Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Forty-Nine: Lauren, Thursday

"Babe, I have a confession to make," Joe said. "Two of them, actually."

Two of them? Lauren looked down at her husband, who looked less beat-up today. His face still bore the cuts and bruises from the beating he'd taken, but the swelling had gone down, and she could see more of his eyes, blackened as they were. Those eyes were pained, and sorrowful, and she felt her stomach drop as she realized this might be it, he might confess to knowing Joanie.

"What is it?" she asked.

"First, I took your sword."

She gasped. That wasn't what she'd expected him to say at all. "You took it? I thought someone at the office stole it."

"Sorry, babe. It was that night. Rachel and I stopped at your office first to get it. We thought we might be seeing trouble where we were going."

"Are you ready to tell me now what happened to you?" she asked.

Joe chuckled ruefully. "What happened was we walked right into a trap."

"Start at the beginning."

"Okay. So, back in the summer, when Charlie was supposedly missing, he was actually--"

"Dead, I know. We dug him up."

Joe reared back in surprise. "You did?"

"Yeah, me, Al and Sunny."

"Sunny too?"

"We had to get a ride from him, because the van got stolen, remember?"

"Jesus," he breathed. "You three were like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew."

She smirked. "No, we were the Lawrence Street Detective Club. It wasn't as adventurous as you make out, though. We were terrified we'd be digging up one of you."

"Seriously?" he squawked.

"We had no idea where you were. We were running in circles trying to find you. First we found your phone using the Find My Friends app on my phone--"

"Shit," he breathed. "That's a handy app."

"Yes, thank goodness. But when we found the phone and not you, I was freaking out."

His face softened. "Sorry, babe."

"So, you were saying about Charlie."

"Yeah. So you probably know Johnny put him in the trunk because he had the trunk."

"Did Johnny bury him out there?"

"Johnny and Rachel."

"Rachel?!" Now it was Lauren's turn to be shocked. "She never told me that."

"No one wanted to tell you. We all knew how much you loved that dog, and you would have been so pissed to find out Johnny accidentally ran him over."

"You're right, I would have. So, I was driving around looking for him and he was already dead?"

"If it helps, they didn't tell me either until I got that phone call at the party."

Lauren blinked in surprise. "What phone call?"

"You don't remember?"

She shook her head. "We were drugged, Joe. Me and Al. Our drinks were spiked, maybe by one of my coworkers at the party. We couldn't remember anything when we woke up, that's why we were so frantic when we couldn't find you."

Joe looked confused. "Who the hell would do that? And didn't Ralph explain where we went?"

She chose not to answer the first question, because if she did, the person responsible would get a visit from Joe when he healed up, and she didn't want to see Joe go to prison. As to the second: "He was gone when we woke up. We didn't even know you left us with him until Rachel told us after you two returned."