Page 29 of Midnight

“You’re going after them, aren’t you? Whoever shot your dad. You’re going after them,” Pearl said.

“Let’s just say, we’re not leaving Crossroads until whoever did this is behind bars,” he said. “We’ll see you soon.”

The call ended.

Gunner looked up. “First lead. We just need a name to link it to.”

“God knows how we’ll find that out,” Dylan muttered.

“Oh, we’ll find them,” Asher said.

“Where do you even start?” Dylan asked.

Asher frowned. “I can’t stop thinking that it’s somehow linked to the robbery. And since we were kids when all that happened, I think we start at the beginning. We’ll get background on all of the conspirators and go from there,” Asher said.

“So, do we go out, or do we order in?” Dylan asked.

“Tonight, I vote for DoorDash,” Ash said. “We all need sleep, and I’m not in the mood to get back out in the cold tonight.”

“I second that,” Gunner said.

Ash opened his laptop, pulled up his app, and began scanning restaurants. In the end, they went with Chinese, and ordered a varied assortment of dishes to cover all the bases. After they finished, they turned on the TV in Ash’s room and settled down to wait.

Dylan and Ash were sprawled out on the bed, and Gunner was on the love seat beneath the window.

While they were waiting, Ash’s phone rang again. It was Nora.

“I’m going to take this in the other room,” he said.

“Tell Nora we said hello,” Dylan said, and threw a wad of paper at him.

Ash ignored the teasing as he sat down on Gunner’s bed to answer.

“Hey, darlin’. Good to hear your voice.”

“I hope I’m not intruding, but I wanted you guys to know how much you all mean to me, Jacob included.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed past a lump in his throat. “No, you are not intruding or bothering. I haven’t been mad at you even once since I first set eyes on you.”

“I wondered if it would be okay to come see all of you, and let you know you’re not in this alone. The whole town of Crossroads is rooting for Jacob and his boys,” she said.

“Then come see us. We’re staying at the Studio 6 Suites near the hospital, but we’re only here at night. Right now, we’re spending most of the day in the ICU waiting room, waiting on the ten minutes per hour that we can see him.”

“So, it would be okay if I came to the hospital some time tomorrow morning?” she asked.

“It would be very okay. And Nora…”

“Yes?”

“Love you, baby.”

“Love you, too,” she said.

He went back to join the others just as someone knocked on the door.

“That’ll be DoorDash,” Asher said and reached for his wallet as he went to the door. The delivery guy had a big bag at his feet and was holding another one in his hand.

“Order for Kingston?” he said.