Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega #4)(57)

“Was she always this tidy?” Anna asked.

Sara shook her head. “No. I didn’t even notice when it changed. She’d get started on something and get distracted. So her bed would be half-made. She’d color part of a coloring book page.”

“She’d have one shoe on,” said Dr. Miller. “Because she remembered she wanted oatmeal for breakfast before she found the other shoe.”

Charles had his head tilted and his eyes half closed, a sure sign he was smelling the room.

“How could I not have noticed?” Amethyst’s mother said. “What kind of mother doesn’t notice that her child’s been replaced by a … a thing?”

“Fae can fog your perception,” said Anna. “If you started noticing something wrong, the fetch would have distracted you.” When Mackie had noticed something was wrong, the fetch tried to kill her.

“Is there something that Amethyst kept close to her?” Charles said. “A favorite toy she slept with? Something that the fetch didn’t associate with too much?”

“Something a dog could use to get a scent to track her with,” Anna supplied.

“You’re going to use dogs?” Dr. Miller frowned.

“We’ll use whatever we can,” Anna said. “Some of our methods are unorthodox—magic. And it would help to have something that belonged to Amethyst.”

“Her bunny,” Sara said. She went to the bookcase and picked out a grubby, one-eared rabbit and handed it to Anna. “Will this do?”

Anna held it to her forehead, as if she were a TV psychic. Her nose told her that if the fetch had touched it, it hadn’t been very often. Children didn’t have as much body odor as adults, but they also didn’t disguise it with soaps and perfumes the way adults did.

“This will do,” she said. “Do you have a plastic bag I can put it in?”

Sara looked as though she wasn’t sure she wanted them to take it.

“I promise we’ll bring it back,” said Anna.

“Go get a bag from the kitchen,” Dr. Miller told his wife gently.

As soon as she was out of the room, he looked at them. “Werewolves?” he asked.

Anna smiled at him. “We’re not psychics. Yes.”

“My wife would be afraid, if she knew,” he told Anna. “But I’ve had dealings with your people, when I was in the army, a lifetime ago. Why are you helping us?”

“Because children deserve to be safe,” Charles said.

Charles and Anna got back to the Sanis’ ranch well after dinner. Kage met them at the front door, making Charles think he’d been watching for them.

“Hosteen is still out riding somewhere,” he said, ushering them inside. “Dad ate better than he has in months and fell asleep. Chelsea has been sleeping most of the day.” Kage continued with his dogged recitation. “Kids are up in the TV room with my mom and Ernestine, watching some TV show about serial killers, zombies, or something equally healthy for them.”

Kage waited, but when it became obvious no one else was going to say anything, he continued. “There are leftovers from dinner in the kitchen I can fix if you need food.” He took a breath. “That’s what’s going on here. From you I get a text that says not to expect you for dinner. Not exactly helpful. Did you find out anything?”

“Fae,” Charles told him, pulling off his boots and setting them where all the other people’s shoes waited.

Anna rolled her eyes at her husband with, he hoped, a little fondness to go along with her mock exasperation. “Food would be lovely, thank you. We actually found out a lot—not enough, but a lot. Why don’t we go eat and I’ll tell you what we know.”

“Anna uses actual words,” murmured Charles tranquilly, holding her arm as she took off her shoes, too.

“Useful,” said Kage, leading the way to the kitchen.

“Some people think so,” Charles agreed, and Anna bumped him with her hip.

Dinner was fried chicken, biscuits, and a huge salad. Wade, Hosteen’s second, came in before the food was on the table. He was one of those quiet people who instilled order in those around them. He was obviously at home in the house, and he helped Kage pull out food and dishes. When Anna tried to help, Wade waved her off before Kage could.

“I’m the hired help,” he said. “Even with all the desperate life-and-death drama, you’re also here to look at horses, right? That makes you clients—sit down.”

“Wade has a real job,” Kage explained as they all settled around the table. “But his family has been in the business of breeding and showing Arabs nearly as long as mine. He comes and catch-rides for us when we need an extra rider in a show.”

“There was a changeling in Mackie’s class,” Anna began as soon as people were eating. “Apparently Mackie half figured out what she was and the changeling decided to get rid of her.”

Charles ate and listened as, between bites, Anna did her best to give Kage and Wade a thorough update. Wade had the right to hear it. The attack had been on his Alpha’s family, and the victim who suffered the most was likely to become a permanent member of the pack if Hosteen got his act together.

But as Charles listened, he also watched the other two men’s faces as they relaxed into his mate’s storytelling. Tension left Kage’s shoulders and Wade laughed helplessly as Anna described Leeds’s fascination with the bundle of sticks that had been a little girl, while everyone else was deciding who was in charge. She did it without making anyone think less of Leeds, because she clearly didn’t. Sure it was serious business, but humor in the face of evil robbed evil of some of its power. His Anna understood that better than most.