Page 29 of The Wild Charge

He’d blinked again. “You have a therapist?”

She’d titled her head to that angle he knew meant she wanted to say nice things to him and stroke his hair, like she had when they were little.You should see one, too, he’d expected her to say. But she’d only nodded, and gone back to her salad with a simpleyes.

So Tenny was feeling insecure, and Reese knew better than to address it head-on. He shrugged, unbothered, and said, “You don’t have to be important to teach someone how to kill properly. I was well-trained.”

Tenny stared at him through the mirrored lenses of his shades a long moment, muscle leaping in his jaw. Then he said, “Yeah, well. That’s down to you, not whatever idiot did the training.” Tone low and grumbling. He glanced away, afterward, fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on his fuel tank.

Because Reese was more outspoken than he used to be, he added, “I don’t have any doubt in my skills.”

Tenny huffed a sound that was nearly a laugh. “No, you don’t, do you? Little shit.”

“I’m not little.”

A rueful grin tugged at one corner of Tenny’s mouth. “No, guess not.”

At sight of that grin, one he’d seen so many times now, Reese’s thoughts immediately shifted fromoptobedroom. Heat bloomed in his chest, and in his face.

Fox rejoined them before he could blush, thankfully. “Alright, shitheads. Don’t lose your keycards.”

~*~

The Eckridge family lived in a tidy brick two-story house with an electric blue front door. Flowers grew in lush bunches along the front walk, hot pinks and bright whites and brilliant yellows. The lawn was mown, the cars in the drive shiny. The wreath on the front door was loaded with silk flowers and a little wooden plaque in the middle that saidWelcome To Our Home.

It was all very…pleasant.

Reese was trying to understand the purpose of the foot-tall crystal swan perched in the center of the coffee table, surrounded by a ring of fanned-out gardening magazines.

In the chair opposite, Mrs. Eckridge fretted with the diamond solitaire necklace she wore, sliding the pendant back and forth, back and forth on its chain. She looked very much like her daughter had in the photo, plus a few pounds and a few sun lines. Unlike her daughter, she wasn’t smiling. Grief weighed heavy on her face.

Reese hadn’t expected her to let them in the house. Her husband was at work, and they were three strange men. Most women would have peeked at them through a window, then closed the drapes and hoped they went away.

But, unlike Reese, Fox and Tenny were perfect chameleons. Reese wondered if it would ever stop being a shock: seeing them slide on masks, tweak their voices, and become completely different people.

When the door first cracked, and Mrs. Eckridge peered cautiously through, Fox had pulled on a gentle Georgia drawl, his face soft, his blue eyes big and entreating, and poured his heart out to her right there – as they’d already decided with Eden, a version of the truth. He’d explained about their little sister – they were all three brothers, in this scenario – having gone missing, and the police acting strangely, turning up nothing.

“My wife heard about your daughter in this chat room she’s a part of,” he’d said. “And I thought, well, what if the policearein on it? What if they’re spying on that chat room? We live just over the state line” – he’d hooked a thumb over his shoulder in a very Southern, very un-Fox-like manner – “and I thought, hey, we’re practically neighbors, why not just ride over and see if you’d be willing to talk to us.”

Tenny had worked some tears into his voice when he said, “She’s only sixteen, and we’re – we’re just–” He’d produced a photo on his phone of, to Reese’s surprise, hisactualsister: Cassandra. Reese remembered dropping out of a ceiling, a girl’s terrified face, and eyes big and blue like the rest of her half-siblings.

Mrs. Eckridge might have been a cautious and doubtful woman under normal circumstances – Reese didn’t know – but right now, she was a terrified mother poised at the edge of grief, praying for a miracle, more desperate by the hour. So she’d opened the door, and waved them in. Now here they sat with glasses of sweet tea sweating onto monogramed coasters, a plate of what looked like homemade cookies sitting untouched on the coffee table beside the swan. Tenny had made a move to grab for them, and Fox had swatted the back of his hand, silently, when Mrs. Eckridge’s head was turned.

“I know,” she was saying, still fiddling with her necklace, “that it isn’t like on TV. Mariska Hargitay isn’t going to drop everything and find my daughter, but I thought they would dosomething.” She flung up her hands at the last, gaze a little manic. “They just keep saying she must have run off with a boy, but Kaylie wouldn’tdo that.”

Fox nodded, expression sympathetic. Reese hadn’t spoken yet – this was far, far outside his skillset – and had instead settled in to observe and take mental notes. As a fully-patched Dog, it made sense that he would someday have to carry out a ruse like this, that he would no longer be able to hang back in the wings, called upon only when it was time to put a bullet in someone.

The idea sent a strange thrill through him.

“I don’t think that’s too unusual,” Fox said, his tone kind. “They see so much awful stuff on the job, there’s so many kids whodorun away, they start to be cynical.”

Mrs. Eckridge sat up taller in her chair, lips pressed tight together. She didn’t like that answer. “If they don’t believe me – if they don’t want to do anything, then who will?”

Fox didn’t grin, and neither did Tenny, but Reese thought they would have, if they could; could envision the sharp, shark-like quality of it. Could even hear Tenny’s voice in his head:Got you.

Outwardly, Fox’s sympathetic façade deepened, somehow. He sat subtly forward, his posture stooped, non-threatening. He and Tenny had been doing that the whole time: making themselves look smaller, softer. With only body language, they’d shifted from hardened killers to slouchy, ordinary blue-collar workers.

“But that’s the whole point of the chat room, isn’t it?” Fox asked. “To find people who are willing to help?”

Mrs. Eckridge stared at him a moment, frowning, hand returning to her pendant. “Well. Yes…”

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