Page 94 of Love Me Gently

June proved my assumption right when she smiled at Trina, moved her sleepy eyes over the rest of the men, and settled on Brock.

Rocco’s earlier statement that their mom couldn’t tell them apart was an utter lie. They might have been identical, but Rocco wore a softer expression. He looked like he heeded his job and got it done efficiently but took no joy in any of the dark sides of it. Brock looked like he ate, slept, and breathed his work, and not onlylikedthe darker sides of it, he enjoyed every slow, bloody, agonizing second of it.

“You look like the monster from the Frosty the Snowman movie,” June declared, her gaze stuck on Brock. “But with less hair.”

If it was possible, Brock’s expression hardened further, but Rocco slapped his brother on the shoulder. “You mean that furry snow-monster?” Rocco asked.

June nodded, serious about her decision. “His name is Bumble.”

“My name is Brock.”

June shrugged, glanced at me, and then back at him. “I like Bumble better.”

Jim didn’t bother to hide his laugh but let it boom through the kitchen. I flinched at the noise and excused myself from the table.

“Gotta get Ella,” I muttered to Trina.

When I reached June, I squatted down in front of her, gave her a kiss on her cheek and hugged her. “As you can see, I’ve got some more friends visiting. I wanted you and your sister to meet them, so they don’t surprise you or scare you, okay?”

“More friends?Noware we having a sleepover?”

“No, Junie bug. No sleepovers yet.”

“Bummer.” Her eyes went wide and round with mischief. “Can I have ice cream for breakfast since I still don’t get sleepovers?”

Another round of laughter echoed from the table. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. “How about we get you a healthy breakfast before school this week, and then on Saturday we can have it for breakfast.”

“My idea sounds better,” she muttered.

I’m sure it did. If someone would have told me half of parenting would be bartering with a pint-size pipsqueak, I wouldn’t have believed it, but June knew how to get her way and was creative in going about it.

“Let me get your sister up and then I’ll make you some oatmeal with brown sugar. That work for you?”

“Sugar sounds great.”

I chuckled, kissed the top of her head and went to get Ella.

The day had already started with more excitement than I bargained for, who knew what the rest of it would bring.

“What doyou mean he’s gone?”

Eddy slapped a stack of files to his desk and followed it with his iPad. “Gone,” he repeated. “We can’t find him anywhere. Soon as that man left the lot yesterday, he was a ghost.”

“There’s cameras all over town and on the lights.”

He couldn’t have vanished. He didn’t fly in on the private airstrip. Scranton confirmed it with his own private cameras of the runway.

“I know,” Eddy said, “and we got his vehicle turning right out of the parking lot and then left on Littlecastle Highway, but after that, there’s nothing.”

“That would have taken him to Crystal Mountain. So, what, he ditched the SUV and got in something else?”

“Could have. Still doesn’t explain the fact we’re scouring every single rental reservation made in the last three weeks for last night and not a single one of them checks out.”

I pinched my nose between my fisted hand and thumb, tugging down. This wasn’t right.

He had to be here.

“So, he changed his SUV, he’s staying farther out in Boone or something, or hell, I don’t know… he took off in a helicopter?”

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