Bardoul rolled his eyes. “We don’t have that much time, Rawling.”
Oh gods, he made a joke. The room went quiet until I chuckled and everyone joined in.
“I hate you all.” They threw cushions at me, and I batted them away before beginning my long-winded explanation. “I never heard Rawlins mention the professor growing up. Not once. And yet Professor Shaw said they were besties though he did say they didn’t see much of one another because my godfather was busy with my upbringing.”
Phelan interrupted and reminded everyone that from what he’d heard, they were good friends when they were at Sombertooth.
I held up my hand. Jack groaned. “Here it comes. He’s going to drop something momentous in our laps.”
Now it was my turn to throw the cushions at them. Phelan laughed with everyone else which pleased me. He was now officially a super-secret squirrel society member.
“The professor told me my godfather loved chocolate croissants.”
Everyone made a noise and twirled their fingers saying, “Oh noes,” and “That’s huge” and “Lock him up.”
“Shut up or you’ll wake Eira and I’ll make you change her dirty diaper.” My mate and Jack said that wasn’t a hardship while the other two were silenced.
“Rawlins was allergic to chocolate. He developed the allergy when I was a kid and he could never share my chocolatey treats.”
“I take it back. That is a good point and backs up that the pair hadn’t seen one another for years,” Jack said.
Channon got up and took the whiteboard marker from me. “Rawlins and the professor aresupposedlygood friends at school, and the professor meets Charlie and decides she’s his mate.”
Bardoul took up the story. “She rejects him, mates a human, and adopts Rawling.”
Phelan continued. “My father said he heard Charlie and her husband lived overseas.”
“The professor also said she’d left the country, but he didn’t mention her husband.” That was as much as I knew.
Everyone looked at one another and then me, and I put up my hands. “What? I don’t have the answers. But Rawlins never mentioned he had a sister or that she was my adoptive mother, and the professor pretended he didn’t know who she was when I asked him.”
We all agreed that was odd on both accounts, and Channon suggested the professor cut ties with Rawlins when Charlie rejected him. “It was too painful being with her brother who reminded him of Charlie.”
Bardoul was taking notes, and we were winding up the meeting with no clue as to why Professor Shaw gave me the satchel when I arrived at Sombertooth and why he pretended it was Rawlins’s.
“Maybe Charlie and her husband are still overseas. They might be doing volunteer work in a remote area and have no way to contact us.”
Instead of setting the room alight, everyone went quiet, and I didn’t like their expressions. Jack and Bardoul, who were sitting on either side of Phelan, nudged my mate.
“That’s a long time, babe. Do you think it’s possible? They would find a way to contact you.”
“But what if the professor was hassling them and they escaped, and Rawlins pretended they were dead.” I was clinging to a lifeline that they hadn’t died in an accident.
Again everyone looked at Phelan. “Could you leave Eira and run from danger and never contact her?”
My shoulders shuddered as I attempted to bottle up my sobs. “No. But we all know throughout history many parents have had to make huge sacrifices to keep their children safe.”
Phelan pulled me close. Deep inside, I knew they weren’t helping refugees or endangered animals, but it was a shred of hope that I’d clung to. But I had to let it go.
Everyone got up to leave, saying we’d meet up again in a few days.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Bardoul turned around at the door. “Channon and I talked to Kendric, Mika’s former roommate.”
Jack sat down again and so did Channon.
“And?”
Bardoul and Channon took turns to tell us what they’d learned.
