“Don’t they seem cozy,” Carl said, and Michael’s head was reeling with the number of possible suspects. Something was bothering him… something important. Then Carl said, “Danny, can we see that mass photo of the whatsit? All those freckled faces with the red or blond hair.”
“The Meyers?” The picture came back up, and Carl searched the picture, apparently looking for somebody—somebody he knew.
“What do you see?” Felix asked, and Carl shook his head and grimaced.
“I’m sorry, Felix. I don’t know anybody here, but I feel like I should.” He met Michael’s eyes apologetically. “I feel like I know somebody in their family. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Mm….” Danny tapped his upper lip with his finger. “Are you out at work? I know it’s a personal question, but it’s relevant.”
“Yes, why?” That Carl’s eyebrows didn’t even go up told Michael he wasn’t offended in the least.
“Because if I put you there, I need to know what to do about your cover. If you do end up knowing somebody there, it’s best I send you under your own name. If you’re out, you and Mr. Carmody will do fine. If you’re not, it’s either Molly, Julia, or I imagine we could persuade the lovely Miss Talia, since Wimbledon is quite over.”
“Me!” Michael said without even knowing he was going to say it. He knew the tennis star they were talking about, and he was not going to see her cozying up to Carl like he was catnip. “He’s not going on a romantic getaway with anybody but me!”
Then he clapped his hand over his mouth and reminded himself he didn’t really get a say here.
Except he apparently did.
“Done,” Danny said mildly. “Don’t you have a falcon you can train? If we can get you into this camp on an organic level, it will give you a good chance to poke around under the guise of curiosity.”
“I was going to let it go once its wing healed,” Michael said, now thoroughly confused again. “But I guess they don’t have to know that.”
“How do you let a falcon go?” Hunter asked, sounding legitimately curious.
“You feed it on a series of feeding platforms,” Michael told him. “Each one higher and harder to get to than the last. You figure that by the time he can get the food off the highest platform, he can hunt again, but you keep putting food up there anyway. You just stretch out the intervals. If he gets hungry and wants to hunt, he’ll hunt. If he doesn’t, you haven’t left him out there to starve, ’cause that’s cruel. Eventually he’ll either eat or get sickly, and if he gets sickly, you start the process over again.” He sighed. “Some of them do like being fed all the time, but most of them take the hint and go get their own prey.”
“You’re a natural,” Danny said, sounding proud of himself. “You and Carl get one room in the Aerie. Hunter and Grace get the other. Chuck and Lucius get Jesses and Jewels, and Julia, you and Leon get Pensive, if that’s all right with you, Mr. di Rossi?”
“It is, of course,” Leon said, but he glanced around the room, surprised. “Not that I object, but there is nobody else who can take this room?”
Danny and Felix made eye contact. “I’ve got Molly a job working for the monster-truck rally company—only a couple of hours a day except for the rally day itself. Molly, love, I hope you don’t mind going in a week early? We’ve got your lodgings, but they’re fairly cheap. And you can room with your brother, who’s going to do groundwork once he’s there. Is that all right?”
“Except for rooming with my brother,” she said, giving Stirling the stink-eye. “But that’s fine.” She paused then and asked the question they were all asking. “Aren’t you—you and Felix—coming along?”
“No,” Danny said, looking at Josh. “During our last little adventure, Josh promised he’d stay home until he was better, and we’re holding him to that. Felix and I will stay here with him.”
“Wait a minute!” Grace said, and for all he had an IQ exponentially bigger than anybody else in the room, Michael felt for him as it occurred that he was going off without his other half. “You said Hunter and I are investigating one of the wineries!”
“You are indeed,” Danny said gently.
“No,” Grace said, sounding lost and adamant. He and Josh were sitting together on the couch, and for the first time, they all realized Josh had fallen asleep, his head against Grace’s shoulder. “Look at him.” Grace’s voice was breaking. “He needs me.”
“He does,” Danny said, his voice so gentle Michael thought his own heart would break. “He needs you so badly. But he needs you whole. His doctors told him he’s going to be turning the corner this month, but a lot of that turning is going to be sleep. He’s bored, Dylan Li. And restless. And cranky. He asked me earlier if he could send you and Hunter off together so you could have time to heal too.”
“But who’s going to be his Grace?” Grace’s voice was cracked and sad, but Michael still wasn’t expecting Julia to lean over the couch and wrap her arms around his shoulders.
“I suspect,” she said, her voice thick, “that I’m being sent away for the same reason. Is that right, Danny?”
“It is indeed,” Felix answered for him. He’d moved too, so he was next to her, his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve had the hardest parts of it, darling. Danny and I thought we’d stay home and do our bit, and you could go drink wine and remember you’re a very young woman with a lot of money. Is that okay?”
“No,” she replied, but she was weeping softly as she said it and allowing Felix to hold her close. “It’s not. But I find I can’t fight you.”
He dropped a kiss in her hair. “Which means you’re very much in need.” He cleared his throat and pitched his voice for everybody in the room. “Any other questions on room assignments? Lucius, Chuck, you’re at Jesses and Jewels alone because they don’t have that many rooms. I realize we’re pulling you away from legitimate work—”
“It’s nothing,” Lucius Broadstone said, his voice absolutely casual and yet unyielding. “I have no problems at all taking a vacation next week. You, Charles?”
“As long as you’re with me, Scotty Brice,” Chuck said gamely, and Michael wondered about nicknames again, because it seemed everybody had one.
“So it’s settled.” Danny let out a long breath, and Michael realized how intense the meeting had gotten. Abstractly, it occurred to him that this was what he’d signed on for—this was one of the reasons everybody had wanted to make sure he wanted to be there.
He wanted more than anything to be there.
“I think we’re done for the night,” Felix said, taking over the suddenly personal, painful meeting of the minds the way he probably took over boardrooms. “Dearest, allow me to take Josh up to his room. Hunter, could you…?”
Felix strode around the couch and lifted his son into his arms with the same strength and ease he’d probably used when Josh was a child. Hunter bent to put his hand on Grace’s shoulder, and Grace leaped into his arms, wrapping his legs around Hunter’s waist and crying softly into his neck in a way Michael suspected the young man would do with nobody else.