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“Uncle Mick!”
“Hey I, how was school today?”
She throws her backpack on the floor, runs to him and jumps in his arms.
“It was fun, we learned about our personal pace and if somebody is in your pace or doing something you don’t like, the nice way to tell them to stop is to hold your hand up like this,” she demonstrates by holding her hand up a few inches from his face. “And say pease stop!”
“Oh, so the next time you get in my personal space to give me one of your icky girl kisses, I just have to say please stop and you have to stop?”
“You don’t love my kisses, Uncle Mick?”
She says as she looks down and her lower lip starts to come out but Mick is quick and starts to tickle her as he tells her, “Of course I do! I was just joking with you, silly!”
“I knew it!” she yells out between giggles.
“Mick . . .”
As I stand in a calm panic and watch all the cuteness in front of me, I can’t help but whisper Mick’s name. When I realize he can’t hear me over the tickles and giggles I try again.
“Mick,” I say a little louder.
He finally looks at me and I can tell that he can read my face and knows that something is wrong.
“Hey I, why don’t you go in your room and pop in one of your movies so I can talk to your mom. I’ll be there in just a little bit to check on you.”
“Okay, Uncle Mick but you have to have one of my icky girl kisses first!”
She kisses her uncle on the cheek, he thanks her as he sets her feet on the ground and she scampers off to her room without a care in the world.
“Emmers, what’s going on?” Mick asks.
I hand him the note and show him the text message without a saying a word.
“What the fuck, Em? When did this start?” he yells as his face turns red with anger.
“I found a note on my car on Monday, but Ireland was sick and I got so distracted with her and school that I forgot to tell you. Then when I left work today there was another note and then five minutes after I found this I got the text. I have no idea who would do this, Mick. The only thing I can think of is that I noticed some abuse on a student at work and I reported it, but the dad is in jail and there isn’t a mom around so I’m not sure if it’s his family or not.”
“I want you to write down the name of the kid you reported and his dads name if you have it. I want to make sure he really is in jail. Could there be anybody else? A pissed off student? A jealous co-worker? Anybody at all that you could have pissed off?” He says while I watch him try to calm himself by opening and closing his now clenched fists.
“No Mick, I can’t think of anybody else. It has to be somebody with my phone number . . . I just don’t get it.”
“Well, you are not going to work the rest of the week!” he orders.
“Yes, I am Mick!” I shout.
“No, you aren’t Em!” he shouts back.
“Mick, if I don’t go then they win and we’ll never catch them.”
“Shit! I’m supposed to leave Saturday morning for my hunting trip with the guys! I’m gonna call and cancel. There is no way I am leaving you two home alone,” he says pacing and pulling his phone out of his shorts pocket.
“You are not going to cancel your trip. I’ll have mom come over and we have Frank. It will be fine,” I try to convince him as much as myself.
“Oh, mom will protect you? That is supposed to make me feel better? Leave all three of you home alone together for a week? I don’t think so.”
“Mick, you have an alarm on the house. Even if it’s not monitored yet it will still make noise. Frank will bark if anybody gets near. I’ll have Cami and Alex hang out and you can leave me numbers to any of the guys you trust that I can call if I get scared and need them to stop by and check things out.”
“Anybody I would trust is going with me . . . wait . . . Kelly . . . I can have Kelly do drive-bys and check on you every day. You cool with that?”
