Seeking An S.O.S.: Behind The Scenes

30. The Heirs

Waiting patiently for their turns in meeting their own guardians, the brother and sister duo of the quad sat together in an adjacent room next to the unit where their friends met their relatives they had run away from.

Getting impatient, Harley stood up from her seat. Walking back and forth, Harley placed her hands behind her back as she viewed the cuckoo clock hung up on the wall. As the noise ticked by the minute, her anxiety grew as the sounds mimicked the clicks of a metronome.

Wondering how the prison staff located their families remained a mystery. It appeared that it was heaven sent; as if someone from above had helped them. The theory sounded preposterous, but it was what Harley thought of at the last minute. It made sense to her since they were not only imprisoned by Bonnie and Clyde's capture, but by some tomfoolery.

As her girlfriend suggested, Harley believed a ghost must have visited them for some unknown reason. It sounded absurd to think about it; but as Harley remembered the masked man who prevented Martina from entering the store that day they were arrested, looked like an evil spirit or worse, an alien from outer space. Thinking about that situation caused Harley to shiver in fear, thus, she thought of something else to do in order to keep her mind off of anything that dealt with the paranormal..

Putting her ear against the wall, Harley heard what happened to the rest of her friends. One by one, all of them were in jeopardy. Once their parents showed up, the drama started. It was like a living nightmare the warden gave them before their final say. As she pondered with this thought, Roman caught her in the act and asked her to sit down.

"Mind your own business, Harley. You know we will get in trouble if we get caught."

But she debated with him by saying that it was 'necessary eavesdropping'.

"I'd like to hear why that is, Harley."

Folding his muscular arms together he nodded.

"Go on sis, I'm all ears!"

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Earlier, Harley had a hunch that the warden located all of their closest guardians in order to get each crew member to sign the contract faster.

"Don't you want to know what the warden is up to brother? I feel there's something fishy going on here."

Roman scratched his head wondering how his sister ever got that idea. He knew from Harley's past, she was an apprehensive person. She often followed her daily horoscopes and believed in psychics. For example, Harley coaxed her mother to go out with Mr. Grendel once she read her zodiac reading. A match made in heaven? It must have been luck the second time around.

Harley tried to smile, but was inclined not to after she heard Clyde's tantrums next door once he met his former foster parents. She wasn't delighted to hear that every meetup that Smith set up turned into a disaster.

"Who do you think the warden has in store for us, Roman? It's been some time since we've seen our parents. It's just the two of us all this time."

Looking away from his sister, Roman fidgeted. He also wondered why Smith asked them to stay in an enclosed room fit for janitorial supplies, while the others were placed back in the waiting room.

He didn't think of the warden as a heartless, soulless man dedicated to bullying inmates in the most dreadful ways possible. But Harley's thoughts have made him think otherwise.

Roman turned around to face the wall and a scribble written on there interested him. He walked closer to that area and bent down to read the message.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT CROSSING THE WARDEN!

Spooking him out, Roman tried to ignore the possibility that someone must have heard his conversation with his sister.

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Parking his Lexus into the Iron Heights parking lot, Ronnie Matson started sweating after he got out of his vehicle. He was thrilled to learn about having a half brother a month ago. Ronnie always wanted a sibling in his life, but what he didn't expect was to meet him in prison. After graduating law school, he knew that if word got out that he had a sibling who was a jailbird, Ronnie's work reputation might be doomed.

Roman Grendel! A delinquent? Ronnie couldn't believe that, it must have been a mistake!

He wasn't expecting a phone call from a warden of the Iron Heights Correctional Center in Washington either. Flabbergasted on how the warden learned about him, Ronnie decided to do his own research.

Before she passed away, his mother revealed the secret she kept for so many years about the older brother he never knew about. He called it her last words of guilt that kept eating her up.

Ronnie's mother, Henrietta, revealed that in her first marriage, she had left a baby boy behind after her ex husband won custody of him. The judge in that case prevented her from seeing baby Roman considering her condition.

As a recovering alcoholic, Roman's mother tried to remain sober, but Henrietta kept returning back to her old ways. Coming from a broken home as a child, she hardly found any support to keep her away from her only friends; booze. Her former husband tried to help her quit by taking her to an alcohol anonymous club himself,; but Henrietta was not a consistent member.

She couldn't do much at the time as well as she wasn't stable. Jobless and on the verge of divorce, Henrietta couldn't afford to care of her son.

She went back to live with her sister, Marie in New York. And a few years later after rehabilitation, Henrietta met Ronnie's father. Now as a Mrs.Matson, Henrietta tried to forget about her past, but thoughts of her first son remained in her mind.

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Before his flight, Ronnie searched Roman's name on the Internet and found him living in Timbuktu, Oregon. A rather whimsical name for a town, Ronnie found it humorous. Knowing that there was an original locale in Mali, Africa with the same name, Ronnie decided to find him. Putting two and two together, Ronnie decided that the warden of Iron Heights must have traced his mother's name in order to find him. 

But why? 

That's what he wanted to know. And. even though Ronnie lived out of state, he was willing to fly from New York, since he knew this might be a chance in a lifetime to meet his brother.

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Once inside, Ronnie handed in his ID and car keys to the prison guards.  After signing in on the clipboard, they gave him a visitor's badge in order to enter the designated room where he would meet his brother.

A guard passed him to inform the Warden of the latest visitor in his office.

"Warden Smith, a Ronnie Matson, is here to see Roman Grendel."

"Thank you Dennison, have Ronnie sit in the waiting room. I will fetch Roman and his sister. They will surely be in for a treat!