It's All About Us

Chapter 11: "I met Travis today."

Present Day

Detective Brandon Reed had patiently waited for the past few days for Travis to call him and tell him about Anna. 

He already knew about Olivianna Grace arriving here to live with her brothers, but he had to act like he didn't even knew of her existence. 

What was Brandon even supposed to say to his best friend? That he had always knew about Anna? That he knew she would eventually come back here? That he had already met her when she was a baby? 

He groaned in frustration, resting his forehead on the steering wheel. The sun was setting when he had left the precinct fifteen minutes ago and now the orange sky was nearing a darker shade. 

Stepping out of his car, he locked the doors and made his way to the familiar suburban house. After ringing the doorbell, it took the owner just a couple of seconds to open the main door and glare at the detective. 

"I thought we had a deal." He grunted, glancing behind Brandon. "No more get-togethers till someone has any major news."

"I may have something." Brandon replied, raising his eyebrows in challenge. "Although, it's up to you to consider it major or not."

The older man narrowed his eyes but took a step back to let Brandon enter his house. 

Brandon made his way inside and towards the kitchen, where he always goes first to get a drink after his duty ends.

He glanced at the woman perched on one of stools at the island, sipping her green tea while wearing a long shirt that definitely didn't belonged to her. She was sitting nearest to the back windows, the evening sunrays hitting her bronze skin.

Brandon grabbed a bottle from the upper cabinet, poured himself a drink and took a slow sip. 

"So she is allowed here anytime?" Brandon asked the house owner who had now entered the kitchen, then he turned towards the woman. "And you! You said you were leaving early because you had a date."

"I didn't technically lie." Jada Davis smirked at her co-worker. "Just forgot to mention who I was meeting and where the date was."

Brandon took another sip, narrowing his eyes in reply. Jada didn't backed down either and continued staring at him right back.

"I didn't invite you inside so you can raid my drink cabinet, Reed." Charles stated, glancing at both the detectives, then leaning against a counter. "Nor to stare at my evening date. So can you reveal what you got or I can show you the main door again."

It wasn't like Brandon didn't respect Charles Fletcher, but sometimes the older ex-detective did liked to get on his nerves. Having known Brandon since he was toddler, Charles knew which buttons to press to get him annoyed.

"I met Travis today." Brandon replied, turning away and staring out of the window now. "He told me about Anna."

"That's not anything important." Charles shook his head, as Jada got up and rinsed her cup in the sink. "Considering your history with him, and whatever you two are these days, we all knew Greeley will eventually tell you about Olivianna Grace."

"We aren't anything these days." 

Jada sighed at Brandon's reply, then went and stood in front of him. She kept her hand on his cheek in comfort. "You good, Bran?"

Brandon looked at his friend, the only one who knew how much he was struggling under the burden of keeping secrets. They may have conflicting views on things and argue everyday, but the bond they developed while training in the camp was much more important to them.

He shook his head in reply. "Sorry, it's... leave it. That's not why I came here."

Jada moved away and stood besides Charles, crossing her arms. Brandon turned to look at both of them, and kept both his hands on the island. 

"As I was saying, Travis told me about Anna, and as planned I acted like I didn't knew anything. He told me that Lillian died in a house fire and Anna was written to him in her will. Jada, can you repeat what we found from Vancouver's police department?"

"The police had assumed that the fire started because of a short-circuit in the Grace's household that night. Both the mother and daughter were asleep. Then somehow, the daughter must have woken up and noticed the fire that had now reached the room and jumped out of her window in fright, clutching her phone tightly. She then sprained her wrist and got minor burns. But her mother couldn't survive, they even found her burnt body. She was unrecognizable but they did a DNA test to match samples with the daughter."

"Correct. But that's not what happened, right? As you said, the police just assumed all this."

"Yeah." Detective Davis nodded along, confirming. "The police couldn't get a statement out of the girl, saying she was in shock over the whole ordeal."

"Why are we even repeating this things again?" Charles interrupted, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion. "These are known facts to us for a while now."

"Yes," Brandon nodded, then finishes his drink. "But the thing is, we didn't knew that Anna is still not speaking."

He let the information sink in, as both of them were staring at me in confusion. 

"Wait, what?"

"Anna hasn't said a single thing since that night. It's most probably because of trauma and she must be experiencing PTSD."

Brandon had felt his heart break when he had heard about this. He couldn't imagine what the girl must be going through.

"That's... sad." Charles stated, looking down. "She is what, 12 now?"

Brandon nod, pouring himself another glass. "Yeah, but you know what this means, right? Everyone just assumed what happened, but Anna is the only one who must've seen it happening."

"If there was any foul play..." Jada said, taking a seat at the island again. "She may know that this was just not a house fire. It was all planned." 

"Another thing that Travis mentioned was someone kind of attacked Anna in the food park yesterday." Brandon adds, taking another sip. "Anna writes things down for her family to read, so when they asked her, she wrote that he was speaking with an accent and she couldn't understand him."

"If the girl is anything like her mother," Charles started saying. "We can't rule out the fact that she will be smart, and may be hiding things too."

"You guys say Lillian could've..." Jada said next, then stopped. "No, Lillian must've given a clue to her daughter on where the evidence is hidden, then why is she not giving a statement? The man who attacked her would be mostly someone who wants the evidence too."

"Anna is smart, then." Brandon stated. "She must've figured out that all of this goes deeper than what is in the front. We should keep an eye on her."

Deep down, Brandon knew things were going to get much worse for the Greeley family with Anna here now. The weird things that are happening at the hotel are just a start. Their fourth team member was still inside the enemies' base, creating havoc and it's just a matter of time when Brandon had to come clean to Travis.

"She is 12 years old." Jada stated, then shrugged. "What's the worse she can do? Sneak out in the middle of the night?"

And that's what Anna was planning to do at that exact moment. She was going to sneak out at night.

×××××××××××××××

Here's a secret: 
Brandon is going to be important to the story as much as all the Greeleys. 

So tell me your first impression of Brandon. 

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I'm open to suggestions! :)