Lily took the stool beside Simon. Well, she had pledged to herself that she was going to talk to him about Rosa’s housing sitch. She just had to leave out a lot of the details that he didn’t need to know. Like how maybe it was her genuinely scary, drug dealing, hair-trigger confrontational ex-boyfriend. Oh yeah, and how she’d been on the run and hiding out under her mom’s name. So she did. Sort of. And luckily, TraceyAnn’s propensity for passing by gave her the opportunity to pause a great deal, and collect her thoughts.
“I’ve been taking care of Brady and Clover since yesterday, while their mom Rosa’s in the hospital indefinitely.”
“Rosa is—”
“She works in the Staff Caff.” Simon nodded. Even though he looked visibly uncomfortable around kids, Lily knew he was proud of providing a Childcare Center for his staff members who had them.
“The plan was to stay in their mom’s apartment.” Lily named the community that Rosa’s single-wide was in, and she saw the familiarity in Simon’s face. “But last night when we got back from dinner with Col — which was great, by the way, as you can tell by how the kids were so charmed — I found out that the trailer had been ransacked.”
“Shit,” Simon said, and immediately reddened, with a quick jerk of his head towards the infants. “Sorry.”
Lily’s dimples creased. “That’s ok.”
“Did you call the police?” Simon brushed back the lock of hair that flopped over his forehead, and Lily noticed that his hand was straying towards his sternum. She had seen him tapping at it a few times when he was obviously stressed, and it touched her that he was concerned now.
She dropped her voice, seeing TraceyAnn about to do another drive-by eavesdropping attempt. “I didn’t. It’s a delicate situation, since Rosa’s concerned that, ah, well, it’s kind of like a custody issue.”
She saw Simon put two and two together in his head, but by now she had already figured that he would. Single mom, living in that community, with two twins that were high energy, to say the least. Had to rely on someone she had only recently met to take care of her kids. And now the mom was hospitalized indefinitely.
You didn’t even need to throw in the dad-in-jail factor to see why she might be freaked out about having the Five-Oh called in.
Lily quickly answered before Simon could ask the next logical question. “The room I have here is fine for me, but not suitable for two five year olds.”
Simon dipped his head.
“I’m concerned about your safety, Katie. There’s more than enough room at the house—you could practically have a wing to yourself. And it goes without saying, you’re already familiar with our state of the art security, not to mention Miller and the guys there.”
And Col. But she couldn’t think about that. It would be a good solution in terms of Rey, though, if in fact Rey was the one behind the trailer break-in or the inquiry about her car at the auto repair shop. But…as she heard Clover shrieking in the background, she realized it was no solution at all if she couldn’t take the kids with her.
“I’d say yes if it were just me, Simon, and thank you for offering. But, I have to think of Clover and Brady too. Would you have room for them as well?”
She could see Simon shrinking into himself. But she had to stand firm in this.
“I don’t mean to put you in a bad spot. Since you’ve already ok’d the advance with Rika, I can keep staying at the motel with the kids.”
That seemed to pull Simon out. “I can’t let you do that. That’s no place for you—and the kids of course. There’s plenty of room at the house, and the bonus will be that we’ll have more time with you. Especially if you bake more cookies while you’re there.”
“Deal!” Lily said happily, and she impulsively reached over and hugged Simon. He stiffened, as if he didn’t know what to make of it, and then he slowly relaxed into it. Lily squeezed him and let go.
“I’ve already packed some things for myself and the kids in the trunk of the car.” Lily said. She had quickly grabbed as many things as she could at the trailer, unable to stay a minute longer than necessary. “We can be there after the dinner date with Barric tonight.”
“I can cancel that,” Simon already had his phone out. “I’m going to call Miller and get everything ready. I might hand the phone over to you so you can give him particulars as to what you might need, for yourself and for the kids. Afterwards, I’m going to head back to Rika’s office. I’m sure there’s something we can do about — Rosa, is it?” At Lily’s incredulous nod, Simon continued.
“— Rosa’s housing situation. Maybe see about making arrangements for her to have a place to stay on the Fairegrounds with the kids, when she’s released from the hospital.”
His glasses nearly flew off, when Lily hugged him again. He laughed nervously and hugged her back.
Lily felt a huge weight lifted. And of course the bonus to all of that was that she would see Col again. Each night.
Until it would be time for her to go.
* * *
Jordy rubbed her eyes. It hadn’t taken her that long to find the footage of herself with Cadmus and with Billy Bob, and delete it. But then again, she knew where to look for it. It was a little bit trickier to do the editing magic in order to camouflage where she had erased the footage. But then Puma did invite her to take all the resources she needed. So she did.
It would take a sharp eye and an IT genius to spot what she had done, but again, it was only if they knew to look for it. So she was sitting pretty right there.
Good thing she wanted to look at the rest of the footage anyway. Apparently the owner was interested in “anomalies” and Jordy wanted to know what they were, too. She wanted to see who else came in or out through the staff entrances, and what they were doing. If they were up to something shady, well, from where she was seated she would be literally the first to know.
