Austin

#

As I walked the short distance to my grandmother's room, I couldn't get his face out of my head. I feel like I've seen him somewhere before. I just can't place where.

It's been a few weeks since my accident but some things are still blurry. Luckily not enough to forget who caused my accident.

I'm not sure if he knows I saw him when he tried to bribe me or not. Either way, there's nothing he can give me to make me abandon his daughter.

To abandon the beautiful, intelligent, free spirited, headstrong, determined woman I've come to know. And to love.

Turning into my grandmother's room, I saw her looking out her window to the garden below.

"Grandma?" I spoke softly as not to startle her.

Her attention immediately shifted to me. "Oh, Austin sweetheart. How lovely to see you. How have you been?"

This was typical of my grandma. Even though I haven't been spending as much time with her as I used to, she always asks how I am before I can ask the same.

"I should be asking you that." I approached her, stopping and kneeling in front of where she sat. "I'm sorry I haven't been visiting you much lately. I've been caught up between work and helping Letty."

"Don't worry darling," she told me grabbing my hand in hers.

"How's that going? Are you two happy?"

"It's going good. We're very happy. Just trying to figure out this case. We've got tons of help."

"Good. Good. But, remember what I always told you even those that appear as flowers, may be amongst the most cunning snakes. Please be careful who you trust. What you are getting into is very dangerous. You don't want to cross the wrong people."

A knock sounded at the door. We turned to see a woman in a nurse's uniform, holding what appeared to be my grandmother's daily medication and some water on a tray. I've never seen this nurse before.

"Oh, hello. I didn't know Mrs. Marten had visitors."

"Umm, yeah. I'm her grandson, Austin."

"Very nice to meet you Austin. I'm Celeste. I'm a new nurse here. I've come to give you grandmother her medication."

My grandma jumped up from her place beside me.

"No! I am not taking that medication." She turned to me, grabbing my shoulders, her eyes wild. "They're trying to poison me. That's not my medication. They changed it. This one makes me sleepy all the time. My other medicine never did that."

Hearing this is very concerning. Usually I could brush off my grandma's ramblings as her paranoia, but this was different.

I walked up to Celeste and peered in the small recyclable cup sat on the tray. It looked like the other medication I always saw her take.

"Grandma, this looks exactly like your medicine."

"It's not," she told me, grabbing onto my arms again. "Please, trust me. I don't want to take it. I've been fine. I don't need it. It doesn't help, only makes me sleep."

I looked into her pleading eyes, knowing I couldn't make her take them.

Turning to Celeste once more, I said, "I'll get her to take them. Can you just leave them here until I convince her."

Celeste hesitated momentarily before putting the tray down on the bedside table.

"Thank you."

She nodded. "Please don't tell anyone I did this. I just got this job. I really need it."

"Don't worry, I won't." I reassured her.

"Thank you," she said before finally taking her leave.

I walked to where she left the medicine, picking up the little cup.

"Austin. Please don't make me take it." My grandmother pleaded. "When I take it, I can hardly stay awake. It makes me feel weak. For hours. Days even sometimes."

I've noticed a decline in her vibrance lately when I've peeked in on her. Every time I checked on her, she seemed to be sleeping. Could the hospital really have changed her medication? If so, with what?

I turned to her. "Don't worry, I'm not." I pulled out a napkin from my pocket, dumping the pills on there, wrapping it up and placing it back in my pocket. "You said you feel tired and weak for a long time?" She nodded. Hmm. Sounds like some kind of anxiety medication.

Taking my phone from my other pocket, I opened Google, using my personal data. You can never be too careful with public WiFi. It is monitored and if it's seen by the wrong people, I don't want to think of what may happen to my grandmother.

Looking up anxiety medications, I came across lorazepam. It seemed to fit best. My grandma said when she took it she felt weak or drowzy for hours if not days. That's exactly what this medication does.

I can't be sure as I'm not a licensed doctor, only having basic knowledge from a course I took in college.

My friend Micah may know more. He was a guy I met in college, studying to become a doctor. He became one of my good friends during our time at school.

He'd know for sure if my Nan's meds have been tampered with.

"I'm going to send them to a good friend of mine. He's a doctor." I saw her shoulders tense. "Don't worry. He can be trusted. I promise. I wouldn't ask him if I didn't believe he could be trusted."

"Okay," her shoulders relaxed slightly. "Do you have water?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What's wrong with the water they gave you?"

She pulled me closer. "I think they found out I stopped taking my medication. Even when I only drank the water, I would still feel the same."

"So you think they are crushing your pills in your water to make sure you take them?"

She nodded. "Yes. I can't trust anything they give me anymore."

"That's it. I'm getting you out of this place. If I can trust them to give you proper medication, I can't leave you in here. You're going to move back in with me. You've clearly improved. You don't need to be in here for the rest of your life. I'll find a doctor and get them to evaluate you. I'm sure they'll see what I see." I grabbed her hand. "I'll get you out of here real soon."

"Thank you. I know you will." Her mood shifted. "How have things been going with your parents?"

With everything going on I've almost completely forgotten about my parents. I mean it's not like they've really made an effort to reach out to me.

I'm glad they've gotten cleaned up and gotten careers but they did say they would make the effort to be the parents they couldn't be when I was a kid. So far they haven't, but we'll see.

"I don't really know. They're always working. I've been busy between work and helping Letty."

"That's too bad. My son never could really see what was in front of him. It's a miracle he found your mother. It may be hard but they're probably waiting for you to reach out to them. Your father was never very good at sharing how he was feeling, neither was your mother. It's probably why they've worked for so long. I know you want them to reach out to you, but they likely feel as though you're still angry with them. Have you spoken to them about that?"

"Well, no. I don't know where to begin. They left me. They abandoned me when I was just a child. How could parents choose drugs over their own child?"

"I'm sure you don't know this, but your parents visited me a week ago. They asked me all about you, everything they missed; graduations, relationships, milestones, everything. They want to get to know you. They're just not sure how. They want you to be ready to talk to them, so there is no longer any resentment, which you clean still harbour." She patted my hand. "Talk to them. Set up a meeting and talk to them. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

"Fine. I'll do it for you."

She smiled. "Thank you. You have no idea how much this will mean to me."

I returned her smile. "I know. I just hope we can eventually become a normal family. I want to talk to them about my life like normal kids do with their parents. I don't want to spend the rest of my life resenting them for their choices. That kind of thing eats you alive."

I hadn't realized I was crying until my grandma wiped my cheek before pulling me into a warm embrace.

"It's okay sweetheart. We will get there. Eventually."

I nodded. "At least one good thing came out of this whole situation."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"I was raised by the most amazing, strong, beautiful, intelligent woman I know." I looked in her eyes. " You."

"Oh darling, you flatter me. You were a great kid, never giving me any trouble, always doing your homework. Thank you."

We hugged again.

"Remember, if you have water, bring your own or drink from a water fountain. Tell Letty to be careful too."

"I will."

"Most of these medications they give us are flavourless and easily dissolved. That's why it took me a while to catch on."

"Okay nan. I will make sure we are careful about anything we eat and drink." I looked at the clock. "I'll let you rest and I'll visit soon." Bending down, I kissed her forehead.

"Bye sweetheart. I'll see you soon."

I watched her lie down before heading back to the group.

#

Leticia

Sandra's fiance seems nice. They both appear very happy which is good. I'm glad my sister has found someone who makes her happy after all she's been through in the past ten plus years. She deserves some happiness.

Damien and Lisa have yet to return and I'm hoping they come back soon. They've been gone for at least fifteen minutes already. The longer they're gone, the bigger the risk of them being caught.

My attention was grabbed as I heard, "What's this?" Sandra's fiance was pointing to our evidence board d or murder board.

"That's our murder board." Sandra told him. We're lucky we have someone on the inside who might be able to get information the rest of us can't.

As we were about to delve further, Damien and Lisa entered the room in a hurry. They both appeared frantic.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Jackie asked them.

"It's gone. It's gone." Was all Damien said.

"What do you mean it's gone?" I asked.

"There's nothing there. It was just an empty dark room." Lisa told us.

"I knew it. I knew this would happen. They're trying to make me look crazy." I said, pacing back and forth, with a grip on my hair.

"You're not making it very hard right now, sis."

I turned to her. "I knew they would do this. Once they knew we already knew they were listening to us, then Melanie burst in on one of our conversations, they hid the evidence. That way if I told anyone, they couldn't be incriminated. I would just look like the crazy girl from the mental hospital."

"I've had cases where things like this have happened," Lisa began. "Not with these particular set of circumstances, of course. But, I have had evidence disappear after asking certain law departments to provide it. However, I'm sure we can still proceed without anything that was in that room. In those cases, we managed to find other evidence that proved the innocence or solidified the guilt of our clients."

"That's good, right?" She nodded. "It means if we have enough evidence we can still find out if they were involved or if our uncle is really guilty?" Again she nodded.

It was at that moment she appeared to notice Dillon, Sandra's fiance.

"Oh, hello? Who might you be?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Dillon O'Connor. Sandra's fiance."

"Well it's nice to meet you. Would you mind giving me your information? It's strictly procedure. Our boss likes us to get us the information of anyone who may be related to or is involved with someone involved in the case were working on."

"Sure." He took a piece of paper she handed him and quickly filled it out before handing it back to her.

As handed her pen back, I couldn't help but notice his tense posture.

"Thanks. Now, where were we?" She pondered. "Right. Everything that may have been there is cleared but that doesn't mean we've lost everything. The evidence you've shown me is pretty damning."

At that moment, Austin re-entered the room.

"Sorry. What'd I miss?"

"Not too much." I told him. "Only that they found out we knew where their secret room was and removed everything."

"What?!"

I nodded. "Mmhm. But they didn't take the most important things. We still have the video and the encrypted messages, which nobody but my sister should be able to reveal."

"I'm going to take it home and work on it. Dillon here is going to help me."

Austin looked at Dillon, his gaze lingering momentarily.

Did they know each other?

Dillon took note of this and his tense posture seemed to get worse.

"I'm sorry darling. But it's time for me to go to the station." Dillon said, kissing my sister's forehead. "I'll try to be home for dinner tonight. Promise."

My sister nodded and like that Dillon was gone.

As I watched him exit, I noticed I wasn't the only one. Austin's gaze seemed fixated on the empty doorway Dillon just exited.

"Are you okay?" I asked him. This was the second time he had stated at Dillon. Once when he was leaving and again when Dillon was leaving.

He glanced at me. "Yeah. He just looks familiar is all.

Shrugging it off, my attention turned back to the remaining people in the room.

"Now, we may not have the room anymore, but that doesn't mean we've lost everything. " Ms. Hetherington said.

We all gave her skeptical looks.

"What do you mean?" Sandra asked.

"If we can find Mr. Tuller, we may be able to get more information from him. That is if he is indeed the person who has been leaving these clues." She paused. "It would also allow me to clear him of any involvement."

"Involvement?!" Sandra asked, exasperated. "What involvement? You saw the video."

"Indeed I did. However I also know how defense attorneys work. Without additional evidence they would tear this video to shreds saying it provides reasonable doubt as Tuller and his son are the last people seen exiting the house. Without a precise time of death, both could be implicated."

We all turned to Aiden who looked as though he was trying to resist biting his nails.

"But how?" He asked Ms. Hetherington. "How will we get in contact with my dad? He's on the run for his life. He won't just pop up because we ask him to. What if whoever's looking for him finds him?" He began pacing back and forth, only stopping when Sandra placed her hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay Aiden. We'll figure this out and your dad will be able to come home soon." She reassured him before turning to Lisa.

Obviously she couldn't promise him that but we could only hope for the best. No one else needs to die for this case.

"I know neither Aiden or his father are responsible for my mother's death. Aiden's father had no reason to want her dead. He loved her." She continued.

Lisa pulled out a folder. "It says here in the police files that she once called the police on him because he refused to leave her house."

"My father told me about that. He and Mrs. Ackerman talked about and she told him that Letty and Sandra's father told her to call the cops on him. She said it was because he was jealous and afraid my dad would steal her away from him."

"If they talked about it, why would all of their classmates believe he was obsessed with her?" Sandra asked him.

"Their classmates?" Lisa asked.

"Oh yeah. While I was still 'missing', I contacted a bunch of their high school classmates and our stepmother's first husband. They told me that Aiden's dad was obsessed with our mom and was always around her. It's what made me suspicious of him at first. I thought he could have harboured hard feelings from all those years and finally decided to act on it. However, with all this new evidence and how willing he has been to help, I don't think he'd be capable of hurting her."

I couldn't help but agree. From everything he's done so far, I can't fathom how he could hurt her.

"It's wonderful that you guys believe in them but we need solid proof. A gut feeling isn't enough in a court of law. The judge and jury will want concrete evidence that neither of them was involved in your mother's murder. Right now we don't have that."

No, but we will definitely get it. One way or another. For that, I am sure.