Page 50 of State of Alert

“Hey, LT, I was just going to call you.”

“How’d it go last night?”

“We waited at the Myerson home for the daughters to get home. As far as we could tell, they were shocked and devastated as well as confused about why they had to leave the house to go to stay with their aunt. We didn’t get much of a chance to ask them where they’d been all day or anything like that yet.”

“We’ll get on that today.”

“We knocked on doors up and down the street. None of the neighbors saw anything suspicious going on at the house during the day yesterday. Archie is working on getting film from cameras in the area. I printed out social media posts from both daughters and the mother, which was all pretty routine stuff. We didn’t find anything for the father online. We started on the financials and have turned that over to Green to finish.”

“Good work, Dani. Thank you.”

“You got it. I’ll check in later.”

After she ended the call, Sam ate some yogurt and finished her coffee before heading downstairs to meet Vernon and Jimmy for another day in paradise, suspecting the best part of the day had already transpired with her loved ones. She couldn’t wait to tell Nick about the chicken and the egg. The Littles never ceased to entertain them with their innocence and curiosity.

Speaking of Nick… Her phone lit up with a call from him. “Hey, I was just thinking about you.”

“Sam.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Andy heard from an attorney in California that the twins’ grandparents intend to file for custody.”

Her heart stopped for a second, and her stomach turned. “What?We already took care of that.”

“Apparently, they’re basing their case on the fact that living with us, the kids are surrounded by Secret Service agents, and that’s no way for two children who’ve tragically lost their parents to live.”

“Oh my God. Do they have a case?”

“Andy doesn’t think so, but he isn’t a hundred percent sure.”

“Come on. How can this be happening again?”

“I don’t know, but Andy said we should take comfort in the fact that Jameson and Cleo’s instructions were airtight. Elijah is their legal guardian, and it’s very rare for a court to undo the wishes of the parents.”

“Rare but not unprecedented?”

“He didn’t say that, but it was implied, and this is certainly an unusual situation.”

“Have you told Eli?”

“Not yet. You were my first call after I heard from Andy.”

“I was thinking of you because they were so cute this morning, and I wanted to tell you…” Her voice caught on the huge lump in her throat.

“Try not to panic, Sam. We still have their parents’ wishes on our side, and that counts for a lot.”

“We could adopt them. All of them. Eli, too. If we did that, maybe then…”

“That’s not a bad idea. Let me run it by Andy and see what he says. Don’t forget that the twins are old enough to speak for themselves about what they want. That’ll matter.”

“God, I hope so. I feel like I’ve had the legs knocked right out from under me.”

“Me, too. Tell me what happened this morning.”

Sam smiled as she relayed the story about the chickens and the egg.

He laughed. “I love that, and good call about not telling them what goes on at a chicken processing factory. They’d never let us eat chicken again.”

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