Chapter Fifteen
“There you two are. We were about to send out a search party.”
Drina paused in the front entry of Teddy’s house and turned to glance into the dining room. Her eyes slid over the three people seated at the table but widened as she found the speaker.
“Tiny,” she said on a grin. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah.” He smiled and stood to move out of sight toward the kitchen, but his voice was loud as he asked, “Coffee?”
“Yes please,” Drina said, her gaze sliding back to Teddy and Mirabeau at the table as Harper said he’d take one too.
“He woke up shortly after you guys left,” Mirabeau said, positively beaming with relief and happiness.
Drina smiled at the woman, and then turned to remove her coat and boots and stow them away even as Harper did.
“Teddy took Alessandro and Edward and the girls home shortly after Tiny woke up,” Mirabeau announced, as Drina set the bag from the corner store on the table and settled in a seat. “So it’s down to the six of us.”
“Speaking of the six of us, where is Stephanie?” Harper asked. “We bought the stuff she wanted.”
Drina grimaced. They’d spent longer at the house than intended. It was after midnight. The girl had probably gone to bed. Although if so, it was somewhat surprising that Mirabeau was here at the table. The thought made her frown as she asked, “Did she go to bed?”
“No. Anders took her out for a burger,” Mirabeau answered.
“What?” Drina asked blankly.
Mirabeau nodded. “We were playing cards, then Anders got a call and left the room to take it. When he came back in, Stephanie was complaining about how long you guys were taking and said she wished she could call you and maybe have you pick her up a burger on the way back. He offered to take her out to get one.”
Tiny smiled faintly, and added, “The kid couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”
Drina frowned. She wasn’t surprised Stephanie would jump at the chance to get out of the house. She’d been stuck in here for twenty-four hours and had been stuck inside Casey Cottage before that. She was probably going a bit stir-crazy. Still, Drina couldn’t help thinking it was a bad idea to take the girl anywhere considering the attacks on her.
“It’ll be fine,” Mirabeau said soothingly. “Anders isn’t stupid. He’ll take her straight there and back. Besides, we’re out in the middle of nowhere here, and I checked the road as they were getting in the truck. There was no one watching.”
Drina relaxed and nodded. Teddy’s house was out of town, a strip of land between two large fields. There was nowhere to hide out here to watch the house unobserved. Wondering how long she had before bed, she asked, “So how long ago did they leave?”
“An hour ago,” Teddy said, when Mirabeau paused uncertainly.
“It can’t have been that long,” Mirabeau protested with a frown.
“I checked my watch when they left,” Teddy said quietly.
“They should be back by now,” Harper pointed out with concern.
Drina reached automatically for her back pocket and her phone, but paused as she recalled she was wearing joggers. Her phone should be-She cursed as she realized it would have been in the back pocket of the jeans she’d been wearing when she was sprayed. Only she’d emptied her pockets before handing over her jeans to be bagged and tossed, and there had been no phone there. It must have fallen out when she was rolling around on the front yard of Casey Cottage, she thought.
“I’ll call Anders,” Mirabeau announced, retrieving a phone from her own pocket. She’d just started to punch in numbers when they heard a vehicle pulling into the driveway. Mirabeau stood and walked to the window, relaxing as she peered out. “It’s the SUV.”
Everyone at the table seemed to relax at the news.
Mirabeau had just sat back in her seat when Anders burst into the house and appeared at the dining room door. “Is she here?”
Drina raised her eyebrows. “Who?”
“Stephanie.”
Drina stilled at that hissed name, foreboding slipping through her.
“She was with you,” Mirabeau said, as if he might have forgotten it.
Anders cursed and turned back to the entry.
Realizing he was about to leave again without explaining himself, Drina stood and rushed around the table to stop him. “Just a minute. What’s going on? Where is she?”
Anders paused, but then sighed and turned back, running one hand through his hair with frustration. “I don’t know. I stopped for gas, filled up, went in to pay, and when I came out, she was gone.”
“She probably just went to use the bathroom or something,” Teddy said soothingly as the tension in the room ratcheted upward. Standing, he moved to the desk and pulled out a phone book. “Which gas station was it? Esso or the Pioneer by Wal-Mart?”
“Neither,” Anders answered. “The other one. I don’t remember the name.”
Teddy turned to peer at him blankly. “What other one? We don’t have another one.”
“The one up by the highway,” Anders said. “It doesn’t matter anyway, I did check the bathroom.
Teddy let the phone book lower to the desk. “Why the hell would you go all the way out there? The other two are half the distance.”
Anders muttered something Russian under his breath and turned away again. “I’m going back out to look for her.”
“The hell you are.” Drina caught his arm and pulled him back around. “What’s going on, Anders? Where were you taking her?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said grimly.
“Why not?” Mirabeau demanded, joining them.
“Because Lucian said not to.”
Drina blinked in surprise at those words, then narrowed her eyes. “You were taking her to Toronto.”
He didn’t confirm that, but he didn’t deny it either, and she knew she was right.
“Why didn’t Lucian want Drina to know that?” Harper asked, crossing to join them as well with Tiny on his heels.
“Because she would have felt she had to come too, and he wants her to stay here with you,” Anders said dryly.
Drina felt Harper peering at her but was too busy worrying over what Anders had said and what it would mean for Stephanie. Being in Toronto, closer to Lucian, and without anyone who cared about her. Drina knew Stephanie’s sister, Dani, was somewhere down in the States right now, playing bait, and Mirabeau and herself were here in Port Henry. The kid would have been on her own.
“Well, she couldn’t have gone far without a coat. She was probably in the bathroom while you were in the store and in the store while you checked the bathroom. It’s not like she’d walk back, Anders,” Teddy said, picking up the phone. “It’s too damned far and cold for that. She’s probably standing around in the gas station waiting for you to come back.”
“No, she ran away,” Drina murmured, and Mirabeau nodded solemnly.
“What?” Anders frowned. “Why the hell would she run away?”
“Because she likes it here, and you were taking her back to Toronto, where she was miserable,” she said dryly.
“She didn’t know that. I hadn’t told her yet. I was going to after I got on the highway.”
“You didn’t have to tell her,” Mirabeau assured him. “She would have read it from your mind.”
Anders didn’t laugh at the suggestion. His mouth tightened, and he said, “I made sure I didn’t even think about it. There was nothing to read.”
His words told Drina that he knew about Stephanie’s special abilities, or at least knew part of it. He knew she could read his thoughts even though he was old and not a new life mate, but didn’t know it wasn’t restricted to surface memories. Which meant Lucian knew. She saw Anders’s eyes narrow on her and sighed as she realized how he’d known. He was reading her thoughts even now and had probably read them before, both from her and Mirabeau.