At some point Ginny finished checking on the boys and Celia, got herself a hot cup of tea and joined them watching the movie.
The movie had just barely ended, Ben went to the kitchen to get some more club soda, Ginny to check on the boys, and Whitney to check on her mother. She opened the door quietly, which was a good thing, apparently her mother had become tired and was taking a nap. She picked up the notepad to see how much her mother had written so far, then felt like she was invading her privacy and put it back down. She pulled the extra blanket from foot of the bed and carefully covered her mother.
Back out in the living room she sat back down beside Ben and joined the conversation between Ben and Ginny.
"I keep remembering how the Scriptures tell us that He will make something good out of anything bad the enemy tries to hit us with. I'm anxious to see what the "good" from this will be?"
Ben answered Ginny, "I know what you mean, but I can already tell you one good thing that's happened," he looked at Whitney and she nodded her approval, "Whit and I are finally on the same page and going to make an announcement soon."
Ginny smiled at Whitney, "You know, I am so happy for the both of you. Can I just say something? Don't waste any time. Don't wait for the "right" time. Just get married and enjoy every moment of your life together."
Whitney felt herself blushing, "Well, that's something we'll be talking about for sure. Just as soon as we get to the bottom of this mess."
"Yes, we most definitely will. Now that I've got her this far, I'm not letting her back out!" Whitney nudged Ben and he winked back at her.
"I just have one more request?" Ginny was grinning sheepishly, "give me at least 30 days to find a new place to live?"
They were all laughing when the knock came at the door. The security guard was just coming out of the kitchen and checked out who was at the door. He opened the door for Sammy, Whitney and Ginny's father, and an older man, same age as their father, who they assumed was the artist. Their arms were full of dinner bags from 3 different restaurants, Italian, Oriental and a steak house.
"Da, have you lost your mind? We'll never be able to finish all this!" at the same time she hugged him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. She had the most adorable father in the world and she was so lucky!
"Whitney dear, wear's your Ma?"
"She fell asleep in the other room Da, I think she's pretty worn out."
"Can you and Ginny spread this out in the kitchen? I'm going to go wake her up. We need to get this show on the road, I've had enough of this nonsense! It's time to clean someone's clock!"
Ginny, Ben and Whitney looked at each other, then they all three looked at Sammy.
"What? I didn't do any thing. He was perfectly quiet the whole way. Well he was until we stopped to get the stuff at the office. He was looking over the evidence as I put it all in that box to bring with us. Then he just kept asking me questions all the way home."
"Hey, before I forget, this is Mr Gordan our artist who is going to hopefully help us figure out at least one more puzzle piece."
"Just call me Andrew. Would you mind if I got started? Where's the young man who will be describing the subject for me?"
Ginny reached out and shook his hand, "Hello Andrew, I'm Ginny, the young man's mother, let me go get him for you."
Ben introduced Whitney and then himself to Andrew. Then Ben asked him a few questions about his credentials.
In just a few minutes she was back with Kaci, Neil shadowing him as always. "Boys, this is Mr Gordan and he's going to be asking you some questions. Please be very polite and answer his questions as much as you can."
"You can call me Andrew boys, let's sit out here and get started. We'll get out of the way of the adults ok?"
"Ok, Andrew sir, we'll be glad to help." Kaci took his hand and pulled him into the living room, Neil right behind him again.
With the boys and Andrew out of the way, the four of them turned back to setting out the food and getting everything ready for a meal.
The topic of conversation turned back to the outburst from Whitney and Ginny's father.
"What kinds of questions Sam?" Ben was helping the ladies set out the food, but could listen to Sammy at the same time.
Sammy started helping Ginny get the plates and things out of the cupboards. "Well, for one, he saw the picture of that broken photo of Ginny and the boys that was under our victims body and wanted to know if we'd found anything else besides the picture? When I said no, he said he wanted to see the broken picture for himself. I went into the evidence room and got it out. He took that thing apart and got really angry, like he was looking for something that was supposed to be there that wasn't?"
"Hmmmm, there's something up with him for sure"
As soon as everything was set up Whitney invited the security guard, and Arnold to get a plate. Then Ginny fixed the boys their plates and they all went back into the living room, the guard to do his thing while he ate and Arnold and the boys to sketch while they ate.
"Should we wait for Ma & Da you think?" Whitney was a little concerned they hadn't joined the rest of them yet.
"No, c'mon, there's plenty and we have some work to get done. They'll join us when they are ready."
The four of them filled their plates then went into the living room. Whitney and Ben opened their lap tops, Sammy took the lids off the evidence boxes. Ginny kept an eye on Arnold and the boys but joined in the conversation with the other three.
The first few minutes were pretty quiet while they all started eating, then they started by reviewing the evidence Sammy had brought back with him.
"Ok, so we have our victim, our unidentified subject of interest, the man in the silver mustang, who might or might not be the murderer. We have the mystery of what WASN'T in the broken picture. We have two men, no, three maybe, the victim, his brother, and Ginny's biological father." Ben took a bight of his orange glazed chicken.
"Don't forget," Whitney swallowed the rest of her lasagna, "we also have two murders from nearly 30 years ago that are probably tied to our victim."
"You are so right Whitney girl, they must be tied to the car explosion that took away Ginny's parents" Ceilia had come out of the bedroom and joined the conversation, followed by her husband."
"Ma, let me fix you two a plate", Whitney started to get up to go into the kitchen.
"Never you mind that girl, we'll take care of ourselves just fine. You three need to get busy, we'll be back in just a minute."
They did just that, they looked over notes, talked about time lines. Somewhere in the middle of all the food and talking Ben and Sammy had brought up a large whiteboard on wheels and they started writing the time line on it, sticking pictures up with magnets. Just as they were sticking up one picture, Kaci looked up.
"That's him Mommy! Andrew, that's the guy, look at the picture you drew, that's him, I know it's him!"
Everyone turned and looked at Kaci and Andrew. Andrew held up the picture he'd been drawing and it was indeed a striking likeness of the man in the photo on the board.
Ginny looked at Ben and Whitney, "Who is that Ben? Is that the mur...." she looked at the boys, not wanting to say that word out loud in front of them, she sighed a big sigh and forged ahead, "is that the murderer?"
Before anyone else could answer, Celia spoke up, "I don't know if he's the murderer or not, but that's your biological father Ginny"
"WHAT?" Ginny stood up so fast she would have dumped her plate of steak and baked potato on the floor if Whitney hadn't caught it in mid flight.
Then she sat back down, waiting for someone to answer the thousand questions in her mind, questions she didn't even know she had, questions she couldn't put into words.
Celia looked at Andrew and the boys. "Kaci and Neil, you know what, you boys have been so helpful, why don't you take Andrew into the kitchen and have him help you get some big bowls of ice cream. Would you mind Andrew?"
"Sure, no problem at all ma'am. C'mon boys, let's go raid the ice cream!"
"YAY!!!!" they boy yelled together and just like that they were out of the room.
Everyone turned to look at Celia. "I only saw him one time. Deli and I were at the coffee shop, having some girl time. We'd been there an hour or so when he walked in the door. He had dropped her off and had arrived to pick her up. Even then I suspected he was a bully. He walked straight to our table and without introducing himself or even saying excuse me, he took her by the arm and said "come on, let's go". She barely got to hug me and say good bye and she was gone, he'd practically pushed her out of the building and I saw him put her in his car. I remember that moment when she got in the car and looked at me, like she was begging me to help her. Then he shut the door on that stupid tacky silver mustang of his and drove off."
They all looked at each other at once. Celia was still sitting with her head in her hands so she didn't notice.
"Bingo! Do any of you have any doubts we have our man? I don't. I'm pretty sure we have the who, the where, the when, and the how. What we need is the why and I think it will tie everything together, including the evidence."
"I think I can tell you the why." Whitney looked at her Da's face and reached for Ben's hand for security at the same time.
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