Page 8 of Waiting For A Girl Like You (Haven House #4)
“ M r. Fairweather, perhaps next time you could refrain from antagonizing the serial killer on a live feed,” Agent Klausen stated as they gathered in the media room. “That meeting took considerable effort to make happen, and far too many eyes were watching.”
“Noted,” Samuel replied, staring at the movie screen showing Evie and their girls in the parlor talking to Simone and Josie.
Every room at Haven House stood on display, with Rowan leaving nothing to chance.
Privacy wasn’t something they could afford anymore, slipping right out the window with their sanity. “How long is this going to take?”
Jamison went to stand with her brother, wanting to offer comfort while everyone prepared for the post-Toby meeting.
Samuel wasn’t the touchy-feely type, and she wasn’t quite sure how to help him.
They had all been functioning in a haze for the last two weeks, putting one foot in front of the other as they tried to unravel this nightmare.
“The parlor door is engaged,” she said, trying to keep him calm. “Holden is with them. You know he won’t let anyone get past him.”
Holden had made it his personal mission never to let the girls or Evie out of his sight.
He went everywhere with them, not that they were allowed much freedom right now, and he was personally overseeing the installation of new security doors throughout Samuel’s home.
Every room would eventually have security doors like the one in their main bedroom, and a secondary panic room was being added to the first floor.
Once that was done, Samuel wanted their new home in Georgia to be outfitted with identical measures, and wasn’t moving the family up there until the work was complete.
Haven House was undergoing the same treatment. The hand-carved, heavy oak double doors welcoming people to Haven House? Gone. The kitchen rear entrance that used to be left open to allow for a cool afternoon breeze? Gone. All replaced with the best security doors money could buy.
“I know Holden will keep them safe,” Samuel said. His trust was limited, but Holden had it in spades. “But I think he should be in here.”
“I’m a big girl and can read the notes later.” Izzy joined them at the screen, the noise level in the room rising behind them. “I can go be with your family while Holden comes in here, but only if you’re okay with it?”
The reigning hero of Haven House could’ve asked to sit on the roof naked, and no one would object.
They owed Izzy everything, even if she had ignored orders to stay put when the women made a run for the house.
Strong-willed and capable, she’d come rushing to the rescue, and because of that, they could piece together what happened on the lawn while the rest of them were barricaded upstairs.
“They fell like dominoes,” Izzy had told them. “One right after another, all of them clawing at their throats and convulsing.”
Two women made it inside, but two more would have if Izzy hadn’t intervened. One had a handheld sickle bought from a Home Depot on the Florida-Alabama border. She managed to slice Izzy’s forearm before collapsing from the manchineel toxins.
The second woman, armed with a machete, had more fight in her.
But, in the end, the manchineel fruit robbed the woman of strength.
Izzy said the girl cried as she died, begging for help.
Not knowing what else to do, and with the police handling the two that had broken in, Izzy sat on the ground and held her, whispering comforting words as the young woman took her final breaths.
“Thank you, Izzy,” Samuel replied. “If you don’t mind.”
“I’ll go with you.” Abe rolled up, looking just as tired as everyone else. “I don’t need to see or hear Toby. It’ll just piss me off.”
Abe wasn’t one to hold on to anger, but after the attack, something had shifted in him. He prowled around Haven night and day, watching through the windows like the women might come again .
Izzy and Abe left, re-engaging the media room’s security door behind them.
Holden entered just as the lights dimmed, and the security feeds showing all the rooms in the house flicked off the movie screen and out onto various flat screens mounted on the walls.
The media room was now a full-blown command center, with Rowan as its captain.
“You good?” Holden asked Samuel as they took their seats at one of the folding tables arranged in a U-shape. “We could hear Toby screaming through the walls.”
The replay of Toby’s interview fired up on the movie screen, opening with him shackled and shuffling his way to the interview table in chains.
“Yeah, I’m good. He looks like shit,” Samuel answered, watching intently as Toby settled into his seat on the playback. “At least I know he’s living in pain.”
Jamison sat with them, watching the screen with Samuel as the others found their places. To her, Toby looked fine, even making jokes with the guards. “He doesn’t look in pain to me.”
Samuel smirked. “Watch his eyes when they tell him who’s on the call.”
Sure enough, when one of the guards informed Toby who was on the other side of the camera, his arrogance waned. The smile on his lips vanished, and what looked like tears gathered in his eyes.
“I didn’t notice that before,” Jamison murmured.
“Adrenaline makes you miss things,” Liam said, coming over to kneel beside her. “You did great in there.”
She didn’t feel like she had done great.
She’d felt sick the entire time, and when Liam slipped the ring on her finger, she’d nearly blacked out.
It was hers. Theirs. The one he proposed with on a rainy day in Paris.
It had been his first time in the city, and Liam, being Liam, had wanted to wander around on foot to get his bearings.
During their little walking adventure, they passed an antique shop not far from the Champs-élysées, and he’d swept her inside when something in the display window caught his eye.
That something had been a ring.
As they looked around the shop, Liam snuck off to purchase the ring while she was distracted by a pair of vintage Chanel boots.
His plan had been to ask her on their last day in Paris, but he was so excited he couldn’t wait and dropped to one knee later that afternoon while they toured the Luxembourg Gardens.
Even when she ended things, Jamison always kept the ring with her. She wore it around her apartment when no one was watching, and at work, she kept it tucked away in her purse or on a necklace.
Of course, she had packed it when it was time to come home.
Liam must have gone rummaging through her bags, knowing her as he did, and found it.
Now that it was on her finger again, it wasn’t coming off.
Ever. If she had to do the proposing this time, she would, and she would make it great.
A moment that would knock his socks off and show him how much he meant to her.
But right now, she couldn’t focus on life or the future. That would come later when the world wasn’t against them.
“It’s time to get started,” Liam said, a spark of excitement in his eyes. “This lead could be it. We might finally get some progress.”
Progress was something they sorely needed. “Well, get up there and explain,” Jamison said. “I didn’t catch half of what happened in there.”
Liam gave her thigh a squeeze before moving to the center of the room, where Will was standing off to the side, flipping through a file.
“You want to take the lead, or me?” Liam asked his father as a hush fell over everyone.
“Go ahead,” Will mumbled, shuffling through the batch of papers. “I’m working on something.”
Stepping forward, Liam nodded at Klausen and the unfamiliar agent who had joined in on the call.
There hadn’t been enough time for formal introductions before Toby’s feed went live, but Jamison thought she heard Will call the new arrival Agent Anderson.
“That was productive. Thanks to the Bureau for making that call happen. I know it wasn’t easy. ”
Klausen inclined his head. “It’s always interesting joining a Fairweather family reunion.”
Normally, Jamison would want to bite his head off for that remark, but Klausen was growing on her. He and his team were working their asses off to help, and she was learning not to snarl at every sarcastic remark that came out of his mouth.
“But the thanks should go to my colleague,” Klausen continued. “Without Agent Anderson, that call wouldn’t have been possible. ”
“You owe me one, Will.” Anderson fixed Liam’s father with a stare. “Actually, you owe me two if we count that crap that went down ten years ago.”
Will continued reading. “The crap that went down ten years ago was a draw, but this,” he looked up, waving the paperwork, “ this I owe you for.”
The lights dimmed further, allowing everyone to have a clear view of the movie screen and Toby.
On the opposite side of the room from where she sat with Samuel and Holden, Jamison noticed how the three laptops aimed at Rowan glowed in the partial darkness, highlighting his sharp cheekbones.
Tapping at the keyboard, he sent the video of Toby off to one side of the movie screen and ran a never-ending list of stats and details on the other side.
“He’s out of the loop,” Liam announced. “Toby has had no contact with the outside world for seven months. No visitors. No smuggled info.”
“Why seven months?” Anderson asked. “How do you know such a specific time frame?”
Jamison held up her hand, wiggling the diamond on her finger. “He thinks we’re married.”
“We called off our engagement almost seven months ago, and Toby was unaware,” Liam explained. “He likes to keep up with family gossip and pass it along to Zanmi so they can antagonize us with it. He wouldn’t have missed a chance with something like that.”
Agent Anderson’s crystal blue eyes slid between Jamison and Liam, obviously not understanding. “But…”