Alien in the House

ask for help with any of this? Because if your mother and Kevin have no idea, or those are dead ends, all I can come up with is going door-to-door.”
    Looked at Chuckie. “The Middle Eastern Contingent and/or Romania’s New KGB?”
    Chuckie heaved a sigh. “They fall under the ‘not sure we can trust them’ category. Do we want to take the time to revise that now?”
    “Ask my mom,” I told Tim. “If she thinks they’re okay, add them in.”
    “I see we do.” Chuckie’s sarcasm knob was at eleven.
    “Dude, you’re trustworthy and Mom is trustworthy. Let’s just assume that you both know what you’re talking about when it comes to who to trust and who to figure is a lying sack of excrement.”
    “Time’s up,” Gower said. “We have about ten minutes to get everyone over to the Capitol and get Jeff sworn in.”
    “Let’s roll, people,” Jeff said.
    Reader and I looked at each other. “He sounds so street when he says that,” Reader said with a grin.
    “Yeah. Let’s all go keep it gangsta and be sure we shoot the other guys before they shoot us.”



CHAPTER 65
    T HE OTHERS HEADED DOWNSTAIRS. I left the briefcase from Reader with Amy and the hackers, but told them not to go through it until I was back. For whatever reason, I wanted to be there when we went through everything. It was a gut thing, so I didn’t argue with myself.
    Headed to our rooms to grab Jeff’s new trench and fedora and my coat. Took a moment while I gathered these to relax and try to center myself. This wasn’t one of my go-to skills. When it came to focusing on the Inner Me, I was best with doing so in order to rev up to kick butt.
    Opened my purse to make sure my Glock and a few clips were in it and saw the stuffed eagle from Reyes’ office. Decided it had seen enough action and put it with the briefcase. As I did I noted that it was a stuffed hand puppet. “I’m going to keep this, if it’s okay with you, Santiago,” I said softly. “I can play with it with Jamie and that way we have something of you with us always.”
    Eagle out, extra clips in, no Poofs at all. “Poofies? Any Poofies?” Nary a mew or a whiff of a bundle of cuteness. Hoped this wasn’t indicating bad news. “Peregrines able to report, please assemble.”
    Harold appeared. And only Harold.
    “Bruno’s not back?”
    Got some cawing, ground scratching, and head shaking. Bruno was still on the case, being supported by a lot of Poofs. The rest of the Poofs, along with all the female Peregrines, were guarding Jamie and the kids. The male Peregrines were stationed strategically throughout the complex. Harold, however, was going to come along and fill in for Bruno, in case someone again tried to kill Jeff or me.
    “You’ll be in stealth mode?” I asked as I gave him a nice scritchy-scratch between his wings.
    Affirmative. Harold disappeared from view. I only knew he was there because I was touching him.
    “Super. Going to do my best to forget you’re there. I’m getting the impression that’s how all of you prefer it.”
    Harold squawked his approval about me being totally on board with Peregrine Thought Patterns. Thusly armed and accompanied, I headed downstairs. Time was of the essence, so I used hyperspeed.
    Checked the first floor, but found no one, which wasn’t too surprising. Was all kinds of proud of how well I was doing with the control, as I headed down to the basement.
    Fortunately Jeff was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and he caught and stopped me from barreling right through him and into everyone else and the wall. Clearly I’d self-congratulated a little prematurely.
    Jeff chuckled. “I’m not wearing the hat and coat right now, we’re going via gate.”
    “I still want them along.”
    “Whatever makes you happy, baby.”
    Everyone leaving the Embassy was going via the gate, so pretty much everyone in the Embassy was down here. “Doreen and Irving are meeting you there,” Christopher said. “She just called me. Naomi and Abigail are staying with the kids at the Pontifex’s Residence.” He grimaced. “Naomi’s using the time to figure out which kids will be doing what at her wedding.”
    “Good use of time. I guess. Is Kevin still there, too?”
    He nodded. “And Michael’s there now, also. Caroline’s feeling better and she had to work. Gladys is there, too, as is your father.”
    “Works for me.”
    White was manning the gate controls, while Gower explained how gate transferences worked in