Page 129 of Jay Bird

Lily twisted in his arms and pointed insistently toward the massive tank in front of them. “Touch fishy.”

Jay Bird glanced at Willow, who was standing beside him with her lips pressed together in an obvious attempt not to laugh.

“Little help here?”

She shook her head. “This is your fault.”

“How is this my fault?”

“Because you never tell her no.”

“I literally just told her no.”

“Yes, but now she’s confused because you’ve set a precedent.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and just chuckled.

Jay Bird shifted Lily higher against his chest and followed Willow toward the next exhibit, trying like hell to focus on the two girls beside him instead of the uneasiness that had followed him since they had arrived at the Virginia Aquarium that morning.

The outing had been Willow’s idea. Lily had seen a commercial featuring sea turtles earlier in the week and had spent the next several days pointing at the television and announcing that she wanted to see the “big turtles.” Since Willow had Saturday off and Jay Bird wasn’t scheduled for anything, they had decided to make a day of it.

He had been looking forward to it.

Then Derek had called last night. According to Tink, someone had recently started digging into both Mia’s and Riley’s backgrounds. On the surface, none of the searches were particularly alarming, but Tink didn’t believe in coincidences, and neither did Jay Bird. Too many connections linked those two women to Willow.

Mia had been Willow’s closest friend before she had disappeared, and Riley owed Willow her life. If someone was looking for Willow and didn’t know where she had gone, Mia and Riley were exactly where Jay Bird would start.

Unfortunately, he had a pretty good idea who might be looking.

Derek hadn’t wanted anyone panicking yet, especially since Tink couldn’t prove Chen or anyone connected to him was behind the searches. Still, security around everyone had quietly tightened, and Jay Bird had spent half the night debating whether taking Willow and Lily somewhere as public as the aquarium was a good idea.

In the end, he had decided Chen had already stolen enough from them.

Willow had spent three years imprisoned by that bastard, and Lily had spent the first two years of her life trapped inside the same world. Jay Bird refused to imprison them again because Chen might be looking. If Derek or Tink came up with something concrete, that would change, but until then, he intended to stay alert while letting Willow and Lily experience some semblance of a normal life.

He was also armed, which helped.

“Jay!” Lily’s little hand smacked his cheek.

He looked at her. “What?”

“Fishy!”

He followed her finger toward the large shark moving lazily through the water overhead.

“That’s a big one.”

“Big fishy.”

“Very big fishy.”

Willow laughed beside him. “I love how everything is a fishy.”

“Simple classification system.”

They moved farther into the exhibit, and when Lily began squirming again, Jay Bird finally set her down. She immediately grabbed two of his fingers with one hand and Willow’s with the other, walking between them as she tried to look everywhere at once.

Jay Bird glanced down at the three of them, and something tightened pleasantly inside his chest.