Dragonfly Vs Monarch. Charley Brindley

couple on video. They didn’t notice the tiny insect at all.

      The couple went into the apartment across from Rigger’s front door, then Rigger turned Donovan back the other way to fly toward the elevators, with Pug following along. A little way beyond the elevators, the signal from Donovan began to fade.

      Rigger turned around the tiny aircraft to come back toward his apartment.

      Autumn went to the door. “Where did he turn around?” she asked Pug.

      “About ten yards past the elevators,” Pug said.

      “And maybe twenty yards from here to the elevators,” Autumn said. “Plus another twenty-five or so, up to the control box in his room. His range is about fifty yards. Not bad for a little critter like him.”

      Pug followed Donovan back inside. “If we can change to a higher frequency, I think we can improve the range.”

      Rigger set Donovan down in Katrina’s outstretched hands. “He’s a cute little guy,” she said. “But what does the CIA want him to do?”

      “He’ll be carried to a particular area by a larger drone,” Rigger said, “then released to flutter around a missile site or a terrorist training camp. The theory is, no one will pay any attention to a Dragonfly flitting around. His video and audio signals will be relayed through the mother-ship circling high above, then back to headquarters.”

      “What happens if his battery goes dead while he’s on his spy mission?”

      “He has an incendiary device that’ll trigger automatically when his battery goes dead,” Rigger said. “But if he docks with his mother-ship before he runs out of energy, the incendiary will be disabled.”

      “Too bad he doesn’t have a tiny machine gun,” Pug said.

      “Um…”

      “Don’t tell me he has a gun.” Katrina looked at the belly of the Dragonfly.

      “No,” Rigger said. “But I’m working on a weapon.” He looked at Autumn.

      She laughed. “Does it involve a carnivorous fish or poison frog slime?”

      “Frog slime.”

      * * * * *

      “Can I ask something, Mama?” Katrina asked Rachel as they sat in Rigger’s living room, while Rigger, Autumn, and Pug were upstairs, working on the Dragonfly.

      “Uh-huh,” Rachel answered as she played with Henry, her Barbie doll.

      “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, baby, but you know I’m a cop, and I would really like to find out who done that bad thing to your mom and dad.”

      Rachel stopped playing with the doll, then looked down at the floor and shook her head.

      “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. Come here and give me a big hug.”

      Rachel put down her doll and crawled into Katrina’s lap. She held the girl close, resting her cheek on the child’s head.

      “I love you, Rachel.”

      “I love you, too, Miss Kat.”

      They were both quiet for a while, then Rachel said, “I still have bad dreams.”

      “I know, sweetheart.”

      “At the orphanage, sometimes at night I wake up crying, and Sister lets me sleep with her.”

      “You like Sister Suzanne?”

      Rachel nodded.

      “I like her, too. She’s nice.”

      “Why did they do that to Mommy and Daddy?”

      “I don’t know, but the first thing I’m going to ask when I catch them is why they hurt my best friend’s mommy and daddy.”

      “Then what will you do to them?” Rachel looked up at Katrina.

      Katrina swallowed. After a moment, she said, “I’m going to put them in jail for a long, long time. Lock them up in a hole with all the rats and spiders.”

      Rachel smiled and rested her head on the woman’s breast. “The man had on an ugly face thing.”

      Katrina waited, letting the girl go on at her own pace.

      “He danced funny, acting like the woman, but he didn’t have a knife like she did. And every little minute, he would do this...” Rachel slipped from Katrina’s lap and made a motion with her elbows as she stood before her.

      “What?” Katrina asked, cocking her head sideways. “What did he do?”

      “Like this.” Rachel pressed her elbows to her waist and pulled them up.

      “Wait a minute.” Katrina stood and performed the same motion. She found her elbows touched the waistband of her jeans, and when she lifted, she pulled up her jeans. “Like he was pulling his pants up with his elbows?”

      “Yeah, like this.” Rachel did it again. “And he did it all the time. Danced around and then pulled his pants up.”

      “Strange.”

      “I don’t want to talk about that stuff anymore.”

      “Me either,” Katrina said. “Let’s go start dinner for Rig, Autumn, and Pug. I bet they’re hungry.”

      “Okay.” Rachel ran for the kitchen.

      * * * * *

      On Wednesday night, after Katrina put Rachel to bed, she, Pug, Autumn and Rigger sat at the dining room table.

      Katrina asked Pug if he could run the video he shot in Central Park.

      “Sure. It’ll just take me a minute to set it up.”

      “Pug does videos?” Autumn asked.

      “A guy has been tailing Rigger, and Pug caught him on his phone camera when Rigger took Wolf for a walk in Central Park.”

      “Why is someone following you, Rigger?” Autumn asked.

      “I have no idea. At first Pug and I thought he was in cahoots with Kat.” Rigger took Katrina’s hand. “But then we discovered she didn’t know him.”

      “Why would you think that?” Autumn asked.

      “They thought I was someone I wasn’t,” Katrina said.

      “You were someone you wasn’t,” Rigger said, with a grin.

      “No, I’ve always been me. But I’m not sure about you.”

      “Okay, you two. Now I’m totally confused,” Autumn said.

      “Ready to roll tape,” Pug said.

      All four of them watched the video of the guy following Rigger and Wolf.

      “My God,” Autumn said. “That is one ugly man.”

      “My comment exactly,” Katrina said.

      They watched for a moment, then Katrina said, “It’s him.”

      “Who?” Pug asked.

      “The guy who helped kill Rachel’s parents.”

      “How do you know?” Rigger asked.

      “Did you notice how he keeps pulling his pants up with his elbows?” Katrina asked.

      “Is that what he’s doing?” Autumn asked.

      “Yeah. It’s like some sort of nervous habit,” Katrina said.

      “Weird,” Pug said. “But does that make him the killer?”

      “Rachel told me he did that all the time while the woman cut up her mother and father. She