3.

Hayes had never been to the police headquarters before and she could confidently say she never wanted to again. It was a loud, intimidating place with people walking around everywhere you looked. She kept close to Glen as Stephen escorted them through the lobby and into a conference room equipped with a long table and rolling chairs.

Her fists were clenched tight hidden by the long sleeves of her sweatshirt to hide her slightly tremoring fingers. After Stephen verbally confirmed her and Glen's assumption that this mess involved the dead body, it was a whirlwind of events. Hayes had retreated back into her quiet self, shell-shocked by the information whereas Glen understandably freaked out, throwing question after question at Stephen without receiving any answers in return. After finally getting Glen to calm down a little, Stephen directed them into their bedroom to each pack a to-go bag to take to the Rayon home where'd they be staying for emergency placement. This action also served as a distraction for the kids from watching the officers comb through the house for any evidence.

But before they could go to the Rayon home, Stephen brought them to the precinct for a quick detour. The detectives assigned to the case wanted to ask the kids some questions. After finding out that there were children involved in Vincent Merling's life, the detectives had a new angle to work with. Having had no luck thus far in their search, they were hoping that Glen and Hayes could give them their grandfather's location or at least provide some ideas.

Stephen closed the door after Glen and Hayes shuffled in, instantly quieting the room from the outside noise.

"Take a seat, guys." Stephen sat down in his own chair, rubbing his face. A wave of exhaustion had just hit him.

"Stephen..."

"Please, Glen," he indicated to the chairs. When Stephen woke up this morning he did not imagine this was how his day was going to go. Who have thought that the primary suspect for the murder investigation would be the grandfather of two kids near and dear to his heart. He could only hope he had the strength to help these kids get through the hell they were about to face.

Glen relented, falling into a chair causing it to spin around three times before settling down. Hayes followed his lead taking her own seat, quickly pulling her legs to her chest.

Before anything else was said, the door was pushed open again as two more people filed into the room.

"Hello kids, I'm Detective Noah and this is Ms. Lory, she's a child advocate." A man with a friendly smile introduced them, both taking their own seats across the table from Glen and Hayes. Stephen was situated at the head of the conference table. "I'm sure you have a bunch of questions right now and received no answers yet."

He paused, waiting for confirmation. Glen nodded.

"I'll be glad to try to answer them for you in a moment, but first I'd like to talk to you guys, if that's alright?"

Glen nodded again.

"Excellent. While we talk, Ms. Lory's job here is to make sure that what goes on in the room is in your best interest, okay? If at any point you want to stop, she'll make sure we stop."

"Are we in trouble?" Glen didn't really understand why they wanted to talk to him and Hayes some more. They had already been questioned by the officers back at the house.

"No, no not at all, Glen. In fact, we were hoping that maybe you'll be able to help us." Detective Noah said.

"Help you? With what?"

"Well, we'd really like to talk with your grandfather, Vincent," Detective Noah folded his hands. "Do you know where he may be?"

"No, sir."

"Does he have any places he likes to go? Maybe the gym or a friend's house?"

"No, sir." Glen replied after a quick glance to Hayes. He had seen her fidget in his periphery.

"Hayes, would you like to add anything?" Detective Noah also saw the little movement. Hayes shook her head, a little flustered having been called out. She had nothing to say. Hayes simply could not imagine their grandfather hanging out with friends, the image so strange that it made her want to laugh. "Okay," he moved on, "Why don't you tell me what his normal routine is like."

"I don't know," Glen shrugged, "we don't really see him much."

"What do you mean?"

"He sleeps when were at school. We sleep when he's at work." Glen answered.

"Ah, he's a janitor, right?"

"Yes, sir. Why do you want to find him again?" Glen had enough with answering questions. Now he wanted answers.

"We just have some questions we want to ask him."

"We're not stupid," Glen scoffed.

"Glen," Stephen warned, not liking Glen's tone.

"We're not!" Glen sat up straight and placed his palms down on the table. "You think our grandfather probably killed this person, whoever they are. Not like we would know because no one has told us anything. But if you haven't figured it out yet, we don't know where he is. Or what he does."

"I think it's time for a break." Ms. Lory stepped in, not wanting Glen to become aggravated any more than he was.

"Good idea," Stephen agreed.

Detective Noah nodded and stood up, mumbling something about being right back. When he left the room, Glen let out a sigh and sat back in his chair.

"You okay?" he nudged Hayes' chair with his knee. Unsurprisingly, his sister remained quiet the whole time but he knew her too well to think that her head was silent. In fact, her mind was running rampant with crazy scenarios on what was happening.

Hayes was just about to spill her thoughts when someone coughed, reminding her that they were not alone. "Just a little hungry," she said instead.

"Ah, not to much longer, alright guys?" Stephen jumped in, having listened to Hayes speak. It was approaching 6pm which was right around the time that pizza Friday commenced. "In fact, let me go talk to Noah, see what he's thinking then we'll head out. Sound good?"

Both kids nodded their consent. They were more than ready to leave.

"Alrighty, be right back." Slapping the table, he stood up and left the room.

"You know what, I think we could use some snacks." Ms. Lory smiled at them. "I'll get some chips and water." She stood up and made her way to the door. She sent them one last smile before exiting the room.

Now that they were finally alone for the first time since the police came knocking on their door, they felt like they could breathe again.

"Soooo," Glen tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling.

"Soooo," Hayes mimicked, letting one leg drop to the floor. She swayed her chair back and forth before accidently pushing off the floor causing the chair to spin in a circle. Giggling, she used her hand to push off the table to provide her more momentum. "One, two, three, four," she continued to count out the number of spins she completed until she couldn't spin no more. "Wow, I'm dizzy." she laughed, putting her head in her hands.

Glen laughed at her childness before embracing the distraction and spinning around in his own chair. "Bet I can last longer than you." He challenged.

-------

Sergeant Rayon eventually returned to the conference room almost an hour later and took Glen and Hayes to his home. Deja Rayon welcomed them with open arms, fed them pizza until their hearts and stomachs were content and set them up in the guest room. Even though Glen and Hayes had never slept over their house before, a year after they had met, the Rayon's converted an extra bedroom into their designated room with two twin beds. The Rayon's just had a gut feeling that one day they may need a place to stay.

It was reaching 9pm when the kids retired to their bedroom. They were both mentally and physically exhausted from the day and very eager to call it a night. Though they didn't know what was to come, they were both ready for the sun to rise to start a new day.

Meanwhile, Stephen sat in the living room with his head in his hands. He ran the events from the day back through his head. Something wasn't adding up and he couldn't figure it out. When he had left the room to find Detective Noah, he had found a group of colleagues huddled around a computer. Someone had searched for Glen and Hayes Merling in their system and nothing initially popped up. After some digging, they found a file for each kid in the school system starting with first grade for Hayes and second grade for Glen but nothing else. Their birth certificates listed T.J. Lewis as their mother but she wasn't in the system either. It was a dead end.

Stephen rubbed his face. Why did they not exist before then?

"Hey," Deja whispered, sitting down on the couch next to him. "Want to talk about it?" She massaged his shoulders trying to relieve the stress in his muscles.

"Those kids don't deserve this." He muttered into his hands.

"Did they find Vincent?"

"No," Stephen scoffed, "He's a ghost at the moment. Damn bastard, he probably ran this morning after seeing the news report." After much prompting at the station, Hayes finally shared that she saw their grandfather watching the television when she left the house that morning. Knowing that bit of information is what confirmed the police's thoughts that he was in hiding. Vincent knew it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for him.

"What's his connection to the woman?"

"Million dollar question. I could guess, but nothing's proven yet. It was luck that they even found the evidence linking him to the case."

"Need to bounce ideas off me?"

"Ah, they just sound so outrageous right now," Stephen sighed, shaking his head. "But, it's usually the crazy ideas that are the answer, huh?"

"Try me."

"Okay. Okay let's see, we got drug swap gone bad. Though there's no proof either were a dealer. And the kids never let on about seeing drugs in the house. Or she could have been an escort, I guess. Maybe Vincent got angry and it ended badly. I don't know. None feel right."'

"Well, that's a start," She squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "Have you been able to identify the body yet?"

"Yeah, another dead end," he breathed out, releasing his frustration. "License said Tara Fuller. But funnily enough, nothing on record for her since 2000. Just poof, gone. Until now, that is."

"You'll figure it out."

"I hope so. It's just such a mess."

Hidden behind the wall, Hayes bit down on her lip to not make a sound. She knew snooping was wrong, but when she had gone to the kitchen to get some more cookies, she was intrigued by the voices. The goal of getting cookies abandoned, she quietly ran back into the bedroom filled with all this new information.

"Glen, guess what I heard." Hayes softly shut the door behind her and crawled onto his bed sitting by his feet.

"What?" Glen asked, continuing to throw a tennis ball into the air and catching it. It helped him think, or so he said which is why he had been doing it for the past 10 minutes.

She waited until he threw it up again but swatting the ball across the room. She wanted his full attention because what she was about to crack this mystery dead body case wide open.

"This must be good," He sat up, scooting back until he was leaning against the wall for support. He laid his palms out.  "Hit me."

"I think,"  Hayes hesitated, realizing how silly this was going to sound. "I think that, um, I think the Bear killed our mom," she finally rushed out.

"What?" Glen raised his eyebrows.

"I think grandfather killed mom." Hayes said repeated, more slowly this time.

"Hayes, come on. Mom left us years ago. What makes you think that the Bear killed her? That's crazy talk."

"I don't know," She shrugged, beginning to feel less certain now at Glen's dismissal. "What was mom's name again?" Hayes didn't remember a lot from her younger years, which according to Glen, was because she blocked out the trauma as a way of coping with her new life. Glen had a lot more memories than she did, though still not a complete history.

"Jane Powers, I think. Why?"

"Oh. Never mind," Hayes slouched her shoulders.

"No, don't do that. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me..." Glen nudged her with his foot over and over again.

"I heard Stephen saying the dead person was Tara Fuller. I just thought, that maybe, I don't know." Hayes drifted off.

"Tara Fuller?" Glen echoed. "Tara Fuller. Tara Fuller... Holy Shit, Hayes!" He leaned over and punched her arm.

"Ow," she mumbled, rubbing her sore arm. "What? What does that mean?"

"Tara Fuller. That's our grandma's name! Mom's mom."

"We have a grandma?" Hayes wrinkled her nose.

"Obviously," Glen rolled his eyes at Hayes. "Mom had to come from someone."

"Was she married to the Bear? Wait, is the Bear even our grandfather?"

"I... think so? No, yeah he is. Mom told us when we moved in with him," he scratched his chin, "maybe."

"Glen," Hayes whined, "You're suppose to have all the answers."

"Yeah, well. I'll sleep on it. Maybe the answers will come to me then." He replied sarcastically. "Now move, this is my bed."

"Fine," Hayes huffed and scooted off the bed to jump onto her own. She turned off the lights before she slipped under the covers, getting comfortable to go to sleep.

A few moments of silence passed. Hayes turned on her side to face Glen. "G?" she spoke into the dark.

"Yeah Hay Hay?"

"Do you miss mom?"

"No, not even a little bit. I don't miss her. Do you miss her?"

"I guess not. She was mean." Hayes yawned. "G?"

"Hay Hay?"

"Did Mommy ever love us?" she heard him rustle in his sheets as he thought about his answer.

"Mom loved herself. She did what she felt was best and to her, that meant living with grandpa, I guess."

"But, did she ever love us?"

"Every mom should love their kids."

Hayes rolled onto her back, dissatisfied. "I don't think mom did."

"Maybe at some point she did. We just don't remember. I don't know, drugs can change a person. But I love you, Hay Hay. You and me against the world, yeah?"

"Yeah," Hayes replied, "love you too, G."

"Night, Sis."

"Nighty night," Hayes rolled onto her other side to face the wall. She closed her eyes, wishing for sleep to take over. But not enough sleep in the world could have prepared her for what they'd have to face tomorrow.