He’d just gotten off the phone with Bryn and was dreading having to report more non-news when he saw Becca drawing on her coat, her lips flattened into a hard line of determination. The man in him braced for an argument while his contrary bear cheered her attitude. Bears generally didn’t balance pros and cons in a logical fashion. Anything that smacked of action had them cheering. Usually as a bystander as someone else went impulsively into destruction, but no one ever accused a grizzly of being a deep thinker. It was his job as Maximus to manage the two halves. And at this moment, the meant keeping Becca calm.
Coward that he was, he looked around for Alan. Sadly, the man was out doing all the things that Carl was letting slip while coordinating the search for Theo. Which meant it was up to him to see that Becca didn’t do something stupid.
“Going out for a walk?” he asked. “I could use a stretch, too. Let me grab my coat and I’ll join you.”
“What? Um, no.” Her eyes skated away from his, and he realized she was standing next to the wall where all the keys hung. Sure enough, his truck keys were missing and he’d lay odds she had them tucked into her tiny hand.
He stood, making sure to go slowly, as if he were much more wounded than he actually was. No sense being injured and not playing the please-nurse-me card. Of course, since he actually was hurt, he didn’t have to pretend the wince of pain as he straightened. “Tonya’s going to check in soon.” Not for a couple hours actually, but he was still in the business of delaying Becca until they knew more. “And Mark could show up any minute. He’s sneaky in his own way. He may have news that no one else does.”
She took a deep breath and met his gaze squarely.
Uh-oh.
“Look,” she said, her voice tight. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing. No one could say you weren’t pulling out all the stops.”
“Theo is one of us. Of course I’d throw all my resources?—”
“That’s just it,” she stressed. “There’s no evidence that Theo is one of you. He’s never…changed. Not like you guys. We’re just normal people. We don’t… Mad Max is just a movie, you know?”
He did know. He also knew that she had bravely faced down three guys with guns, which made her the rarest of rare: a normal person with hero inside. But even heroes had to get past a healthy, rational denial of magic.
“So what’s the plan here, Becca? Where you going with my truck?”
“I’m going home, Carl. Back to Kalamazoo, where Theo is probably playing video games with some new friend and he’s forgotten to call.”
“Does that sound like Theo?”
She looked away. Of course it didn’t. “This isn’t my world,” she said, the words choking out of her. “We’re not part of it. So I’m going home, where he’ll be at the bakery studying.”
“Wouldn’t Stacy have called if he was there?”
She turned toward the door, her shoulders rigid with stubbornness. “Maybe she’s busy with customers.”
Damn it, she was bolting for sure. “You don’t believe that. You just don’t want to believe this, either.”
She froze, and he knew he’d hit on the truth. “I can’t just sit here. I can’t just do nothing.”
“What would you do at home?”
She shrugged, the ghost of a smile curving her lips. “Bake. And worry.”
“So bake here.”
She shook her head. “There’s no point. It’s just what I do when I can’t think of something more useful.” Her gaze turned, tortured. “Do you really think Theo’s been…taken by those…thugs?”
He wanted to lie to her, but he could already tell that she wouldn’t accept a pat response. If she did, Alan would have calmed her down hours ago. So he crossed to her and stroked her arm.
“I think Theo takes after his aunt.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think he’s going to surprise us all. I’m going to find him, Becca, but I’ll lay odds that when I do, he’ll be a long way to rescuing himself.”
“So you think he needs rescuing?”
“Don’t we all? At one time or another?”
She slugged him weakly in the chest. “You’re spouting greeting card philosophy and I’m barely holding it together here.”
