Page 33 of Charmed Forces
Alice contemplated that while chewing her lower lip. “If you did, would you tell me?”
“I wouldn’t tell you a thing,” I said with absolute conviction. “I wouldn’t even tell you Daniel was okay.”
Alice watched me carefully, then nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’m going to check on the kids.”
My mom followed my dad into the kitchen. “Lexi?” she said.
“Yes?” I replied. “Who was that?”
“Tara. She said she’ll call Sadiq and see if he can help. Isn’t that great of her? And I just know Sadiq will help,” she said, but despite her soothing words, I could see her chin wobble. My mom was a strong woman, not prone to crying needlessly. Raising five children had been great training, especially since four were irrepressibly trouble-makers as teens. The other one was more uptight than any other child in the neighborhood. “We went to the supermarket earlier before he picked Tara up from work. Her car is being repaired. We’re supposed to be taking a cooking class tonight.”
“Hey,” I said, walking over to my mom and hugging her. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“I’m glad you said that,” she said releasing me, her voice still stoic, “because I want to hire you. I just want to know what’s going on. It’s been hours. Daniel hasn’t called. He’s not at the station. Where is he? No one seems to know and one of us should know something!”
I beckoned Solomon away from my dad. “Mom wants to hire us,” I said.
“Good,” said Dad, joining us.
“I don’t care about the cost,” said Mom. “Just tell me what payment I need to put down and what paperwork I need to sign.”
“Just wait for the police,” said Serena, closing the refrigerator door after coming up empty-handed. “This will be over in the morning with a big apology. Do you have any soft drinks? Any juice?”
“You can have the house,” continued Mom, ignoring her. “I’ll sign the deed over to you. Whatever it costs.”
“You’re not being serious,” said Serena. “You can’t give Lexi the house!”
“I can. It’s my house. It’s worth a lot. We bought it when the neighborhood wasn’t nearly as expensive as it is now. It’s all paid off,” said Mom.
“We have savings too,” added Dad.
“How much?” asked Serena.
“We’re not taking the house,” said Solomon, cutting her off.
“We can work out a payment plan,” I told her. “You get the family discount of one dollar. Do you want to pay in cash? Or do you prefer to spread it out?”
Mom reached for her purse, scrabbled around in it and withdrew a pristine bill. She held it out to me and I took it, tucking it into my jeans pocket.
“You just hired the best detective agency in the city,” I told her.
Solomon nodded in agreement. “Let’s get started.”
Chapter Seven
Solomon and I set up office in my childhood bedroom. Although the old furnishings remained, the décor had changed a lot since I’d moved out and the twin beds were now being used by my nieces and nephews on sleepovers. My parents had redecorated recently and the walls were a lovely cream color. Instead of tired drapes, there was a neat Roman blind with multicolored flowers. Fairy lights were wrapped around the wooden headboards and a basket of toys was conveniently placed between the beds.
“Cute,” said Solomon. “Very different from the office.”
“You would not believe the amount of subterfuge that went on in here.”
“I’ve met you. I believe it.” He sat on the end of one bed, looking overly large and out of place on the dusky blue comforter. “Never expected to conduct an investigation from a room like this but I’ve worked in weirder places.”
We were currently taking a break from all the phone calls we had to make. Delgado was still posted outside the failed safe house, reporting the continued presence of the crime scene technicians and the arrival of more TV news vans. The hubbub had enticed neighboring households outside, despite the late hour, and the police had to put up a cordon to push the growing crowd back.
Garrett sounded harassed but said that since no one was giving him any answers, he was on his way to our parents’ house. However, he did have one useful tidbit of information: Daniel’s partner was a Detective Pete Wayne who’d moved to Montgomery less than a year ago. Apparently, his new wife grew up here and wanted to move back and Wayne hoped he’d have a better career trajectory without big city politics. Although the man I assumed to be Wayne looked familiar, I couldn’t recall ever meeting him, but Garrett said he knew him well enough to chat with him at the police station, however, they hadn’t worked together directly. I could have asked Alice for that information but I was waiting to see if we turned up any news before we spoke to her again.
When I relayed this to Solomon, he asked, “Does he know if Detective Wayne is the person who was taken to hospital?”