Bad Blood - Blood Tied, Book 1(#Wattys2015)

N I G H T M A R E_F I V E

N I G H T M A R E _F I V E

We vacated the mall three hours later with seven extra bags in tow. It was a lot of work to convince my sister to leave the place. Eleanora seemed reluctant to leave as well.

I first tried reason, reminding my sister the size of my car, then the time I need to be at work tonight.  She only agreed to leave when I suggested a phone call to mom and dad.

Chloe refused to talk to me the entire ride home after that.

Work was even less pleasant than the return trip from the mall.  With all the chaos last night, I had forgotten to actually call in the hole I discovered in the graveyard.  The sheriff found out and gave me a twenty minute long lecture about irresponsibility and proper procedures.

"Officer Braxton, there is no reason why you should have left the scene unreported last night."

"I know.  I-"

"Don't interrupt, Officer Braxton.  You should have radioed in backup as soon as you found the scene and taped it off.  Instead, you kept radio silent and left the scene open and unattended.  You're lucky your shift replacement noticed your absence, retraced your patrol route, and found the crime scene before it was contained any further.  Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"No, Sheriff.  It was very irresponsible of me."

His eye twitched.  "Are you mocking me, Braxton?"  Last name only.  Not good.

"Of course not, Sheriff.  I'm just saying I'm aware of the irresponsibility of my actions and I won't let it happen again."

His jaw ticked as he scrutinized at me.  I had to fight the sudden urge to squirm.

"Fine.  Get your report on what happened last night to me within the hour and I may consider letting you off the hook, Officer Braxton."

"I'm on it."

I cleared the room before my boss could find something else to lecture me on.

Back at my desk, I got out the incident report I started and worked on completing it.  When I finished, I read through the report to double check what I wrote. I shuddered internally, thinking about the lecture I'm going to get for this report.

Then something clicked, and I knew what had been bothering me since Eleanora Edwards introduced herself to me.

It was her name engraved on that stone.

I dropped the report onto my desk and dialed home on my work phone.  Someone answered halfway through the third ring.

'Hello?'

"Chloe?"

'Yeah?'

"Can you put Eleanora on?  It's important."

'What's the magic word?'

"Please?"

'Better, but not the word I was fishing for.'

I sighed.  "I'm sorry for threatening to call mom and dad to settle our argument.  I was completely in the wrong."

'Good boy.  By the way, mom was wondering when you're coming home again.'

"When I can."  I heard her calling Eleanora over.  "And just so you know, your reaction to my threat proves you're still my kid sister."

'And your eagerness to rub that in my face proves you're just as much as a kid, brother.  Here's Eleanora.'  There was some shuffling around in the background.