“Because it doesn’t matter. Dan hears thoughts and most of the family thinks. If he overhears a member of the family thinking and repeats what he heard, we could be playing clean up in aisle three for months even if he never makes it back on YouTube. Better an ounce of prevention.” Here and now, Charlie saw no reason to mention the incoming asteroid to David. While she still had faith in NASA’s ability to save the day, her conversation with Dan had raised a couple of questions she wanted answered before she spread the word the sky was falling. Dan hadn’t overheard Auntie Catherine, so who else knew? And what was up with their belief that millions were going to die? If she told David what his grandmother had Seen while those dead millions were still on the table out of context, he’d pass the information straight to Allie and send Calgary into a lockdown that’d make the last NHL strike seem like a pleasant memory in comparison. “Besides,” she added when the silence stretched a little too long, “Jack likes him.”

“Jack’s feelings in this case are irrelevant.”

“Not to me.”

David’s brows rose until they disappeared under the shaggy fall of his hair.

“Wild Powers stick together, right?” A laugh would oversell it, so she let the words stand alone and hoped they had enough weight to counterbalance the response she’d snapped out without thinking.

After a long moment, David made an indeterminate sound—a little worrying; there weren’t a lot of indeterminate sounds left in Charlie’s world. “If Dan’s going to be protected by the family, we need to know the extent of his criminal background, if only to determine how much effort the FBI is going to put into retrieving him.”

“Big words.”

“Charlie . . .”

“Fine.” She started down the hill, her tone a mix of annoyed and resigned, the relief carefully buried. “If it makes you happy, I’ll ask.”

“Ask. Don’t let him lie to you.”

“Hey!” Turning to face him, she walked backward, arms out to keep her balance, one finger up on each hand. “You don’t tell me how to do what I do, I don’t tell you how to do what you do.”

David snorted, sounding significantly less doctoral. “You’ll be first circle soon enough.”

The hell she would; she was thirty. “Twenty-five years, and that’s a lowball estimate.”

Facing downhill again, she could hear the future in his voice. “Twenty-five years, then. I’ll be waiting.”