The detectives stepped in with Aunt Shay's phone, shutting the door an sitting back down at the table. Detective Blandy gave Aunt Shay a sketchy look, pulling his notepad out to write where Detective Howard left off.
"Alright, have you been being completely honest with us, Mrs. Steels?" Detective Blandy asked.
"Yes." Aunt Shay answered.
Detective Blandy gave her a blank look, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs, and placing the back of his pen in the clenches of his teeth.
"What would you say if I said that there were a few inconsistencies in your statement?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well Mrs. Steels, we found that in your phone, you didn't call us until 4:00am." Detective Howard said. "You told us that you called us around 3:30am."
"Okay, so I didn't keep track of the time. So what?" Aunt Shay scowled. "I wasn't worried about that at the time. I was worried about my grandbabies!"
"We also found here that you called out to another number that wasn't your sons BEFORE calling us, and this number led us to one of our most convicted felons in California. He called you back soon after." Detective Howard continued. "He has prior arrests on kidnapping as well."
Aunt Shay was confused. As the officer showed her the number that called out on her phone, she thought to herself and laid back a little.
"I never.......I never called that number?" Aunt Shay said, shaking her head. "I have no clue where that number came from!"
"So it just, magically appeared in your phone as calling out?" Detective Blandy chuckled. "That makes no sense, Mrs. Steels."
Aunt Shay gave the detectives a serious look, pausing for a while.
"Are you trying to say that I had something to do with my grandchildren missing?" Aunt Shay growled lowly.
"Well, did you?"
"I would put a bullet to my head before I EVER thought of harming any of my grandchildren!" Aunt Shay barked.
"Listen, as detectives, we have no choice but to ask these questions." Detective Blandy said. "Now if you could take a lie detector test, we'd clear you ou-"
"No."
Detective Howard gave her a disappointed look, shaking his head.
"So you're not willing to clear yourself out to prove your innocence."
"I don't need to take no damn lie detector test to prove that I didn't hurt my grandchildren, damnit!" Aunt Shay scowled, banging on the table.
"Why don't you just do it to clear yourself out so we can move onto other suspects?" Detective Blandy shrugged.
Suspects. The word 'Suspects'. Aunt Shay placed her hands up, grabbing her purse and walking out of the room.
"This interview is over." Aunt Shay growled. "I will not sit here and be falsely accused of killing my own grandkids."
To be honest, I would've done the same thing that Aunt Shay did. I wouldn't dare let anyone accuse me of murdering any of my family members when I knew that I was I was innocent.
However, how did Aunt Shay not remember calling out to a number?
As the sunset began to lower into the valley horizons, Kayson had worked in the field and planted vegetables for almost 4 hours straight. Tired and exhausted, Kayson wiped his forehead and walked into the house with his muddy shoes and hands.
"Abel...." Kayson mumbled.
"What?" Abel scowled.
When Kayson looked up, he saw Madilyn seasoning some raw chicken on a chopping block. She walked over to the sink and cleaned off her knife as Kayson caught up on his breath.
"Can I take a bweak?" Kayson groaned. "I'm tired....."
Abel groaned as he looked down at Kayson's muddy shoes tracking by the window of his home.
"Go upstairs so I can rinse you off and you can take a bath. Take off your shoes, too." Abel growled. "And Lily, wipe up his shoe tracks off of the floor."
Lily groaned and got off of the couch, grabbing a napkin.
"Excuse me, is there a problem with that?" Abel scowled.
"No..." Lily sighed.
"Good. Cause I'll give you a whipping if you use that sass with me again." Abel growled. "Go rinse off in the shower, Kayson. You're gonna take a bath, eat dinner, then I have another proposition for you and the girls to do."
While Kayson took a bath after being out in the heat for a while, Lily sat on the couch and changed Iyana's diaper. She was the one person that Iyana was growing closest to, because Lily usually did the most work with her. Madilyn usually cooked and cleaned, and Abel always watched to make sure that they did it right so that he could leave them alone often. He showed Madilyn how to make Parmesan crusted chicken along with some Lima beans that he grew from the garden. After the chicken baked for almost 45 minutes, he ordered them to set the table while he took the chicken out and placed it on a large plate. When the Lima beans were done cooking, he placed those into a personal bowl and sat down with the girls while Iyana laid in her swing set.
"Kayson!" Abel growled. "Come down for dinner!"
Kayson jogged down the stairs, wrestling on the pajama shirt and pants that Abel lied down on his bed. Kayson sat in the seat as all four of them bowed their heads to pray to themselves, then started eating. When Madilyn started eating with her fingers, Abel smacked her hand and gave her a stern look.
"That is not how a young lady eats at the table." Abel growled as he handed her a knife. "Hold your knife."
As Madilyn held her knife, Abel placed his fork under the tip of his index finger and stuck it into his piece of chicken.
"Do this."
Madilyn looked at the way he was eating, placed her fork under her index finger, then stuck it into her baked piece of chicken.
"Now cut slowly with your knife like this,"
Abel slowly cut a piece of his chicken off, placing it into his mouth. Afterwards, Madilyn copied him by doing the same thing.
"That's better." Abel said in a bland tone. "That way it'll be easier to eat."
"Wats dis?" Lily asked, pointing to the Lima beans.
"Lima Beans." Abel answered. "And none of you are leaving the table until all of your food is gone, especially your vegetables. They're what makes you big and strong."
And again, the kids sat at the table for almost an hour until they got tired of sitting there, confiding and gulping down all of their vegetables. Afterwards, Abel poured them some of his freshly made orange juice from the fruits he'd grown in his very own garden.
"What do you say?" Abel growled before the kids started drinking.
"Tank you!" All of them smiled.
Abel glared blankly at the kids, watching them gulp down his fresh juice. He scratched his head, then sat up in his chair.
"After this, I want you guys to practice your spelling." Abel said. "You're gonna need it in the long run, so I have a list of words I want you guys to read."
Abel handed the three a small list of words that he wanted them to spell. The words were "Housing, Productivity, Farming, Survival, and Instinct." When the kids were finished eating, they were forced to go upstairs and practice spelling them over and over in their heads for an hour before bed.
Sitting in the same room, all three of them glanced over and over at their lists, saying the letters over and over in their head.
"P-r-o-d-" Kayson mumbled to himself, sitting in his bed.
"D-u-c-t-" Madilyn mumbled to herself, pacing back and forth slowly in the room.
"I-t-I-v-I-t-y." Lily mumbled to herself, lying frontwards on her bed.
Next, was the word 'Farming'.
"F-a-r"
"M-i-n-g."
Then 'Housing'.
"H-o-"
"U-s-i-n-g."
Then 'Survival' and 'Instinct'. And after their hour was up, Abel popped in.
"Come on." Abel said. "Time to test you guys."
Abel sat in his master bed, feeding Iyana her bottle as Kayson, Lily, and Madilyn ran in front of him.
"How do you spell, housing?" Abel asked.
"H-o-u-s-i-n-g." All three of them said.
"Good." Abel nodded. "And survival?"
"S-u-r-v-i-v-a-l."
"And instinct?"
"I-n-s-t-i-n-c-t."
"Farming?"
"F-a-r-m-i-n-g."
"And productivity?"
All spelling it off cue, the three managed to spell it anyway.
"P-r-o-d-u-c-t-i-v-i-t-y."
"Good. Very good." Abel nodded. "You all spelled them correctly."
"YAYAYAYAYAAY!" All three of them squealed, jumping around.
"Hey!" Abel growled. "Don't be so loud."
The kids were excited. Abel grinned a little, then went back to his same evil glare.
"When you three get done working for the day, you're going to be learning how to sound out and pronounce big words so you can be ahead of people in school." Abel said. "Now get some rest. You have a long day tomorrow."
The next day, Isaiah checked with everyone to see if they were alright. Even though Noah was grieving himself, he had no choice but to go into work. He was a doctor, so he didn't have much time to take off of work. As for Aunt Shay, she was working one of her two jobs, so she was busy too. Even though everyone had to get back onto their early schedules, no one was at ease. Asha traveled down to stay with her relatives at the time to grieve over her daughter, because she felt that that's where she needed to be.
At the soup kitchen that Isaiah was working in, Debra set up a donation jar just for Isaiah to help support and get information for the people who killed the children in the house fire. Even though Isaiah said that he didn't want it, Debra and the girls did it for him anyway. It was the least they could do to comfort him. And even though Isaiah was still in pain, he felt at home with the people in Cali.
When Isaiah arrived home, he heard some sad 50's music blasting in the living room. When he stepped inside, he saw Tyler sitting on the couch with his loaded pistol in her left hand, placed against her temple. Tyler's mascara ran down her eyes as she sat in the living room, dazing off into space.
"Babe!" Isaiah chanted as he jogged over to her. "What the fuck is you doi-"
"Don't come near me, Isaiah!" Tyler barked out, pointing the gun at him.
Isaiah backed away, placing his hands up.
"Ty, babe, put the gun down." Isaiah said in a relaxed tone, trying to calm her down.
With tears all down her cheeks and flooded in her eyes, Tyler shook her head and clicked the gun back.
"I want to be with my kids...." Tyler wailed lowly.
"Ty, listen, just put the gun dow-"
"Don't you get the fucking message, Isaiah!?" Tyler barked at him, crying harder. "I don't want to live, breathe, or sleep knowing that my kids aren't here with me anymore! Kayson is gone! My first born baby is gone! Gone!!"
"Ty, how you gone get to see the kids if you commit suicide?" Isaiah continued, trying to sway her over. "They're in heaven, and God ain't gone accept you on judgement day if you commit suicide. You ain't gone ever get to see them then!"
Tyler gave him a sad look as Isaiah crept over to her.
"Ty, just gimme the gun." Isaiah plead.
Tyler slowly handed the pistol over to Isaiah as he hugged her, letting her bawl onto his chest again. Tyler wasn't shit without her kids. That's all she was worried about, and now that someone took them away from her, she didn't know how to act. And to Isaiah, he was really worried that she would do something drastic like slit her wrists again.
But he was really worried about the possibility that he might have to check her into a mental home to avoid it.
By night, officers were devastated to find out that their star suspect was murdered behind the building they shared. Why? Because Noah killed him. Since they suspected that the boy was from Schaefer, they didn't put too much effort into trying to solve his murder case. One person they were interested in talking to, was the man that Aunt Shay supposedly called on the night of the abduction.
Deaunte Fords.
"Lord." The hoodlum boy growled, smiling as he sat in the interview room with a goofy look on his face. "What y'all want now?"
"Deaunte, we're not even gonna beat around the bush. We know you, you know us." Detective Howard growled. "We suspect that you've been involved in the disappearance of the four kids on Schaefer-"
"aHOH. Are you serious?" Deaunte scoffed, laughing a little.
"Does it look like we're joking?" Detective Blandy asked. "We're speaking on the murder of 4 children."
Deaunte shook his head, placing his hands up.
"Aye look, I done kidnapped a few girls, but I ain't neva kidnapped no kids." Deaunte laughed, shaking his head. "Niggas on Schaefer don't play dat."
Detective Howard growled under his breath, then looked back up at him.
"Do you know a woman by the name of Shay Steels?"
Deaunte smiled, nodding his head.
"Yeah. Mama Shay?" Deaunte smiled. "She the mama of Schaefer."
"Did you talk ever talk to Shay on the day that the kids were abducted?"
"Well, she did call me for somethin' I thought was strange..." Deaunte groaned.
"And what was it about?"
"She called me askin' me if I could get rid of her grandkids or somethin' like that...." Deaunte shrugged. "I wasn't down with that shit cause like I said, I don't do with kids."
"What did she ask you to do in particular?" Detective Blandy asked.
"She called me around 3:30am askin' if I could take get rid of her grandkids, and for what? I have no clue." Deaunte answered. "I ain't ask fo' no detail because I shut her down and told her no off rip, and she got mad and hung up. Next thing you know, this shit is on da news."
Detective Howard and Blandy glanced at each other, then got up.
"Alright, man." Detective Howard sighed, opening the door. "You're free to go."
Detective Howard and Blandy waited until Deaunte left the interview room, then gave each other a stunned look.
"She.......she actually killed her own grandkids.." Detective Blandy gasped.
Meanwhile, Deaunte used his second phone to call one of his boys.
"Hello?"
"Aye man, we gotta get the fuck outta here." Deaunte groaned. "Da police is on they shit with these kids we done sold!"