmates. They had bonded so completely that they could see no one else but their partner, could never bond with anyone else after meeting one another. Not while they loved, not even after.
They’d married and declared it to the world.
“We were both groggy,” Mr. Thomas said. “It kind of hit us at once.”
Lila glanced back at Chief Vance.
“We took samples of their blood and sent it back to the lab. We’re testing it for practically everything.”
“I’d like a copy as soon as you get the results,” Shaw prodded.
“Of course.”
“I don’t think we were drugged.” Mrs. Thomas coughed a little as she sipped her warm tea. “I think we’re just coming down with something. The tea is helping, though.”
Her eyes did seem dark and puffy, but Lila thought it a rather convenient time to fall ill.
A little too convenient.
“Would you like some?” Mrs. Thomas offered. “It’s Silver Shark Winter tea.”
“No, thank you,” Lila answered.
“It’s just as well. We haven’t been able to make it like the lady from Family Protection Services. Now she’s a regular tea aficionado. Perfectly steeped, loose-leaf goodness, straight from the gods.”
“Isn’t that how it always goes?” Lila smiled. “You stayed up late last night, didn’t you? You usually go to bed earlier, but something kept you up.”
The couple looked at one another. “Well, you have to understand, we’re supposed to foster a new baby in a few days. Abandoned at the hospital, if you can believe it. New mother just got overwhelmed and dropped him off. Rebecca came with us to the FPS office yesterday to pick up our Silver Shark, and we filled out some of Cash’s paperwork while we were there.”
“Poor baby’s only a couple of months old,” her husband added. “It’s going to take days for Cash’s paperwork to go through, what with the Teddy Stevens Act. I understand the need to lock portions of his DNA profile until he’s of age, but he shouldn’t have to stay in the hospital while bureaucrats play pass the papers and go home at five o’clock to their families. A hospital is no place for a child that young.”
“You don’t think you could get Norrington involved, could you, Chief Vance?” Mrs. Thomas asked, looking slightly hopeful.
“The Norrington militia has little influence over Family Protection Services, but I do know someone at FPS who might put a word in the right ear. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Mrs. Thomas beamed. “We owe you for that kindness. We owe you greatly.”
Lila watched their expressions with some interest. Vance was not wrong in his assessment. The couple really were kindhearted souls, talking about owing favors over a baby they’d never set eyes on and who wasn’t even theirs. She couldn’t help but wonder what the couple was like when they weren’t so unbearably sad.
They probably would have tripped Vance with full-force hugs and given him a gnome to take home to Norrington.
“Is that what kept you up?” Lila asked, trying to steer the conversation back to the night before. “Worry over the new baby?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Thomas said, shaking her head. “You see, my husband climbed into the attic to retrieve our old crib yesterday afternoon. It’s been a while since we had such a young one, so we were thinking of restaining the wood, since we had a few days before Cash’s arrival.”
“That sounds lovely,” Lila said, squeezing the woman’s hand again.
“I shouldn’t have dawdled in the attic, but you know how it is.” Mr. Thomas chuckled. “I got a bit too interested in the other things we’ve stored up there. I started digging through a box of toys from our eldest. Angela just graduated from college in Unity. I ended up finding a photo album in one of the boxes, and I brought it to Martha after I got the crib down. One thing led to another and we were still up an hour past our normal bedtime, looking at all her old toys and giggling and sobbing over her baby pictures. We both just got tired. Nearly fell asleep on the couch. We thought we were just getting old. Even made a few jokes about it.”
“We went to bed soon after,” Mrs. Thomas concluded.
“Where’d you have dinner?”
“At home, of course,” she answered. “All our children help cook and clean up at least one meal every day. Some of them have never learned to cook or clean a table properly, so we make sure we teach them some skills before they leave. I made lasagna, but Rebecca didn’t like it. She’s a picky eater, but she tried it just the same. That’s all I ask of my children. Just try a few bites. She made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich afterward.”
There it was again. Our children. My children. Lila rubbed her chin and glanced back at Vance.
“We’re testing the wine that the Thomases had with dinner.”
“Did the neighbors hear anything last night?”
Vance shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. There’s nothing in the wine, mark my words. It will be something they all drank.”
“The hot chocolate?” Mrs. Thomas asked, turning toward Vance. “I didn’t even think to mention it before.”
“What hot chocolate?”
&nb
sp; “We always have hot chocolate after dinner. Our children always like it, and it’s good to have a routine. That’s what my mother always says, and she’s ninety. Still sharp as I am, too. If it worked for her, it’ll work for me and mine.”
“Can you show me the hot chocolate?”
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas led them into the kitchen and pulled down a tin of powdered chocolate. As the group chatted more about the night before, Lila opened the lid and looked inside.
Nothing seemed off about it.
“We also had tea with our dinner, but only my husband and I had some.”
“Which tea?”
Mr. Thomas pointed to the mug he’d put on the counter, nothing but dregs in the bottom. While everyone’s back was turned to examine the tea, Lila withdrew a vial from her pocket and dipped it into the chocolate powder. After capping it one-handed, she stuck it into her pocket and brushed her gloves against her trouser legs.
No one had noticed.
“The lady at the FPS office just happened to have some handy?” Lila asked.
Mrs. Thomas shook her head. “No, Ms. Royce always peddles a little tea on the side. Silver Shark is one of our favorites.”
“Can you grab the packet? I’d like to test it,” Vance said.
While Vance and Shaw snatched sample containers from the Sioux Falls militia, Lila turned on the group and peeked from the small kitchen window. Or at least, that was what everyone thought she had done. Instead, she tipped the abandoned mug of tea into a second vial.
She slid it back onto the counter without anyone being the wiser, just as Vance capped their own samples from the tea and chocolate.
“Do you really think we were drugged?” Mrs. Thomas asked.
“I’m certain of it,” Lila said. “After all, Rebecca didn’t scream.”
“Rebecca is six years old,” Vance reminded her. “If an adult tells a child to be quiet, she’s going to follow that direction, especially if a weapon was involved.”
“Perhaps.” Lila found it hard to believe that Rebecca wouldn’t scream and fight, not when there were armed patrols only a few meters away. After all, she’d been kidnapped once before, though it had been for show.