She shivered. There shouldn’t be anyone other than Heather who knew that server even existed. Except, possibly Crispin. But she and her niece had an unspoken rule—no poking around with each other’s computers. Especially their codes. They just didn’t do that, and she’d drilled that into Crispin’s head when they’d been younger. Before Hope had taught her about coding in the first place.
And Crispin wouldn’t be snooping in anything related to the TSP.
Plus, Crispin was with Megan and Marcia right now—Marcia had convinced Crispin to go with her to the FCU campus. Theywere signing Megan up for different classes in the summer session. And Marcia was trying to talk to the admissions department about extending Crispin’s classes. She’d struggled to go back after Eastman. Marcia was determined to get the school to help somehow.
Hope spent most of the day working on ways to keep it even more secure. It took several hours, but what else was she supposed to do?
Summer was at the hospital sitting with the Rat Daniel, Samia was upstairs somewhere—she’d come home from the hospital upset about something, but she hadn’t told anyone what—Miggy’s kids were downstairs with Frankie, though. Hope had been ordered by her mom to stay in her room and rest. The others would take care of the kids. Apparently, they all thought Hope was overdoing it with the kids and everything.
But…Frankie was afraid. She was worried for her mommy. Why wouldn’t Hope want to be with her? Although…defying her own mom right now was not something Hope wanted to do at the moment. She was too tired.
She logged off her server. She was going to actually try to take a nap. She hadn’t slept well the night before, either. She’d been having…nightmares. Lots of them lately.
She was afraid she always would.
Sometimes…in the nightmares…Hope didn’t survive what Wilson had done. And then her family…
She died in her nightmares, and people like Steve Wilson got away with what they’d done. That was a legit fear she had right now, too.
If something happened to her—what she’d found…
No one would everfindit. And it would…be useless. The idea those monsters would just get away with it—no. She couldn’t stand that thought.
Hope just couldn’t.
She stayed right there in her bed and thought about how to make sure that didn’t happen.
What she had found was too important for no one to ever know.
31
Daniel McKellen did not wantto dothis.
Samia Coleson, Heather’s niece—the doctor who had saved his life out there the night he’d been beaten to a bloody pulp and shot—was the one who drove him to her home from the hospital.
Daniel had to admit, she was one of the Coleson women he found the most intriguing. Some of them were in-your-face, bold, and rather extreme in personality. Heather and Hope especially. But Samia was the quietest of the Colesons, he thought. She didn’t say much, but just watched the world, with mysteries in her big dark eyes. She was the kind of woman a man would just have to figure out. And would be willing to take a lifetime to do it.
Daniel considered it, briefly. If she’d even look in his direction, he would consider it. And…if she didn’t have a big, blond guy who looked a great deal like Murdoch Lake trailing after her every time Daniel had seen her recently. Murdoch’s twin brother had it bad for Samia. He just didn’t seem to be doing anything about it. Daniel didn’tpoach.
One of the things he wassupposedto find out for Marc and Luc was just who the men in these women’s lives were. And whatthey were involved in. Luc seemed convinced there were men somewhere in his family’s lives. Daniel didn’t know if the idiot thought by finding out just who these men were Luc was going to catch his family doing something illegal—or he was going to do something to protect them all from those men.
Either way, Daniel was feeling used here. And it was a feeling he wasn’t too happy about.
It still turned his stomach to think about. They were offering him a place to stay, and help, when he needed it most. And he was spying on them.
No, it didn’t sit right.
But he’d done things he wasn’t too keen on before in the course of the job. He would do it again.
“We’ll get you inside, and then you can take some more of the pain pills,” Samia said, quietly, as she pulled into the driveway of Number Nine Jude Way, in Hughes Heights.
Daniel knew the details—the Coleson women all lived in the mansion that had been left to them by Bonnie Coleson’s late father-in-law. Except one: Heather’s fraternal twin, and her children. Dr. Joy Coleson-Greene lived in a modest two story in town somewhere. But she and her children were supposedly always at Bonnie’s. Recently, Bonnie’s sister Marcia had moved into the mansion, with her husband Norman, and their four children, after she and her husband—both teachers—had lost their positions with a small school in Oklahoma when it had unexpectedly closed mid-year.
All the Colesons lived in Finley Creek now.
Luc was convinced there was more going on with that family than there was—Daniel thought the governor, Luc’s brother-in-law, Marc, had asked him to stay with the Colesons merely as a way to shut Luc up. That man was ridiculously paranoid where hisfamilywas concerned.
All Daniel cared about at this moment was finding a place to sleep. He’d figure out the Coleson family later. Somehow. He looked at his driver. Couldn’t look away for a moment.
