Rachel and Al rushed through the door to find two uniformed RCMP constables waiting for them. "We're the foster parents," she said. 

"Let them through," said a male voice behind them. 

The two constables parted, and Rachel saw Emma on the couch, watching TV with Detective Marsden and, to Rachel's surprise, Trainee Detective Goncalves. All of them seemed interested in what they were watching. Logan sat at the dining room table with Detective Pak, who must have been the one who told the constables to let them through, and Detective Tracey.

"We came as soon as Logan called," Rachel said. They did, too. Rachel had to quickly tell Ed Sanderson, the newest partner and the only one in the office, that she had to go home for a family emergency. Then she met Al, whom she'd called and who had to make his own quick getaway, at the Stadium Skytrain station, where they both rushed home, Rachel calling Lauren to tell her they wouldn't be carpooling home with her, and that she'd call later to tell her why.

"Thank you for doing that," Tracey said. 

Rachel looked from Tracey to Pak, then to Marsden and Goncalves and, to lighten the mood, asked, "Are we having a party?"

"You're probably wondering about the presence of police from two different departments," Pak said.

"We're already familiar with Detectives Tracey and Goncalves," Al said. "They investigated an unrelated matter in which we were involved a few years back in New Westminster. I've been meaning to come in and make a statement in the matter of..." He looked at Emma, who seemed to be focused on the TV. "... the mother of Logan and Emma." Logan flinched at Al's words.

Tracey smiled briefly at him. "I guess we've come to you, now. No trip necessary."

Marsden rose and said, "You may or may not know that the Lower Mainland has an Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, or IHIT." She pronounced the acronym as if it were two words, I hit, a subject and a predicate but no object. "It's composed of police from the RCMP and a few municipal police departments, one of which is New West. They cooperate to investigate serious crimes where there is an element of organization involved."

"When Detective Tracey called us about Logan's predicament, we couldn't ignore the coincidence of two deaths, and potentially a third, to which Logan is connected," Pak said.

Rachel stared at them for a second. "Did you say a third?"

"Why don't you sit at the table and we'll discuss it?" Marsden invited, taking a seat herself.

Rachel looked at Al, and they reluctantly sat facing the three detectives and Logan. "Can we confirm, first, that Logan isn't in any trouble?" she asked.

"Not legal trouble, so far," Pak said. "The evidence doesn't contradict Logan's story yet. We're more concerned about his and Emma's physical safety at the moment, because if Logan's testimony is correct, there's a possibility his father may have been taken, by the people he described, and possibly killed himself, or he might have been induced into revealing where Logan lives, since they must know he's a loose end. That's really why we're here."

"Are you saying Logan's in danger from the real killer?" Rachel asked in a low voice.

"We have reason to believe, from Logan's testimony and from the evidence you provided us on Sunday, that there are other parties involved in this case, parties that might have an interest in making sure Logan doesn't testify against them in a trial."

"You mentioned an element of organization before," Al said. "So, we're talking organized crime, here?"

"We identified known individuals in the photos on that memory card," Marsden said. Rachel noticed Logan seemed to shrink in his chair.

"Logan," Rachel said, "does your father know where you live?"

Logan squirmed and shrugged. "I never gave him my address. I'm not an idiot. I just told him I lived in the Brentwood area."

Rachel wasn't comforted by what he'd said. It was still enough to make her fear cars driving slowly down their street. Joe might have been right to escort them into their house on Monday. She looked at Marsden. "So, we shouldn't have left him here at home with Emma, alone?"

"The possibility of anything happening would have been low, especially during the day," Marsden said. "Don't beat yourself up over it."

"Yet, you made the effort to come over here, all of you," Al said. 

"We took the opportunity to come here and interview you as a team, to address two cases that may be related, and to provide a sense of security until you got here," Tracey said. "We haven't attempted to interview Logan without his legal guardians present." He added this last even though it hadn't entered Rachel's mind, but now that he said it, she looked at Logan, who nodded as if she'd asked if it were true.

"We saw the police cruisers out there," Rachel said. "I feel secure now, but don't they also act as a giant red arrow pointing at our place to anyone looking?"

"Police can visit a house for any number of reasons," Pak said, sounding defensive. "Crooks wouldn't necessarily assume the person they're looking for is in there."

"Are we going to need someone to watch our place until these guys are caught?" Al asked.

The three detectives looked at each other. "We might be able to provide some protection," Pak said. "Are you mainly home in the evening?"

"And weekends," Rachel said. "What about during the day? Logan might go back to work with our friend Joe's construction company, and Emma is going to day camp this coming week, but otherwise there's a possibility they could find themselves at home, say, if one or both of them get sick."

"It might be wise for them to stay out of the house during the day if at all possible," Marsden said. "If they ever need to stay home, let us know and we can arrange for a watch at those times."

Rachel looked at Al, who shrugged and nodded. She sighed. "I guess that's all we can ask for, but it's still scary, thinking they might be out there."

"We understand," Tracey said. "We're hoping you can shed some light on facts that might lead us closer to these guys, so we can get them off the streets and give you peace of mind."

"We'll tell you what we can," Al said.

"Okay, first, Logan," Tracey said, "from my discussions with Detectives Pak and Marsden, it appears you were informed of your mother's death at around seven in the evening of last Saturday."

Logan nodded. "Yeah, my dad told me in a text."

"Okay. Now, we were called to the scene of her death around one in the morning on Sunday." Tracey pulled out his notebook and began scribbling. "The coroner's report puts her time of death around six on Saturday evening."

"Jesus, that wasn't long after she left us," Rachel said.

"This being when you dropped her off at the Skytrain station after you went out to get your nails done," Tracey said.

"That's right."

Marsden and Pak scribbled in their notebooks, as this wasn't information Rachel had told them on Sunday or yesterday.

Tracey said, "So, Jenna Davenport appears to have returned to New Westminster from seeing you and then met her end there."

Logan looked like he would be sick. Rachel asked, "Should Logan be listening to this?"

"I think if Logan knows anything about what might have happened to her, we need to know," Pak said.

"How did it happen?" Logan asked. "No one's told me how it happened yet."

"The cause of death was alcohol poisoning," Tracey said sotto voce so that Emma wouldn't hear from the couch, "but we have reason to believe she didn't administer the alcohol herself."

Logan looked down at the table and said quietly, "Shit."

"And you yourself were at home until seven that evening?"

"Yeah, I was recuperating at home," Logan said. "I worked my first day on the construction site on Friday, and I was sore."

"I stayed home with him the whole time, while Rachel and Emma were out with Jenna, our friend Lauren and her daughter Naomi," Al said.

"We still need to call Lauren to confirm that you were out together," Tracey said.

"You might as well talk to Joe on the same call if you need to confirm Logan worked for him on Friday," Rachel said. "They're married."

"Logan, do you have any idea who might have had a reason to harm your mother?" Pak asked. "Could it have been your father?"

Logan shrugged. "I guess it's possible, but from how he seemed when I saw him that night, I think the news scared him."

"You mean someone else did it, and he might have known who and was afraid of that person?"

"Maybe. He was agitated. It was why he wanted me to bring the phone, because he wanted to get it out of his hands."

Tracey was scribbling furiously, because this was new information for him. Pak said, "About the phone. You were holding it for him?"

"Yeah, just in case whoever wanted it tried to kill him for it."

"And this phone had pictures on it. Pictures, I think, that were duplicated on the memory card Rachel and Al found."

Logan nodded. "The memory card was insurance. If Dad did the hand-off but something happened to him, I was supposed to turn it over to his buddies so they could continue holding it over these guys."

"Wait a minute," Marsden said. "Why did he bring you along to this hand-off, then? If you were supposed to hold on to the phone and the back up, which seems like all the eggs in one basket if you ask me, why did you come with him when he took the phone? What if something happened to you? Who would have obtained the memory card from your hiding place?" She looked at Rachel and Al. "Besides you two, of course."

Logan shrugged. "I don't think my dad thought it all through. I think I just went with him because his ride showed up soon after, and it wasn't much of a hassle for them to drive me home later."

"After the hand off, though? Barnet Marine Park is further east of here. Why not drop you off first?"

Logan shrugged. "Larry was driving, and he just took Hastings the whole way. Dad didn't tell him to make a detour. I think they were both really nervous about the whole thing, and just wanted to get it over with, and they had a meet up time they had to get to."

"Oh, so they might have been late if they dropped you off first."

"Yeah, I think so."

"And just to be clear, Larry is the deceased Larry Kranski?" Tracey asked.

"Yes, that's right," Marsden said.

"Do you think these guys, to which your dad was handing the phone, might have been responsible for your mother's death?" Tracey asked Logan. "Do you think that was why your dad was so eager to hand them the phone?"

Logan shrugged. "Maybe."

"Can you give us any names for these guys?" Pak asked. "The one your dad handed the phone to, and the one who was waiting in the trees?"

Logan shook his head. "Dad never told me any names. He wanted me to stay as far away from this as possible. I was just holding the stuff, that's all."

"Can you give us a description of either of them?" Marsden asked.

"I don't think so. They were far away and it was dark. I think they might have been white, but that's about it."

"Okay." Marsden tried to hide her disappointment, but Rachel could tell the detective had hoped for more. "Over the next little while, Logan, you're going to need to stay with people you know during the day and stay home at night. If you see anybody suspicious, if you see men who might be the ones you saw that night, you call us. If you feel threatened you call nine-one-one."

Logan nodded soberly. "I guess I can't see my friends anymore. If I'd gone to see them on Saturday instead of my dad, I wouldn't be in this predicament. They texted me, you know, while I was in the car with Dad and Larry. I told them I was too busy." He shook his head ruefully.

Marsden's face softened. "It might not be for long. We have those photos, and we're identifying people and tracking them down." She paused before saying, "One of those photos we need to ask you about, though."

"Wait, this is starting to sound like questioning, and Logan said last night he didn't know what was in those photos," Rachel said. "Shouldn't Melinda be here?"

"You can call her if you like," Pak said. "We did say earlier that Logan's not in any trouble. We just thought it odd that there's a document in one of the photos with his name on it."

"What?!" Logan exclaimed. 

"You own a boat, apparently."

Logan looked wildly from Pak, to Marsden, to Tracey. "I don't understand. Why? How?"

"Could your dad have registered it under your name?" Marsden asked.

He shook his head furiously. "Dad was blackmailing people with those pictures. Why would he have anything to do with them? Why wouldn't he tell me my name was in one of them? He would have seen them, wouldn't he?"

"Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was as clueless about them as you were. Maybe there's someone else, someone who took the pictures with the phone and didn't know that you happened to be the person in that document. If they knew your dad, though, you'd think they'd see that last name and wonder."

"But the person who registered you as the owner of the boat must know who you are," Tracey said. "If not your dad, then who?"

Logan shrugged helplessly.

"Any other family you know about?"

"I'd also like to know the answer to that question," Rachel said. "If we start the adoption process, I'd like to know if anyone else is going to come out of the woodwork to oppose it."

She felt a gentle tug on her arm, and was surprised to see Emma at her side. "Did you say adoption?" she asked.

Rachel felt her heart sink. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't mean for that to come out here; it's not the right place to be discussing it--"

To her shock, Emma threw her arms around her. 

"Oh, sweetie," Rachel said, squeezing her back, feeling tears prickle her eyes. 

"Both of us?" Emma asked. "Please, both of us?"

"Emma," Logan said sharply. "Come on, it's too soon, and I don't want--"

"Is that what you want, sweetie?" Rachel asked as she rubbed her back.

"That's what Mom wanted," Emma said.

Suddenly the room went very quiet. Rachel felt a chill run down her spine. 

"What did you say, Emma?" Tracey asked.

Emma broke the hug and looked at Rachel. "Mom talked to me about it on Saturday, when we were alone for a bit. She said something like, if anything happens to me, I hope Rachel takes you for good, because she seems like a nice person." She shrugged sheepishly. "I didn't think anything was actually going to happen to her, I thought she was just being nice about you because you took her with us to get our nails done, so I kind of forgot about it until now."

Tracey came to her side and crouched to her eye level. "Emma, are you saying, last Saturday, while you were out getting your nails done, there was a time your mother was alone with you, and she told you those things?"

Emma nodded and looked at Rachel. "She said you were the first one she really trusted with us."

"Oh," Rachel breathed, putting her hand to her mouth. She looked at Tracey. "You don't think... the way she just visited us out of the blue... you don't think she knew something was going to happen to her, and she wanted to see her kids one last time, do you?"

"It could have been just a general statement she made because you were so nice to her, like Emma said," Tracey said, but something in his face made her think he was thinking along the same lines.  

"She did say something else, though," Emma said.

They all turned to her. "What was it?" Tracey asked.

"She said, watch out for Auntie Kathy."

"Oh, shit," Logan whispered.

"Who's Auntie Kathy?" Rachel asked. "Is she your mom's sister? Your dad's?"

"No, she's not related to us by blood," Logan said. "She's just a friend of Mom's. Not a very good friend, either. A lot of the times Mom relapsed was because of her."

"This Kathy person," Tracey said, "do you know her last name?"

Logan scrunched his face in concentration. "McKay? McPhee? Something with a Mac in it."

"We'll check the databases, in case she has a criminal record. Does she seem like a bad character to you?"

Logan shrugged. "They weren't good for each other, that's for sure. I don't know if she committed any crimes, though."

"So, you'd recognize her if you saw her?"

"Oh, yeah. Pretty hard to miss, that one. Candy red dyed hair, tattoos on her neck. Scuffed beige leather jacket. Swears like a sailor."

Tracey wrote all this in his notebook. "Do you think she might have had something to do with your mother's death?"

"I don't know. She might lead her to the cliff, but I don't know if she'd push her off, if you know what I mean."

Tracey nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. I'm going to check her out. Thanks for this, both of you. You've been very helpful today."

Emma swelled with pride. "Should we call you if we see Auntie Kathy?"

"Absolutely."

She peered at him for a moment and said, "You have a space between your front teeth."

Tracey chuckled and said. "I know. It's called a diastema."

"Emma, it's not polite to point out parts of people's bodies," Rachel said, thinking she should at least try to correct her.

"But you talk about the lawyer's hair all the time," Emma said.

To Rachel's surprise, Marsden burst out laughing. "I thought I was the only one who noticed," she said. Everyone else chuckled awkwardly, and Rachel, feeling embarrassed and guilty, resolved to watch her mouth around Emma more; the girl paid more attention than she thought.

Thanks for reading this far! if you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send it up the ranks. If something doesn't ring true about police procedure and interviewing, leave a comment. I strive for authenticity. To get back to Joe and his increasing suspicion about Lauren, click on "Continue reading."