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He still had a hold of my arm, but his gun was pointing at Drew’s chest, and I was too scared to do anything that might upset the perilous balance that the two men had going right then.

“Put it down,” Drew ordered. “Let her go.”

The man let me go, but he didn’t drop the gun like he’d been instructed to.

“I’m not stupid here,” the man snarled. “My name is Raphael Luis, and I’m on assignment as a liaison with the FBI. Call whomever you want and confirm it.”

Drew hesitated.

“I have my phone, Daddy,” Attie whispered. “It’s in my back pocket.”

“Aspen,” Drew barked. “Call your brother. Get confirmation.”

I moved around Drew, careful not to obstruct his view of the man or the situation.

I reached Attie’s back, and it was then I saw that what she was holding was a human being.

A live human being.

One with big, bright, blue eyes and long curly blonde hair.

“Mother fucker,” I breathed, my hands freezing on the phone in Attie’s jeans.

Drew’s angry bark of ‘hurry up’ had me yanking the phone out Attie’s pocket and unlocking it without another thought.

My eyes, though, kept glancing back at the girl.

I’d just dialed the phone and put it to my ear when the first cop car came rolling down the street.

And it was then that I could hear my ankle monitor’s beep-beep-beep.

Well, that was helpful!

What wasn’t helpful, though, was having three more guns added to the mix.

“Put them down,” the officer, one of the two that I didn’t want to see right then, barked.

“Hello?” Downy answered, voice alert.

“Umm, you might want to come to my house. I think the Wild West is about to make a reappearance,” I said. “And hey, can you vouch for a man for me? He says he’s with the FBI, and I don’t know who to call besides you to verify he is who he says he is.”

“The one across the street from you?” He asked. “Dark hair, green eyes. Beard?”

I blinked, surprised that Downy knew my neighbor.

“Yeah, that’s him,” I concurred.

“He’s with the FBI. Introduced himself to me and Luke a couple of months ago,” he said. “I told him about the house across from you that was for rent.”

I could hear him shutting doors, as well as his keys jingling.

“That was nice of you to tell me who he was,” I growled in annoyance. “Would it really have been that hard to say, ‘Oh! Hey! You have a cop living across the street from you.’”

Downy snorted, Raphael’s eyes came to me, but no emotion whatsoever showed on his face.

“He’s not a cop exactly,” Downy hedged. “And I didn’t want you to know about him. He’s not exactly an upstanding citizen that I want you getting all neighborly with.”

“Hmm,” I said, giving my nod to Drew, who dropped his gun. “Must be why he’s got a gun pointed at Drew’s head. Got it. See you soon, bro.”