The Letter

Six

They were looking at Lance. It was like a dream. The thing is that they can't all be in one together. It was definitely real.

Lance was impossible to miss. While not yet as tall as his brother or father, he had a height potential. One looked at him and knew he was going to get taller. His spiky hair, however left little to the imagination. He liked to claim that he was already too geeky for long and blonde, like Steve. He was just as light as Emily so he felt he was the perfect blend.

Looking at the uniform shock on their faces, Mr Will knew he had struck gold. Clearing his throat, he continued excitedly, like a man on a mission. He missed his action days.

"This child and the man left here this morning. In a hurry, I must add", he said, pausing for effect. ‘’I sit out all the time, I see a lot of things people miss’’ he continued.

Looking directly at Will, he dreadfully asked ‘’What do you mean?”

Will said ‘’I have seen the man around here sometime in the past week and the child looked somewhat familiar but the man, he raised my suspicion.’’ Taking a breath, he continued ‘’When he came, he circled round the back of the house. Now I might not be the chattiest person, but I know he wasn’t a regular here. Probably explains why he returned with your son.’’

Going out on a limb, he asked ‘’Is there something going on?” This was however met with a complete silence.

When it was obvious he had indeed reported all there was to report, Jeff asked one of his own, “Did my son look like he was forced?’’ To this, Mr Will expressed his lack of understanding. Jeff continued ‘’Like he didn’t know what he was doing?’’

‘’Well…’’ he trailed off like he was trying to check event by event what transpired. ‘’Honestly, I cannot say for certain but he did walk on his own anyway.’’

‘’I know I may not be privy to any insider information but you must be really careful’’. His listeners wondered how he guessed they were in trouble and he buttressed ‘’Whatever they went in with didn’t come out with them and…’’

Steve blurted out before anyone could stop him ‘’Hold on, you didn’t say anything about something being in their possession.’’

How had he forgotten that bit, he really was getting too old for the game. In his day, nothing of the sort happened. Trying hard to prove himself, he went on to describe vividly what it was they were carrying.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were farmers…"

Jeff stopped him short. "Why is that?"

"Well, the boy held what looked like farm implements," he said. "This raised my suspicion because, for whatever reason, some blocks away, the man held it. I daresay, this was to reduce suspicion." he paused for breath. "Back to what they were carrying, quite honestly I didn't see it for certain, but from the outline, it looks a lot like that. Plus, when they came out, they were slightly dirty."

"How did you know that, given the distance?" inquired Emily, pointing her finger back and forth, the distance between their house and his.

This time, Will had a scowl on his face. First, he had omitted an important bit and now some child questioned his details. He couldn't help the tone of his face when he responded ''I used to be a detective, I know what I saw, miss.'' Thankfully, no one noticed and frankly, he couldn't blame them, they looked like they had a lot on their minds anyway. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his gut and intuition had led him too far to fail him now but he wasn’t going to ask about it again, as he couldn't do more than he had already done anyway.

‘’What does this mean, Dad?’’ asked Emmy.

‘’Well, from what we’ve heard, there were two people in the house this week.’’ It killed him to think that his son would do this. Loathing his next words, he added ‘’And they came here to do something abominable.’’

‘’Steve, when last did you see your brother?

Not for the first time that day, he felt stupid. He hadn’t seen him at all that day. ‘’Not all day’’ he said, more to himself than anyone else. He was met with a thoughtful silence.

‘’Emily, you?’’

‘’I assumed he was in his room, reading or something. Oh, what have we done?’’ She wasn’t Steve, she couldn't hide self-disappointment, that she failed at nurturing and apparently not as good as she thought.

Jeff ran a tight ship at home. Everybody knew what they had to do, as and when due. Due to the nature of their lives, Rachel and Jeff had the children home-schooled. This wasn’t hard for Rachel especially. She was too solid. He missed her, more and more by the hour. He wasn’t about to feel he had done poorly, not after all the work they had put in.

‘’No one is to blame. I strongly believe that the man or whoever sent him had an eye on us too, and knew that Lance would be the best target, given the circumstances. He stays in his room most mornings, you and Emily do your thing. Whatever is going on here is well-thought-out.’’

‘’Lance would never do that and that’s a fact’’ shouted Steve. No one would knowingly or unknowingly slander his brother in front of him.

‘’We know as much as you do that your brother is either being manipulated or I don’t know what is going on here, either way, he is in a lot of trouble’’ he replied with a helpless shrug. No man liked to feel helpless, he was no different.

‘’What are we going to do, Dad?’’ said Emmy under her breath. It felt like that was all she had been doing all day, asking this question.

‘’We go home.’’ he declared as he turned to leave, nodding in appreciation to the older man.