Kinsley laughed with her best friend and liked how being with her second family again could make even the horrible pictures in front of her seem not so dire. She could almost believe that God wanted her here with them. But that wasn’t really possible for so many reasons.
Sandy poured the red liquid into the white cup and handed it to Kinsley. “Your favorite Kool-Aid flavor. You used to drink it nonstop. When I heard you were coming, I made sure I stocked up.”
Kinsley gripped the little handle on the side of the Kool-Aid pitcher-shaped cup with the Kool-Aid man embossed on the front. “And you still have our favorite cups from when we were little.”
“Figured I’d keep them for grandchildren. Not that anyone seems to be moving in that direction at this point.” Sandy glanced between her children.
Colin looked up from his binder. “Hey, at least I’m engaged. That’s more than I can say for these two.”
“We should get back to work,” Jada said. “And Mom, you should rest instead of waiting on us.”
Sandy filled the pink cup and handed it to Jada. “Don’t think I’m not onto your diversionary tactics. Just how is your love life lately?”
“Mom!” Jada groaned. “That’s a topic for another day.”
“Okay,” Sandy said, humor in her tone. “Name the day and time, and I’ll be there.”
“Kinsley and I are going to be really busy. I’ll have to get back to you on that.” She lifted her small cup of Kool-Aid and drained it.
Sandy shook her head. “You boys want Kool-Aid?”
“Gross,” Colin said.
“Ditto,” Dev said.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” Kinsley laughed and looked at the last picture that held the contents of her kitchen cabinets strewn over the floor. With all the traveling her work required, she really didn’t cook or entertain often and had few dishes and pots and pans. In fact, her cabinets were pretty empty. Just a few canned goods and some boxes of instant macaroni and cheese, along with her favorite morning granola and coffee pods.
Sandy tsked. “What a mess, but honey, is that really your entire kitchen’s contents? What happened to your love of cooking? We spent so much time together in the kitchen.”
“I travel a lot, and besides, cooking and baking seems like a lot of work to go through for one person.”
“Then maybe we need to have a talk about your love life too.” Sandy laughed.
Jada jumped up and took her mother’s elbow. “Come on, Mom. I’ll help you to the couch so you can rest.”
Sandy’s laughter deepened, and Kinsley reveled in the sound of it, remembering years of fun with this kind and generous woman. Even though Sandy’s health had been suffering, she could still maintain such a cheerful disposition. Kinsley could learn from her second mother. Kinsley didn’t have any health issues or day after day of pain and fatigue. She just had a messed up apartment that she had to reorganize. She didn’t need to be so upset.
But it wasn’t just the mess, was it? The person who ransacked her place also had likely shot at her and seemingly wanted her dead. That wasn’t such a simple thing to get over and to maintain a cheerful disposition on.
Move on. Find a lead.So what if she had to think about what had occurred? To keep studying the pictures, or do anything that Dev asked of her? She would do it, and she would do her very best. And that included swallowing her fear until not even a shadow remained, looking at her apartment in person, and filing a police report.
She looked up to find him flipping through one of her large binders. “I didn’t see anything missing in the pictures, but I really think I need to go there in person.”
He cringed.
“I get it,” she said. “Not what you wanted to hear, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“I do, too,” he said, his voice strained. “After we do some careful planning.”
She pointed at the binder in front of him. “How is your comparison to my list going?”
Colin closed his cover with a loud thump and set it aside. “One down for me, and so far, I haven’t found anything out of the ordinary.”
Dev opened his mouth to speak, but her phone rang, and she glanced at the name on the screen. “That’s odd. It’s Ozzy Butler. He’s a detective out of Seattle who I worked with a few years ago. Wonder what he wants at this time of night.”
Dev locked gazes with her. “One way to find out.”
She tapped the answer button on her phone. “Ozzy?”
