Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic by Patricia Rice Page A

strong that he moved chi . She lifted her hand helplessly, leaving the ball in his court.
    “I didn’t see him,” Conan responded, handing Chris a greasy paper of burger and a box of fries. “Maybe he was hiding. Does he do that often?”
    “He hides and we find him,” Brandon declared, tearing into the bags without waiting to be handed his share. “And then we hide, and he finds us.”
    “Okay, then maybe you should tell us where you think he is,” Conan suggested. “Where does he usually hide?”
    The children cheerily made suggestions as they tore into their burgers as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Dorrie knew Amy loved her children and fed them well, but kids had hollow legs. Providing food for a growing household was expensive. Amy’s pockets leaned toward beans and rice, not Big Macs.
    She listened in amazement as Conan rested his back against the table top, clicking away on his phone, while the kids spilled suggestions for hiding places. He didn’t even seem to be paying attention to them, but when their interest flagged, he showed them a satellite picture of their house roof to prove their father wasn’t there, and they started up all over again.
    She only wished looking for Bo could be so easy.
    By the time they marched the trio back to their house, Amy had had time to recover. She met them with weary acceptance.
    “I’m sorry. I’m still adjusting. I keep waiting for Bo to walk through that door. And the kids blame me for making him go away.” Her eyes were red from weeping.
    “If I had anywhere to take them, I would,” Dorrie said sympathetically, “but Dad’s house is slipping into the ocean.”
    “I saw that on the news,” Amy said with concern. “Will you be able to move all his lovely furniture somewhere? You are welcome to sleep on our couch, if you want, but you won’t get much sleep.”
    “I’ll not risk a moving truck on a mudslide zone, even if it was allowed in. Thanks for the offer, but I’m staying with friends for now.” Dorrie didn’t glance over her shoulder at Conan, or Amy might get the wrong idea.
    Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, Conan interrupted. “Do the kids have a computer?”
    Amy shook her head. “Just the ones at school. They had one at Bo’s place, but it wasn’t in his belongings when they shipped them to me.”
    Dorrie felt Conan come alert at that, but he stayed on topic. “I’ve got a refurbished laptop they can use. They can play some educational games on it, take it to the library and use the Internet there, whatever. That should keep them occupied a while.”
    Amy looked shocked, then relieved. “They have eager minds, like their father. Perhaps that will help. Thank you. I’m at my wits’ end trying to keep them occupied.”
    After saying their farewells, Dorrie walked back up the sidewalk to the Prius with Conan silently loping at her heels. “Thank you for that. Amy’s kids are the kind of clients the Foundation would help, except it’s a conflict of interest, and she would never ask.”
    Again, she could feel the thought energy pouring off of him. She didn’t know of anyone else who could express himself so loudly without saying a word.
    “I’ll put some of my team on it,” he said as soon as they’d strapped themselves into the car.
    Dorrie shot him a look of annoyance when he said no more. The man needed to learn communication. “Your team?”
    “They’re trained to look for lost kids, but they can poke around and ask questions about that missing computer. Any good reason why your brother taught his kids to hide?”
    Dorrie blinked in startlement. “It’s a game, Oswin. Kids play hide-and-seek all the time.”
    He crossed his arms and shook his head. “Didn’t sound like a game. What they described was a military exercise. He even used a stop clock. How many people do you know can find three kids scattered around the neighborhood in three minutes?”
    Bo could. Bo had always been able to find her when she’d