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24
After three days of endless questioning and statement gathering, the motley crew of witnesses converged at the Pinkie Posse’s hotel suite at the luxurious Four Seasons.
Everyone was exhausted yet still rattled, hungry for camaraderie after simultaneously witnessing such frightening events and unwilling to disconnect and go their separate ways. Birdie knew Pinkie sensed this, thereby inviting everyone to her elegant suite of rooms at the hotel, ordering everything on the room service menu.
They ate smorgasbord-style, in contemplative silence.
Grant and Tati were the last to arrive, Grant fixing Tati a heaping plate.
Flynn sat quietly in a high-backed chair to the back and left of Lucas.
Birdie noticed how uncomfortable Flynn was with the personal exchanges and dialogue, never having been encouraged to participate in the past and not knowing how best to interject his own commentary.
She would have to advise Lucas to encourage his new assistant’s thoughts and opinions as his sidekick and Boy Friday.
Erma sat on a love seat with Mary-Lou glued to her side. Mia having apologized profusely to her unwitting escort for her laundry list of lies at Birdie’s and Lucas’s insistence.
Birdie couldn’t allow her daughter’s actions to be glossed over and lost in the drama.
That said, it was difficult for anyone to hold a grudge, least of all Birdie, as it all turned out in their favor. But Birdie grounded Mia anyway and for a full month. Her sentence commencing as soon as they returned to Wayward.
Mia argued valiantly, with the debate skills of a seasoned defense attorney, reasoning that her social skills would suffer as a result of such extensive solitary confinement and becoming a social pariah at her new school.
Is that what her mother wanted? For her daughter to become a social outcast?
Despite her daughter’s clever attempt to leverage her mother’s own painful high school experiences, Birdie couldn’t be swayed.
When that didn’t work, Birdie listened patiently as Mia pivoted another direction. Outlining the dramatic events and her personal sacrifice to a greater cause. Beginning with her ability to cross hostile enemy lines, instrumental in finding her dad in the basement, and craftily diverting the attention of the guards so she could get to her mom and Flynn upstairs.
Birdie wouldn’t budge. Stating that lying was wrong, despite her daughter’s motives and the outcome.
Mia responded by pointing out that everyone in the room had acted on their instincts, some misleading others and others flat-out lying, including her mother.
Birdie countered that she and everyone in the room were adults, and when Mia was grown up and on her own, then she would have the maturity and latitude to make those types of decisions as to what was right and wrong. As of now, she was not yet an adult and not permitted, under any circumstances, to lie and deceive.
And then, when Birdie called Angus to share recent events and advise him and Bernadette of Mia’s deception, he went on his own verbal rampage with Mia, grounding her for yet another month, not allowing her to get a word in edgewise. Or to start up with her blethering.
The burly Scot, nearly ending the conversation with a teary gravel to his voice, telling Mia how proud he was of her and then going back to yelling at her again.
Beleaguered from the stress of the last several weeks, Birdie was content to cuddle with a resigned Mia, Lucas on her other side, finding reasons to touch her.
Cora Leigh and Willa Mae sat across from Erma and Mary-Lou in another love seat while Pinkie held court in a classic balloon-back porter’s chair, sipping tea. It was as if the royal throne of a chair was made for her.
Birdie sensed they all found comfort in one another’s presence. Still rather stunned at what had transpired and needing one another’s company to discuss the details until they were satisfied with the whys and wherefores.
“I still can’t believe Alpha Morales was undercover this entire time,” Tati groused, setting her plate down while perched on the ottoman in front of Grant’s chair. “Helping his crime boss of a father work a deal with the Feds to set up Errol.”
Grant leaned back in the oversized chair. “I can’t believe Errol was stupid enough to try to double-cross someone as prolifically dangerous as Arturo Morales.”
Lucas asked Tati, “So, when you were accused of tampering with evidence, what was that about?”
She shrugged. “I was getting too close, getting in the way of a higher-level investigation. They tried to extricate me from the situation with the whole tampering with evidence allegation, but I kept coming back, trying to vindicate Marshall’s death and then to save Flynn and Birdie. Then I really mucked things up by getting kidnapped and forced into four months of naptime.” She chuckled. “I’ve got to say. As undercover agents go, Morales had me fooled.”
Birdie couldn’t let that comment stand. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have been able to hand over so much incriminating evidence.”
Birdie’s attention turned to the Posse. “How about your so-called development project? Are you getting your money back any time soon?”
Pinkie answered with, “Not for quite some time. They may have to prove Errol’s guilt before it can be released. Which could take years.” Before Birdie could say another word, Pinkie raised her hand and said, “Again, a risk all of us agreed to and could afford to take.”
