Page 6 of Dead Rattled
The room was filled with tense silence. Ten knew he had to say something. “Everly said there would be a case with a baby that she, Ronan, and I would be working on. She couldn’t see anything past that, but I have a feeling this is exactly what she was talking about.”
“Jesus, Tennyson if you’re wrong,” Carson began, his hands balling into fists.
“Cut the shit, Carson,” Cope snapped. “We all make mistakes in this business. Our gifts are never exact. We always tell people the future is changeable. What happened with Tennyson andAutumn Millerwasn’this fault. She’s a woman with severe mental illness who held on to a dream that was never going to come true. I don’t think it’s fair of you to keep coming after Tennyson like this. We’re a family here. It’s time we all move on.” Cope pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “Let’s set aside an hour on Wednesday morning and we’ll go out to the cemetery and see what we see.”
Ten’s eyes were on Carson. He wasn’t going to say another word until he heard where his friend and business partner stood at the moment.
Carson’s angry face crumpled and a tear slid down his cheek. “You’re right. We are a family. I’ve been scared for weeks now that some other client was going to try to come for me like Autumn did for Tennyson. I haven’t been sleeping or eating very well. Watching you get arrested and hauled away is one of the worst moments of my life, Ten. Every time I hear a police siren I want to run and hide.” Carson paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick lately.”
“You’re forgiven.” Ten’s voice shook as he spoke. Carson’s trauma was written all over his face. Under any other set of circumstances, Ten would have noticed his struggle weeks ago, but there had been nothing ordinary about Autumn Miller. “Book the field trip to the cemetery. If we go before eight I can bring Everly.”
Carson nodded. “You got it.” He walked out of the office, shutting the door behind him.
“How can I ever thank you for standing up for me like that?” Ten asked.
“We’re not just colleagues or friends. We’re brothers. I’ll always have your back.” Cope hugged Tennyson. “I’ve never had asituation like this happen before, where someone who was thought to be dead was actually alive. I haven’t been this excited about investigating a case in a long time.”
Ten laughed. He could see the excitement in Cope’s blue eyes. “Determining that someone was alive has happened to me twice. One person was in the witness protection program, which was a giant oops on my part. The person had to be relocated again, but thankfully, my client, who was the mother of the witness, was able to go with her daughter who she’d thought was lost.”
“That’s amazing. What was the second case?”
“It was a mother who’d left her family in 1994. The father had been so angry at being abandoned by his wife that he’d told his kids their mother was dead. It had come as a hell of a shock when my client took a DNA test and her living mother came up in the results.” Ten hoped this case would make the third time someone was found alive who’d been believed to be dead.
“That’s unbelievable.” Cope shook his head.
“It sure was. I hope the same is the case with Natlie and Amanda.”
“Me too,” Cope agreed. “Give me ten minutes to finish up some paperwork and then I’m taking you out for lunch. Now that we’re done with the bullshit here, we need to celebrate.”
“Sounds good to me.” Ten slumped into his seat at the reading table. He hoped Amanda was alive and well. It would be absolutely devastating for Natalie to lose her child for a second time. He supposed Carson was right and that it was possible the blanket had never belonged to the child or that Amanda wasn’t interested in speaking with Natalie, but he didn’t think either option was the case.
Ten couldn’t wait to go home and tell Ronan and Everly what happened. He had a feeling his daughter was going to have a thing or two to say about Amanda. All Ten could do was hope all of them would be able to confirm the lost child was indeed alive.
3
Ronan
Ronan stood on the deck cleaning the grill. He’d fired up ribeye steaks for dinner. Everly had enjoyed hers with ketchup, a sin Ronan wasn’t sure he could forgive, while Ezra chomped his down like a dinosaur, roaring after every bite. Tennyson ate his entire dinner for the first time since his arrest. Ronan was so relieved, he felt like he could cry.
Over the last few weeks, Tennyson had been sullen and quiet, even with the kids, which worried Ronan more than anything else. Ten had been the strong one every time Ronan ended up in the hospital or was injured in the line of duty. He’d been the same when the kids were sick or had hurt themselves. This was the first time Ten had been the one in the danger zone and Ronan hadn’t dealt with it very well. According to Jude, Carson was still giving Ten hell at work and Ronan wasn’t quite sure how to handle that ongoing problem.
“Hey, you!” Ten opened the screened door and stepped out onto the porch. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. I put a movie on for the kids.” Ten pressed a kiss to Ronan’s cheek and went back into the house. This was one of the rare moments when he wished he could read Ten’s mind, to gauge where his husband was emotionally.
Finished with the grill, Ronan went back inside and washed his hands. He was drying them when Everly walked into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. “I’m ready to talk about Amanda.”
“Who’s Amanda?” Ronan asked, looking back and forth between Ten and Everly.
“Dad’s gonna tell you all about her.” Everly beamed at Tennyson, who looked excited for what felt like the first time in weeks.
“Okay, let’s hear about Amanda.” Ronan sat down and focused his attention on Tennyson.
“I had a reading today with a woman named Natalie whose baby died at birth. She’d been under sedation at the time of the delivery and when she woke up, the baby was gone and the nurse told her it had died.”
Ronan’s eyes widened as he listened to Ten speak. “Honey, I don’t think this is a conversation you should be hearing.”
Everly giggled. “I’m fine. Let Dad finish telling you the story.”
“Sorry for interrupting.” Ronan winked at his daughter. “Go on.”
