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all of them about as useless as they come, and Em is the middle child. None of the men, as far as I can tell, have held anything more than a fast-food job for more than a month, and that was a very long time ago.” He handed her the address that he’d been able to find. “They’re living in a house that has the utilities and other things paid monthly by a trust, though I’m still digging into that to figure out by whom. No phone service and no cell either, at least in their names. The father gets a check monthly from a settlement from about the time the mother went to the mental institution, but it’s not enough to afford the house that they’re living in. I’m still chasing down what the mother is locked away for.”
    “You’ve been busy.” He handed her the papers that had been on the printer, and she looked the pictures over. “She looks like her mother. And her brothers look like they haven’t missed a meal for some time. Do you suppose she’s hiding from them?”
    “I think so. She left home about eight years ago under odd circumstances. She’d been hospitalized for something, and when she disappeared the day before her release, her father threw a fit and demanded that they produce her. I talked to one of the doctors there, and he said that the man said they were keeping her from them. He wouldn’t tell me what she’d been in for other than to say that he hoped she stayed gone for her safety.” He took back the pictures and put them in the file with the other things he’d found. “Do you think I’m wrong in doing this sort of search on her?”
    She looked at him. “Do you?”
    He did in a way , but he also knew from experience that the more you knew the better equipped you were to be able to handle a crisis. And this had the markings for one. He looked at little Gabriella as she stirred in her seat, and walked around to pick her up.
    “When she was born , what did you think about? Right after Rayne handed her to you, what was your first thought?” He snuggled the little girl against his neck and smiled when she giggled.
    “I thought ‘holy mother fuck, I’m a mother.’ Then I looked at her and fell completely in love. She’s not as hard to take care of as I thought. Of course, I have help, but she’s…why?”
    “When I touched Em and licked her throat, I felt my life center. I know it sounds really stupid after just one touch, but she made me think I was both king of the world and the lowest part of pond scum as I could be.” She laughed and took Gabriella from him when he handed her to her. “She was terrified of me. Not just of what I was to her, but of me. I think that one of those men in that picture is the reason for it, other than the vampire. I think her family is going to piss me off and I’m going to have to put them in their place before this is all over. And I’m thinking that the place will be marked with a nice marble headstone that I can piss on when the mood strikes me.”
    “Again, I ask you why you think this when you’ve only seen a few pictures and haven’t even bonded with her enough to know anything about her.”
    He nodded and went back to his desk and handed her the last thing he’d been able to find. She read it and then looked up at him. “Her brother tried to drown her? What the hell did he do that for? And why the hell isn’t he in prison?”
    It was a newspaper article from about the time that Em had been a year old. Her brother, Wilfred Cole and second oldest of the children, had been watching his sister while the father was absent. The paper hadn’t said where he’d been or how long he’d been gone, just that he was absent from the home. The boy, six at the time, had decided to give his sister a bath. When she wouldn’t stop screaming, he held her under the water in the hopes of making her go quiet, he’d told the police when they’d arrived on scene.
    “He was made to see someone , and I can only assume it was a psychiatrist. I can’t find