Everybody familiar belongs to Janet. Kane, Olive, and any mistakes, are mine.
Kane wasn't willing to stay behind while we solved his mystery. After a call to his wife, Harper, a plan was quickly put into place to pick her up on the way to the plane I have on standby. But things changed with one phone call after Kane was done speaking to his wife in a quieter corner of the control room and I was standing with Tank near mine and my daughter.
Olivia seemed to want to move and Steph and I are in agreement on letting her do what she needs to. We'd all gathered in the control room and Stephanie had set her down and proceeded to sit behind her on the carpeted floor while names, addresses, and credit trails, were being run. I also had Vince trigger my company's equivalent of a global APB that immediately and simultaneously reaches every contact or 'business associate' I've made over the years when I need info or a person found. If those three are alive, there aren't many places they can hide.
With two hands suspended in the air beside our daughter, my wife tried to anticipate what she'd do. "First she's anxious to get down, now she's playing statue? Scratch that ... incoming," Steph told us.
"Shit. She's like her mother ... she doesn't want to be left out of any conversation," Tank said, watching Olive move onto her stomach and try to get to where we're standing a few feet away.
"Maybe Daddy calling her would get her moving faster," my wife suggested. "And her Octoplush can't hurt."
She tossed the blue musical octopus at me. I caught it with one hand without taking my eyes off our daughter.
"Do we really want her getting around faster?" I asked Steph.
"We want her to be a totally independent woman even if it means more work and worry for us."
I put a knee to the carpet and held my arms out to my daughter. I wasn't surprised that Tank did the same beside me. She paused her self-propelling attempt temporarily, and she glanced over her tiny shoulder her at mother behind her and then her brown eyes came back to me in front of her.
"You can go see Daddy if you want to," Steph said, completely egging her on. "You don't know how many times I've literally run to him."
"Babe."
"What? I want her to learn how to track you down. It'll save me some time if she can locate you quicker than I can."
I would've raised an eyebrow, but my daughter chose that moment to figure out how to get herself from Point A to Point B faster than I felt comfortable with, while squealing and 'ohh'-ing at the sight of her favorite toy. She'd given up on the back and forth rocking belly-motion that wasn't accomplishing what she wanted, and switched to using her hands, arms, and elbows, to drag/crawl herself to where I, and her Uncle-Everything Tank, are.
"She's your daughter alright," Kane said. "She's executing that Army crawl perfectly."
"Or she's Steph's kid," Tank added. "I've seen our Mrs. Manoso do the same move along a roof she didn't want to fall - or get shot - off of."
"Do you guys mind? Our baby is having a moment here. Oh my God," Steph said, Olivia made it a bit closer to an actual crawl. "Go, Olive. Go!"
With a string of 'ah-eh' vowel-like sounds that I know Steph will interpret as a baby version of Dada, my daughter stretched both arms out to me to be picked up before managing a full crawl, but her parents are feeling as proud of her as if she'd just climbed Everest barefoot.
I heard Vince's words that a body had been reported as I scooped up my daughter's exceedingly lively one. There's good and evil in the world, and I held on tightly to the good while contemplating what I'm going to do about the evil.
