Pet smiled down as her nephew slammed against her, his arms reaching around her upper legs to hug her. She slid her own arms around the boy and hugged him back. “I’m fine, sweetie.”
“But, Parker, you understand that when your parents come home, you should not mention anything that happened while they were away, do you not?” Marguerite said now, eyeing the boy with concern.
“Yeah. Santo already warned me that this was secret spy stuff and I can’t talk about it. I won’t tell,” he assured her earnestly as he let his arms drop and stepped back from Pet. He then added, “But he said I could tell her about the night the police came, and our staying here. Right?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Marguerite assured him.
Nodding, Parker turned back to Pet and said, “We stopped and got your car on the way back. Santo said you’d want it, and he could pick up the SUV later.”
“I see,” Pet said, and suspected she did. Having her car meant he didn’t have to drive her home. She’d caught the part about Santo’s picking up the SUV later. He hadn’t said he’d ride back with them to get it and wouldn’t even have to buzz her, or come up to the apartment to pick up the SUV. Forcing a smile, she said, “Well, let’s get going then, shall we?”
“Okay,” Parker said easily, and turned to move to the door where Santo still stood. “Thank you for picking me up, Santo. I’ll see you later, okay?”
Santo grunted and smiled at the boy, then opened the door for him to head out.
Pet followed Parker, her eyes watching Santo, but he simply held the door and stared after Parker, not even looking at her, let alone giving her a kiss or soft word.
Swallowing her anger at the obvious rejection, she moved past him and followed her nephew to her car.
“I’m really glad you’re feeling better, Aunt Pet. I was worried about you,” Parker said solemnly as he did up his seat belt.
Pet smiled, some of the tension leaving her body. “Well, thank you for worrying, but I’m fine,” she assured him as she started the engine.
“I like Santo,” Parker announced suddenly as she backed onto the road.
“Do you?” Pet asked grimly, and thought she used to like the big jerk too.
“Can we—hey! Why are we going here?” Parker asked with a frown when Pet turned into his own driveway.
“I just wanted to check and be sure everything is okay,” Pet lied as she slowed to a stop. “Grab your bag there, kiddo. We’ll take it with us in case you think of something you want to bring back to my place.”
“Okay.” He gathered his school knapsack off the floor where he’d set it, and dragged it up onto his lap before commenting, “I can’t wait to get my license someday.”
“I can’t wait to see your mom teach you how to drive,” Pet shot back, striving for normalcy as she turned off the engine and undid her seat belt.
“Dad will probably teach me. He says women make terrible drivers,” Parker announced as he opened his door.
“Does he?” Pet asked dryly, as she slid out of the car. “Well, that’s a sexist comment that you should never repeat.”
“What’s sexist?” Parker asked as they walked toward the front porch.
“Google it,” Pet suggested.
“Okay. I—Mom!” Parker cried suddenly, rushing forward, and Pet glanced up to see that her sister had opened the front door and was smiling in greeting.
“Hi, baby!” Quinn hugged her son close and rocked him from side to side briefly, murmuring, “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he said at once. “But everything was normal around here, except that someone tried to break into the house the first night. But the neighbors scared him off, and the police came and we had to stay at the Caprellis’ with Marguerite and Julius because Santo was so worried about us that he broke the door, and we couldn’t stay in the house without a door. And Marguerite and Julius have a big black dog named J, but he and Mrs. Wiggles liked each other, so—oh, no!” He turned toward Pet with alarm. “I forgot Mrs. Wiggles! She’s still at the Caprellis’.”
Dropping his book bag, he fled down the porch steps and took off across the yard.
Twenty
“Someone tried to break in?”
Sighing, Pet turned toward her sister and shrugged. “Yeah. The police figured it was some perv. He was looming outside of Parker’s bedroom window when I went to check on him. I grabbed Parker and took him into the bathroom with me while I called 911. But like he said, the people staying at the Caprellis’ scared him off before the police got here.”
“But they broke the door?” Quinn asked with concern, and turned to peer at her new door. “Dear God, I didn’t even notice this isn’t my door,” she said with amazement, and then moved forward to run a hand over the wood. “It looks good, though.”
“Yeah. Marguerite felt bad about Santo breaking the original and had it replaced.”
“Santo?” Quinn glanced over her shoulder with interest. “Who is he? I thought it was just Marguerite and Julius staying next door.”
“He’s their nephew. He stopped by for a visit,” Pet murmured, moving past her and into the house in the hopes of ending the conversation.
“Yeah?” Quinn asked, following her. “Is he as good-looking as Julius?”
“He’s . . .”
Pet was struggling for what to say when her sister suddenly said, “Wait a minute. Mrs. Wiggles? Isn’t that Mr. Purdy’s cat? Why is Parker going to get Mr. Purdy’s cat?”
“Mr. Purdy’s in the hospital,” Pet said calmly, glad she could say that honestly. “Parker’s been looking after Mrs. Wiggles for him.”
“Oh, Patrick isn’t going to like that,” Quinn said with a grimace.
“Patrick doesn’t like anything,” Pet said with amusement.
“No, he doesn’t,” her sister agreed with a sigh, and then frowned and asked, “Has he called home at all?”
“Not that I know of,” Pet said with a shrug. “But I suppose I could have missed it if he called while I was picking up Parker or something.”
It wasn’t until Quinn moved to the phone that Pet began to worry about what she might hear. Pet knew Parker had called last night after she’d stumbled into his room. She also knew they’d been letting the answering machine take all calls while they were here. If Parker’s call had been recorded . . .
“Delete,” Quinn muttered, and pushed the button as a voice started talking about free vacations, all you had to do was buy . . .
Pet stood tensely as Quinn went through call after call, only relaxing when the last message ended. There had been three calls from their mother, one from a friend suggesting she and Quinn get together for drinks, but the rest of the calls had been sales. If Parker’s no doubt frantic call had been recorded, someone had had the good sense to erase it.
“Bastard,” Quinn growled as she erased the last sales call. “I can’t believe Patrick is being such a jerk. He hasn’t answered my calls, called me, or even texted. I have no idea when he’s coming back.”
“Speaking of which,” Pet said now, “I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow. What happened?”
“Oh. I didn’t feel like staying for tonight’s dinner. It’s usually just a drunk-fest the last night at these conventions anyway, so I switched tomorrow’s flight for one this afternoon.” Quinn moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. “I was going to text you, but then I thought I’d surprise you instead.”
“Cool,” Pet murmured, but couldn’t help thinking it was a good thing Quinn hadn’t “surprised” them that morning, or she’d have walked into a houseful of immortal Enforcers holding a strategy meeting.
“Man. What did you do? Buy out the whole grocery store? Look at all this food,” Quinn murmured, bending to peer at the lower shelves. “And it’s all healthy food too. Jeez, Pet, what’s going on? You don’t eat healthy.”
What was going on was Pet hadn’t bought the food. All she could think was that Marguerite had arranged for the groceries as a thank-you for the use of the house, but she had no idea when the groceries had been bought or by whom. She supposed they’d picked healthy stuff, though, because she’d mentioned that Quinn was a health nut when she’d explained the chocolate chip and bacon cookies to Santo. He must have passed on that tidbit to Marguerite. She couldn’t say any of that, though, so lied . . . again.
“I just figured you’d be tired after your trip and not want to bother with shopping,” she mumbled.
“Wow. Thank you.” Quinn closed the door and rushed over to give her a hug. “Sometimes you’re the best!”
“Yeah.” Pet relaxed on a laugh and hugged her back. “Sometimes you are too.”
Grinning at each other, they separated and Quinn moved to her purse and began to dig through it as she asked, “So. Want to stay for dinner?”
“No. I have some essays to grade,” Pet lied, using the excuse she always used in a pinch. Sometimes it was handy being a professor, she thought.
“Are you sure?” Quinn asked, distractedly, frowning into the dark depths of her suitcase-sized shoulder bag. “You have all weekend for that, and we could open a bottle of wine or four.”
“If we get started on the wine, I’ll be hungover all weekend and won’t be able to read the essays, let alone grade them. Besides, you could probably use an early night after all that rushing around at the conference,” Pet commented, wondering what Quinn was looking for. She got her answer when Quinn pulled out a small set of keys.
“Damn.” She eyed them malevolently. “These are Patrick’s keys. I used his car Monday to go to work and we switched keys.”
“Is that a problem?” Pet asked, eyebrows raising.