I had to assure her that no… it was just my husband, and yes, he was far too excited to be calling in a sick child.
“You’re staying home today while we make some kind of plan,” I explain.
“We were careful,” Cassel says as the noise of Tavish struggling just becomes background noise. “I’ve deleted all footage of any of you there last night as well as anything showing that they had Cam. I watched the building for hours, and no one left besides the one man who killed them all. About five hours after we left, some of Raul Barlow’s people from the main house showed up. My guess is there was an alert because of the security system. Raul probably tried to get in contact and with no one answering, he sent people over. I’m sure his plan was to deal with this himself, but about an hour ago the police caught wind of it when they noticed a car sitting on the side of the road with a dead man in it who worked security for the Barlow home. My guess is our visitor killed him on his way in or out.”
Micah grimaces. “That’s not good.”
“We had to leave the place as-is,” Leland says. “We all wore gloves, we were careful. Tavish, are you in the system so if you left any blood, they could track it back to you?”
“I am not. They’ll get absolutely no matches,” he responds as he tries to pretend he’s just casually enjoying the fact that he’s still tied up. “There’s no way anyone could ever catch me.”
“Would you like me to untie that?” Ellis asks.
“Nah, nah, I got it. I’m just building up to it, you know? Make it more dramatic,” he says.
“Is that what he says in the bedroom too?” Leland mutters.
“Do we trust Sophia?” Tavish asks. “How well do you know her exactly?”
“Not well, but I believe she is well aware that her life is on the line and, more importantly… her son’s,” Leland answers.
“But we are already aware she’d hand you over for her son,” Everly says.
“Not surprising. I think we can all agree that we’d hand over someone we don’t care about for someone we love,” Jeremy says.
“I’d hand over Tavish for a bag of cotton candy and I don’t even like cotton candy,” Leland agrees.
“I would hand you over for nothing at all,” Tavish says with a beaming smile.
“With what hand? Because right now… it seems like you don’t have either.” Then he cackles to himself. “Hey, Waylon. What are you learning over there from Tavish?”
“Uh… that cockiness gets me tied up and unable to get free?” Waylon offers.
“Very correct. You’re so smart. Does everyone here see how smart my Waylon is? You’re still not open to changing your name? I’m thinking Leland Jr. has areallynice ring to it.”
Even though Waylon is giving Leland an exasperated look, I think he’s enjoying himself.
“Waylon, from now on, one of us will take you to school and pick you up. You are not to leave the school building at any time for any reason,” Leland says.
“What if it’s on fire?”
“Pack some marshmallows,” Leland unhelpfully supplies. “Cassel will also be changing your age to twenty-one so you can get a concealed carry license.”
“What? Leland, come on,” Waylon whines.
“Tavish will be going into school with you as your bodyguard.”
Waylon is now staring at me like I’ll save him.
Leland pats his back. “It’s okay, Waylon. Tavish is like a worm; you cut him in half and then we’ll just have two Tavishes.”
“Will we?” Waylon asks.
“One way to find out,” Leland says as he pulls out a knife and examines it before cutting the rope and freeing Tavish.
“I almost had that,” he says.
“Sure you did.”
