13. Jamison

"Feeling better, Ms. Fairweather?" Klausen asked as she and Liam returned to the parlor. "The little lovers' spat under control?"

"Klausen, it is too early for you to be acting like a dickhead," Will said from Liam's phone. He had demanded to be kept on the line when they went back downstairs.

Finished seeing Simone off, her father snickered when he heard Will's voice. The two of them got along surprisingly well, which always freaked Jamison out a little. She had never known her father to keep friends.

"Everything okay?" he asked when she came to stand with him in the corner. "You look a little paler than before."

Evie and the girls had rejoined the group as well. The three of them sitting draped in one way or another on Samuel over on the room's largest sofa, each with a cat or kitten in their lap.

"Do I need to kick Cohen's ass?" Evie wiggled, trying to stand. "Did he upset you?"

Samuel secured his wife firmly in his lap. "Calm down."

"Klausen decided to break the news that I no longer worked for the Bureau," Liam explained. "Jamison was caught off guard."

"What?" Evie twisted around in Samuel's lap to face him. "Did you know?"

A rash appeared on Samuel's neck, and Harper shook her head as Theo intoned gravely, "Uh-oh. Daddy gon' gets it."

While Evie interrogated Samuel, the phone in Liam's hand broadcast a thousand questions from Will, all directed at Klausen. The agent tried to keep up but repeatedly stumbled over his words. Not everyone was used to working with the great Dr. William Cohen.

Jamison sagged against her father's side as he watched the scene with his usual annoyance.

"How was Simone when she left?"

"Being her usual cranky, stubborn self."

She wrapped her arms around him. "You're worried about her."

Returning the hug, he sighed. "I'm going to kick her ass for thinking she can beat off intruders with a frying pan."

"It was a cast iron skillet." A wave of exhaustion suddenly struck, and Jamison let out a yawn, resting her head on his shoulder. "Not a frying pan."

Klausen's phone rang, and he held up a finger. "This will be confirmation of an unfolding development, and I need everyone to be quiet."

"What happened upstairs?" her father whispered, while Klausen let out a series of okays and you're kiddings.

"I was just shocked."

When her father didn't say anything, she lifted her head to look him dead in the eye. "You knew."

"I did."

"Where is he working?" Her head throbbed, too tired to feel betrayed. "Do you know that too?"

"I do."

When he didn't elaborate, she pinched his stomach. "Tell me now."

He let out a grunt of pain but covered it, keeping his focus on Klausen. Jamison pinched him again. "Dad, tell me."

"Fairweather Holdings," her father said, finally meeting her gaze. "Liam works for us as the new head of security for the company."

A buzz of fury rose in her that was strong enough to unhinge her jaw and leave it slack as she gaped up at him.

Liam works for us.

The new head of security. The guy hired to reshape the way they dealt with Zanmi was none other than Willam Freaking Cohen Jr.

This had to be Samuel's doing, and Jamison swore that by the time she was done tearing her brother apart, Evie would need to rely on her new sex toys full-time to get through the pregnancy.

"Dad, please tell me you had nothing to do with this."

"I didn't stop it."

"Alright everyone, listen up!" Klausen pocketed his phone. "Both Claudia and Emily Fairweather were kidnapped last night."

There was a millisecond of shock before everyone started talking at once. Liam held up his hands and shouted for them to be quiet. "Give us the details, Klausen."

"Claudia Fairweather was at home with her partner," Klausen said. "According to him, she got up sometime around midnight to check on their daughter, and he assumed she went to sleep on the bed they keep in the nursery. This is apparently normal, and he didn't realize Claudia was missing until he woke up."

"Madison is fussy at bedtime and hasn't broken her afternoon nap routine." Evie snuggled closer to Samuel, both holding their girls tight. "I saw Claudia a couple of weeks ago and we talked about sleep methods that had worked for Theo."

The idea of Evie having a friendly conversation with Claudia Fairweather would have been ludicrous a few years ago. In all her life, Jamison had only ever known the woman to be a viper. But after Evie exposed her exploits of mishandling Fairweather funds, Claudia left Fairweather Holdings and entered a new phase in life by becoming an advertising executive for a small company in Charleston. There she met Parker, and Claudia's bitch factor dropped significantly when they had their daughter two years ago.

"Madison is alright?" her father asked, checking his phone. Jamison peeked at the screen but didn't see any messages from Claudia's dad. Trevor wasn't exactly Grade A father material, but you would think he would have been alerted by now and be a little concerned that his daughters were missing.

"Madison is safe," Klausen confirmed. "The girl is saying she didn't see her mother leave."

"Forced entry?" Will asked. "Or are they still assessing?"

Klausen looked sick to his stomach. As far as Jamison knew, the most he'd ever dealt with was the occasional stalking or attempted break-in. "Assessing, but as for now, there doesn't seem to be any forced entry."

Piled on top of their parents still, Harper and Theo whimpered while Samuel murmured softly to soothe them. Evie looked as pale as Klausen, staring blankly ahead as she struggled to keep it together. "So, they had the security codes to get into Claudia's house, like they did here," she said. "Does that mean they have it for all our homes?"

"If they had the codes, then I would say yes. We need to start a complete overhaul." Liam worked on his phone, expanding something on the screen. "What about Emily?"

"She was visiting friends in Seattle." Klausen peered over Liam's shoulder, his bushy eyebrows going up and down over whatever he was seeing. "They went out to dinner, and Emily claimed to have forgotten her phone at the friend's apartment. She took a taxi to retrieve it but never returned to the restaurant."

"Her phone is still in the apartment," Liam confirmed. "I'll need the address to verify, but it hasn't moved from that spot in the last twelve hours."

Jamison snapped straight. "How do you know where her phone is?"

"I had Rowan equip all your cars, phones, and electronic devices with tracking software. The information on your whereabouts routes directly to my phone."

"You've been spying on us?"

Finally, his head lifted, and Liam's gaze swept over her. "That's kind of my job."

Jamison didn't think she could get any angrier, but nope. Her freshly manicured fingers curled into claws, and she told herself to keep it together.

"Easy." Her father touched her lightly on the back when Liam's attention returned to whatever Klausen was saying. "Your anger needs to be directed at me or Samuel, not him."

"You can bet your sweet ass I'm angry with you." Refusing to storm to the other side of the room, she moved to sit in Simone's corner wingback. "I had a meeting with Emily on Tuesday when she was in Texas, and I remember I complimented her on the new smartwatch she was wearing. Can you track that?"

"Already did, and it's with her phone," Liam replied, but he was grinning when he next spoke. "However, Claudia still has hers on."

Everyone, even Theo and Harper, rushed to gather around him.

"Georgia?" Evie wedged herself in front of Samuel to see. "Does that say Georgia?"

"It's south of Atlanta." Jamison tapped Liam's phone screen to expand the map. "That's in a pretty rural area, isn't it?"

"It is," Liam confirmed. He rattled off the coordinates to Klausen, who was already calling someone. "She's moving slow, almost like she's walking."

Klausen relayed the information to whomever he was speaking to and moved to a corner for privacy. Jamison tried to listen but was too busy paying attention to what Liam and Samuel were saying.

"Locals in the area will be first on the scene. We'll know something within the next fifteen to twenty minutes."

"Someone needs to call Trevor." Samuel had Harper in his arms, holding her high so she could dangle precariously over Liam's shoulder and not miss anything. "He should hear it from one of us."

"Hell." Next to Jamison, her father blew out a blast of annoyed air. "He's in Australia on vacation for the next two weeks."

"We call." Theo tugged at his pant leg. "I'll goes wit cha, Papa."

"I might say some bad words." He picked her up to settle on his hip. "You good with that?"

"Yep."

The two of them left, and Harper tapped Liam's arm. "Shouldn't you go rescue Aunt Claudia?"

Liam continued to send the message he was typing. "Dad, can you get Izzy en route to Seattle and send Holden to Georgia?"

"Already on it," Will replied and hung up.

Harper looked intrigued. "Who's Holden and Izzy?"

"Holden works for Papa now, too. He and I went through a special training place together in Virginia," Liam explained. "I'm going to have him go rescue Aunt Claudia."

"And who is Izzy?" Jamison asked, aware that she sounded slightly unhinged. "I don't think I know her."

"A friend I hired." He slid a side-eye smirk combo in her direction, clearly not realizing his life hung in the balance. "You would like her. She reminds me of you."

A jealous fire lit off in Jamison, boiling hot enough to burn the tips of her ears. "She reminds you of me?"

"Seriously?" Evie blinked at Liam as if he'd grown two heads. "Are you trying to die, Cohen?"

"My parents agree with me."

Now he was going too far. Even Samuel's eyes went wide, and he slowly backed his family away, bumping into Klausen talking on the phone.

Liam shrugged. "Mom's exact words were that I was obviously drawn to a certain type of woman."

It already hurt that Bernie had kept the whole quitting the FBI thing from her, but this? At least the shocked look on her siblings' faces assured her they had known nothing.

Jamison stuck her chin in the air. "I hope she's trained to handle a kidnapping."

"Oh, Izzy can handle anything." Liam turned away to show Samuel something on the phone. "We worked together in Missouri briefly."

So, she was an ex-federal agent, too. Someone he might have known before coming to Haven House. Jamison was positive he had never mentioned anyone named Izzy before, which meant he must have reconnected with "his friend" after their relationship ended.

"When Holden arrives, he can't technically take lead," Liam was saying to Samuel. "But they might allow him to assist."

"What about you?" Samuel asked. "Are you staying or going?"

"Staying. We're moving straight into phase three."

Evie's nose scrunched. "What's phase three?"

"The first thing I did when taking the position at Fairweather was craft a plan to use in case we ever found ourselves in a situation like we did five years ago." Liam stiffened, not liking whatever messages were coming through. "It has five phases, and the third involves a heavy lockdown where we all stay put."

"We?" Jamison nervously glanced at her sister, the meaning behind his we already obvious. "What do you mean, we?"