“Yes,” he remembered. “There were also occasions when she called to say she was near the estate.”

“Hoping you’d grant her entry and she could wangle her way into your bedroom, even though you never ‘shit where you slept’, as you once so aptly put it.” Harper snorted. “Okay, and where were you at the time of these calls?”

“Various places. I was rarely ever home. I worked a lot.” Knox searched his memories, eyes narrowed. “I remember I once agreed to meet her in the bar of a hotel on the strip. I was running late, so I tried telepathing her to let her know. I couldn’t reach her, so I had to call her.”

Harper took a small step toward him. “And where were you at the time?”

“In a hotel further along the strip. Four kilometers away, at most.”

“Then her telepathic muscle didn’t stretch very far,” Harper mused. “But she was in regular contact with Sherryl Malloy, who lived smack bam in the middle of North Las Vegas.” Which meant that … “Motherfucker, Alethea must have been hiding in North Las Vegas all that time—the last place anyone would think to look for her.”

Levi bit out a harsh curse. “So close yet so fucking far. If she was relying on Malloy for info, she wasn’t getting out of her hideout much. She holed herself up somewhere.”

Keenan nodded. “Still, she would have caught someone’s attention. She was a sex demon. Encantadas easily entrance humans.”

“I should get my family on this,” said Harper. “They can show her picture to people and ask around. We may just be able to find out where she was staying.”

“The Force can do that,” said Knox.

“Yes, but my family knows the area better than they do.” Pretty much all of the Wallis imps lived there. “People are more willing to talk to them than they are to any of our lair.”

Knox inclined his head. “We’ll still have our Force make enquiries. The more people working on this, the better.”

Harper gave a satisfied nod. “The odds are good that he cleaned wherever she was staying of anything that could implicate him, but someone will have seen something. People mind their business in shady areas, but they stay alert, too. If they saw a stranger walking around, they’d have gotten a good look at them.”

Feeling a tingle of optimism, she wasted no time in telepathing Jolene and bringing her up to speed as she walked back to the house. Her grandmother offered to assist in questioning people in the area before Harper even got the chance to ask. With the combined efforts of their lairs, they would surely learn something important.

Entering the foyer, she asked her grandmother, How’s Ciaran?

Jolene sighed. Outraged would be the best word. He wasn’t serious about Sherryl, but he’d considered her a friend, if nothing else. He’s mad at himself for not seeing what she was doing—which is dumb, of course, and I’ve expressed this to him several times. He’ll be all right. I wish you’d told me about Malloy before you killed her. It’s not fair that you got to have all the fun.

Sorry.

Jolene gave a soft, almost delicate snort. No, you’re not.

No, I’m not.

It’s a good thing that the other Primes got to see what you’re capable of. It’s also good that they saw you’re not someone who will hide behind Knox or leave the dirty work to him. You could have left the punishment to him, who would certainly have made Malloy suffer. But you didn’t. Nor did you invite him to get in on the fun—which does make me feel a little better about being left out. Instead, you took care of it yourself, and you did it in a way that conveyed a very powerful message. They’ll highly respect that.

Hopefully the message would be heard loud and clear, Harper thought, as she followed Knox into the living room. Asher was nowhere to be seen, so she figured Meg had him with her somewhere. Gotta go, Grams. Speak soon.

Take care, sweetheart.

Breaking the connection with her grandmother, Harper turned to Knox, who was watching her closely. She also realized they were alone. “Where’d the sentinels go?”

“To their respective cars.” Crossing to her, Knox cupped her hips, fighting the urge to eat up every bit of her personal space and hold her tight. “You okay?”

She placed her hands on his chest. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not feeling bad for what you did, are you?” he asked, searching her eyes and getting caught up in the way the chocolate-brown color swirled, faded, and then settled into a warm honey shade.

“No.” Harper jutted out her chin. “She deserved every second of pain she got. I don’t need to go journal about it or cuddle a teddy bear.”

“But it unsettles you that you can deliver such pain and feel no remorse for it.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” When he just looked at her expectantly, she sighed. “Okay, yes, it unsettles me that I have that kind of cruelty in me.”

Knox couldn’t relate to that, because he never experienced any such guilt—that wasn’t something he was proud of, though. “You are not cruel, Harper. You didn’t hurt Malloy because you’re heartless or sadistic. You did it because she was partly responsible for what happened to our son. That primal, mama bear protectiveness in you was never going to let that go. Nor was it going to be satisfied with anything other than her death. The very fact that you’re unsettled by your lack of remorse shows that you’re not a bad person.”

Harper swallowed, comforted by his words, and walked into his arms. He held her close, stroking her back and pressing gentle kisses to the side of her face. She sighed, content. “I was kind of looking forward to our day out.” Malloy had fucked that up.

“Some quality time on the island will make up for it.”

“You still want to leave tomorrow?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I’d better get packing.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sitting in the inflatable paddling pool, Asher again tried pouring water over his head with his plastic sieve. Once again, the water dripped through the holes of the sieve before he could get it near his head. “Ma!” he practically barked, frustrated.

Sprawled on her stomach on a sun lounger, Harper leaned over and handed him a fish-shaped tub. “Use that instead.”

Asher took it, studied it carefully, and then tossed it aside in favor of the sieve.

Harper sighed, shaking her head. She wished there was some room in that inflatable pool for her, because she was seriously freaking hot. The heat was prickly and smothering, which was why they were sticking to the cabana on the deck that overlooked the rippling turquoise sea. The sand was simply too hot for him to play on this early in the day, but Asher was having an absolute ball in the paddling pool, stomping and splashing like he’d never seen water before.

“Ma!” he barked again, utterly exasperated, when he once more failed to drench his head in water.

“So use this.” She held out the fish-shaped tub again. Asher began furiously shaking his head back and forth. Honestly, she didn’t know how it didn’t leave him dizzy. “You’re just like your father—determined to do everything your way.” Which just made her smile.

They had been at the island for a week now, relaxing, sunbathing, swimming, and even venturing out on Knox’s new mini yacht. Asher loved it there. He’d also loved their time on the private jet. For the first ten minutes. Then he’d gotten bored of looking at clouds and simply played with the toys she’d brought in his bag.

He’d seriously enjoyed the mini trek through the jungle, though, as they’d walked from the jet to the villa. His beautiful dark eyes, sparkling with fascination, had drunk in the thick lush canopy, colorful birds, rough ropy vines, and meandering stream. Every sound had tugged at his attention—the calls of the birds, the trickle of the stream, the chirping of the crickets, and the distant hoots of the monkeys.