I ground my teeth together. If he did, that was a huge miscalculation on his part. The only silver lining was that Daddy absolutely loathed rich people throwing money around to get their way. Hopefully, their plan to buy us off would backfire. This could be just the thing I needed to swing the pendulum back my way.
“Kadee? What’s wong?” Mikey wondered. “You wook mad.”
Andrew grunted and smacked the backseat with the back of his head. “Of course, she’s mad—something good’s happenin’ to me, and she can’t stand it!” He finally vented out the way I already suspected he felt.
But still. His words hit me like a whap from a tree branch you’d always counted on to provide you shade. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Is that really what you think, Drews?” Andrew shrugged his shoulders, refusing to meet my eyes. The brimming tears spilled over.
“No he doesn’t!” Mikey yelled at me, and then his brother as if the force of his words could force a change of heart. “No you don’t!”
Blue was clawing at the driver’s door now, adding scratches to the already pockmarked door. I sighed and shouldered my way out to greet our neglected pet. After letting him lick the salt from my face, I opened the door for Mikey and caught him right in the middle of commanding big brother to tell me it wasn’t true. I stared long and hard at Andrew.
“I’m sorry, Katie. I didn’t really mean it,” Andrew said with zero conviction.
“I toldja he didn’t mean it!” Mikey repeated.
My gut disagreed, but I gave Andrew a ghost of a smile.
“It’s just . . . you’re so negative about everything Academy. All the time,” Andrew said, slamming the door. “You haven’t even given it a chance.”
I unnecessarily lifted Mikey out of his car seat just for an excuse to extract some comfort from him. A kiss to his sweaty forehead and I set him down with his Spidey backpack, ignoring Andrew’s comment. “Okay boys . . . y’all go change clothes while I haul in the groceries.” I headed in with three giant plastic bracelets looped on one arm and my gym bag and backpack on the other.
“Here, I’ll take one.” Andrew relieved me of one of the bags, evening me out.
That was a first—him offering to help. Must be his idea of an apology. I decided to take it and even managed to lift my lips. Andrew grinned back at me. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” he hollered, before taking off with his shadow and me close at his heels. We arrived at the porch, laden with bags and leaning together laughing. I unlocked the double-bolted door. Then the trio of Connelly kids walked into our empty trailer together.
I suddenly wondered: How many more times would we get to do that?
We finished our chores in record time, and the boys were busy hammering out their homework while demolishing a bowl of popcorn. I’d come to the conclusion that Daddy would definitely punish us both for “meddling in his business.” Technically, he was right—the envelope was addressed solely to him. But Mama made him swear on heaven and earth to let me be involved in all major decisions regarding the boys.
I’d taken it to heart so had been signing permission slips and going to parent-teacher conferences ever since Mama died. Daddy was only too happy to leave the heavy lifting to me, even deferring to my judgment in matters of health and discipline. It appeared Daddy had a recent change of heart. Since it was against his direct orders to retrieve the mail, and since it contained a loaded check in his name, some quick damage control was in order.
I picked up the two halves of the torn envelope—beyond repair. Switching envelopes with the one stashed in the cupboard was the way to go. So I boiled some water, hauled the step stool over, and fished around inside the flour jar. As soon as I pulled it out, an overpowering, ominous feeling closed my throat. I almost lost my balance and definitely lost my equilibrium. What the heck is going on? I’d gotten bad feelings about things before, but the only time it was ever this bad was when Mama first told us she was sick.
I drew in a deep, shaky breath. I didn’t want to go through this alone. But who could I tell? Not Daddy. Zero tolerance. And what would I say after all? I have a bad feeling this elite organization is evil. I’d sound like I just escaped from Arkham Asylum. Where was my evidence?
Sides, the only person I really wanted to unburden myself to just so happened to be the messenger of the nefarious object in hand. No choice—I had to go at it alone. Ugh! My stomach roiled. The contents of this envelope gave me a feeling most dreadful, like nails-on-a-coffin. Whatever it was . . . was something that needed to be seen about.
Before I could change my mind, I held the envelope over the steamy vapor to loosen the gummy seal. After a couple of minutes of my poor-man’s-facial, I turned off the burner and retrieved our sharpest knife from the drawer. Sliding the blade under the seal, I slowly worked the edge of the envelope up, removed the neatly folded contents, and replaced it with the check and letter we received today. Then rifled through the junk drawer for an old glue stick to reseal it.
After letting the boys know I was pulling the ole switcheroo, I left, feeling slightly like the bad influence Daddy accused me of for modeling deceitful behavior. While heading back home, through a foggy trail of my own dust, I debated about whether or not my gut was still a reliable source. Maybe Pete’s animal magnetism was running roughshod over my sixth sense? It’s just—he felt so good, and smelled so good, and looked so kill-me-good. When I was with him, I felt like a million bucks. I thought of the two-thousand dollar check, and the memory of his convo with Ranger pierced my brain. . . . Acted good—he was faking.
After sputtering to a stop, I drew in a measured breath then unfolded the original, pilfered flour-pot paperwork to reveal an embossed seal bearing the omnipresent roaring lion’s head. The sick feeling overtook me again. Here goes nothing . . . With shaking hands, I read the standard formal greeting, skimmed over their bull-hockey mission statement, turned the page . . .
Hmmmm. Evidently, this was the second attempt to get a signature from Daddy regarding a . . . I continued speed-reading, hyper-focused and hardly believing my eyes. This document required a guardian signature torelinquish parental responsibilities for the duration of your dependent’s enrollment at the International Elite Academy. It was referred to as an RPA form—Relinquishing of Parental Authority. In exchange, that entitled said “dependent” to be the beneficiary of the enormous tuition being paid in full, free room and board, school uniforms, food, and “any and all expenditures for the duration of his or her time at The Academy.”
What?!
The letter went on in some detail that included a bunch of legal jargon and instructions for beginning the process. I didn’t need to go on. Relinquish parental authority? Who would do such a thing? Could not believe Daddy was even entertaining the idea. Is he? At least he hadn’t signed anything yet. That offered some small measure of relief. Not enough. I had to talk to him about this—talk him out of it! But how could I without revealing I’d been meddling? He’d hit the roof and shut me down even further. Turning your child over to strangers? That was just plain crazy! Mama would be rolling around her grave in agony.
Maybe that feeling is her scraping at her coffin? I shivered.
And to think, I’d been cavorting around with one of them. Willingly. God help me!