My attention is pulled in the direction of Matt, who looks like he’s taken over the scene, the deputies keep asking him questions and taking his directives. Even outfitted in a pair of shorts, t-shirt, and tennis shoes he exudes authority without trying. It’s fucking hot. “How far away is the medical examiner?” he asks the young deputy who looks half sick.
Not even two hours ago, I’d had hateful feelings about Willa Peterson and what she allowed Eden to endure as a child. Now the woman is lying upstairs dead, and all I can think about is two children without their mother. When I glance back at Eden, she’s rising slowly from her seat next to the housekeeper staring at the door. I turn to see a teenage girl carrying a baby and clutching the hand of a toddler. “I… I was supposed to come back when I saw the police cars.” What the fuck?
Matt and the nearest deputy react the same. Incredulous looks. “Who are you?” the young, lanky deputy asks her.
“I’m Stacy. Miss Peterson has me watch Waverly and Weston sometimes…” She lets go of the little girl’s hand and she wanders over to a bin of her toys grabbing a baby doll and a brush. She brings it to me with a smile. My fucking heart implodes, as I squat down to accept the doll and listen to her babble about its hair.
“What do you mean that Ms. Peterson told you to bring the kids back when you saw the police? That didn’t seem strange to you?” Matt’s tone is verging on heated. It does seem dumb as hell to hear that and not tell another adult or call 911. I fight to hold back tears as this adorable little girl starts to brush my hair with the pink plastic brush.
“I… I… don’t know… she was….” The gravity of the situation hits the babysitter all in one fell swoop. She puts her hand over her mouth and her eyes widen. “She said she had a friend coming over and… what happened?” Matt steers her to the couch next to the housekeeper with a hand on her back.
Eden takes the teenager’s hand and asks her if her parents are home. I watch the sitter hand the baby boy who is sucking on his little fist to Matt. Who like some kind of natural, cradles him against his shoulder. “Stacy, Deputy Marks has a few questions for you, and we’ll call your parents over, okay?”
“Wait, wait… she gave me this. I was supposed to give him this, because…” She bites her lip. “He would be here?” She takes a creased envelope from her pocket with the name ‘Matt’ on it.
Matt sighs and takes the envelope and walks to hand it to the deputy that seems to be stuck in place near the front entrance.
“Fee. Siss is fee.” The little girl with blonde curly pigtails whispers to me. Then she holds up three sticky looking fingers. I might be having a heart attack. Chest tightness, an upset stomach, and a desperate desire to blot this day out with a chemical coma of drugs.
“Yeah,” I say softly back. “That’s three.”
Matt hands the baby to Eden to hold and she looks like he handed her a grenade. It would be funny if the situation weren’t so grave. “I need to go back upstairs,” he says gently to her and then runs a hand over the baby’s back. Once he’s back upstairs, the deputy has Stacey and her parents outside, and the housekeeper is dismissed, the baby gets fussy.
“B. What do I do?” Eden asks me distressed. “You’re better with kids than me. Little humans terrify me.” She gingerly pats at his back.
His sister toddles over to the couch where she pulls out a pacifier that was stuck in a crack between cushions. She sets it on Eden’s lap and says, “Sis sucky.”
I grab it and go rinse it in the kitchen sink, with the charming little moppet following behind me. “Your name is Waverly?” I look down and ask her. Her disarming smile is accompanied with her hooking a little arm around my leg. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My mind reels with the loss this child doesn’t even know has happened.
Once the medical examiner has removed Willa Peterson’s covered body all but one of the deputies follow suit. Deputy Marks says to Matt, “I’m just waiting on the on-call social worker, she’s an hour or so away. I couldn’t find a single emergency contact or family contact in her papers. The neighbor doesn’t think she has family.”
Eden looks at Matt in alarm and doesn’t even address the deputy. “They can’t go to a foster home.”
Trying to make her feel less shitty about the situation, I interject, “Ed, they aren’t going to a place like you did. Babies are usually taken in and adopted quickly.” It’s bullshit, I don’t know what type of placement they might have. I need to believe that, though since Waverly hasn’t left my side.
“I’ll get ahold of family,” Matt asserts. He knows who her family is? Is this a bluff and he’s got other plans? At this point, I’m on emotional fumes so I’m just thankful he has the wherewithal to handle things.
“I’ll give Donna a call and let her know. Can you write their information down, so I have it for my report?” The deputy hands a pen and torn piece of Peterson’s calendar to write it down.
Wiping his hand across his mouth, I can sense his irritation with the deputy from across the room. “It’s in the medical examiners paperwork that I filled out for you.” Without much more talk, Deputy Marks leaves.
“Now what?” I ask Matt as I notice Waverly has put her thumb in her mouth and her eyes keep closing.
“We’ll stay here overnight with the kids, get them packed up, and then deal with the rest of it tomorrow.” He sits next to Eden and takes Weston from her laying him on his chest. “I’ll give their grandparents a call then.
“I should text Caleb and let him know we won’t be back at the hotel tonight.” I gently pick Waverly up and lay her next to Eden on the couch. My heart stalls out and I pause. She looks like a miniature Eden. If anyone else notices, they aren’t commenting on it.
“Yeah, thanks,” Matt says back to me as he lets a breath out. “This happened because I paid her a visit yesterday. She was scared as hell. Now I know why.” Eden leans against his side and fists his t-shirt.
“How could you possibly know she’d hurt herself because you were questioning her?” A guilty conscious can make a person do any number of things. Confess… or in this case end it all. What a fucking selfish way to go.
“This wasn’t a suicide.” Matt looks down at Eden and then kisses the top of her head. “This was connected to Camp Carroll. Willa Peterson is Caroline Bradford. Rafferty Bradford’s younger sister.”
Eden bolts upright. “No. No way.” Eden read and studied Lassiter’s book like she was going to take a test. I remember all the notes. “How is that even possible? I’ve known her… since I was five?”
“Part of the reason I wanted to stay here with the kids tonight is to poke around. She may have more than just that picture you found of that follower of Clive’s hidden away in this house. Or some clue for me to find since she wanted me here.” It's macabre that she pinned his business card on the wall next to that whacked out message.
“What was on the note?” I ask him thinking he won’t tell us what it says.
