Chapter 62

62

Hope just nodded as Daniel came in. She shot him an angry glare. Hope had had a lot to say to Daniel too. And that little gremlin was fierce when she had something to say. She hadn't held back. Not even for a moment.

Miguel had bodily lifted her away from Daniel when he'd decided she'd gotten too upset. And practically growled until Daniel had sat down and shut up.

Daniel kept to the area on Powell's side of the room, nearest the door. The Colesons weren't going to ever forgive Daniel, he suspected.

"If he spit on her, his DNA will be on her clothes," Hope said. "Mads or Ashlie can find his DNA then. We can track him, even just by going through his relatives. Genealogical DNA."

"I'll make sure Madison works on it personally," Daniel said. Hope just glared at him. She even snarled. Daniel held up his hands. "I'm staying over here, Hope. I promise. I won't get near Heather again. Powell, are you ready to talk? Tell us what happened?"

Powell pulled in a shuddering breath. "I…I think so. I want you to catch them. And I'm not stupid—Heather had multiple chances to get away if it hadn't been for her protecting me. Every time one of them got too close to me, Heather would do something to get them to look at her, to focus on her instead."

Gunnar was going to find those men and destroy them. Shred them, one by one, inch by inch. And he owed Heather everything now. Forever.

"Tell us everything about the older man," Daniel said, taking the rolling stool nearby. "What did he look like?"

"He was older and around six two or three. Thinner. Scarecrow thin. I think his hair was darker and maybe curly, but the light was so low. It made him happy—and a little surprised—to see her, I think. He said, ‘I can't believe this!' He grabbed her chin and looked at her. Said she'd grown into herself beautifully, definitely. He said he always knew she would. He just hit her and said she wasn't so proud now. The other one, the one I ran into in Wyoming that day—he kicked her in the chest when she was down. Helpless. So hard. The older one kept saying he had to be going. His daughters were waiting. I got the impression they were children, but he was so much older."

"So Heather was the target?" Miguel asked. He'd pulled the third recliner from the corner. Miguel scooped Heather's little sister up and sat her in that chair. He grabbed a blanket from the cabinet and fussed. Hope just looked at him, a puzzled expression in her big brown eyes.

Gunnar understood why.

Miguel wasn't exactly the kind of man who fussed.

Terrified people when he looked at them was a bit more accurate.

"But that doesn't make a damned bit of sense. Two decades? Hell, she'd have only been thirteen or fourteen then," Daniel said. "And from the video on Heather's phone, we thought you just walked right into them."

"We did. The older man and the Wyoming man showed up a few hours later. We were walking and talking about some questions I had. Questions about Heather's family, some things Cara had said. We were going to go check on my new house, and we could see Heather's house from where we were. Could see Alex's too. And we had my guard behind me, plus Heather had her gun right there visible. We thought it was safe, and it was only supposed to be for a few minutes. But they were in the basement. Came out as we unlocked the door and headed into the kitchen. We didn't even know they were there until they were shooting the guard."

Gunnar looked at Heather and then Hope. When Heather had been thirteen or fourteen, Hope would have been a preschooler. But until Heather woke, Hope was their best lead.

"We should wake Joy. She would have been the same exact age, you know. Those two shared practically every moment back then."

Miguel reached over and shook the small blonde's arm. It took a moment, but she eventually woke up enough to see Hope there in front of her.

"Hazel Hope Coleson, what on earth are you doing here at one a.m.?" Joy asked.

"Miguel brought me and Mom back when we asked him to. I needed to see her for myself, Joy. I just did. Mom did too. Grabbed a taxi chair in the lobby so I wouldn't get tired out because Miggy insisted. He's kind of bossy, you know. Otherwise, he threatened to carry me around like a toddler. I mean, I know I look like a kid, but a toddler? That is a bit too much."

"You don't look like a kid—except when you want to. I simply said I would deal with you the way I deal with a toddler when they need it. You are as stubborn as my toddler when you want something."

"I prefer determined, Miggy-kins. Determined. I learned determined from Heather. Until she's back to being her again, I'm going to channel my inner Heather, you know."

"I think we all should, Baby Hope. She is Super Heather, after all." Joy went to her younger sister and checked her pulse. "You should be in your own bed, sleeping. Heather is going to be okay; we're…going to make sure of it."

Gunnar didn't miss how her voice broke. Hell, these women had been through some seriously dark shit in the last several years. Maybe even longer.

"Well, I'm here to see her for myself." Hope's voice was just as watery. They were both going to cry at any moment. He shared a look with Mac. Technically, Powell's brother shouldn't be in the room with them while they were talking about the case. Neither should Heather's two sisters—but Gunnar didn't care. Not like Daniel was running Hope out or anything.

Even Daniel wouldn't argue with a woman fresh from open heart surgery and a bullet wound in her chest—who had a man like Miguel hovering over her playing nursemaid or something.

Gunnar had the impression that if anyone even looked at a Coleson sideways right now, Miguel would go rabid. Especially at Daniel. Miguel was practically licking his chops right now.

"I know," Joy hugged her close. They resembled each other more than either looked like Heather. "But we have her back now, Baby Hope, we have our Super Heather back, and now I am going to lock her in her room so she can't keep doing this stuff to me. I'm locking you in yours right next door, too, just so you know. You two…I can't lose you two, okay? I've lost one sister already. I am not losing another. Ever. "

Gunnar envied them each other. The Colesons loved one another, would do anything for each other. Gunnar didn't have many people in his corner like that. Less than a handful. They were all busy with their own lives, now too. He had never forgotten that.

"Joy, we have some questions you might be able to answer," Gunnar said after she'd fussed over Heather for a moment.

"I'm not sure I should, actually," Joy said after a significant look at Hope, who shrugged. "Heather…won't want any of us talking to the TSP without her listening in. Her, or Norm, with Cara, just in case. Cara isn't a criminal attorney, but she knows the laws. And let's be honest, she's the only attorney any of us can really afford."

"Why?" Daniel asked. "It's just answering questions."

"Questions you'll somehow use against us? We're not fools, McKellen. Remember that." The look Joy sent at Daniel had Daniel visibly squirming a little.

"Because she doesn't trust anyone in the Finley Creek TSP to care about us," Hope told them all bluntly. "After Kimball. And we voted; our family decided we are going to be really, really careful with the TSP now. That's just the way it goes."

"Joy, I know you all don't trust Daniel and the rest of Major Crimes now, but I'd like to think you trust me , " Miguel said, actually lifting the woman up so he could kiss her on the forehead. "You know I would never do anything to hurt any of you. Or let anyone else."

Miguel shot a look at Daniel that said he meant it. " Anyone ."

"We just keep forgetting you are one of the TSP, Mig. We made you a Coleson in my Nick's honor, remember?" Joy told him as he lowered her to her feet. "You are a Coleson before TSP. Just so you know."

"I told you all, we are not adopting a pet Miggy this year!" Hope said, scowling up at Miguel before leaning back with a wince. She had no business out right now, and they all knew it. "I voted against keeping him but for keeping his babies, remember? He has this really weird habit of trying to tell me what to do. The man arrested me. He put me in handcuffs."

"Sweetie, what the two of you do with his handcuffs is something I do not want to ever know about. I just don't, okay?"

Hope just eyed her sister suspiciously. "You know what, I so don't want you to clarify that. You are as bad as Cara; half the time, you don't make any sense at all. You say weird things."

"You'll figure it out eventually, Baby Hope. Eventually," Joy told her, smirking. "I'm sure Miggy will show you his handcuffs again…eventually. You spent way too much time with your nose in science books. I think you've missed a few…um… life references along the way."

"Huh?"

"Honestly, how you can be this naive about men with Heather and Summer and Eden around, I just do not know…"

"What did I miss now?" Hope really didn't get it.

Mac snorted.

Miguel made a strangled sound at that. Gunnar looked at him. Miguel just shrugged, crossed his arms over his massive chest, and leaned back against the air conditioning unit next to Heather's bed.

"The man who hit Heather said he had waited almost two decades to get to her again," Gunnar said bluntly. "Who could possibly hold a grudge against your sister for that long? Long enough to do this?"

Joy just blinked at them all. She had the same dark eyes as her sisters, as every member of her family Gunnar had ever met. Family. That… Witch's own eyes. Like all of them . "I bet it has something to do with your family, Joy. Who would have had a grudge against the Colesons for almost twenty years?"

Joy's surprise was in her eyes. "Except for—oh, I don't know—the man using our evil older sister's eggs to genetically engineer super-genius babies, you mean? Or some of his— or Denita's—good buddies? Or enemies, for that matter. How would we know? No one on their side will tell us." She waved a hand at Mac.

"Maybe we can ask the freaks that email us or send us letters on an every-other-day basis now?" Hope suggested.

"Or the people who read in the Garlic that we were kept as Eastman's breeding stock, then started calling us here on our shifts wanting information about his specialty program. Or wanting to know which one of us is available next? Because—get this, guys—these dudes want super-intelligent, really hot women to carry their babies for them too. And they want to make those babies with us as soon as possible. The…um…old-fashioned way."

Joy's look told them what the callers meant. Gunnar wasn't stupid. Some people would say or believe anything if they had anonymity behind them. Or could hide behind the damned internet.

"We just have to name the price. And you know we take payment plans, right? Let's talk about that SOB who tried to lure Cara into his car last month at the law library at FCU," Joy continued. "Can you imagine how that made Cara's mother feel? Or Crispin, who can barely step foot at FCU right now?"

"Remember the dude back at Thanksgiving who caught Eddie in the parking lot and told her he'd make babies with her the old-fashioned way, no turkey baster needed?" Hope asked. Gunnar looked at her, hoping she was being sarcastic. He suspected she wasn't. "And could get started right away? Like right then, actually."

"Hard to forget him. Dr. Lake punched him and chased him off. After he told the guy to get his hands off Eddie." Joy looked at the men in the room and shrugged. "If you don't believe us, I'm sure Anthony is around here somewhere. He and Eden filed a report with the TSP. You can confirm. We could also probably ask the women who want to know where the babies are kept so they can just buy a genius baby ?"

Hope looked at Gunnar. "Some man called and offered to buy Heather's baby for his infertile wife, by the way. But only at half price since the baby has a vagina and not a penis. I'm sure you can imagine what my sister told him."

"Two days later, a man followed her home. Try putting that together. Do you know how much that terrified Heather, even with her gun? She had the girls and Iagan in the car with her," Joy added.

"Someone knew Heather was the one of us with a young baby, a girl, and knew exactly where to find Heather and when," Hope said, ignoring Daniel's curse. "She'd only been living in Finley Creek two weeks. "

"We have had people threaten to come and take one of our super-genius babies six times now. To save them from us since we have no business playing God. This month alone. Try taking your kids to the park with that in mind," Joy said, rubbing a chill from her arms.

"What the hell?" Mac said. "Why didn't any of you tell us? Or report it to the TSP?"

"Heather is TSP, remember?" Joy asked, giving him a look like Mac was a total idiot. "You do know what happened the last time Heather reported something to the TSP, I assume? She got four years of being stalked , beaten, threatened, and raped out of it — then her baby sister takes a bullet because of that same man. Real big incentive for Heather to report a damned thing, right?"

Gunnar barely kept from flinching, and Mac went as pale as a damned ghost. Daniel cursed. The Colesons didn't pull any punches, that was for sure.

"I didn't…realize," Mac said in a strangled tone. "I'm sorry."

"Guess you don't read the Garlic , do you?" Joy said.

"No. I don't."

"That is a point in your favor, actually. They did a really big spread on all of Heather's life events these past four years while you all were in Wyoming, complete with copies of her initial police reports. That's what Heather flew home to this week. At least they blacked out her name. Mostly. You could just make out the s-o-n at the end in some of the photos." She looked at Daniel. "Weren't those in evidence? Confidential or something? Yeah, great security you have there at Castle TSP. Don't get me wrong. My husband was TSP—but the people he worked with in Houston, they were the kind of TSP who'd earned their respect. Like Mig. But here in Finley Creek? No way."

"And who else would even care? Nephie-poo Lukie?" Hope asked, more sarcasm in her words than Gunnar would have ever thought the gremlin was capable of. "That's rich. Almost as rich as he is. Who would we have reported it to, anyway? McKellen here, who so obviously would even care?"

"We all know how he deals with threats toward Heather, don't we?" Joy did sarcastic very, very well too. "Have time to deal with those threats now, Daniel, dear? Of course, you do—there's a rich Barratt of Finley Creek involved this time, after all."

"It's not like that," Daniel started.

Joy held up a hand, and he stopped. "We are not fools. Remember that."

"Maybe Murdoch; possibly, actually, since he's a decent kind of guy. I know! The former head of the Assault division—the guy who put a bullet in my chest!"

"I suppose we could ask the guy who called and wanted to know if fifteen-year-old Maris was available yet. If not, he'd just take her older sister or Crispin or Cashie or Cara instead. Although he really wanted Hope the most, guys. Since she is just so damned cute in those little hats and pigtails she wears all the time. Especially when she smiles like she does. He was afraid there was a waiting list for Hope," Joy said, shrugging and flicking her hand at one of the pigtails in her baby sister's hair.

"He'd really like one of us young-uns," Hope almost snarled. "So he can train us up real right. He told Maris's mother all about it. Marcia got physically ill from it and has had nightmares about someone taking one of her girls for weeks now. Especially Megan, who goes to FCU too. Norm won't let Maris out of his sight, just in case—great way for an extremely timid teenage girl to go through high school, isn't it?"

"Let's not even get started on the things some of these callers have been saying to Heather—even on her work line," Joy said. "Can you imagine what guys think when they see Heather online or in that damned Garlic ? And it's speculated that we were breeding stock? I bet you an entire year's salary that Zoey isn't getting the same kind of phone calls Heather is right now. And at a distance of fifty feet, can you boys even tell the difference between Zoey and Heather physically? Honestly?"

Well, no. Gunnar still had to look twice when Zoey and Heather were near each other at first. If their hair was down. If it was braided, it would take him a moment. He got her point. And it sickened him. Utterly sickened him.

"I'll tell them what the difference is!" Hope raised one hand. "Zoey has a billionaire with his own private army to protect her. We have…Heather. And Norm. And sometimes, when she's really feeling PMS-y and rabid, our little Megan Marianne. How's the shin, Butthead?"

"Luc could have done something to help protec—" Mac started.

Joy laughed at that. There wasn't any humor in her tone. "Sure he would have. He'd like nothing more than if we Colesons just went away and disappeared forever. Tying our name to his is the last thing Davis Lucas wants, Mac. We are well aware of that."

"Dude, you really do live in a rich guy bubble world, don't you? Wake up, Hottie Mackie McBarratt, wake up. Join the real people world of Finley Creek," Hope said, jumping up and glaring right at Mac. He just stared down at her, his shock on his face for all to see. "There are real freaks out there. Even the great gates of Hughes Heights don't keep creeps out. I think we learned that yesterday, right? We've taken down every social media account we had, every online way some of us earn extra money—or all of Summer's money, actually. We pulled Heather's Frankie out of daycare and the preschool that has an on-staff speech therapist, and Joy's two youngest too."

"They're practically little preschool-aged prisoners." Joy's pain was hard to miss. Hadn't that woman lost enough? "What kind of life is that for them ?"

"We never go anywhere alone now, even before good old Kimball got me. You really think one little barbecue at the great Barratt Ranch—complete with free publicity for Lucas Tech and Barratt-Handley when Lukie was in town—does a damned thing for us ?" Hope asked. He suspected she had a real point.

"Will make us trust him to actually help us with anything?" Joy was looking at Mac like he was naive. Hell, maybe he was. Life in Hughes Heights was different from life in the real world.

"First thing he did that day was open his mouth and pick a fight with Cara. Because, you know, a twenty-three-year-old woman with autism terrified of crowds and still afraid of the dark is a fair target for a forty-year-old asshole billionaire," Hope said. "If a Coleson needs protecting, it's Heather, Norm, and Summer who are in charge of that. And the rest of us will be right behind them, ready to defend our family with slingshots, rocks, and sticks when we have to. That's the way it is in our world now, dude. That's just the way it is."

"We have done exactly that before, you know," Joy added, rubbing her arms as if she felt chilled again. Gunnar studied her for a moment. He could see the scars on her neck where Gregory Eastman had hurt her the day he'd killed her husband. "Settle down a bit, Hope, you're getting flushed. And I think Heather hears you right now. She's getting agitated. Sit back down."

Hope plopped into the recliner, probably faster than she should.

Joy checked her youngest sister's pulse. "Your heart is beating a bit too fast for my liking right now. Lay back and stay quiet."

Miguel shifted, moved right next to the two sisters. His entire stance told exactly what he thought.

"Just tell us, who would have a grudge against your sister for almost twenty years?" Daniel asked, stepping between Hope and Mac. Mac's surprise was right there on his face. Gunnar was just as damned shocked. Why hadn't Heather at least told him what was happening to her? Told Jarrod or Murdoch? Someone who could help her.

Then it sank in.

Heather didn't trust any of them at all. That was why. She probably never truly had. Even him. She truly had believed she was facing the TSP alone.

Except for Miguel. A man she'd known for a decade, that was it.

How terrified she must have been made him almost sick to even think about. That she had trusted Gunnar even a little mattered. "Hope, Joy, we just want to find the guys who did this. If they are coming for Heather again, I want to make sure they don't get to her first."

"Yeah, because keeping Heather safe is the TSP's top priority," Hope said, anger right there, hard to miss. She wasn't like the little happy gremlin he had met before. How could she be?

"They won't ever get to her again," Daniel said. "I'm going to make sure of it. But we need answers first."

Joy stared at him, obviously weighing whether she could trust him. Then she sighed and looked at Miguel. Miguel nodded. Joy turned back to Gunnar and looked at him from those eyes that could destroy a man. "I don't have a clue. You have to understand those were dark days back then. We lost our parents violently, and everything changed overnight. Not to mention us being the new freaks in town too. No one new had moved to that town in thirty years, and then there we were. And most of us are not normal by society's standards. We all know that too."

"No one knew what to think about a house with eleven girls living together," Hope said. "I remember people staring at us every time we went to town. I remember that stupid post office woman telling Bonnie-mom she wasn't doing us any favors the first time we ever went in there to get our mail. She yanked me closer like she was going to take me away and keep me too. This was even before we had Eddie, Sam, and Summer living with us full time."

"Hope was only four that day, and that woman terrified her so much Heather had to hold her on her lap for hours after we got home," Joy said.

"It wasn't the last time someone said that right to our faces, either," Hope said.

"No, it wasn't. And it was…culture shock for us, as well. We'd been raised in a very wealthy household; we had different plans for our lives—then we had to watch Angela just…fade right before our eyes. Within two years, Bonnie went from having just Cara and Cashie, to adding the four of us, then Angela's three girls, and then Crispin."

"Did your family anger anyone during that time?" Gunnar asked.

"Not that I can recall. We stuck close to home. There were people watching that new family with all those girls very closely at first. It got worse when Angela's girls came to us too. And then Crispin. Judgmental and sanctimonious, just waiting for one of us to screw up so they could gloat. It took a little while for the town to adjust to us. For us to find our place, really."

"Most didn't think Bonnie-mom had any business keeping all of us," Hope said.

"Then there was gossip because we were all supposedly ‘too smart for our own goods' and ‘thought we were too good for the school like the rest of the kids,' or stuck-up and uppity, even though we were dirt poor and should ‘know our places,' that kind of thing. Some people even said Crispin was Heather's baby, and we'd hidden that fact since Heather was so young, that Bonnie-mom had delivered her at home so the cops wouldn't take the baby away, that Heather had quit school because she was pregnant. Even that Heather was older than what we'd told people, and we were just lying to get state money for her and her baby. So we older girls stayed close to each other." Joy wiped her cheeks lightly.

She was a very expressive woman, he had noticed before. Miguel pulled her close and hugged her for a moment.

"It took all of us to make it work. We didn't have time to anger anyone. We did our homework, did our chores, watched over the younger girls, worked in the garden, that kind of thing. Or the two of us were sewing up holes in the girls' clothing or sewing cloth diapers for Crispin. Heather was busy making meals and doing the laundry or giving some wild little kid a bath and tucking them in, and then cleaning up any messes that had inevitably happened. As soon as I was old enough to drive myself, I had a ninety-minute drive to the on-site classes each way and was taking every class I could online. I was barely home, it seemed."

She felt guilty. Gunnar could see it in her eyes. That guilt…had been years in the making, he suspected.

"Heather was working three jobs between the grocery store, cleaning houses, and teaching dance and private piano classes in town. When we were home, Heather and I were busy—from the time we woke up until the time we went to bed. Bonnie and Marcia were twice as busy as we were. When would we have had time to anger anyone? And other than for Cashie, Crispin, and Hope—doctor visits were very rare. Bonnie-mom just took care of us at home if needed because we couldn't afford it. How could Heather have angered anyone?"

"There was the evil social worker," Hope said quietly. "But we left him behind in Garrity, right? He never did follow us? You're sure?"

"He didn't follow us," Joy said. "We never saw him again, Hope. I promise. Heather thought he was too afraid of Grandpa Otis to come looking for us after that."

"Evil social worker?" Mac asked.

"Most kids have a boogeyman. Our younger girls were afraid of the Evil Social Worker. The face for all their fears. Especially for the younger girls. I suppose it could have been him, but he wasn't a doctor or anything. The only doctors we interacted with at thirteen or fourteen or so were the ones who worked at Dad's hospital. And that very rarely happened either."

"Tell us about them," Gunnar said.

"There were about seven or eight that had a rotation, I think. And they didn't invite the doctors that worked there to our house at all. It stemmed from what happened to Bonnie's mother, Maria. She was murdered, and some of the suspects were the men who worked there. Daddy didn't want them near us, I think. But Maria was murdered when Bonnie was four. Twelve years before we were born. Over twenty before Hope was."

"They never caught the killer?" Mac asked. He'd moved closer to Heather's bed. There was an expression on his face Gunnar would never forget as Mac straightened her blanket and tucked her least injured hand beneath it gently.

Joy just shook her head.

That woman had saved Powell. They weren't stupid—those bastards had intended to kill Powell and Heather. It was because of Heather that Powell was still alive. Gunnar would never forget. He doubted Powell's brother ever would either.

"What about this social worker, Joy?" Miguel asked. Heather said something in her sleep—where's Hope. Joy went to her, talked to her quietly for a moment.

"She's back asleep." Joy looked at Miguel and Daniel. "About a week after our parents' funeral, the social worker from Garrity showed up. Heather was at Bonnie's home in Value with the younger girls while Bonnie was enrolling us in the Value school for the next term, and Angela was working. He made some threats."

"What was he after?" Daniel asked.

" Heather, " the sisters said together.

Joy was the one who continued. "You, gentlemen, have to understand something. My twin is a very beautiful woman. I know you have all noticed. Men…have almost always been after Heather since practically the moment she hit puberty."

"Hard to miss. It has always made her nervous," Miguel said.

"She's still very uncomfortable with it at times. Especially since…what happened to her with Wilson. She keeps things inside," Hope said quietly. She eyed Miguel for a moment. Like she didn't understand him. "She thinks she's protecting us, but we know."

"This man walked in, saw the mess that was Bonnie's house after four grieving young girls had just suddenly ended up there, took one look at Heather, and thought he'd landed in real perv heaven."

Gunnar stiffened. He wasn't stupid. He suspected he knew the rest. "Go on."

"He threatened to take Hope away right then and there unless Heather took him into another room…to talk…privately. I'm sure you can figure out what he wanted. Hope heard that bastard say he'd take her away from Heather forever too. For years, Hope would scream if someone said ‘social worker' in her hearing. Hope had some emotional issues and major anxiety after our parents' death, as well."

"I was clingy. Very, very clingy. To Heather and my mom, especially," Hope said. "I still remember some of it."

"That man said…he had waited a long time to get back at Heather. Even called her by name," Powell said. Gunnar had thought she'd fallen back asleep. She'd been so quiet, so still. "He said almost two decades. He said the word almost every time he said two decades."

"It would have been after our parents died, then," Hope said.

"So definitely something from when she was between thirteen and sixteen years old," Miguel said. "But how does that connect to the OPJ case, Gun?"

"Heather and I didn't even move back to Texas until eleven years ago when she transferred to Houston and was hired by the TSP after two years with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Hope and Heather moved here to Finley Creek fully after Eastman took Bonnie and Crispin, but they were already staying here a great deal as Heather's pregnancy progressed. I had just moved here a week before. Samia and Cara moved into the Hughes Heights house, too—after…Eastman."

"Why wasn't Cara living with your mother?" Mac asked. "I thought she always has. I noticed Heather fussed over her a bit in Wyoming, and I just got the impression Cara had always been with her mother."

"Heather does mother Cara a great deal. She does all the younger girls, really. Heather was probably the most influential in raising them, after Bonnie. In a lot of ways, just as influential, while Bonnie-mom was at work and Marcia and I were working or studying. Mom had wanted Cara to live away from home for a bit. To help her interact more with the world. Samia went with her to watch over her, but Cara was constantly being harassed on campus over Eastman. Someone broke in through Cara's bedroom window one night and attacked her, choked her—then turned on Samia when she rushed in. Samia ended up in County overnight. Our lives were in Oklahoma and then Wichita Falls."

"Heather crossed paths with this doctor at some point," Mac said. "Between fifteen and twenty years ago."

"I seriously don't have a clue where. I suppose it could have been anywhere . I mean, whenever there was a conflict or a confrontation with someone in our family, Heather was the one who would always jump in front. To protect us all. She always has."

They discussed a few more angles, but Gunnar didn't think they'd gotten anywhere.

"We're just going to have to wait until she wakes to ask more questions," Daniel said as Hope drifted off in the oversized chair.

"You won't harass her or badger her, Commander Butthead McKellen. We are going to make sure of that," Joy told him, standing and glaring at him, a glare worthy of Heather. She was small, but she wasn't a pushover. "Your damned TSP has hurt my sister more than enough. Almost broken her down to her soul, especially after what that bastard was doing to her for years. She went to the TSP for help and got nothing but more harassment. More pain and terror. And it almost took Hope from us too. None of us will ever forget—or forgive—that."

Their family's anger was more than understandable.

Joy ignored Daniel when he tried to interrupt. She just held up one hand and silenced him with a look. She was good at that. And apparently, she was fierce enough to scare Daniel too.

"Nor will we forget how little help we were getting that day looking for Crispin. Until it became clear her disappearance connected to your big, important case and everything. Your big-wig rich Barratt friends who mattered more than Bonnie and Crispin ever would. No offense, Hottie Mackie McBarratt, but it's true. The TSP is not going to hurt Heather again. Neither are Luc and his side. Keep that in mind while you're making your little plans with your buddies."

"No one wants your family hurt, Joy. Especially Luc," Mac told her.

"Well, we don't believe that one bit. Luc would walk right over us to protect his side. You honestly think he'd have done anything to help Heather? Don't be so naive. We certainly aren't." Joy turned back toward Daniel, missing Mac looking back at Heather again. "Heather is no longer your pawn, Commander Butthead McKellen. You'd better remember that. Now, I suggest everyone who is not staying in here tonight, head out. So…get…shoo. Mig, I'll keep an eye on Hope. She can sleep there. I am not staying in the haunted room alone tonight."

"Your mom is downstairs, talking to Cashlyn now. I'm sure she'll be up in a minute," Miguel told her, after Daniel returned to his post in the hallway.

"Cashie had to switch shifts to get off yesterday. Cashie's here all night. Bonnie-mom will hover, like she always does. It's how she…copes." Joy said, fussing with the blanket over Hope, then the one over Heather. "Clinging to one another—it's how we've made it through. I don't think we'll ever change that now. One Coleson, all Colesons. It really has meaning, you know?"

Yes, he supposed it did. And he would never forget how lucky they were to have each other.