“I no want this.” She dropped her pencil and rubbed her eyes.
“You know what?” Everly stood and moved to the small kitchen desk and drew out a handful of different pens and pencils. “Let’s try something different.”
On her way back to the table, Everly took a little detour and glanced up the stairs. She found the door to Hix’s office open, and a blip of adrenaline coursed through her belly.
She sat next to Bella again and redirected the girl to try
different drawing instruments while trying to read the body language between Hix and Decker.
“When I draw,” Everly told Bella, “I use all kinds of different pencils and colors. Keep trying until you find the one that’s right for you.”
Bella quickly found a felt-tip marker, somewhere between a skinny pencil and the one Everly had bought for Bella online. One that had claimed to be “perfect for little hands.” And tracing the letters of her name suddenly became more joy than work.
When Hix and Decker moved to a table outside and opened a notebook, Everly jumped into action.
As Bella finished writing her name for the third time, Everly said, “Those are great, Bella. Let’s take a break.”
She loved that idea. “Can we swim?”
Everly smiled at the way Bella’s sentences had gained structure over the last week. “Daddy’s working outside. Let’s wait until he’s done. Do you ever play hide and seek?”
“Sometimes, with Renalda.”
Everly picked up the stuffed monkey Bella had named Pauli—short for the palliata species—and carried to the breakfast table that morning. “Let’s all play hide and seek. Why don’t you hide Pauli in Daddy’s office, then you hide in Daddy’s bedroom? And I’ll try to find you both.”
Bella jumped from her chair and grabbed her monkey, then turned a comically serious look on Everly. “You close your eyes to count.”
She covered her eyes and told Bella, “Go.”
Everly left spaces between her fingers so she could watch Hix and Decker while Bella’s feet thumped up the stairs.
“Four, five, six,” Everly counted slowly, waiting until Bella had hidden Pauli in the office, then ran across the hall into Hix’s bedroom. “Ten, eleven, twelve.” She stood from the table and called up the stairs. “Ready or not, here I come.”
Neither man seemed to take any notice of the game or of Everly climbing the stairs into territory where she had no legitimate business at this time of day.
She headed straight to the office and started with the file cabinet. Everly considered this a first pass to give her the lay of the land. Once she’d identified the key locations of valuable information, she’d come back for targeted searches.
“Oh, Pauli,” she sang, her voice too soft to carry down the stairs but loud enough to keep Bella in her hiding spot. “Are you in here?”
She opened the top file drawer and skimmed the file tab titles—finances.
“Pauli, Pauli, where could you be?”
Second drawer—human resources.
“Pauli, are you here?”
Third drawer—assets. She paused here to look deeper. Properties, vehicles, equipment— “Boat?” she murmured. “I haven’t seen a boat.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she pulled her phone from the back pocket of her shorts and flipped open folders, snapping an image of the first sheet in each. He had files on more than three properties. A quick glance at the locations showed Everly all the properties were beachfront and within Central America, four of eight she saw here in Costa Rica. The folders were named in a numbered theme. First Impression. On Second Thought. Next Best Thing. Last Resort. She was sure there was a method to his madness, but she didn’t have enough time to investigate the folders to figure it out.
“Pauli, Pauli, you sneaky little monkey,” Everly said. “I know you’re here somewhere.”
She left the filing cabinet to search the bookcase, documenting her progress by naming the titles Pauli wasn’t behind, the vases Pauli wasn’t inside, the propped photos Pauli wasn’t under. Pictures of Austin and his military buddies in the field, in dress blues receiving awards, posing with prominent members of the armed forces. One with the previous president.
The sight made her pause. An honorable man like this doesn’t steal a kid because he didn’t get his way in court, her mind whispered. A man like this doesn’t circumvent the system. He fights for her using the system he’s spent his career serving and protecting.
She stood behind his desk, her hand on the back of his chair, looking at the pictures of Bella covering the surface. From screaming at birth with her mother, to the present day, smiling on Hix’s shoulders.