The kid grins at me and pulls out a phone.
“Who gives a six-year-old a phone?” I ask.
“I’m seven and three quarters, and they do not know I have this phone. It’s a secret,” the kid whispers. “Let’s take a selfie.”
“Absolutely not. Which one of you brought this kid here?”
“Davy, you’re not making a good first impression on Salinger.” McCarthy grabs the kid from me and sets him back on the ground, where Davy starts snapping photos ofthe dog, of my shoes, of himself making weird faces in front of me.
“He ran away from home,” Whitman explains.
“So we’re harboring a runaway,” I say. “Fucking great.”
“Language,” Hawthorne drawls.
“Yeah, watch your fucking language,” the kid parrots.
“This is pure chaos,” I groan. “They must have sent him to try to f—mess with us.”
“Ehh.” Whitman grimaces. “Davy said he snuck onto the plane.”
The kid nods. “Yep. You can sneak into an airplane if you pretend to be with another family. They just let me through. It’s kind of ironic if you think about it.”
McCarthy laughs. “He reminds me of you!”
I bite back a curse. “Where is Crawford? This is his problem.”
“He had to go to Vancouver to deal with something. All very hush-hush,” Hawthorne explains.
Fitz nods. “The man is super secretive.”
“Yeah, it’s not healthy,” McCarthy concurs.
Davy is spinning around in the room while Pepper races around him, barking.
I have a headache coming on, Mandy’s still out there alone, and now I need to do something with this child. And call my half brothers.
Greg sounds annoyed when he picks up. “What?”
“What do you mean, what?” I ask.
“What is that noise?” Greg does not seem happy to hear from me.
“Davy, he’s—”
“That’s not my department. You need to call Hunter. He hasall the boys.”
The line goes dead.
Biting back more swearing, I call my other half brother, Hunter.
He doesn’t answer. Not the first, fifth, or tenth time I call him.
Salinger:Answer your goddamn phone, asshole.
Hunter:It’s the middle of the night.
Hunter:You didn’t pay dues, you don’t get after-hours service.
