A couple of miles later, I made my way back to the motel and stripped down in the cold room to step into a hot shower. If nothing else, the motel had a great showerhead. It came out like a cannon and massaged the muscles in my shoulders and back harder and more effectively than the incredibly expensive one I had at home. I made a note to look into whatever brand that was.
When I was dressed and ready, I packed my things up and checked out of the hotel, grabbing a rideshare to my brother’s house and stepping out onto his lawn at nearly ten. There were multiple cars in the driveway, and I assumed that meant that either my brothers had huddled together for a sleepover, or they all had the same trouble I did with getting shut-eye.
“Hey, Tom,” Mason said as he opened the door.
“Mason,” I said, then turned to see Ava behind him. “Ava, good to see you both.”
Mason smiled and turned to the side to let me in and in doing so revealed the little boy in the highchair behind him. Little Robert was happily bouncing and flailing his arms as his mother sat beside him, a spoon in one hand and a washcloth in the other. Robert was covered from nose to chest in what looked like pureed pumpkin.
“Hi, Tom,” Ava said smiling up at me. “I would come hug you, but I think Robert got as much on me as he did himself.”
I laughed, shaking my head and kneeling down in front of him.
“Say, that’s okay, Mama. I’m messy like my daddy was,” I said in a teasing voice.
“Oh really?” Ava asked looking up at Mason, who stood behind me.
“Oh yes,” I said, “Mason was the messiest eater I had ever seen when he was little. I thought Mom was going to lose her mind when he would end up with food everywhere. One time it ended up on the ceiling fan.”
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Mason said, laughing.
“It’s true,” Tyler’s voice piped up from the living room. “Nothing has changed. Check his collar.”
I looked up at Mason, who grimaced and hung his head. Sure enough, his collar had a light brown stain on it I didn’t notice before.
“It was a coffee accident. Perfectly normal for an adult,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Ava said and expertly landed the spoon in little Robert’s mouth. He giggled happily, and some of it spilled down his chin to join the mound growing on his chest.
“Why don’t you join us in the living room,” Mason said. It was less of a question and more of a guidance. If I knew my brothers, they were plotting in there, and Mason knew I would make sense of it.
“Stop being so messy,” I said to Robert, poking him lightly on the nose. He squealed with a laugh of such pure joy that I couldn’t help but smile wide in spite of everything.
When I got into the living room, I saw my brothers predictably sitting on couches and chairs around the coffee table in the middle. Mason sat down in a recliner, and I took a chair adjacent to him. Tyler and Matt had plates of food in front of them, but Jordan didn’t. Instead he just had a single mug of what looked like mud-black coffee that he picked up to take a bitter sip from.
“Anybody get any rest?” I asked the group of bleary-eyed men.
“The baby probably got better sleep than any of us, and he wakes up every couple hours,” Mason said half-heartedly.
“Yeah, neither did I,” I said sighing. “I take it no one else heard anything? No news?”
A room full of silent shaking heads, and I looked down at my hands. They were clenched in fists. How long had they been clenched like that? How often was I grinding my teeth? I needed to relax. But I also needed answers.
“I think,” I began, “that I want to go down to the bar and see if anything looks odd. I know they have investigators out combing over it, but you never know what they might miss. Maybe someone suspicious-looking?”
“I’m telling you guys, it’s that damn Danny Jefferies,” Jordan said. I expected pushback from the others, but only Mason seemed to stiffen. Tyler and Matt just stared straight ahead into the distance, chewing their food slowly.
“Seriously, Jordan, that’s enough. We don’t have any evidence to support that other than you don’t like him.” I said.
“I also don’t trust him, how about that?” Jordan said.
“Me either,” Tyler mumbled.
“You?” I asked. “When did this happen?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I just can’t rule him out, you know?”
“Well, I’m going to go down there and have a look around. You guys got to do that already. Let me know if you hear anything,” I said, standing.