He Sent You

TWENTY FOUR

Juniper

We make it to a cute two story country home, with a pretty white fence surrounding the house, the driveway is lined with trees, and the front yard is vast with bright green grass, I can feel my mouth hanging open.

I hear Aiden chuckle. "You like?" I hear his voice close by my ear.

I don't dare turn, but I can feel his breath on my ear, and I can smell his minty breath mixed with his sweet cologne. "It's beautiful, definitely didn't think you'd have a place like this." It's true, I thought he'd for sure be living in the city, in a big ass newly renovated pent house, I did not imagine this.

"I'll take it as a compliment." He says, sounding further away now, so I can look at him.

"Did you buy it like this?" I ask, as Rick pulls in front of the double car garage.

He shakes his head but before he can answer he's stepping out of the car, soon enough he's pulling open my door and ushering me out. "I didn't, this was a family friend's friend's home, who passed away, it was pretty much dilapidated when it was taken over, nobody wanted it, it went to auction for really cheap and I've been watching it for a while and I put a bid in and I won." He says staring proudly at his house. "It took a while to plan everything out, and keep some of the history, and characteristic value, but alas this is what we have. Come look." He says gesturing me forward.

I walk up the stairs to the dark blue door, and then we enter the front entrance and everything glows with sun streaming through. All the furniture is white and clean, the floors are a polished brown color which makes the white stand out. I take off my shoes and tuck them to the side to make way for Rick carrying everything in. I follow Aiden into the first sitting area, which hold four armchairs both are a lavish gray color, there's a bright patterned rug in the middle and a real wood edge coffee table holding a vase of daisies and a neat pile of magazines.

"You coming?" Aiden asks.

I blink up at him and hustle toward him. We enter the kitchen, where everything is marble and steel. There's a big island with pendent lighting hanging over the island, everything again in here is so bright and easily lit and decorated with fresh flowers.

"Marshall really likes flowers, anything he finds on the way home or at school he picks for multiple places in the house." Aiden says pointing towards more colorful array of flowers sitting on top of the island.

I spin around taking as much as I can in, from the beautiful appliances to the simple and sleek furniture.

"Oh!" I say yelling and marching toward the shiny thing in the corner of the counter. "You have an espresso machine!" I point at the machine in front of me, its brand new looking, and incredible.

"It was a necessary purchase." He smirks. "Come on there's a lot more."

I follow him through out the rest of the house, the basement which holds a small makeshift home gym, and then Marshall's room for coloring and his million toys. Next we make way upstairs, Aiden shows me Marshall's room, then his room, and then my guest room which has a bathroom inside, a huge king bed and a big tv, and a huge window overlooking the backyard which backs onto the river, honestly this house is amazing, this house would definitely make Chris want to buy it on the spot.

"You ok?" Aiden says hanging on the door frame of the guest room. I'm standing by the window looking outside.

"Yes, I'm ok. Thank you for letting me stay in your beautiful house." I tell him, I fight the sudden urge to hug him.

"I'll go and grab your things from Rick, take a shower or make yourself at home." He tells me with a smile.

I pitter around the room, looking through drawers of the bathroom and find everything empty. I walk toward the window again and watch the way the water moves.

"I wish you were here, Chris. I miss you." I say to myself with a tear strolling down my cheek.

I sit on the edge of the bed awkwardly and wait for Aiden to get back with my things. But fifteen minutes go by and I start to panic. I make my way downstairs to look for him.

I check the kitchen, his office and the back porch but I don't see him. I walk to the front door to see it cracked open a tad. I quietly go toward it and see Rick and Aiden in a deep conversation.

"You saw them on fifth?" I hear Aiden say to Rick.

"Yeah, I pulled over and offered them a ride to where ever they were needing to go, I said you requested it." He answers Aiden. "They of course accepted and asked me to take them over to Gertrude Street, they asked me what you were doing with Juniper, if you and her were together, and just a bunch of invasive questions like what Juniper had planned for this week, if I knew if she was in the police station or in the legal building. I also overheard talk about someone named Christopher?"

I perk up at the last part. "And what did you say in response?" Chris was talked about what the heck did they talk about Chris?

"Well I answered saying I didn't know, that she kept to herself, and that you and her were working together, I didn't know what else to tell them. I then asked them a round a question like what there plans were, where they were staying. They gave me vague answers, like they were staying at the motel off Gertrude, and they were here for business relations. They didn't say anything else, they got out and started arguing quietly to themselves."

"Motel on Gertrude? There is no motel, that's mostly industrial. And what did they say about Chris?" I hear Aiden ask Rick.

I don't see anything, I am just listening now, I shuffle closer to the door without giving myself away. "I know, Memphis. I couldn't really hear, I think they knew I was listening so they kept it pretty quiet, I did hear something along the lines of if Junie knew about Chris or something."

This is so confusing what didn't I know about Chris? What were they trying to cover up. They're staying off Gertrude. I may need to sneak away from here before Aiden does and see that they're hiding.

"Right, maybe I'll take a drive down that way before picking up Marsh." I hear him tell Rick.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Memphis, if he sees what you're driving and the you have a kid or whatever and decides to follow you that's just putting yourself in more danger and putting Junie in more danger. I'll call Larry and ask him to put his guys are they're tail and see if he can scrape anything up."

"Mmm, good plan. Alright, thanks, Rick. I'll see you at 3, to pick up Marsh."

"Kay, see you."

I hear the car door slam and I move back and make my way to the kitchen and grab a seat at the island and wait for Aiden to talk to me.