“Oh, their usual time, I’m sure.”
No one said anything to that, until Tean heard himself say, “Didyou interact with Maeve and Milo at all yesterday?”
Brigitte still wasn’t looking at him, but she let out a scandalized huff.
“What does that mean?”Tean asked.
“I can’t believe you asked me that.”
“You still haven’t answered the question,” Tean said.“Didyou interact with Maeve and Milo at all yesterday?”
“Excuse me,” Brigitte said, her voice growing pitchy.“I’m having a conversation with my son.”
“It’s a simple question—”
“Could you give us some privacy, please?”
“Did you feed them?”Tean asked.“Did you check on them?When was the last time you saw them?”
“Of course I checked on them,” she snapped.“I’m their mother!It’s not like I forgot about them!”
Color flooded her face.Tears filled her eyes.She held herself so stiffly that she trembled.
Jem’s head sagged.He rubbed his knees, and the new denim whispered under his palms.
Tean could hardly hear it; the blood in his ears sounded like the ocean.
“Why don’t you check out their room?”Jem said in a low voice.
Tean got up.Somehow, he made it up to the loft and let himself into the bedroom.
For a moment, he couldn’t see it.Couldn’t see anything.
She didn’t know.
She had no clue.No idea where her own children were.Didn’t know the last time she’d seen them or if they’d had anything to eat or if they were alive.
Even with the door shut behind him, he could hear them.She was crying.And Jem’s voice was a familiar murmur—he was comforting her.
From a vantage point at the back of his head, a small part of Tean was aware of the intensity of his anger—of how vast it was, how it had washed over him so quickly, how it simultaneously made him sick to his stomach and tense and full of the need to hurt someone.And that intensity frightened him.
He bent at the waist.Put his hands on his knees.Breathed.In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Box breathing.
Filling his belly.Then pushing it all out again.
When the worst of it was past, he wiped his eyes and made himself look.
First things first: he called Vaughan, reported the missing children, and explained what little he knew so far.The head of security’s voice was tight—anger, frustration, exhaustion, Tean couldn’t tell.But he agreed to begin searching for Maeve and Milo.
After disconnecting, Tean turned his attention to the room.It was like all the others, tucked under the slope of the exposed rafters, with a big window that faced out on the pistes and the chairlift.Bunk beds stood against one wall, while a single bed was pushed up against the other.None of them had been slept in.
Tean checked the window.It didn’t open—probably a liability risk.He looked up to see if there was some sort of unfinished space above the room.Cabins and similar structures with exposed rafters often had walls that didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, but in this case, there was nowhere that the children might have climbed to or hidden in.He pulled the cushions off the sofa under the window and found nothing.
Where was their luggage?
The question popped into Tean’s head.He took another glance around, but he didn’t see anything.No roller bags.No backpacks.Nothing.
