by Sheila Kell
Jesse nodded and looked at Kate.
She spoke first. “I’ll tell the women, and even Rylee, Em, and I will take a turn.”
“I’m thinking that one of you should stay in the back and protect our children.”
Nodding, Blake added his two cents. “I agree. We haven’t figured out who we’re dealing with. And if they’re able to get to the children, we have to defend them. AJ can’t cover all the babies.”
“I’ll do it,” Rylee offered. “It’ll make me feel better protecting my two along with the rest. Besides, I’ve had to slip away to breastfeed already. It’d be nice not to have to hide from the others without one of them accusing me of doing something or other.”
“I forgot you’re breastfeeding,” Jesse apologized. “All right, you go. Who else is breastfeeding?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Kate asked as if her husband had lost his mind. “You know the ages of every one of the kids and when someone breastfeeds.”
Blake held back a chuckle.
“Rylee, Madison, and Megan,” Kate offered, frustrated.
With a nod, Jesse said, “Okay, three women will go, and that reason will help keep feathers settled.”
Blake turned away when Kate rolled her eyes at Jesse like he was an idiot. Yet, Jesse turned back with a cheesy grin. Huh. They loved to spar, and his son liked to push buttons. When he caught his father’s eye, Jesse raised his brows with humor. Blake shook his head and allowed Jesse to make the announcement.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU let us talk to your dad?” Reagan asked Brandon as they looked at everything they could. Amber was able to look underneath low things, and Brandon was able to look higher. She didn’t really like in between.
“I wanted to save us time. I asked Dad what might’ve been missed, and he had nothing to offer.”
“Nothing?” Reagan stopped at looked at him. “I believe there’s something you’re not telling us.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he hunched his shoulders and Reagan knew it was big.
“He told them about Uncle Marvin even though he thought it might make things worse.”
“Uncle Marvin? How many uncles do you, like, have?”
He seemed so sad, and she felt sorry for him. Everyone should be happy as far as she was concerned. Except for bad people. They didn’t deserve to be happy.
“Just Uncle Marvin.”
“Why wouldn’t he want us to know about him? Is he the black sheep of the family?”
“Yes.”
Amber touched his arm. “That’s okay. Dad was the black sheep for a long time. At least that’s what my Uncle Brad says. He’s all good now.”
Brandon wrenched his arm to pull away from Amber’s touch. “You don’t get it.”
Biting the inside of her lip, Reagan tilted her head to study him. It always seemed to work for her parents, but all she saw was the same thing at a slant. “Tell us what it is.”
“He—He murdered someone.”
Reagan and Amber gasped, and Amber put her hand over her mouth. Her dad always said that unless it’s life or death, to think the information through before she reacted.
“Is he here?” Reagan asked. That could be a problem if he was.
“No, he’s in jail.” He jerked his hands from his pockets, and his face grew red. “Dad didn’t do it,” he said, forcefully enough Reagan took a step back. Not at his words or tone, because—because she didn’t know why. “He didn’t.”
Holding her hands up so he could see she wouldn’t argue, she said softly, “We know. That’s why we’re trying to find the real killer.”
The steam seemed to scream out of him, and he nodded. “You said it’s just—”
Reagan cut him off, looking at Amber with pleading eyes. They hoped to find something, even knowing the adults weren’t being completely truthful, but she won’t ruin that illusion for Amber.
He nodded and sullenly restarted, “There’s nothing here. Where’re we going next?” Brandon asked, and Amber piped up her agreement.
“Everyone’s in the dining room, so we don’t have to worry about running into anyone, but we’d best continue to be careful, just in case. Don’t forget Uncle Devon’s probably watching us.”
Her cousins began scanning the high walls for cameras. The white cases were visible. She didn’t know if they had any secret ones. She’d best find out so when next they came here, she’d know.
Amber waved at a camera and called to her uncle.
“Pay attention,” Reagan said, to gain their attention once more. “We’ll act like we’re checking the hall on our way to Aaron’s room since we didn’t go in that direction yet.”
Brandon raised his hand like this was class. She didn’t say anything about the motion so as not to embarrass him. “If they’ve already searched it, why do you think we might find something? Not that I don’t want to, but I’m bummed they didn’t find anything.”
Reagan put all the sparkle she could in her eyes and smile. “Because they probably didn’t check the best ever kids’ hiding place. Dad and Mom haven’t found it at my house, and they’re experts.”
Amber bounced. This time, Reagan liked seeing her excitement. While she might have to keep Amber on track, she was glad her younger cousin was there. “Mine, either. Reagan helped me set it up, and Mom and Dad haven’t found it. One time, I hid—”
“Sorry, Amber, but we need to move before jerk Aaron finds out we’re looking around.”
“Good point,” Brandon agreed. “Let’s get moving.”
As they’d done before, they checked the walls for blood or whatever else didn’t seem right.
Amber began singing and spinning in the middle of the hallway. Reagan shook her head at her. Did she ever have that short of an attention span?
Some of the time, they moved stealthily, flattening themselves against the walls when they thought a camera could see their path. While they tried hard, she doubted Uncle Devon missed them, but, like the rest of this, it was good practice.
Not really expecting Aaron’s door to be open, it surprised her when she nonchalantly reached out to open it, and it opened. Thank goodness she’d worn the too-big gloves.
They looked at each other in surprise and quickly slid inside. She grabbed the door handle and held it, so it closed quietly behind them. Anticipation raced up and down her spine. They weren’t supposed to be able to get in here. Either they were better than she thought or the adults had screwed up.
Amber leaned in and whispered, “Our room’s much bigger than this.”
“Probably because this has only got one bed,” Brandon said.
Both she and Brandon dove forward to Amber. “No, no, no,” Reagan shouted.
Frightful eyes looked at them, but they stopped Amber as she started to climb on the bed. “Remember, we can’t touch anything.”
“I wasn’t touching it. I didn’t use my hands at all.” She held her hands up that were swallowed in the latex gloves as if that excused everything.
Brandon knelt down in front of her. “How about we not sit on the bed though? What if there’s evidence on it and it ends up sticking to your butt?”
She giggled as she turned, trying to see her rear. Never having kid relations, Brandon was pretty good at this.
When they heard the door handle slide, they froze and looked at each other with panicked looks with no place to hide. Heart pounding, she worried Aaron had returned, and they’d get caught snooping.
She and Brandon stood side by side, hiding Amber behind them. She liked that he’d automatically done that with her. With all the fighting moves running through her head, she wanted to toss something at Uncle Brad when his big head peeked in.
His gloves weren’t purple so he must have big hands that closed the door behind him. Instead of scolding them, he smiled. “What’re you kids doing here? Inside this room?”
Her response came so fast, like she was in trouble, that she had no idea what she’d actually said. “We’re investigating, and
this room was unlocked, so we wanted to see if there any evidence in this room.”
“Oh.” Her uncle scanned the room before he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest like he was resting. “Have you touched anything?”
“No, sir,” Brandon said as if talking to a drill sergeant.
Uncle Brad kept his smile in place and asked, “What do you hope to find in this room?”
“The murder weapon.” Amber’s dramatics were strong enough to be in the school play. At even Reagan’s school level.
“Oh.” When Uncle Brad’s smile changed to more of a twitchy thing, she knew he didn’t believe them.
Like she already knew, he was just humoring them. She’d see that enough from her dad when she practiced investigating. This time, she hoped they’d find what they needed to free Cousin Lee since her pictures weren’t enough.
“And where exactly do you plan to find it?”
The three looked at each other but weren’t ready to give away the secret that would break the case. They wanted to be the ones who solved it. So she tried to change the subject. “Why did you follow us? I thought we were okay.”
“Your time’s almost up. I came to make sure you’re on your way downstairs. Something about hot cocoa or other.”
Clapping her hands, Amber cried, “Ooh, cocoa.”
Reagan narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t fooling her. “We can make it back ourselves.”
When he raised that one eyebrow like all the other adults in her family did, she wanted to scream.
Amber had already pushed between her and Brandon, so her excitement was actually felt. “We know a secret place, Uncle Brad. One even our parents haven’t found.” She looked at Reagan. “Tell him that even Uncle Jesse hasn’t found it.” With that said, Amber tried to sit on the bed—again.
Uncle Brad came forward. Real fast. “Don’t sit there, sweetheart.” He was plucking her almost midair to keep her off the bed. “You can only sit on the floor. Is that understood? And right in the middle, so you don’t have anything near you.”
“Okay.” She skipped over to a spot and plopped down like nothing had happened. Kids.
After releasing Amber, her uncle towered over her and Brandon. “What’s this secret place?”
Thinking through all her options, telling her uncle was the only way to get the weapon because she just knew it had to be there. She huffed out a breath. “Under the bed.”
“We looked under the bed. There’s nothing there.”
“It’s through the box under the bed,” she informed him with regret.
He knelt down, and she was taller than he was in that position. All her uncles were, so she didn’t understand why they did it. Maybe for Amber, but not for ten-year-olds. “I don’t understand. A tear would be noticed, and we didn’t see one.”
Slamming her hands on her hips, tired of him not getting it, she asked, “Did you go under the bed and check?”
“Well.” He looked nervous, and she kinda liked that. In this case. “We couldn’t fit under. We took a flashlight to search it. There wasn’t a tear.”
“I bet there is,” Reagan challenged, not really sure there was one, but if she’d put it somewhere, that’d be where.
“How do you know this?”
She had to give her secret. Now her dad would know, and she’d have to find a new secret, secret one. “Because it’s where I hide things.”
That darn eyebrow moved again. “What kind of things?”
Uncle Brad had frustrated her in the past, but not this much. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is we need to check.”
He stood. “Okay, I’ll check, and then we go back.”
She knew he still didn’t believe them. It made her question her confidence in a hiding place. Aaron would’ve had to do some work when he arrived to create the space.
“I’ll lift it from the end, and you take a video for me.”
“No,” she nearly shouted. “If you lift it, whatever’s in there will slide down.”
“Reagan, I can’t get under there with my face turned up.”
“I could,” said Brandon.
Uncle Brad pointed his finger at him. “No. If you find the murder weapon, they’ll say your father told you where it was and you planted it.”
“But I wanna help,” Brandon requested.
“I imagine you do. But not on this one. We’re going to prove your dad is innocent and I think you understand you can’t be involved.”
Brandon dropped his head and toed around with his shoe. “I know.”
“I wanna help too,” Amber said in a perky voice.
“How about you and Brandon sit where you’re at and play a game, or you can tell him about his relatives.”
When Brandon gave her uncle the evil eye, yet Uncle Brad smiled, Reagan laughed. Quietly, of course, because it would’ve been rude to do it loudly.
“Okay, Reagan, this is what we’re going to do. If you touch anything except your cell phone—and it touches anything—I’ll make sure Santa never visits you again,” he threatened in a normal Uncle Brad way.
“Uncle Brad,” she huffed, and then continued in a whisper, “I know the truth.”
“Then you know who I’ll be speaking with.”
Her eyes widened, and she could tell he meant it. “But, Uncle Brad, I need to open the slot.”
“Tell me about this slot.”
“Well,” she started, “all you need is a couple of wide strips of Velcro. At the edge of a piece of wood, there’s a thin slice only a few inches long. Then the Velcro is attached to the wood and edge of the material, so it doesn’t look like a hole. To put something in there, you open it and put it on top of a wood intersection. It can’t hold big or heavy things as they might fall down and break the material.”
Rubbing his jaw, she knew he was thinking, which was good. He didn’t just dismiss their idea.
“If what you say is true, it’s creative, but Aaron wouldn’t be able to fit under there either.”
“He could’ve lifted the bed to make the hole,” she offered.
Amber was talking about the family while Brandon watched them. She’d hate not to be able to help if it was her dad.
“Okay, it’d be difficult but possible. Putting it in though doesn’t seem possible since you said it’d slip down.” His belief was slipping away. Reagan had to convince him otherwise.
“If he put it close enough to the edge less than arm’s length, he could’ve just reached under and done it.”
“I’ve got to tell you that I don’t think it’s possible. But—” He held up his hand to stop her argument. “—we’ll check. Do you have a selfie-stick?”
She hoped she found a hidey-hole like hers. Otherwise, her family wouldn’t respect her as an investigator like her dad since she’d pushed for this. If it wasn’t here, she didn’t know where else to look.
“Not here. Anyhow, I need to touch it to open it.”
“All right, keep your gloves on, and I don’t want you to touch anything else.”
She hadn’t planned to touch a possible murder weapon. She’d learned enough about that to know better.
The excitement that ran through her almost had her jumping around like Amber. Lying on her back, she was thankful it wasn’t a low bed.
“Do you want pictures or video?” she asked him.
“Let’s do video, so you don’t have to do anything with it when you start.”
The fact he didn’t believe her but still let her do this made her feel like they wanted to train her to be better. She liked that.
On her back, she slid under the bed, touching the carpet and not caring about his sputtering. There was no other way to get there. She stayed close in and had to move from side to side to reach the end.
That’s where she saw something.
“I’M SORRY TO say I can’t fix the recording,” Devon said. “Like I said, our vic goes in, and Lee leaves a few minutes later, then nothing. I’ve tried everything I can
with what’s available here. There’s no footage to prove Lee’s innocence.”
“Yes, there is,” AJ stated as if everyone should know. “Reagan took pictures outside the men’s room—”
“She what?” Jesse shouted.
Ignoring his brother’s blow up, AJ continued, “She has a picture of Lee exiting and Jacob entering before St. John. After which, Jacob exits, then Aaron enters. She admits to walking away before she and Brandon found the body, so someone could’ve come after Aaron, but if he said he saw Lee last….”
“Shit.” Blake thought Jesse might toss something with his exclamation. “Get them back here, Brad.”
“No,” Devon argued. “Get Reagan to me, Brad. I’ve got the computer equipment to check what she has.”
Out of habit, Jesse took over, and Blake was fine with that since, while it was his granddaughter, it was Jesse’s daughter. He’d join in where he was needed. “Twins,”—he knew Brad and Matt hated that name, but it helped with brevity although they didn’t always adhere to that rule—“Have you secured the men’s room?”
“Done,” Matt said. “It’s recorded over for the police and any possible evidence is marked and saved.”
“We’re about to be stretched thin, so be vigilant.” Jesse’s eyes showed the intensity of the situation and the impact to his family. “We don’t know Aaron, it’s looking more like he’s our guy, so be prepared for anything. I want Matt and Trent keeping a covert eye on him. Jake, we’ll put Amber with the other kids. I need you and Kate to cover the hallway entrance where the little ones and Lee are.”
With that assurance, Jake fell into his assignment although he wore a worried frown. Surprisingly, Emily remained quiet. Her trust in her big brothers had never faltered. As a parent, she no doubt had fear wrapped around her heart. Any parent wanted to run to save their child and staying to protect others had to be difficult.
Blake’s heart hurt for them all—including Lee. The good news was they had on eye on Aaron, and Brad had the kids where they knew it was safe. That must be why they could focus on their tasks.
