Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 172387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 862(@200wpm)___ 690(@250wpm)___ 575(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 862(@200wpm)___ 690(@250wpm)___ 575(@300wpm)
I swatted his hands away and ran, laughing my butt off. Then I sobered up. “Colton, do you think the kids are going to be as happy as we are?”
“Don’t put that shit in my head.” He pressed down on the side of his eye where I know he gets a tic whenever he’s about to blow a gasket.
“I’m not talking about that you animal. I mean will they be happy? Will they love each other as much as we do?”
“He’d better if he doesn’t want me to shoot his ass. Now tell me what is it that our daughter wants for her wedding?”
“Okay, she wants a bespoke wedding dress from this designer in Knightsbridge.”
“Knightsbridge, doesn’t sound familiar, where is that?”
“England. And she wants to get married in a castle in Spain.” I tacked on that last bit really fast. Might as well hit him with all of it at once.
I gave him my best innocent look when it looked like he was lost for words. I don’t know why he even bothers; we both know he’s going to give her everything she wants in the end. “Hmm!” I thanked my lucky stars, that that’s all he said.
We heard an engine outside and moved to the window to look out and were just in time to see Todd pull up and Caitlin run outside and jump in his arms. I tried to pull my husband away but he wasn’t looking at the kids but at the house across the street and down a little ways.
“Kat you know who lives across the street?”
“Of course, they’ve lived here longer than we have, why?”
“They’re about to move.”
“How do you figure? I saw her two days ago and she didn’t say anything about moving.”
“If you want your daughter to marry this fuck their asses got to go because that’s where the fuck she’d be living, right across the street where I can keep an eye on her ass.”
“COLTON! You can’t be serious.”
“I said what I said.”
MOUTH
“Mommy, daddy, I need to ask you something.”
“Come in sweetheart.” I patted the place between her father and I on the bed and she ran and jumped in, cuddling up to her daddy for more hugs. It was way past her bedtime.
“What is it squirt?” Shane nuzzled her neck making her squeal with laughter, but she was soon back to being serious again. “It’s about my friend Catalina.”
“Oh?” Is this one of your friends from school?”
I didn’t look at her father. We had yet to tell her that we’d paid a visit to her friend’s home. I didn’t want her to know that I’d been monitoring her. I know how much she likes her independence.
As someone who’d been afforded plenty of space when I was growing up, I wanted her to have the same. But Shane would have a cow if I let her get away with half the stuff uncle Al had let me get away with when I was younger.
“No mommy, she’s my friend from the gifted program website. I think she might be in trouble.”
“Why do you think that?” She proceeded to come clean about what she and her little friends had been up to, apologizing all the way. Shane had upped the security on all the computers first thing once we returned home from the Lyons that day and now he too was monitoring her activity more closely.
So we knew that Catalina hadn’t been on for one day give or take. “So what makes you think something might be wrong with her?” I was of the school of thought that her father, who had told us he wasn’t going to tell her about our visit until we were ready to break it to our daughter that we’d been monitoring her, had grounded her or something.
“Well, the other night, she was going to go look for the truck…” Both Shane and I sat up in bed, all semblance of relaxation gone. He went for the phone while I tried to calm my daughter. She was genuinely afraid for her friend.
He came back into the room minutes later looking relieved. “She’s fine, her dad took her computer away when he realized what she was up to.”
“I wanna see her daddy, can you take me to her tomorrow?”
“You have school.”
“”The next day then.” He looked over her head at me. “The next day then.” He walked her back to bed while I stayed up waiting. This thing was getting serious.
It’s one thing for them to mess around behind the safety of a computer screen. I doubt they even understand the severity of what they were dealing with, prodigies or not, but to actually plan to go out after the people they suspected.
“We’ve gotta do something. What did Lyon say?”
“She’d been planning to take her dog for a walk after dark and case the neighborhood.”