“Why?” Parker asked. He knew about their parents. They were foreign diplomats who spent most of their time in third-world countries. Growing up, Wyatt and his sisters had done the same.
“She’ll murder me in my sleep for telling you this,” Wyatt said, “but since you’re living under her nose it might help you understand her. Our parents are great at their jobs but pretty shitty parents. They put it all on Zoe to watch out for us. Or not.”
“She’s only a year older than you.”
“Eleven months,” Wyatt said. “But I was clueless back then. She was the only grown-up. Like the time we were supposed to meet up with our parents in Budapest from our various boarding schools, but they got delayed. Zoe was maybe . . . twelve? And there we were, stuck in a strange country where we didn’t speak the language and Americans weren’t looked on all that fondly to say the least, and she still managed to feed us and keep us safe for the three days it took our parents to get to us.”
Parker was impressed. “She’s tough.”
“More than you know. I don’t know how many times she held it together under grim circumstances,” Wyatt said. “But I do know I’d be dead a few times over without her.”
“You’re her family.”
“Yeah, but it’s just how she’s wired if she cares about you. Trust me, man, when shit’s hitting the fan, there’s no one you’d rather have at your six than Zoe.”
Parker thought about that conversation long after he’d washed up from the plumbing work and sat at the kitchen table with his laptop studying maps of the Rocky Falls area where Zoe had pointed out Cat’s Paw. Like him, she was a survivor and a caretaker. She’d do anything for her siblings.
Just as he would for his sister. He sent money back for Amory’s care every month, but he knew the best thing he did for her was stay away.
After hearing Wyatt talk about Zoe, he couldn’t imagine anything keeping her from being near her siblings. But then again, she didn’t have a job where she chased after bad guys willing to sell their own mother for a buck.
He tried to concentrate on the map in front of him, but he was good at multitasking and a good portion of his thoughts stayed on Zoe.
Watching her fly had been a huge turn-on. She’d handled the plane like it had been an extension of herself, and he’d had trouble concentrating on his business when what he’d really wanted to do was join the mile-high club. Never mind that doing so with his pilot would’ve gotten them killed.
When he’d gone back up with Devon, he’d gotten a better feel for the area. This was more a reflection on the fact that Parker hadn’t wanted to strip Devon naked and lick him from head to toe as he had Zoe.
He’d saved a lot of time by asking Devon to go directly to Cat’s Paw, where he got a longer look at the vehicles in that mysterious clearing. With his high-powered binoculars, Parker had focused in on several additional fascinating facts. One, he could see two huge blinds, way too big for traditional hunting. More like the size that could be hiding vehicles that someone didn’t want seen.
This was proven when he watched a tank being driven into one.
A tank.
In the woods.
And then a Humvee, filled with guys armed to the teeth.
A huge red flag to say the least.
And two, there’d also been a Humvee four-wheeling through the trees toward some low-lying buildings he’d missed the first time because they’d been as carefully camouflaged as the blinds.
And then there were the weapons. The kind that weren’t necessarily for hunting animals—at least not the four-legged kind.
When he’d asked Devon to make a second pass, the pilot had refused, citing two reasons. One, he’d been booked for a direct there-and-back and he didn’t want to tap into his reserve fuel. And two, apparently there were rumors circulating of militia taking over the property and he didn’t want to draw any trouble by bringing attention to himself or the plane.
Militia.