“Nice save.” I chuckled as the hiccupping grew more intense. “I’ll be in touch soon.”
As I ended the call, I joined the guys in staring at Colby where she curled on the couch in cat mode.
“You took pictures?” I grabbed a pillow. “Seriously?” I threw it at her. “You couldn’t help, but you could do that?”
As I had known he would, Clay caught the pillow so it didn’t ding her wings, and his smile taunted me.
“You knew she did it.” I curled my lip at Clay. “Traitor.” I squinted at Asa. “Were you in on it too?”
Amusement touched his mouth, but he shook his head. “No.”
“I slid my phone under the door.” She giggled. Legit giggled. Evil creature. “It was hilarious.”
Right then and there, I plotted to buy as much silly string as I could locate to hose her and Clay with. Too bad I couldn’t then send it to her buddies online so they could help me savor my revenge, but I could live with printing off the photos and then framing them. Maybe hanging them on the wall above her desk.
“I’m done with you, smarty fuzz butt,” I grumbled. “I can trust you no longer.”
“You love me,” she sang as she glided to me. “You’ll never be done with me.”
“You’re right.” I squished her against my chest. “On both counts.” I tickled under her wings until she squealed and shoved to get away. “But I also believe turnabout is fair play. Watch your back.”
Her antennae shot up and quivered with excitement at the prospect of me pranking her.
“Okay.” Clay didn’t bother hiding his smile. “Let’s get back to the problem at hand.”
“Can I get a Band-Aid first?” I twisted to look over my shoulder. “For the stab wound in my back?”
Peals of laughter propelled the troublemaker to Clay’s head, but she skipped off him and headed back to her laptop to play while we strategized. She was always down for an adventure, but not always up to the nuts-and-bolts part.
In short, she was a lot like me.
In fact, I might have broken her.
“Let’s ignore ancient history for a minute.” Clay settled in to plotting mode. “Focus on the Delma angle.”
As wrapped up as I let myself get with the intrigue of my parents’ involvement, he was right to shake up our perspective.
“Delma wanted to lure out Rue.” Asa reeled me back until my spine rested on his chest. “She got a general area from her contact inside Black Hat, Agent Barker. Barker, and likely others, helped catch and release the creatures in a radius determined by where she tracked her brother.”
“That would explain why she hit the shops asking for him,” I agreed. “She must have wanted confirmation he was in Samford and not one of the surrounding areas. She wanted to ensure she was focused on the right town before she escalated.”
“Okay, so, the Delma angle is flawed.” Clay tapped his fingers on his thigh. “There’s no way she chose to unleash creatures with tags that led to a sanctuary funded by your mother without a purpose.”
“I agree.” Awkward as it was to sprawl over Asa, I didn’t mind it. “Why lure us to the sanctuary?”
“Her evil plan of unleashing creatures to eat you failed,” Clay exaggerated, “so she decided to lure you to their den?”
“That…” I had to admit, “…is plausible.” I rolled my eyes at Clay. “Not likely, but still an option.”
“Delma wasn’t at the sanctuary,” Asa pointed out. “Why lure Rue down and then be a no-show?”
“There might not have been enough time for her to make her dramatic entrance.” Clay shrugged. “Rue was busy living out a horror movie. That might have stolen her thunder.”
“Or she might have been spooked by the spider. If it was there to deliver a message to me, she wouldn’t have seen it prior to then and might not have known what kind of threat it posed or to whom.”
Which was none, now that I had killed it. I really needed to stop incinerating all my problems.
“So, what’s the plan?” I glanced between them. “Go back tomorrow, give Delma a second chance?”
“Then we do what we do best.” Clay rose and clasped his hands together. “We wing it.”
“Stick with what works, huh?” I shook my head. “Show up, kill some things, write a report that covers our butts, then go home.”
“Exactly.” His grin stretched from ear to ear. “We’re old pros at crossing our fingers and hoping we don’t die. Why mess with perfection?”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.