“Ridiculous. Unbelievable. A hot fucking mess,” I suggested.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “All of those and then some. What are we going to do, Grant?”
“There’s not much we can do, other than try to find them.”
“What if we can’t? What’s going to happen to Kalen?” she asked, and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.
“Nothing’s going to happen to Kalen. If we can’t find Ben and Dani, we’re his family. There’s no reason he can’t stay with us,” I told her.
“I hope you’re right,” she said quietly.
* * *
After Blakely fell asleep,I asked Layla to listen out for Kalen so I could run an errand. Even though Copper said he didn’t see any reason to contact my mother, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should pay her a surprise visit. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but Dani had “disappeared” several times before, and my mother never bothered to get the police involved or file a missing persons report. So, what made this time different?
I took my truck so as not to alert anyone to my arrival and parked on the street a few houses down from my mother’s place. Her car was parked in the driveway, so I assumed she was home. I watched the house for a few minutes and decided to knock on the door when I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Grant, what are you doing here?” she asked loudly, sounding surprised and possibly nervous.
“I came by to see if you’d heard anything about Dani,” I told her and tried to see inside the house over her shoulder. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
She glanced behind her before opening the door and gesturing for me to come inside. “Well, I didn’t think you’d want to, but sure, come on in.”
Not much had changed since the last time I’d been inside her home. It wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t what I’d call clean either. Every surface was covered in knick-knacks, which were covered in a fine layer of dust. Then, a cat appeared from nowhere and tried to rub against my leg. I immediately stepped back and shooed it away from me.
“I don’t know why you have to be like that. He’s not going to bother you,” she snapped.
“I’m like that because I’m allergic to cats. Which you damn well know,” I snapped back. The cats were another point of contention between us. Dani loved cats, and I was allergic to them. So, of course, my mother got Dani two cats. Because she didn’t want one to be lonely.
“Then, why did you come? You could’ve called to ask about Dani,” she said and walked to the kitchen to fiddle with a pile of unopened mail.
“Because I wanted to see your face when I asked you if you knew Dani had a baby,” I said and waited for her reaction. It was better than I ever could have imagined.
Instead of answering me, she turned on her heel and stormed down the hall where she shoved open a bedroom door and started berating my niece. “You had a baby and didn’t tell me?” she screamed.
“I-I…what?” Dani stammered. “What are you talking about?”
I appeared in the doorway as my niece scrambled to come up with a lie to feed my mother. “You know exactly what she’s talking about.”
“You,” she sneered.
“Yeah, me,” I said pointedly. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“Take your pick. You can explain it to me, RFG, or the police. What’s it going to be?”
Her eyes widened in surprise for a brief moment before she put her hands on her hips and huffed. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I said and held up my hand. “But before you start, you need to come with me.”
“I can’t! No one can know where I am!” she shouted.
“I think you need to leave,” my mother interjected.
“Really? You sure about that?” I asked and stared at her with a pointed look.
“Y-yes, I’m sure,” she waffled.
