Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Two: Lauren, Sunday

Nightfall. A dark bedroom lit only by a plug-in guide light near the master bathroom. A bed that was a life raft sailing on a sea of uncertainty and misery. Three castaways holding each other close so as not to be thrown overboard by the tempest.

Lauren lay on top of the covers in a tank top and boxer shorts, staring up at the ceiling as Tosh and Naomi snored on either side of her. It had taken forever to coax them to sleep, and she'd finally had to give in and let them sleep with her so that they'd relax enough to pass out. Three on a bed was a crowd, but she didn't mind tonight; it wasn't as if she was going to get any sleep, not with Joe gone.

Two minutes after she'd sent Al away, she'd wished she could have called him back. Her claim she would hold it together better without him there hadn't panned out, because she'd broken down anyway, and her kids hadn't been convinced by her explanation that their father had to attend to one of his construction sites in an emergency and that he would be back later that day. All the rest of the day they'd kept asking if he was done yet, and when was he coming home, and it had been a chore getting them to eat dinner. She could have used Al's help taking care of some practical things around the house while she just huddled with her children, but it was too late now. Her parents had offered when they'd seen the state of her, but they'd already done enough for her this weekend, and they were senior citizens now.

She wasn't going to work tomorrow. She'd call in sick. She had a lot of sick time to use. They'd have to rejig the rota and pass her surveillance shifts to another, maybe to one of the coworkers who were at that party last night. If only she could talk to them and see what they knew. Something had to have happened last night, something involving one of them; it was the only thing that made sense.

She peered over at her phone, charging on the night stand, from time to time, listening for the ping of a text or the ringing of her phone to tell her someone was calling. Anyone. This long radio silence after that early, panicked start to the day left her feeling both exhausted and tightly wound. She felt irrationally like this was her punishment; because she wouldn't tell Al what she'd found on Joe's phone, and because she'd sent him away, he wasn't sharing any information he might have gotten since he'd left.

She thought about Joe's phone charging downstairs on the kitchen counter. Of course the kids had asked why Daddy's phone was there while he wasn't. The kids knew whose phone was whose, and they weren't allowed to touch their phones without them around, and only to play certain games on it. They had their own junior versions of tablets, but they weren't fooled; they already knew that iPhone apps were the best ones, and all the kids were talking about them at school. Today she hadn't let them touch Joe's phone at all, because there were things on it she'd never seen before, and they... confused her. That was why she hadn't shown Al. It wasn't for his eyes anyway, and it would have only confused him when they needed to keep focused on finding Joe and Rachel. She didn't want Al to think less of Joe right now. She would have to figure out what she felt about it herself later.

She wasn't going to get any sleep. Her eyelids felt grainy. She slowly rose to a sitting position and, as gently as she could so as not to wake the kids, she scrambled off the bed and unplugged her phone.

She stepped into the hallway, closed her bedroom door so it was just ajar and tiptoed to Naomi's bedroom. She checked her texts and call history just in case she missed anything. Seeing nothing, she called Al. She knew he'd be up.

"Hi," he said, talking quietly, as if he thought his voice would wake her kids.

"Anything?" she asked just as quietly.

"I found out Rachel booked a Modo car to take them... wherever they were going."

"Really? That's great news. We can do something with that, can't we?"