“Yes.”
She went outside to answer the call after handing her sister her credit card. The service was supposed to let the company know she could only take emergency calls while on vacation, so Rogue knew this had to be bad.
“I’m sorry, Agent Fisher, but there is a need for your services.” She told the caller where she was. “That’s another reason for this call. You’re not too far from where we need you to be. The address is being sent to your phone, as well as all the information you’re going to need to get there. Flight plans have been approved, and we’ll need you to get to a place we’re using to pick you up.”
After getting the information, she told the caller—they didn’t use names on that end—that she’d need to square away her family first. After being told she had about forty minutes, Rogue helped Lily and the kids load up the SUV they’d been using and talked to her sister.
“Everything you need to know to get to the Fosters is on the GPS. Just follow it, and it should take you about an hour to get there. I’ll call Hi-Men when I get to the landing site.” Lily asked her about that. “I’m going to be picked up in the parking lot right over there. The chopper will land long enough for me to get on it and out of here. You are going to be just fine driving to their home and making yourself helpful in what they’re going to be doing for you. It will be just fine.”
“I should wait for you.” Rogue told her she didn’t know how long she’d be. “Rogue, I don’t know these people. I can’t just barge in on them and expect them to be happy about it.”
“They’re thrilled, to be honest with you. Carmilla is Hi-Men’s mother. She is excited to have kids around. Hop-Along is working on your case. I’m betting by the time I get back, they’ll have you guys adopted, and you won’t even need me around anymore.” Lily told her that would never happen. “Thank you. I love you so much, Lily. Just go, have some fun, and let the kids have fun. You never know. You might just find someone to take them off your hands for a few hours so you can take a nap.”
The helicopter landed just as she got to the sight. Hating to tell them bye, Rogue waved at them from the sky until the SUV was no more than a dot. Then she turned to her handler. Receiving a file from her, Rogue got into work mode. It was that or beg them to take her back to the site—she wanted her family back.
By the time she was in Columbus, Ohio, she had everything she needed to know in her head and on her computer. Her equipment had been put on-site for her to use, as well as two assistants she would need to help keep the notes she made. Things were progressing almost as soon as she was on site. However, as soon as she walked through the door of the abandoned house, she was ready to turn tail and run.
“It’s bad.” She nodded as she pulled on her coveralls. The man in charge, Agent Carlson, told her the things they knew so far. “Five dead. It was a bloodbath too. No one has been in the room except to check to see if there were any alive. We figured that out from the doorway but had to check. The officer who found them is outside. He’s been sick since he got here.”
“Did someone know to mark where they were touched?” He told her he had when he’d gone in, but the kid cop had puked in the corner. “Are you fucking kidding me? Not on the victims, did he? I will rub his face in his own guts if he did that.”
“No, just in the corner. He seemed sort of afraid after he found out you were on your way. You scare the younger cops. Hell, you scare seasoned ones.” She grinned at him. “You always think that is a good thing. It’s not. Well, I guess it could be. He didn’t lose his lunch on the body. Anyway, yes, they’ve been marked where we touched them. Since then, no one has entered.”
She started away, then paused, looking at the older man. “What is it you’re not telling me? I haven’t any idea why you’d think to save me from something, but tell me.” He looked in the room, then back at her. “Tell me or not. I’m about to go in there, and you know how much— It’s a baby, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t want to go in there now. Knowing that she had to, she braced herself for whatever she would find when she got there.
“It’s bad, I told you. Just do your thing, Agent Fisher, and we can all get the bastard or bastards that did this. All right. You can do this.”
She rarely needed a pep talk when working—only when it was this bad. While she had done crime scenes before involving children, it was infants that really got to her. Badly. Taking a deep breath of clean air, she turned on her purifier and went into the room.
~*~
Pulling into the driveway, Lily sat there and looked at the house. None of the kids hopped out as she thought they might have. They could only stare at the “house” they’d been led to with the GPS directions in the car.
“Do you suppose it’s an apartment building?” Lily told Gabe she didn’t think it was. “Me either. It sure is a big one, don’t you think? I mean, the garage is even bigger than the house Aunt Rogue was letting us use.”
A man came out on the large wraparound porch and waited. Lily opening the car door seemed
