the family largely averting their gazes to the coffee table or their feet.
At length, Nate replied, “I don’t really know. I didn’t exactly consider that danger until it was a little too late.”
“You could be endangering that woman’s life,” Lillian said. Her tone was firm but not lecturing, a matching expression on her face as she met her son’s gaze.
“I know,” Nate said, disliking the taste of the idea in his mind. “And I wouldn’t have done it if I’d thought of it that way.”
Christopher jumped in next, saying, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s no guarantee it will even become an issue. Nothing ever trickled over to Perkins, even during everything that happened a couple of months ago.”
Glancing over at her husband for a beat, Lillian released a breath and nodded. “That’s true.”
After another short stretch of heavy silence, Angela looked across the living room to her father and asked, “So, Dad, what’s for dinner tonight?”
****
Kirk sighed as he clicked off the television. Barely eight o’clock on a Saturday night and not a damn thing on . He was pulled from his internal grumblings a moment later when someone knocked on his door. Curiosity overtook him, but he shrugged it off and pushed to his feet. Just because his best friend was likely in the middle of an after-dinner game night didn’t mean he didn’t have other friends who might have forgotten to tell him they were on their way.
When he pulled the door open, however, he quickly found that he didn’t recognize the man standing before him. The unknown man was tall—taller than Kirk, at least—and had a hard look in his brown eyes.
“Can I help you?” Kirk asked carefully. He’d lived in Darien all his life, and though it wasn’t unusual to run into a person he didn’t know, they rarely ended up on his doorstep.
“I’m here to give you a warning,” the man replied coldly. “You need better friends.”
Before Kirk could do more than raise his eyebrows in confused surprise the man had reached out and wrapped one strong hand tightly around his forearm. Pain immediately seared through him, sharp and hot and tingling all over. Kirk cried out, unable to stumble back due to the grip the stranger had on his arm. He felt his muscles spasm uncontrollably, the internal fire raging through him, until his mind blissfully went blank.
****
Nate’s ringing cell phone interrupted the laughter as Angela failed, once again, to guess what Eric was attempting to act out. All eyes turned to him curiously as he extracted the device from his pocket, an apology on his lips. After a glance at the screen, he said, “It’s Kirk,” and stood to step out of the room and take the call. “What’s up?”
The voice on the other end did not belong to Kirk Michaels. “Consider this a warning.” The line went dead a beat later.
“Kirk?” Nate said, his stomach clenching, as he pulled the phone from his ear. He quickly called his friend’s number, and the fear building in his gut only increased when it failed to ring before going to voicemail. Without bothering to leave a message, Nate spun around and fast-walked back into the large living room, where laughter was once again filling the air. “Something’s wrong,” he said by way of explanation as he snatched his jacket off the back of the couch.
Again, the laughter cut itself off, and Blake asked, “Wrong how?” There was a tone in his voice that indicated he had already guessed the answer.
“That wasn’t Kirk,” Nate replied. “I’m gonna go check on him.”
“Wait up,” Dean called, pushing to his feet. “I’ll go with you.” Dean followed his brother out of the room quickly, neither breaking stride as they reached the door. Silence reigned behind them, but no one attempted to call them back.
Once they were outside, Nate said, “I’m gonna fly ahead.”
“Sure,” Dean replied as he dug his keys out of his pocket.
Nate took a deep breath,