So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Part Two: Shrewd and Knavish Sprite; Chapter Thirty: Johnny, Saturday

The phone rang just as Johnny was finally drifting off to sleep. He'd been running on so little of it, and his nerves were so raw, that he nearly fell out of bed in reaction. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, hoping against all hope that it was an unknown number, that Val was calling him from a payphone just to say she was alive and well, but when he looked at the screen he saw with disappointment, and real irritation at the interruption of what little sleep he might have gotten, that it was Lauren again.

"Hello?" he mumbled.

"Johnny, don't freak out," Lauren said with the voice of a hostage negotiator, "but I found Val."

His heart began to race. The adrenaline spikes over these past couple of days were going to kill him eventually. "Did you say you found her?!" he asked in amazement. "Why would you think I'd freak out..." Suddenly a darker meaning for the word "found" crept into his mind, and he gasped. "Oh, my God, she's not..."

Lauren continued as if she hadn't heard him. "I guess it's more accurate to say she found me."

He blinked for a few seconds, struggling with her meaning. "Wait... what... is she okay?"

"She's physically unhurt," she said, "but she's in shock. Paramedics are examining her right now, but she doesn't want to go to the hospital until she sees her family."

"Where are you?" he asked. "I'll come to you. I'll bring the boys if she doesn't want to see me, I just need to see she's okay."

"I'll give you the address, it's in Surrey."

"Hold on, let me get a pen and some paper." As he scrambled off his bed and searched for something to write on, her words sank in. "Did you say Surrey?"

"Yes, a motel off King George Boulevard before it meets Highway Ten."

"What in the world is she doing in Surrey? I can't think of anyone she knows there."

"Well, I haven't established that yet, because she's still shut down."

Suddenly what she'd said before hit him square between the eyes. "Wait, why is she in shock?"

She cleared her throat and said, "Okay, here's where I don't want you to freak out."

"Why, what is it?" he asked impatiently, wanting to get going, get his sons to drive him because he didn't think he could drive in his half-dead-from-exhaustion state.

She sighed and said, "She was found at the scene of a homicide."

He stopped just as he was about to reach for a pen. "What?" he breathed.

"A triple homicide," she clarified, as if that made anything better.

He covered his mouth with his hand to stop himself from screaming. He bit into the soft flesh at the base of his thumb just to keep his panic at bay. "Oh, my God," he cried. "Three people are dead... murdered?"

"The police haven't finished examining the scene yet, but when I saw it there wasn't much doubt in my mind that all three of them met violent ends."

"And she was there?! She could have been--"

"We're still not quite sure she was in the room, or if she was in the other one, heard the commotion, ran to see what was going on, saw what had happened, maybe tried to help one or all of them, realized it was too late and ran for help at the office."

"Wait... wait, you looked at the scene? Are you supposed to do that?"

She was silent a moment before saying, "I had to see if there was anything I could do. Nothing, as it turned out."