Alien in the House

Kevin was out, too. Buchanan was God knew where. If I went with Hamlin’s warnings, frankly, Buchanan could be the Mastermind. Anyone could. At least, anyone who wanted to destroy and control the A-Cs. And if they were good enough, they could be fooling anyone, including me.
    That meant there were three people I knew for sure I could and should talk to. Happily, they were the three people I wanted to talk to anyway.
    I took Prince’s lead, backed up, and shoved Jeff back gently, then tugged on his hand, while nodding to Raj. “Raj and I need to talk to you,” I said quietly.
    “You and the new boyfriend want to share your affair in public, too?”
    “Jeff, oh my God, the jealousy crap is so not funny, particularly right now.” I needed to talk to someone who I knew I could trust with everything I’d done and seen and learned today, and who would hopefully listen and not freak out at me. But if Jeff was going into Major Jealousy Mode right now, he wasn’t going to be that someone.
    He squeezed my hand. “Sorry, baby, I was teasing you. Bad timing for it, I should have realized.”
    “Yes, you
should
have.” Blocks or no, I was getting worried. Jeff didn’t seem to be picking up anything emotionally, from me or anyone else, and that boded badly.
    Raj joined us. “Ambassadors, I think we need to talk, somewhere very secure.” His voice was low but his expression remained very amiable. He was good.
    “I agree. I’d like you to get Richard White, and have him join us, please, Raj. And do it as unobtrusively as possible.”
    “Unobtrusive is my middle name. Where should we meet?”
    Considered our options. They were limited. I heaved a sigh. “Let’s all go to the bathrooms on the second floor.”
    “A good choice.” Raj shot us the Troubadour Smile and moved off to where White and some of the other Embassy personnel had congregated.
    “Is it?” Jeff asked.
    “Well, is Christopher still down there?”
    “Yeah, I told him to stay and keep that floor under his guard.”
    “Then, yes, the bathrooms are a good choice.”
    Jeff sighed. “Only my girl. We’re taking the dog, too?”
    “Absolutely. Prince is a hero. Plus Officer Melville is downstairs.”
    Jeff took Prince’s lead from me. “Then let’s go walk the dog, baby.”



CHAPTER 24
    W E TOLD MOM and Chuckie that we were going to back out and let them and the Head of Field handle things while we returned Prince to his rightful owner. Got a suspicious look from both of them, but they let us go without comment. Reader and Cliff, assisted by Andrei, were tossing off a lot of comments about my unintentional declaration of war and what to do with good old Eugene, so that might have been why we were able to get away easily.
    The three of us went downstairs. As Christopher joined us, Prince bounded over to Melville, who bent down to give his dog a big hug. “Were you a good dog?” he asked Prince, who licked Melville’s face in reply.
    “He was a hero and definitely caught the bad guy.”
    “Glad he did his duty,” Melville said. “We’ve sent your medical staff and a large number of security personnel from your East Base with Representative Reyes’ body. They’re at the Georgetown Medical Center, and Doctor Hernandez asked me to tell you that Nurse Carter has gone with them as well.”
    “Good to know.” It was. Nurse Carter had been working at the Georgetown Medical Center when we’d met her, so she’d know the people working there and could smooth things over where needed. The thought occurred that she also knew the Dingo and Surly Vic on sight, and that meant she could easily be in danger. The need to get all the things I knew shared with others was getting overwhelming. “So, do we still need to keep this floor secured?”
    Officers Larry and Curly joined us and pulled Melville aside. He came back quickly. “We’ve cleared all the kitchen and wait staff, and based on what you and Prince found, I think we have our killer well in hand. We’re almost done taking statements upstairs, too.”
    “That’s pretty fast.”
    Melville shrugged. Christopher graced me with Patented Glare #3. “We had our personnel help. Since this is our jurisdiction.”
    “Oh, go us.”
    Melville smiled at me. “Yeah, it was helpful. And I’m sorry if I upset you earlier, Ambassador. Our unit takes our positive relationship with American Centaurion very seriously. And, based on the killer being caught essentially red-handed, you can relax the