“So you acknowledge the danger now?” Dad folded his arms in front of his chest.
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have a response.
“I’ll go with him,” came a familiar voice from the doorway of the office.
I spun around to find Talbot standing there. He wore his favorite blue baseball cap and held a bowl from the parish kitchen filled with parking lot gravel in one hand. The thumb of his other hand was jammed into one of his belt loops next to his Texas Ranger star-shaped belt buckle. He gave me a look like someone who was crashing a party he knew he wasn’t invited to.
I scowled. “What the heck is he doing here?”
“Good evening to you, too, kid,” he said, and tipped his baseball cap to me and then winked at April.
My hands balled into fists. I’m pretty sure I’d warned him what I’d do the next time he called me “kid.”
“I come bearing gifts, at least,” he said, and indicated the bowl of rocks. “Those boys out there looked like they were about to fall over. I sent most of them home. Marcos and I are sharing rock duty for a while.”
By home I assumed he meant Maryanne Duke’s old house, where the boys had been crashing for the time being—until Dad and I can figure out what the heck to do with five homeless teenage werewolves.
“But that still doesn’t explain why you came here in the first place,” I said. “I told you to stay away from me.”
“I asked Talbot to take the night shift with Jude,” Gabriel said. “I need to get some rest since I’ll have to deal with a couple hundred high school students tomorrow.” He stifled a yawn that must have been brought on by the very prospect of it. I still found it hard to believe that Dad had hired an eight-hundred-some-year-old werewolf to teach religion at the Christian private school I attended. But I found it even harder to understand why Dad and Gabriel would trust Talbot—like he’d had nothing to do with Caleb.
“You’ve got him babysitting Jude now?”
Not that I didn’t agree that Jude needed someone to keep an eye on him while he … adjusted to being back in Rose Crest. I just didn’t think that person should be Talbot. I know it’d been revealed that Talbot was Gabriel’s great-great-add-in-a-few-dozen-more-greats nephew, but I hoped the sudden familial obligation Gabriel felt toward Talbot didn’t come back to bite him.
“Thank you, Talbot,” Dad said, ignoring my comment. “I’ll take you up on the offer to accompany me to the warehouse.” He picked up a couple of books and stuffed them in his briefcase. “So it’s settled. Grace, have April take you home so you can get some sleep before school tomorrow. I have to do some visits at the nursing home in the morning, and then Talbot and I will head over to the warehouse around lunch. I want to make sure we get out of there before nightfall.”
“Sounds good,” Talbot said.
“But—” I tried to protest.
“I said it was settled.” Dad snapped his briefcase shut and gave me a look that said that if I pushed one more time, nobody would be going to the warehouse. Then his eyes softened. “Let me do this for you, Grace. Let me be your father and protect you when I still can. Let’s make sure Daniel has a future to come back to.”
“Okay,” I said softly. “Marcos is still outside, isn’t he?”
Talbot nodded.
“Ask him if he’ll go with you, too.” I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I didn’t want my dad going anywhere alone with Talbot.
“Okay,” Dad said.
I grabbed my jacket.
“Maybe you should go visit your brother on the way out,” Dad said. “I think he’d appreciate seeing you.”
“Not tonight,” I said softly; then I sidestepped around Talbot and went out the office door.
April gathered up her things and followed me out into the foyer. She stopped when I passed the stairwell that led to the basement of the parish where Jude was holed up—locked up—for observation.
“I’m going to drop off some dinner for Jude.” April held up the paper sack from the Rose Crest Café. “Do you want to come down with me? Your dad is right. I think Jude would like to see you.”
I shook my head and leaned against the wall. “I’ll wait.”
“You’ve been practically living at the parish for the last few days, and you haven’t been down there to see him once. After everything you went through to get him back … it just doesn’t seem like you to ignore him like this.”
“I know.” It wasn’t very grace-like at all. It’s just that there had been something in my brother’s eyes the last time I looked him in the face—back in the warehouse when I found out he’d asked to come home—that’d scared me. They didn’t look like his eyes at all. Like my brother wasn’t my brother anymore. I didn’t know if it was just a flash of emotion I’d seen—guilt, anger, remorse—or if his eyes were telling me we’d brought a monster back with us instead of Jude.
I wasn’t ready to go see him yet because I was afraid of what I might find if I looked him in the eyes again.
What if I didn’t see my brother there at all?
April gave me a sad smile and then headed for the stairs.
“Be careful,” I said. “We still don’t know why Jude asked to come back home. I don’t want you to get hurt.” emotionally or physically.
April nodded, and I felt a pang of guilt as I let her go down the stairs without me.
“Grace?”
I sighed heavily and turned away from Talbot. He’d followed us out into the hall—I should have known that I wouldn’t get by him so easily. I pursed my lips, determined not to talk to him.
“What you said in there, about Daniel not being able to—”
“Stop,” I said. I’d never been very good at holding my tongue. “You don’t have the right to ask me anything about him.”
“Then can I ask when you’re going to give me another chance? When are you going to trust me?”
“I trusted you before, Talbot. I trusted you when I thought you were the only person on my side. You were supposed to be my mentor. I thought you were my friend. But you were working for Caleb all along. You were the enemy.” You’re one of the people responsible for what happened to Daniel.