in this case, the more we found out, the less certain I was about what was really going on.
“We’re here,” Eli announced twenty minutes later as he pulled up to a beach house on the Gulf of Mexico. It was a cream-colored home on stilts. A flight of stairs led up to a large wrap-around deck overlooking the ocean. A vintage BMW motorcycle and a pick-up truck sat beneath the house. “Ready?” He glanced at me.
“Yeah. Let’s do this.” I opened the car door and started up the dozen or so steps to the deck. I rang the doorbell and waited, expecting to hear some sort of movement from within, considering the television was audible, but I heard nothing. No sign of life at all.
“Mr. McDonough?” I called, hoping he could hear me over the television. I knocked loudly and called his name once more. When there was still no response, I walked around the deck and peered through a window into the kitchen. I saw vegetables chopped on a cutting board, along with a pot of water boiling on the stove. “He’s got to be here,” I mumbled, heading back to the front door just as my cell phone began to ring.
“Want me to pick the lock?” Eli asked.
I looked down at the caller ID, not really liking the idea of breaking into the house of the guy we were here to get information from, but what choice did I have? I needed answers. “Yeah. Do it,” I ordered, bringing my cell to my ear. “Benson, how did it go?”
“It didn’t,” he replied, practically yelling. I heard sirens and a commotion in the background, a sense of urgency washing over me.
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“I don’t know, but when we got here, our guy’s house was fully engulfed in flames. The entire street was blocked off, but we were able to sneak in. Apparently, there was evidence of some sort of bomb. There was a tripwire that triggered an explosion when the front door was opened.”
My eyes immediately went to Eli using his lock pick set to pry open the front door and my stomach dropped. I hung up on Benson in mid-sentence as Eli turned the knob and I heard a click. Everything after that was in slow motion as I felt a rush of heat. Meeting Eli’s terrified eyes, we escaped the scorching flames the only way we could. Placing one arm on the railing of the deck, we hoisted our bodies up and over, an explosion sending us flying onto the sand of the beach before darkness washed over me.
Mackenzie
“HOW DO YOU LIKE this one?” Jenna asked, pointing to a rustic-looking crib made of reclaimed wood. “Oh, and it will transform to a toddler bed, then a twin bed, too. What do you think, Mack?”
I shrugged, indifferent about the whole process. Now that I wasn’t sure about anything in my life, the excitement of buying nursery furniture had faded. In its place was an overwhelming feeling of unease in the pit of my stomach. “It’s nice,” I said, my voice soft.
“And how about this mobile for over it?” Brayden interjected. “This whole setup is perfect, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, not even looking. I just wanted to get out of here and be alone. “It is. I’ll get it.”
“Really, Mack?” Brayden said. “Really? You really think it’s perfect? You didn’t even look at it! You’ve been out of it all day, and now you just agreed to give your baby boy a Disney princess themed crib.”
I finally looked at the nursery set and cringed at all the pink and purple surrounding me. “Sorry,” I offered. “It’s pregnancy brain, I suppose.”
I continued past them, running my hand against another crib that was a darker wood. Glancing up the aisle, every crib looked nearly identical. Did the kid really care what the furniture in his room looked like?
“No,” Jenna said, catching up to me. “It’s something else. You can’t fool us, Mack. We know you. What’s really going on?”
Sighing, I stepped into another nursery setup and plopped down on the glider, rocking back and forth. “It’s Tyler.”
“What about him?” Brayden asked. “I thought things were good between you two.”
“They were…until this morning when he asked me to move in with him…”
Brayden’s and Jenna’s faces lit up, displaying a level of excitement I hadn’t seen in a while.
“In Boston,” I finished. Their expressions fell just slightly, but not nearly as much as I had thought they would.