Page 56 of Astrid
“I have lunch here, just a few sandwiches and some chips. While I was making them, I got a call from Uncle Chip. Told him everything that happened last night, and he then admitted that the meeting he’d been in was actually a phone call with the guys’ commanding officer in the RMCP. He, Dickson, the commander, wanted to know who we were. That was the holdup, but once Uncle Chip told him, and some information exchanged hands, Dickson finally agreed to send what we requested. According to Uncle Chip, no information on their cases is confidential.”
“It’s coming in,” Ava said as she jumped up and headed over to one of the printers. In the middle of pulling the papers off, Carl walked in.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, we’ve been waiting for the information we requested last night to come in. Turns out their boss had to call Uncle Chip to check us out before he felt comfortable enough to send us what they had.”
“I can understand that,” Carl said as he looked around and picked out a desk. After taking some items from his briefcase, he grabbed his laptop and set it up. When he finished he looked up, and leaned back when Astrid was there with her hand out.
“What?”
“I need your phone to program something into it.”
“What?”
“The cavalry I told you about earlier.” Morgan laughed as she accessed her own computer to get the information sent to her. It took Astrid under five minutes to program what she needed, and when she played it, the others paused and looked up.
“What’s that?” Joyce asked.
“That’s the sound if someone comes into the house and doesn’t enter their code into the security system. That alarm will sound, and that means someone’s breached the house. Come with guns blazing.” They all nodded, then got back to work.
That was how Justin, John, and Alex found them several hours later. Instead of interrupting them, they stood there for several minutes to observe them, then looked at each other. After doing a silent communication between them, they left the building and went back over to the house. Alan looked up from stirring something on the stove and frowned at them.
“Where are the girls?”
“Neck deep in work, they never even looked up when we entered. There’s no way we’re going to get them to break away for something as trivial as a meal.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Wyatt said from the front doorway to the house. He walked in, held the door open, and from behind him came, April, Dillon, Lucas, DJ, and bringing up the rear were Dolly and Wilson. Each person except for Wyatt carried a dish.
“What’s all this?”
“Pot luck,” Dolly said as she placed her covered dish on the island. “I’ve been talking with Morgan for a few days, and she told me how important last night was. Before she came over here today, she told me that she should be receiving some important information today, and not to plan on her coming home for supper. I had Wilson slow roast a couple of roasts today, while I made salads.”
“I made Rigatoni,” April said as she set her dish down.
“I went to the store and bought buns,” DJ and Lucas said at the same time.
“What are you making?” Dolly asked Alan as she took it upon herself to look into the pot he was stirring. Unable to resist, she found a spoon and took a taste. She looked at him in shock. “That’s good, when did you learn to cook?”
Everyone laughed, then with red cheeks, Alan pointed to Alex. “While we’re working on the cabinets, Alex tells me how to make the things you’ve taught him to make. I’ve been craving goulash for a few days, and though he’s never made it before, together we came up with our own recipe.”
“Well, whatever you did, it’s good. I might want the recipe myself.”
Wyatt looked at Dolly with the evil eye, then grabbed a spoon and took a taste for himself, he remembered how bad the A’s cooking had been when they’d first moved to North Dakota. “Holy shit, it is good.” He looked at them and grinned. “A far cry from runny undercooked eggs with shells in them.” They all shared a laugh, and Justin began gathering up the plates they’d already set on the table. When Lucas questioned him, he shrugged.
“We’ll never be able to get the women over here to eat. What if we take it to them, and there’s a room in the kitchen over there to put this food on, we can fix them a plate and set it at their elbow.”
“That’ll work,” Wyatt said as he reached over and lifted the pan that Wilson had carried in. It took some time, but they finally got the food transferred to the office, and dished up a little of each for the women, and their men waited to fill their plates before taking the other into the women. Once the food was beside them, they grabbed chairs to sit around the office, if they hadn’t taken a free desk. John, Justin, Wyatt, and Alex sat next to the desks their women were at. They ate, and when the women automatically picked up a fork and began to eat, the men grinned and nodded to each other.
“What are you working on?” John asked Astrid, and when she looked up, he could tell she was concentrating on her work. She shook her head and really looked around.
“Holy shit, how long have you guys been here?” Her statement had the others looking up, and it was Carl who frowned when he had a roast beef sandwich halfway to his mouth that he realized what had happened.
“You cooked for us?”
“Yeah, we knew it would be intense.” Wyatt frowned at him, then made the introductions of the people he hadn’t met yet, that turned out to be only April, Dolly, and Wilson. He turned to his fiancée and asked, “Can you share?”
Morgan frowned, then held up a hand, lifted a file and handed it out, saying, “Dillon?” He stood, took the file from her, and frowned at it, then sighed deeply. “Against my better judgement, I’d say no, but they’re going to stand outside the door and listen anyway, so go ahead.” She had given him a file that had some very graphic information in it, and was asking Dillon’s permission to share it in front of his teenage sons.
