Alien in the House

news that Buchanan appeared to have made the decision to go underground, but I haven’t heard back, so I don’t know if he got it or not.”
    “If he’s not back by the time I return from the hospital, we’ll worry,” White said. “Otherwise, he’s a big boy and, frankly, quite competent enough to dispatch anyone or anything he might need to.”
    “He likes getting to cut loose,” Jeff added. “We get to do it so infrequently now.”
    Chose not to voice any worries. Because I could tell both men were saying these things so they could hide the fact that
they
were worried. “You’re right. Christopher will be fine.” Chose also to not mention that the last time someone had disappeared, Jeff and Chuckie were gone for far too long a time.
    White kissed my cheek, gave Jeff a hug, and zipped off.
    “Ready to leave the bathroom, baby?”
    “In a second. George, Harlie, can you two please ensure we have at least a couple Peregrines and some Poofs going with Richard in Stealth Mode?”
    Harlie mewed and George squawked and did the head bob thing.
    “Oh, good initiative!”
    Jeff sighed. “Translation?”
    “Samson, who is Richard’s Peregrine, is with him, as are his Poof and several others. Poofs are already at the hospital because they’re with their people, so we’re good. Everyone’s on high alert, so to speak.”
    “Good.” Harlie and George both turned and looked at Jeff. “Err, good jobs, everyone.” Harlie purred, George squawked in a friendly manner. “You’re, ah, welcome.”
    “See? You can get what they mean. So, let’s head upstairs and see what Hacker International thinks of the bug in my purse.”



CHAPTER 31
    O F COURSE, it wasn’t that easy. We had to work our way through our party guests who were finally being allowed to leave, albeit slowly.
    Security had a system going—the elevators were off and all guests were being filtered down one set of stairs only, with A-Cs posted everywhere along the way. We found Abigail at the stairwell on the second floor, checking guests off a master list, and talking into a Bluetooth.
    She halted the flow of people trying to leave to give me a big hug. “Hang in there, Kitty. Sis and Michael are downstairs, verifying that whoever I say has come past me is also going past them, no more, no less.”
    “Where’d you score the headset?”
    “Came down from upstairs,” she said with a grin. I knew she meant Hacker International. “Chuck’s handling the third floor, by the way, same verification system.” She looked away from me. “Yes. Yes, the Ambassadors are coming upstairs. Good.” She looked back. “Chuck’s holding the rest so that when this group passes, you two can go up without a problem.”
    “No,” Jeff said. “Let our guests leave first.” This earned him big smiles from the people who were nearest on the stairs.
    Abigail shared the news, and the guests began moving down again.
    On the plus side, my looking like a wreck who’d been crying was actually taken as a show of how distraught we were over Reyes’ death and the party being pretty much destroyed. Since we were actually distraught, this was a good thing. Most people were incredibly kind and supportive, and more of them took the time to pause and talk to us than I’d have figured.
    We’d had a lot of guests, so this took some time. I used said time to calm down, so by the time the last couple had hugged me, shaken Jeff’s hand, told us they’d loved the party and it wasn’t our fault someone had gone insane during dinner, and then said in a while it would be a great story to tell albeit with a sad ending, I felt in control enough to be able to think and do my mind meld with the psychopaths.
    Which was good, because among those guests who were refusing to leave were the Cabal of Evil.
    Abigail had warned us that there were several guests who weren’t going to budge until we were back on the third floor, so it wasn’t a total shock to see the remains of the Cabal sitting around. Villanova and Whitmore were with them—I’d wondered if they’d hung around with the rest because of their former android significant others, but clearly they were happy to continue filling in the Cabal’s ranks. Lucky us.
    The McMillans and the Israeli ambassador and her husband had also remained, along with the folks I’d expected to see here—my parents, Andrei, the rest of our Embassy staff, Cliff, Reader, and Gower.
    Andrei and the Israelis weren’t going anywhere until