Her Dark Web Defender

“Do you know us?” Nick asked.

Both men burst out laughing.

“Really, we did come by to offer some support.” Dion finally picked up the slice of pizza he’d been going for before.

“Well, thanks.”

Nick, who’d already devoured three slices, set his plate aside. “You headed over to Casey’s Diner later?”

She shook her head. “I’m beat. Are you going? Don’t you realize how pitiful that looks that you still meet up with the rest of the troopers on your days off?”

“What’s your point?” Nick said, grinning.

Dion tapped his watch. “You probably can’t stay out late, anyway, now that you’re on the day shift.”

Kelly didn’t bother telling him she wouldn’t necessarily be working days for this assignment. She’d been told she would be clocking a lot of overtime hours until they found some leads.

If she told them, they would be razzing her about being with Lazzaro day in and day out. She was worrying enough about that situation. How was she supposed to be of any help in tracking Sienna’s and Madison’s killer when all she could think about was the special agent who wanted her out of his world?

Tony had just enough time to throw his keys on his counter, pull a beer from the refrigerator and pop the tab before his doorbell rang. One glance at the clock on the microwave and he grimaced. He’d forgotten. He wasn’t in the mood to entertain.

But, unlike some people, he honored his commitments. Taking two quick gulps of his beer and then turning the can upside down in the sink to drain, he jogged to the front door.

“Did you forget?” Angelena Hayes hurried inside, a toddler perched on one hip and a preschooler holding her free hand.

“Of course not.”

Her smile told him how much she believed his lie. He wasn’t the only one in their family with good instincts. His baby sister knew him well.

“Well, good. We need a babysitter. Date night has dwindled to once a month already. If it drops to every two months, Miles and I are going to be a divorce statistic like Mom and Dad.”

“Don’t even joke about that.” At least she really was kidding. Angelena and Miles were the real deal, unlike their parents, whose marriage hadn’t so much dissolved in acrimony as withered away from neglect. For him and Laurel, it had been more like a murder/suicide.

“Are we going to play, Uncle Tony?”

Squeezed between the two adults, four-year-old Tabitha tapped his leg several times.

He bent at the waist to speak to the child at her level. “We sure are. What do you want to play first?”

Tabitha wrinkled her button nose. “You smell yucky.”

“You’ve been drinking?”

Angelena’s stage whisper was loud enough for the neighbors in his spread-out subdivision of 1970s ranch homes to hear.

“Two swallows. That’s it.”

“Had better be it.”

He nabbed the little girl and tucked her under his arm, her giggles filling the room and that headful of riotous chocolate curls falling around her face. His sister already knew he would do anything to protect these little people.

“I want to play school!”

“Then school, it is.”

Tony and Angelena exchanged smiles because Tabitha chose the same activity every time he babysat. Everyone knew electronics were off-limits at Uncle Tony’s house.

“Too,” the two-year-old man of few words, Carter, called out, extending his pudgy arms to be lifted.

Tony obliged and shifted the boy onto his opposite hip.

Angelena grinned at her brother. “You’re the best babysitter ever.”

“The price is definitely right.”

“Just name your price. You know we’ll pay it.”

“Now if I’d known that before…”

He didn’t bother finishing that since he always refused to take her money. He also loved the two ruffians like they were his own. As close to it as he would ever get.

“Rough day?”

“The same.”

“Oh. Your brow looks more furrowed than usual.”

Was it so obvious that he was out of sorts? But then Angelena and Miles were the only ones he’d told about his transfer request. “Your description makes me sound super hot.”

“Ew. Just ew.”

“Anyway, aren’t you going to get out of here? Don’t you two have reservations or something?”

“That’s an avoidance tactic if I ever heard one.”

He opened the door for her, but she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.

“Well, what’s going on?”

“It’s just that this new state police officer joined the task force. Bad timing. And she—”

“She?”

His sister had finally started out the door, but she paused and looked back at him.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop. We’re not going there.”

“You never go there, and you should. With somebody. It’s been four years.”