She was still for a moment.
"Okay," she said. Soft but clear. "Okay."
He held her in the hallway for a long time. Clover appeared from somewhere, assessed the situation, sat on their feet.
"Clover," Emily said, her voice still muffled.
"Yeah."
"He's on our feet."
"He does that."
"It's very heavy."
"I know."
She laughed. Just a small one.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and felt her go completely still and then completely soft.
"Go back to sleep," he said.
"I don't want to."
"Emily."
She tipped her head back and looked at him. Sleep-soft and tear-bright and entirely, completely herself, standing in his hallway at two in the morning wrapped in a blanket with his arms around her.
"Stay," she said. "Just — stay. Please Daddy. Stay with me until I fall back asleep."
He looked at her for a moment.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
They went back to her room. He crawled into bed with her and she curled up beside him with her blanket and her head on his shoulder and Clover immediately colonized the foot of thebed with the confidence of a dog who had been waiting for this exact arrangement.
"Clover," Rampage said.
Clover didn't move.
"He's fine," Emily said. “Let him stay.” She was already drifting off.
He laid in the dark room and listened to her breathing slow and felt the specific weight of this moment. He reveled in the way she trusted him and chose him to be here with him. His thoughts kept replaying what Dover had told me.
Three families getting phone calls tonight. One that wouldn't.
And here, in this room, was a fifth target. A fifth woman who would have been one of those numbers had they not been close enough by to stop it. A woman who'd come through the trauma of almost being kidnapped by a trafficking ring clear-eyed and functional, who'd made breakfast and gone on runs and colored botanical flowers in wisteria pencil and given a federal statement that had mattered enough to help rescue the other victims. Who was strong and brave.
His girl.
He'd known it a month ago when they’d had lunch. He knew it when he knelt beside her car in the parking lot.
He knew it with considerably more evidence now.
She made a small sound in her sleep. Shifted closer.
He stayed exactly where he was.