Page 51 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
Devoss, clearly relieved that Lila had deliberately moved the group’s focus away from his outburst, nodded. Garsea exchanged glances with Oz and Macropi, then replied, “The thought had crossed our minds.”
“Leaving us with the possibility thatmyhouse is now at risk. So what’s the plan? Does your IPA have some kind of protocol here that you have to follow?”
“Uh. Lila. It’s beyond decent of you to take us in—”
“I took Daniels, Macropi, Smalls, and Devoss in, but don’t let that get in the way of your revisionist history.”
“What’s ‘shunt’?” From Devoss, who then read the quick note Caro scribbled and nodded. “Oh. Thanks, Caro, I never heard that word before.”
“—but this really isn’t your problem.”
She just looked at him. Orphaned bear cubs who might not be orphaned. A dead father calling his kid. Spontaneous house fire, possibly to harm the aforementioned orphan who might not be an orphan. Devoss sound asleep in the guest room with a stranglehold on his stuffed bear. Macropi staring out the living room window and still there at 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. Oz on her couch for the foreseeable future, too tired and worried to take five minutes to unfold the thing into a vague approximation of a bed before lapsing into a snore coma.
“Were you gonna say something?” Devoss asked. “You’re just sort of staring intently at Oz.”
“I’m in,” she replied. “I’m helping you well-meaning but possibly incompetent dopes with this until Sally’s safe and we know what started the fire so the neighborhood is safe and you can all go back to your lives and my house is no longer at risk so I can go back to my herb garden and that’s how it’s going to be, so just be resigned.”
“But—”
“That shitisn’t funny, Oz. Kids could’ve died.”
Garsea spoke up. “No one here thinks arson is funny.”
“Excellent, glad we’re all on the same page.”For a change.“So what now? Wait for Sally’s dead dad to call again?”
Monorail! Monorail!
“Turn it down, please,” Macropi called.
“Monorailllllllll!”
“Not exactly.” Garsea excused herself, then returned to the kitchen with Smalls in tow. “We need to talk about that phone call from your father again, Sally.”
“Which?”
“Wait, what?” From Oz. “How many have you gotten?”
“And why,” Lila asked sweetly, “are you guys only now asking that?”
“Hey!” he replied sharply. “Do we come over to your house and tell you how to—never mind, I just heard myself.”
“Itoldyou.” Sally sounded as put-upon as any child hauled away from the television. “Daddy called and we talked about Lila—”
Lila blinked. “Uh, what?”
“—and Daddy said he was coming, but it would take time, so watch out for Maggie.”
Caro scribbled:Well, at least that doesn’t sound incredibly ominous.
“You don’t even need a sarcasm font,” Lila observed.
Oz was frowning. “When you say you and your dad talked about Lila, what does that mean?”
“Well. Daddy wanted me safe. But not with CPA.”
“Unless you’re talking about accountants, which we shouldn’t rule out,” Oz continued, “you mean IPA, right, hon?”
She nodded. “He said I had to stay in Switzerland until he could come. But notreallySwitzerland, just—a place that—that doesn’t pick sides? Where I could be safe? But IPA couldn’t be that.”
