“Thanks, but I think I’ll go check on Blakely,” he said and got to his feet. “I won’t say anything about all this, but if you don’t tell her soon, I will.”
“I have no intention of keeping this from her,” I promised him. “But I’d like to have a plan in place before I tell her. Or at least a better understanding of what we’re dealing with.”
He nodded once and headed to my room while Spazz and I went to Copper’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” he said and looked surprised when Spazz and I entered the room. He took one look at our faces and asked, “Something wrong?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said and started explaining everything that had happened and what we’d recently learned.
Copper studied the mugshot of Jordan “Hook” Hooker. “Is he still incarcerated?”
Spazz clicked and typed for a few seconds before answering. “No. It looks like he was released a little over three weeks ago.”
“That’s when Ben dropped Kalen off with Blakely and disappeared,” I pointed out.
“Do you think that’s a coincidence?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
“Me either,” he agreed and rubbed his chin. “Until we can find her brother, I think the best thing to do is leave the guns where they are and continue on like they haven’t been discovered. Do you think Blakely will agree to that?”
I nodded. “I do. I’m pretty sure she wants to limit her involvement as much as possible.”
“If anyone were to find them and ask, she doesn’t know where the guns came from or who they belong to, which isn’t entirely untrue,” Copper added. “If her brother doesn’t resurface when his supposed thirty days are up, we’ll figure out what to do with them so they aren’t sitting on her property indefinitely. In the meantime, we can have Drew hang out at Stuff It during the day. I assume you’ll be staying with Blakely at night.”
“Yes, I will,” I said and hoped Blakely wouldn’t mind me staying at her house for the next week or so.
“Sounds good. We’ll reconvene next week. Let me know if anything happens between now and then,” Copper said.
“Thanks, Prez,” I said and headed back to my room to explain the plan to Blakely.
17
BLAKELY
Aweek had passed since we discovered the guns my brother was hiding. As a precaution, Drew had been hanging out with me and Landon at Stuff It during the day, and Grant stayed with me each night. Thankfully, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and I hoped it stayed that way.
“Do you have any plans for today?” Grant asked and took a sip of his coffee.
“Yep. The same plans I have every Sunday. I have to do laundry and go to the grocery store,” I told him.
“I’ll pick up something for dinner on my way home so you don’t have to cook tonight.”
“I really don’t mind.”
“I know. And I don’t want that to change,” he smiled.
I laughed. “I’ve enjoyed cooking for years. I’m not going to suddenly get sick of it.”
“Still, it’s good to take a break every now and then.”
“Fine,” I relented.
“Text me later and let me know what you want me to pick up,” he said and got up to give me a kiss. Then, he made a silly face at Kalen to make him smile before he headed out the door.
“You like him, don’t you, bud?”
Kalen answered by smacking his little hands together and kicking his legs in his bouncy seat.
