What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(20)

“Bene.” She looked at her hand, smiled, then disengaged from his grip. “Max? About Rae?”

“Did you check her room? She probably got distracted sneaking Princess Gigi into her new princess bag.”

“I did, and her room is a mess. Max, you’ve got to get tough on that girl or she’s going to spend her life thinking everyone else is going to pick up after her.” Verona’s voice dropped into ominous disapproval mode. “You can’t say you feel bad because she hasn’t got a mother. She has one now.”

Verona was a handsome woman, tall, spare, stern and protective of her family, and when Rae was born, she had been their savior. She had showed him how to care for an infant, tended Rae when he went to the hospital to visit Kellen or to work at the office and never made him feel guilty for intruding on what should have been her retirement from teaching. When Kellen disappeared, Verona had been his support, had moved with him from Pennsylvania to Oregon, understanding his need to go someplace away from the trauma of his tortured romance. She hadn’t exactly intruded on his relationship with Rae; he would never say that. But she had been the final word on scheduling and discipline.

So while he loved his mother, Kellen’s return had not gone well, and it was mostly Verona’s fault. Verona could not quite believe Kellen had forgotten Max, couldn’t conceive that a woman didn’t remember giving birth and resented Kellen’s invasion into the smooth tenor of their lives.

Yet Kellen hadn’t really attempted to intrude; Max wished she cared enough about Rae to do so. But every time Rae observed Kellen’s actions and mannerisms, then imitated her behavior, Verona bristled.

Arthur Waldberg cleared his throat. “Should I...go out and wait?”

Max made his decision. “No. Stay.” He scribbled a salary on his sheet, inserted it into the employment package folder, and pushed it across the table. “If that amount and the conditions of employment are agreeable to you, go out to the tasting room and take up the management reins.”

“And?” Arthur raised his brows.

“Sure. Expand the operation as you see fit. Bring in your people as needed; I won’t interfere unless I see a problem. I’ll check in occasionally to see how it’s going.” Max wasn’t too worried; he kept pretty close tabs on all operations. “The old manager took three of my best employees with him. Bring in your friends for an interview.”

Arthur smiled, an amused crooked smile. “Eventually, when you trust me, I’ll be allowed to hire my own employees?”

“Yes. When I know and trust you. Now excuse me, I have to go find my daughter.” Max held the door for his mother to precede him.

“Maybe she turned into LightningBug and flew away,” Verona said.

“LightningBug?” Max headed out the back door toward the house.

“That superhero name she made up for herself.”

“LightningBlast.”

“No, it’s definitely morphed into LightningBug.”

Max laughed shortly and ran up the stairs to Rae’s room. He half expected to find her there, dressing her princess dolls in superheroine clothes, oblivious to the time. But she didn’t respond to his calls, and the floor was suspiciously clean of dolls or clothes or tiny high heels, and her pink princess bag was nowhere to be found.

That wasn’t right.

In fact, that was very wrong.

He toured the second floor, calling Rae’s name.

His mother yelled, “Max!”

He ran down to the main level.

“Max!” Verona’s broken voice lured him into the master bedroom. Verona stood by the bedside, holding a crinkled page of lined notebook paper in her shaking hands.

His heartbeat picked up, going from slightly concerned to something-is-really-wrong in a second. He took the paper, saw the drawing of two caped females, one big and one little, and read Rae’s childish scrawl:

Daddy, I’m with Mommy on ad vencher...

He gave a roar of horror and grabbed for his phone.



10


“Rae!” Kellen sat unmoving, staring at her daughter.

Her daughter, who wore a pink leotard, a pink glittery tutu, a gold plastic necklace with matching bracelets and black rain boots with big-eyed pink owls on them. She held her big brown stuffed dog, Patrick, in one arm. On one side of her head, she wore her hair in a French braid. On the other, her flyaway blond shoulder-length hair looked as if it had been combed by a chicken. She was pale. She looked scared. But by God, she didn’t stop smiling.

“Mommy?” Rae’s brown eyes were fixed on the gun pointed in her face.

Kellen lowered the pistol, set the safety and slid it with shaking hands into her holster. “Sweetheart...you shouldn’t have... You don’t understand what you...” Kellen sucked in a breath, tried to focus. “Bond?”

“I heard Daddy. He said you hadn’t bonded with me and I’ve been making our comic book ThunderFlash and LightningBug, and when they go on an adventure together, we bond.” Rae started bouncing up and down and grinning.

Kellen felt physically ill. Light-headed. She wanted to faint, to froth, to cry. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Your father’s going to kill me.”

“No, it’s okay,” Rae said smugly. “I wrote him a note.”

Wrote him a note. Kellen mouthed the words, and with that, sense returned. And fear. Even more fear than before. She glanced behind them.