Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega #4)(77)

He rubbed her back and walked in the shadows of the wall, hidden from the public and away from the noise and sirens. Anna paced beside him, cloaking herself in pack magic so that he was the only one who could see her. He didn’t think she was doing it on purpose. Pack magic didn’t always wait for someone to ask it to do something. He wondered, belatedly, if those photos Ms. Jamison had taken would come out, or if Anna would just be a blurry figure.

Amethyst was asleep by the time her parents arrived, and Leslie escorted them to the isolated corner of the yard where Charles paced. Dr. Miller hesitated when he saw the limp bundle cradled against Charles’s chest, but his wife made a low, moaning sound and pulled her daughter away from Charles.

“Baby?” Tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Mommy?” Amethyst blinked at her mom, who held her awkwardly because she was not a big woman and Amethyst was not a toddler. “Mommy? He said, he said you wouldn’t miss me. That you had a new daughter who looked like me only was better.”

“No,” said her father, picking her up without really removing her from her mother’s arms, so they were all in one little huddle. “He fooled us for a little while, but we knew all along that something was missing. The one he left in your place wasn’t our baby girl. It just took us a while, too long, to find you.”

“I want to go home,” she said. “Daddy, I want to go home, please?”

“Dr. Miller,” said Leslie. “I recommend you call her own doctor and have him meet you at the emergency room. One of my guys, the bald guy in the FBI jacket, is waiting to take you all there. He’ll make sure you get back home safely, too.”

They started to go, but then Dr. Miller stopped. He turned, releasing his daughter into her mother’s care. He wiped his face, then met Charles’s eyes and held them.

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t just me,” said Charles, the gratitude in the other man’s expression strong enough that even Brother Wolf couldn’t see a challenge in that gaze. “It took a lot of people to find her. And we don’t have the one who took her yet. We are not done until he’s out of business.” He’d heard what Leslie’s agent had said on the phone. But it was too soon to declare Amethyst’s kidnapper captured.

Dr. Miller looked at the house and said, “I’m a physician, sworn on my honor to do no harm. But I could kill him myself and never lose a wink of sleep over it. Not just for my daughter, but for all the daughters and sons. I heard what you found in that attic.”

Charles nodded once at him, then let Brother Wolf out so Dr. Miller could see the predator lurking in his eyes. “I’ll take care of him if I get the chance.”

Mrs. Miller said, “You are a werewolf.”

“Yes,” Charles said. He hadn’t intended for her to see the wolf, too, but he wasn’t going to lie to her.

“Good,” she said. “Kill him.”

“I intend to,” he told her, ignoring Leslie’s indrawn breath. Some people needed to die.

Dr. Miller looked down at his daughter. “I thought … She’s been gone months and we didn’t know. I thought it would be months and months more and … You found her in one day.”

He’d thought they’d find her dead. He’d said as much. Charles understood; he’d mostly thought that, too. It had been Anna who had hoped for them all.

“It’s not over,” Charles told him. “It’s going to continue to be bad for a long time.”

Amethyst’s father gave Charles an expression that wasn’t really a smile; there was too much experience in it. “I’m a doctor. A pediatrician. That’s usually my line. I know someone, a really good someone, who picks up the pieces and helps people put themselves back together. Amethyst will be all right.” He looked at his daughter and when he looked up again, his eyes were wet. “It’ll take years of therapy. Probably for all of us: a long uphill battle. But we’re still on the field fighting the good fight, battered and beaten though we are, and I understand just what a great gift that is.”

By the time Leslie drove them back to their car, it was nearly dinnertime.

“We don’t get that all the time,” Leslie told Charles as she turned onto the highway. Anna grunted as she slid from one side of the car to the other. It wasn’t a pained grunt, so Charles made do with a glance over his shoulder to make sure she was all right. “It’s why I joined up, you know, saving people.”

“She isn’t saved yet,” Charles told Leslie.

“I know, years of counseling and medication even, but much better than I thought they were going to get.”

“Yes,” he said, “but she isn’t going to be safe until that fae is dead.”

Leslie sucked in a breath. “We have the man who owns that property in custody. He lawyered up immediately, but my man on the ground says he is definitely fae. He couldn’t bear the touch of metal.”

“The current justice system is not up to handling a fae of this caliber. Not if the Gray Lords have removed his restrictions. If he is not killed, that poor pile of bodies in the attic won’t be a drop in the bucket. Fae don’t die on their own; you have to help them along.”

“I think,” she said, “that we’re going to have to agree to disagree.”