Two #3
She pointed to the left. “Well, Mr. Simmons has friends over on the weekends, Friday night and Saturday, and it’s always super loud, and even though it’s cold outside, he still barbecues, which other people think is weird but I think is cool.
He also has a smoker. He brought me brisket and mashed potatoes last night, and it was yummy. ”
“Okay.”
She then pointed to the right. “Miss Tabitha and Miss Melody are friends who’ve lived together forever, and they have two big dogs named Zeus and Hades. They brought me corned beef and cabbage on Friday. I ate the corned beef but not the cabbage. The cabbage was gross.”
Nice neighbors, check. “Okay, good. But where is Griffin, do you know?”
She shook her head. “But I think someone left a message on the machine.”
I was surprised. “You guys have an answering machine?”
“Yeah. Dad has it for his business, plus he doesn’t trust people to leave messages on his cell phone. He says it’s safer on a landline.”
“Wow,” I murmured, glancing around for it. “That’s old-school.”
There was a built-in at the edge of the dining room, against the wall that on the other side of, were the stairs that led to the second floor.
There was a small ledge with empty glass cabinets above it, and to the right was the phone I grew up with, beige, with buttons, and beside it sat an answering machine.
It was not quite as antiquated as the phone, digital instead of tape, but still, it belonged in a museum. This was crazy.
I hit the button, listened, and found out that Griffin Duchesne had been taken into custody by the Eena PD.
He would be held at the police station—which I knew from the files Owen had compiled, doubled as a jail with how small the town was—and would be held there until such time as his father, or guardian, came to pick him up.
He was found passed out, drunk, in the empty lot next to the high school.
By law, they had to add the guardian part, but they knew—they had to have—that Mrs. Duchesne was gone.
With Luke out of town, Griffin was looking at a long stay.
I had done my reading on the plane about the police department in Eena.
They worked with Newcastle, who in turn fell under the purview of the King County Sheriff’s Office.
Basically, if Eena PD needed help, they contacted Newcastle, but normally, they easily handled whatever issues arose.
On staff was the chief, two officers and a receptionist.
“All right, Tatum, we gotta go spring your brother.”
“From the big house,” she teased, waggling her eyebrows.
I chuckled. “Go change quick, and we’ll go.”
Since she was in Barbie pajamas and fluffy pink socks, she nodded and bolted out of the kitchen. At the same moment, the sliding glass door leading to the back deck opened, and Darwin Duchesne walked into the house.
My first thought was, great, both doors had been unlocked for God knew how long.
That wasn’t going to give me a heart attack at all.
My second was that thirteen-year-old Darwin was not dressed like his friend.
The other boy, who I assumed was Teddy from what Tatum had told me, was wearing a white shirt tucked into dress pants and a tie.
He was followed into the house by a woman in ivory palazzo pants and a black shirt beneath a long cardigan.
Two of them appeared as though they were off to somewhere fancy, while Darwin, in jeans, a Harvard sweatshirt, and sneakers, was not.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” Darwin yelled.
I took a breath, because I always did before I responded to people who were upset.
I never wanted my voice, tone, or decibel level to match theirs.
“I’m Nash Miller. I was hired by your uncle Abel to watch over you, your father, your sister, and your brother, as your mother is due to testify in federal court in the coming weeks. ”
He sucked in a breath, and the woman rushed over to me, leaving both boys, hand out.
“Hello, Mr. Miller.” The elegant woman with the perfect chignon, makeup, and jewelry smiled warmly. “I’m Cressida Moore, and that handsome young man standing there beside Darwin is my amazing son Theodore, or as we call him, Teddy.”
Teddy groaned like he was going to die. “ Mom. ”
“Pleasure, and please call me Nash,” I said, shaking her hand, then going into my wallet to show her my ID. After she checked it over, I then showed her the email from Abel Roarke to Luke Duchesne, outlining who I was and how long I would be there.
When she passed me my phone back, her relief was palpable.
She’d been playing along, unsure how best to interact with me.
Her jaw had been clenched, she’d been holding onto her son’s shoulder, and Darwin’s, before she made the decision to approach, laser focused on me.
I could tell she was ready to tangle, even though I had height, weight, and muscle on her.
I respected that and saw clearly now that she was no longer concerned, at ease in my presence.
“So you’re going to be here for a bit?”
“I am. Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, Dar,” Tatum said excitedly as she came into the room in leggings tucked into Ugg boots and an oversize sweater with a hood that had bunny ears. She looked adorable. “This is Nash, and he’s here to watch us.”
He stared at his sister.
“We’re going to the store after we get Griff outta jail.”
“Jail?” he asked his sister, his eyes suddenly big and round.
“No, he’s not in jail,” I corrected what Tatum had related. “He’s in police custody, and he’s a minor. Because of that, he can’t be put in a holding cell with adults.”
“But he could be in his own cell, alone,” Tatum postulated.
Anything was possible. “Yes,” I allowed.
“Okay then,” she said solemnly, her voice dropping low as she turned back to Darwin. “They have him behind bars.”
I squinted at her. Seriously, what was with the voice?
“In the big house.”
“What?” he asked, and I was just as confused.
“I hope they gave him his one phone call and he used it to contact Dad.”
“You have got to stop watching all those crime documentaries,” Darwin warned her.
“Oh, dear Lord,” Cressida gasped. “We’re on our way to church, but if you’d like me to take Dar and Tatum with me, Mr. Miller, I?—”
“Call me Nash,” I reminded her. “And I’d prefer that the kids stay with me, but if they?—”
“No, no,” Tatum rushed out. “No, God, thank you.”
“Uh, no,” Darwin said quickly. “I refuse to be a hypocrite.”
Cressida huffed out a breath, not happy with those answers, but kept her smile in place for me. “That’s why we’re here. I was dropping Dar off, as he didn’t want to attend service. But I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave him if there was no one home.”
“Well, I’m here, so no worries.”
“Okay, then, Nash,” she said, smiling at me, reaching for my hand again, holding it in hers. “I’ll leave you to it. But please do call if you need anything.”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you so much.”
“Bye, Dar. See you Tuesday,” Teddy bid him.
“See ya, and thanks for letting me sleep over, Mrs. Moore.”
“Anytime, Dar, you know that.”
Once they left, Darwin put his backpack and his small duffel on the dining-room table before walking over to me.
“You guys are going to the store?”
“Yeah, Tatum wants an omelet for breakfast.”
He took a breath. “Could we stop and eat and then go to the store after?”
“Sure. That sounds good. Is there a place you like?”
“My mom—” He gasped as soon as the word was out of his mouth.
“It’s okay,” Tatum apprised him quickly, crossing to him and taking firm hold of his hand. “I’m not sad, I promise. Not even a bit.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling at him. “We can talk about her whenever you want.”
“Are you positive?”
She nodded.
He exhaled sharply. “Okay, that’s good.”
“I was afraid you’d be upset if we talked about her,” she confessed, her voice soft.
“Same,” he disclosed.
“But Nash said we can talk about her all the time, and he knows all about WITSEC, so we can ask him stuff.”
His eyes were wide as he looked up at me. “You know all about the marshals?”
“I do.”
“How?”
“I’m a fixer, that’s my job, so we have to know about law enforcement, plus I handed quite a few people over to the marshals, back when I was a police detective.”
“So you used to be a cop and now you’re a fixer?”
Wasn’t that what I just said? “Yes, and before both of those, I was in the Army.”
“Where?”
“I was stationed all over, but when I was a homicide detective, I lived in Houston, in Texas.”
“Where do you live now?”
“In Chicago,” Tatum chimed in.
“Okay,” he said, exhaling sharply.
“All right, so we have to get Griffin first, and then we’ll eat. Now, is there an alarm or?—”
“There’s an alarm, but we don’t really need one,” Darwin told me. “Our street is super safe and?—”
“No. We’re setting the alarm. Who knows the code?”
Darwin made a face like he didn’t want to say.
“It’s best to spit it out,” I prodded him.
He bit his bottom lip.
“Everyone knows the code,” Tatum confessed. “So setting it won’t do anything.”
“Okay.” I sighed and put a hand on Darwin’s shoulder. “Don’t ever be afraid to tell me anything, all right?”
He nodded quickly.
“Good. Now show me the panel.”
Once there, I was very thankful it was the same one I had at home. As soon as the kids got all the windows shut, I reset the code, tested it, and then set it to give a notification whenever a door or window was opened or closed.
“Are you going to give us the code?” Darwin asked as I was backing out of the garage, driving what I was guessing was a 1982 Jeep Wrangler. It was white with black leather seats and was in pretty good shape.
“I will if you promise not to share it with anyone else,” I said to the young man sitting in the passenger seat.
“You’re trying to keep us safe, so I promise. I’ve been thinking that the guys Mom is going to testify against might want to hurt us.”
“Probably not,” I soothed him. “But just in case, that’s why your uncle Abel hired me.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“I do.”
“And you were in the Army and a police officer, so you know how to shoot.”
“Well, as I was telling your sister, I do other things before shooting, but yes.”
It was like the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders, and he turned to the right, consumed, it seemed, by whatever he was looking at off in the distance.
I got the feeling he had not merely been thinking about his mother testifying, he had been worrying about it, obsessing, and had been scared. Perhaps even terrified.
A picture was forming in my head about Luke Duchesne, and I tried not to get angry. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.
The fact of the matter was, things were happening with each of his kids, and as the sole parent, he was overwhelmed.
And lots of people were single parents and managed beautifully, but for seventeen years, he’d had a partner, and then, suddenly, she was gone.
He’d been dropped into the deep end, and I needed to make allowances for that.