Page 83 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

“Alright. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave. I have him at gunpoint.”

“Don’t shoot him till we get there,” I instructed, then hung up.

“Come on,” I said to Allie.

“Where are we going?”

“My mom’s house,” I answered. “There might be a clue there.”

We headed toward the car, and Sean came up to us. I saw him and Allie share a look, and then she eyed him curiously.

“Sean Goldman,” he said, smiling weakly. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

Allie managed a polite smile, but it didn’t meet her eyes. “Me too.”

I drove more carefully when going to my mother’s house, mostly because Allie was in the car. I didn’t want to scare her on top of all the trauma that was already happening.

True to my mother’s word, she did have the man at gunpoint. However, man may not have been the word for him. He was a pimply-faced kid who looked like he had just finished high school, and he was understandably scared out of his wits.

“Put the gun down, Ma,” I said upon entering the door.

She frowned at me but slowly lowered the weapon as I scanned the boy on the couch.

“Hi, Mrs. Peters,” Allie greeted weakly, ever the epitome of politeness.

Mom replied with a grudging nod, but there was none of the usual animosity behind it. Good. I wouldn’t allow her to be rude to Allie to her face too.

I returned my gaze to the boy, who didn’t seem to want to hold my gaze.

“Do I know you?” I interrogated.

He jumped as though startled.

“No,” he muttered instantly, then shook his head. “I mean, yes. Yes, I…I’m Norman. I used to sometimes work at the butcher shop during the summers, the one opposite Old Man Clancy’s trinket store.”

“Ah.” I vaguely remembered the kid. He’d been a teenager when I left, and while he still looked like one, he had to be around twenty-five by now. “What do you have to say to me?”

“Uhm.” His hands squeezed into fists as he gathered his nerve, and I could see the faintest tremble in his knees. Whatever this kid had to say, he was terrified of it. “I’ve been meaning…meaning to talk to you for a long time…for years. But then you left town, and I didn’t know how to get to you. I came around your mom’s place a couple of times, but I never could work up to…you see, he threatened me. I swear I wanted to tell you, but he threatened my life.”

“Spit it out,” I grouched, having no patience for his rambling. “And quickly.”

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “I know you didn’t kill Old Man Clancy.”

“How?”

“I know. Because I saw who did it. I saw him walking away from the place with blood on his hands. He was frantic. Like he didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know he’d killed anyone at the time, but he threatened me, made me swear never to tell anyone I’d seen him.”

“Who was it?”

He hesitated.

“I swear to God, however scary you think this guy is, I promise you I’m a thousand times scarier. Tell me his name.”

“I don’t know his name,” he finally said. “He was average looking and about average height and everything. But his eyes were scary as fuck.”

“That’s not enough,” I snarled. “Tell me something, you bastard.”

“Um, I don’t know.” He started to get even more nervous. “I swear I don’t. Um, he was just bloody and weird and kept talking to himself while holding this broken necklace in his hand.”

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