Red Herring ✔️

43. Med Head

Later that night.

Knock, knock.

Removing one of her AirPod earbuds, Mazie swiveled in her chair to greet the newcomer that interrupted her dedicated homework time. "Come in."

Sheepishly peeking her head inside Mazie's bedroom, Felecia tip toed into her room, taking in what Mazie had been up to for the last hour. "I know you're doing homework. I'm sorry to interrupt. But...something happened."

Her body shivered like she had been drenched in ice and the blood rushed out of her head. "What? What's wrong?" She asked, standing to her feet in expectation of something awful. From the look on Felecia's face, it really wasn't good news.

Felecia extended her phone out to Mazie. "Leanne....Leanne from next door.....is on the phone. Something happened to Christian and she wants to talk to you."

"What?" Mazie whisper-yelled in case Leanne could hear them. "Are you being serious?!"

Felecia nodded. "Please, Maze, she's worried. Do you know what happened?" Fe asked.

Taking the phone and pressing it to her ear, Mazie took a deep breath. "Leanne, it's Mazie."

On the other end of the line, Leanne sighed heavily. "Mazie, I'm so sorry to bother you. In fact, if Christian knew I was calling you, he would be so upset. I don't know what Felecia told you, but Christian just came home a few minutes ago. He's got a black eye, a bloody nose. His fists are bruised and cut. It looks like he got in a fight but he got the worst of it."

Immediately, she wanted to run to him. She thought back to the day someone wrote in red ink on her car windows. Did these two occurrences relate? Was someone messing with them? "Oh my gosh, is he okay?"

Leanne sighed again. "I don't know. As soon as he came home, he ran up to his room and he won't talk to me. It's just not like him to get into fights. I don't know where he was or what he was doing. Have you talked to him this evening?"

She hadn't. Actually, Mazie sat by her phone, half of her focus worrying over what Christian had been up to, hoping he had obtained Lonny's home address without drawing attention to himself. Because of recent occurrences, she believed that Christian's bloody nose and bruised fists linked to their current investigation. But what if it had something to do with his side habits? It would make sense why he didn't want his mom to know. "I haven't."

"I...I shouldn't have called you. It's just...." Leanne stuttered over her own words. "I'm worried about him and I want to be sure he's okay. I know you two have been spending some time together and I just thought you might know something that I didn't."

"Leanne...is it okay if I come over?"

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Her courage (and curiosity) drove Mazie to rap her knuckles gently on the bedroom door that Leanne specified belonged to Christian. Standing in the hallway alone by herself, Mazie felt like an intruder inside their home. Like she didn't quite fit. Like she was seeing something private that she was never supposed to see. In her own home, boys weren't allowed in her bedroom - save the occasion Christian invited himself inside without her approval. Now that Felecia believed something akin to teenage romance steeped between Christian and Mazie, her aunt would never allow Christian to be inside her bedroom. Waiting for Christian to answer the door, Mazie wondered if this was also an exception to the rule in Leanne's household.

So she stood there with two bags of frozen peas and frozen broccoli in her hand, shuffling her weight from foot to foot, figuring that Christian might ignore the knocking at his bedroom door if he believed it was his mother.