The Lyon's Cub Caitlin (Lyon The Next Generation 1)

“Kat, what do you know about this kid’s parents?” I never really paid much attention the few times we met before because who the fuck knew they would still be around?

“Who Heather and Todd Sr.? She’s nice, very nice lady. I haven’t talked to her husband much but from what she says he’s pretty okay as well. A good provider; takes care of his family.”

“He’s some big time advertising executive or something like that, they work together and he just opened his own company a couple years ago after they moved. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. What’re we doing tonight? You cooking for this horde again or we going out somewhere?”

“Actually, Cierra has the taste for BBQ so I was wondering if you and Hank would fire up the grill. We can invite everyone over, make a day of it.”

“What’s that for then?”

“Oh that? I need it for the roast I’m making tomorrow. I have to make two so one’s going in there and the other’s going into the oven.” So why the fuck did you act like you needed it right this second woman?

“Ok fine, where’s Mancini?” I haven’t seen him since he left with the kid earlier.

“He’s keeping Cierra company while she naps. I better go check on the kids it’s almost time for their naps to be over.” Why the fuck is she acting so squirrely?

I headed back to the garage to finish up what I was doing and make a few calls. That’s all that was needed to get the phone tree going to send out the call that everyone was invited over for one of our BBQ’s.

Shit, did she remember to take the meat out of the deep freeze? I’m probably gonna have to go to the store before the day is over. I shrugged my shoulders and got to work. If my pain in the ass wife needs me to make a run she knows where to find me.

Caitlin

It’s worst than I thought. My talk with Catalina had opened up a whole new can of worms. Human trafficking isn’t something I’m unaware of, they teach us about it in school now as a precautionary. But this is the first time it’s ever hit this close to home.

It isn’t the same as when she was taken, at least not the way she described, and what had happened to her is bad enough. Daddy’s been playing that one off for months but I know there’s more to the story than he told us, and she doesn’t really remember much of anything from that day.

No one seems to know the real story and except for the whispers around town about a missing pedophile I wouldn’t even have known that something of that magnitude had happened to my own little sister. I’m still not sure that the two things are connected, that’s how good daddy is at keeping things hidden from us kids.

From what she says daddy has been working on this new thing with the uncles for a while now and she thinks it has something to do with me, his involvement I mean. She mentioned my being in some book again but neither of us could make sense of that part of it yet.

But it’s the way she said daddy and uncle Hank reacted that has me biting my nails to the quick. I have no doubt that daddy discussed it with Todd and I’m even more sure now that Todd and uncle Hank are up to something. I’d caught them together earlier in the den after talking to Catalina but then Todd had to leave again to go pick up his Ranger that was being dropped off.

Uncle Hank had made some excuse to go with him then too, very suspicious. I don’t have time to figure that one out right this minute though, because Catalina and her friends were working on something that she hadn’t even shared with daddy yet.

Apparently they’d used some of the information she stole from daddy’s computer to do a search in our area and some of the surrounding counties and found something.

She wasn’t quite ready to share she said since they still had some kinks to work out and she was working against the clock because she was sure daddy was about to confiscate her computer, so I had to get out of her room so she could finish. Her words!

I’m not surprised that something like that is going on in our area. Almost every stupid teen horror is based in places like this. But I’m wondering how I could’ve come to these people’s attention. I’ve never taken part in anything that would bring me to the attention of outsiders like that. And I don’t know anyone who would be involved in something like it.

Now I’m going to be looking at everyone as a suspect. All of my friends’ dads, teachers at school, everyone. And even with all that going on, all I can think of is what Todd must be thinking. Will he still think that I’m worth it if something like this is in my life?