Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(97)

“Just to the drinking fountain. It’s right there.” Jeannie scampered around the corner. Connor was right there, talking with one of the nurses, and Jeannie was directly in his line of sight, so she tried not to be a nervous freak about it. Jeannie came back into the waiting room a few seconds later, and plumped down on the couch between them, offering the bottle to her uncle.

He accepted it with a kiss, and it was while he was squeezing and wrestling and knuckling her head until she giggled and wiggled that Margot noticed the sticky note. It was from a prescription pad that advertised some antibiotic or other, stuck right in the middle of Jeannie’s dark blue tunic sweater.

That was odd. It wasn’t a place where a sticky note might normally end up on a person by mistake, like a sleeve. No, it was smack dab between her little girl’s shoulder blades.

Chill apprehension condensed into fear, and froze as she plucked it off. Nothing was written on the front. She turned it to the adhesive side. Her heart stopped beating. Scrawled in ink, the note read



cute kid

she’s next





“Sean,” she said.

He looked up, catching her tone with his danger antennae, highly developed in all McCloud men. His eyes zapped to the note. Margot silently indicated with her shaking hand, where it had been stuck to Jeannie’s back, and held it up for him to read.

Sean’s face, already pale, went ashen.

His eyes met Margot’s, and lit up with that hot, fierce war glow she’d seen in Davy’s eyes many times. A hard comfort, but still a comfort. Thank God for the tough, strong family she had found.

“Connor,” he called.

Connor’s antennae were sensitive, too. He looked over, swiftly closed his conversation with the nurse, and strode over so purposefully one would barely notice his limp.

Sean held up the note. “On Jeannie,” he mouthed.

“Mama? What is it?” Jeannie had caught the vibe, and was looking around, eyes wide with alarm.

“Nothing, baby,” she said.

“Nothing, my foot!” Jeannie’s light green McCloud eyes narrowed.

“When?” Connor asked.

“Just now,” Margot replied. “When she went to the drinking fountain.”

Sean paced out into the corridor, scanning up and down.

Connor put his hand on Jeannie’s shoulder. “Honey, when you went to the drinking fountain, did anybody touch you?”

Jeannie frowned in concentration. “Yeah, someone did brush by me when I was filling the bottle. But when I looked over there was just a bunch of doctors walking away. They had the white coats, and those green pajamas. I didn’t know which one it was.”

“Man, woman?”

“I saw both in the hall.” Her voice was small.

Sean came back into the waiting room. He held another note. “This was on the drinking fountain,” he said.

It was from the same prescription pad, message on the back, as before.



then comes the boy in 317





Jeannie wiggled around until she could see it, too. “That’s our room at the hotel! How do they know our room? Isn’t it a secret?”

“It’s supposed to be,” Margot said. “Keep your voice down, baby.”

“What name did you check in under?” Connor asked, pulling out his phone.

“Erin checked in for us. She used the new credit card and ID, the one you told her to use.”

Connor cursed under his breath. He punched the phone, waited. “Hey,” he said. “Come back here right now, babe. Don’t go to the hotel . . . yeah, I’ll tell you when you’re here. Hurry. Yeah . . . I love you.”

Sean was on his phone, too, presumably calling Kev and the others. “Yo, dudes. Drop everything, get back here. We’ve got a situation. Very bad. Yeah. Okay. Hurry.”

He closed the call. They moved closer together, huddling around Jeannie. A human wall. Staring at every person walking by, sitting, working. Everyone they saw, a potential enemy with deadly secret weapons.

“God, I hate this shit,” Sean murmured, under his breath.

“We have to move the kids,” Connor said. “Or have someone else move them. Bruno and Lily. Nick, Seth. Petrie would help.”

“To someplace we don’t know,” Margot said. “If they’re reading us.”

Sean winced. “We have to block them,” he said. “We can do something like what Miles suggested, in the car. We thought about breakfast, to fake out the telepaths waiting on the road. Pick something vivid and fixate on it.”

Margot almost laughed. Yeah, right. Like, her husband under the knife, his brain opened up. That was all she needed to foil a telepath.

“I’m all set with my image,” she said grimly.

“We need our own psychic goon squad,” Sean said.

“I tell you what we need,” Connor said. “We need Miles.”





23


eat yr soup


The command typed itself out onto the screen in her mind.

Lara looked up from the saltine cracker she was contemplating. Miles was not looking at her. He had not spoken to her at all since their fight, other than curt directives; take a shower, put your clothes in the washer, put these on, hurry up. No smile, or touch. Or eye contact.