Page 71 of The Killer Who Kept Me

“And he sleeps through the night.” She waggled her eyebrows and I laughed. “I need to feed him.”

“Okay, I can keep an eye on Maeve for you.”

“That would be great, thanks, Em.”

I got up and walked to where Maeve was dipping her fingers into the cold water.

“Whatcha doing?”

She giggled. “Kisses.” Sure enough tiny little fishes were kissing the tips of her fingers.

“They must really like you.”

We didn’t say anything. She was having a great time and when a few frogs leaped by, she tried to chase after them.

“Sorry, little one. We need to stay here. No exploring today—remember what Mom said?”

Her bottom lip quivered, and my heart broke a bit.

“How about we make boats?”

She looked up at me big eyes blinking. “Huh?”

“Stay right here; do not move.” I ran back to the blanket. “Dafni, you have paper on you?”

“Yeah, I bring things so Maeve can draw if she gets bored.”

“I need to borrow some. We’re gonna make boats.”

She beamed and gestured to her bag. “Help yourself.”

At the river that was on Saros’s property, Maeve watched me as I folded and manipulated the paper to create a tiny boat. I made a few and then handed her one.

“Now, this isn’t proven to work, but I’m told that if you make a wish and let the boat sail on the water, it will go in search of your wish and bring it to you.”

She held her boat to her lips and whispered something too quiet for me to hear. Then she released it and laughed loudly as it raced away.

“Again!”

We did this a couple of times, and then a commotion caught my attention. One of the guys was telling Dafni she needed to get in the house.

“Em, we need to go back.”

“Okay, you get Tucker. I’ll clean this up and bring Maeve in.”

She nodded, and the man helped Dafni with the picnic stuff while I folded the papers and slipped them into my pocket.

“Okay, Maeve, we gotta go.”

“No.”

I glanced over at Dafni, who was walking away, Saros’s guy behind her.

“Look, Mama is going.”

She looked but stamped her foot, insistent. “Frogs.”

The other guy that was here before wasn’t in my sights to ask for him to get Dafni. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t see any of the other men that had been in the backyard a few minutes ago. I shook my head and decided I was going to have to scoop the girl up. I’d just lifted her up when I was tugged back into the river. Maeve and I fell in a heap, cold water splashing around me.

---