| Some Son's Mother |
[22 Feb 2008|05:42pm] |
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mood |
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The school building looked perfectly normal and serene from the outside, but with over twenty years as a cop under her belt, Starnes knew that when things looked normal and serene, the reality was all too likely to be something much different. And besides, the letters on the car seat next to her bore witness to the fact that something was going on in there.
She had run Laura Anderson's name through the computer at work and discovered that the woman was legitimate, at least as far as her credentials went. But her conversation with her daughter prior to that had been the first clue that something was amiss. The letters had been the second. She had caught Denise rummaging around in Ryan's room while the older sibling was out of the house, and the lecture had only been forestalled by the proffering of about a dozen sheets of folded paper. "I found them under his mattress," the fifteen-year-old had mumbled, as if she'd discovered something obscene lurking under her brother's bedclothes.
A brief read sent the detective's blood pressure up, and her daughter's rambling explanation about Ian Weathers and the steam room at her school had only added to her suspicions. Her son came home at six, the door opening and closing almost exactly on the dot, and before he could even put his backpack down, the Voice of Motherly Doom spoke to him from the den where his father usually spent weeknights going over lesson plans. "Ryan? Come in here, please. Now."
( Scoping the Sitch )
"Yeah. Yeah, we're done." Starnes nodded and put her hands into her pockets, walking past the teacher with her shoulders squared. She was going to have to put in an effort to monitor this situation if she could, not let Ryan go unchecked. And she would be having that next conversation with Dorothy Weathers, just to make sure things evened out on the other woman's homefront as well. Sometimes mothers had to band together, be the glue that kept things in one piece.
"Hope you enjoy the rest of your day, Ms. Anderson. Sorry to have kept you for so long. Have a nice afternoon."
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| Stake Out |
[22 Feb 2008|09:50pm] |
It was about eight or nine in the evening and Joseph's eyes were beginning to droop. He'd been watching the building for hours now and so far there hadn't been any movement.
He yawned and reached out for the now cold coffee in a pale white styrofoam cup and grimaced as he swallowed. He could definitely think of better ways to be spending his evening than watching a building and drinking cold coffee. He'd seen maybe one or two vampires but so far nothing else. Maybe they'd moved their base of operation to somewhere else? God, he hoped not.
Joseph's eyes were drawn away from the building to the small box sitting on his dashboard. It was something he intended on giving Rhiannon for her birthday, even if he was several days late. It wasn't massive or in any way expensive but it was personal to him and it would go a long way to keeping her safe, the same way it had him for that year he'd spent away from Vegas.
The light from a nearby streetlight flickered on and off intermittently and dragged Joseph's attention away, eyes sliding up to catch the way it illuminated shadow and revealed the rest of the alley in which his car was parked. Creepy.
His hand crept for the gun he had resting on his thigh, hairs across the back of his neck beginning to stand on edge. Call it gut instinct but Joseph was pretty sure he wasn't alone. Call him jumpy but he was staking out the place where he'd rescued Ben from; he wasn't taking chances.
Not only was Joseph carrying a gun, he'd use it. So sneaking up on him wasn't on Rhiannon's list of things to try.
She figured he wouldn't mind her coming by, especially considering she was supposed to break into that building with him in a few days. It would pay off to know a little about what they were dealing with in advance. She had gone into places blind before, always thinking of it as a challenge, a kind of training for the unexpected. These days she had less of a death wish. Coming from behind him, she walked up quietly to keep from drawing too much attention to Joseph's car. When she got within the glow of the streetlight, she cleared her throat. Did he have his windows down? She put herself in line with his sideview mirror and held the thermos and brown bag up.
"Hey, it's just me." Catching his profile in the mirror, she smiled.
( Waiting in the Car )
( Time to Make a Move )
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