Page 221 of Lodestar

The imagery had me cackling. “Dead To Me doesn’t like kids.”

“You’re not offended?” Conor queried, his surprise clear.

“Nah. I don’t like kids either. Just mine.”

Chuckling, he shook his head. “Have you met her, Cin?”

“Nope. But she’s getting to that interesting age, isn’t she? She doesn’t need any help eating or things like that.”

“How old do you think she is?” I grumbled. “She’s tenyearsold, not months.”

Cin wafted a disinterested hand. “Okay, less of the kid talk.” She shuddered with revulsion. “Let’s come up with a game plan. You two have already wasted an hour?—”

“Jesus, we were in there an hour?”

“Yeah. The noises coming out of there sounded good or I’d have barged in and told you to hurry it the fuck up.”

Conor choked on his coffee, but me, I was just thinking about how long it had taken me to come.

Fuck, Conor waspatient.

I mean, I’d known that, but a freakin’ hour?

Conor, unaware of my thoughts, retorted, “Whatisthe game plan?”

Sucking in a breath, I stated, “Uncover any info we can from Troy about the girl. Then, we need to figure out how to keep her safe from my grandfather.”

Cin waved a hand. “I’ve got that under control.”

“We’re all ears.”

“You blame it on Reinier. Ovianar said the four Sparrows were behind the crash, that it was a power grab,buthe was the one with all the connections. He was the one who’d have been able to get Jorgmundgander to cooperate.”

“She’s right,” Conor agreed. “So we blame him?”

Liking the symmetry, I nodded. “And he’s still in that shipping container in the Catskills, isn’t he?”

“As far as I know?—”

Cin interrupted him. “He is. I asked for confirmation from Temper. She’s requested that you don’t kill her just yet, Star, because America still needs her.”

“She literally said that?”

Cin arched a brow at me. “What do you think? She’s nuttier than a bag of nuts.”

Typical Temper.“She sold me out.”

“She did,” Cin agreed. “And ordinarily, I’d be all over this. She totally deserves to be waterboarded, but she’s already crazy and my aunt is sick again, so if anything happens to Temper, then that’ll hurt my aunt and Shelly makes the best cookies.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Cin frowned at Conor. “You never purposely get rid of someone who’s good at baking.”

“Temper isn’t the one who’s good at baking though.”

“No, but Shelly is. Do you think she’s going to bake for me if I kill her kid, dude?”

Rolling my eyes at their philosophical debate, I checked the messages on my phone.

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