The Other Brother (Chop, Chop Series Book 4)

by L. N. Cronk

  “Just shut-up,” he said, cutting me off, “and figure out how it works.”

  I turned the dome light on and played with it until we got to Amber’s street. Then I turned the light off as Tanner pulled up to the same spot we’d parked in the week before.

  “Got it figured out?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  I held the camera up to my eye and focused on a mailbox that was about fifty yards away. I snapped a picture and then viewed it on the screen.

  “The resolution on this thing is unbelievable,” I said as I zoomed in on it. “This lens is amazing.”

  “It better be,” Tanner said. “It cost twice as much as the camera.”

  I wanted to offer to pay him for it again, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “So you’re gonna be stuck home with the kids for the rest of the week?” Tanner asked.

  “Yep. Laci leaves tomorrow morning.”

  “She excited?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed.

  “Aren’t you happy for her?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  “That she’s getting to do something she really loves.”

  “You don’t think she loves being a stay-at-home mom?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t mean that. I just mean that she got her degree specifically so she could go to work for that organization, and I just . . . I just can’t help but wonder if she doesn’t miss it.”

  “She misses it,” I admitted. “I know she does.”

  “Well you can work from anywhere,” he said. “So why are you here?”

  “You trying to get rid of us?”

  “No,” he said. “You know I love having you guys home, but I guess I’ve never really understood why you’re home.”

  “Laci felt like God told her to come home,” I explained. “I wasn’t about to argue with either one of them.”

  “What if He tells her to go back?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “But would you go back?”

  “Yes,” I sighed.

  “Really? Just like that? Laci says, ‘Oh, I think God wants us to go back to Mexico!’ and you’re just gonna take her word for it and go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But what if God tells you something different? What if He tells her one thing and you another thing?”

  “First of all, I don’t think He’d do that,” I said.

  “What if He did?”

  “Then . . . then I’d probably do what He was telling Laci.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Laci’s never been wrong about anything like that before,” I said. “She’s always seemed to have this direct pipeline to God and she’s always done what He’s told her to do and it’s always turned out to be the right thing. My track record’s not that great.”

  Tanner didn’t ask any more questions and we were sitting quietly when a car came down the street and slowed to a stop in front of Amber’s house. A teenage boy, smoking a cigarette, climbed out of the passenger seat and stood with the door open, talking to the driver for a moment. I snapped a few pictures for good measure.

  “Hey!” Tanner said excitedly as the boy closed the door and the car drove off. “I know him!”

  “Which one?”

  “The one that just got out of the car!” he said, pointing as the kid flicked his cigarette into the yard and walked up to Amber’s house.

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought you said you knew him.”

  “Well,” he explained, “I know him from somewhere. I just can’t remember where.”

  “Well, think!” I insisted. “Did you coach him?”

  “No,” Tanner said, definitively.

  The guy walked around the side of the house and disappeared into the back-yard.

  “Did you teach him?”

  “Maybe . . .” he said. “I can’t remember.”

  “I wish I knew his name.”

  “What’s Amber’s last name?” he asked.

  “Patterson.”

  “That’s not ringing a bell,” he said.

  “But she’s in foster care, remember? That won’t be their last name.”

  “What’s their last name?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Tanner reached for his phone.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m gonna find out their last name.”

  “How?”

  “I’m gonna call Sierra,” he said.

  “Who’s Sierra?”

  “Someone I used to go out with,” he explained, scrolling through his contacts on his phone. “She sells real estate.”

  “How’s she gonna help?”

  “I think I can give her the address, and she can tell us whose name is on the deed.”

  “What if they’re renting?” I asked.

  “Then we won’t know their last name, will we?”

  He hit send and waited for a minute.

  “Hey, Sierra! You got a second?”

  “Anything for you, Tanner,” I heard her say. I rolled my eyes at him.

  “I’ve got an address that I was hoping you could tell me who owns it.”

  “You looking for a place?”

  “No, but if I am you’ll be getting the commission. Don’t worry.”

  She laughed and asked him for the address.

  “Seven thirty-nine South Drye Street.”

  She said something that I couldn’t hear and he closed his phone.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She’s gotta get to her computer and she’ll call me back.”

  “Are you sure this is legal?”

  “You’re suddenly worried about legal?” Tanner asked.

  “No. Just wondering.”

  “It’s legal,” he said. “You and I could go down to the courthouse and find out if we wanted to, but it’s easier for her. She’s got some program on her computer.”

  “I don’t understand how you know all this.”

  “I have my ways.”

  I shook my head.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What I really don’t understand is how you love all these women and leave ’em and they still wanna talk to you afterward.”

  “It’s a talent,” he said.

  “You ever talk to Megan?” I asked. Megan was the girl he’d lived with and then refused to marry when she’d claimed to be pregnant.

  “Nope,” he said. “I’m not that talented.”

  I shook my head again.

  We waited about ten minutes before Sierra called him back.

  “Hey, Babe,” he said. “What ya got?”

  He scribbled something down, promised to get together with her sometime, and closed his phone again.

  “Wayne and Rebecca Trent,” he said.

  “Does that name ring a bell?” I asked.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

  “You’re a big help.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  ~ ~ ~

  TANNER CALLED ME at three o’clock in the morning.

  “Hello?”

  “I remembered who he is,” Tanner said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. How ’bout I pick you up in about ten minutes and we go to the high school so I can get some copies made?”

  “Copies of what?”

  “Just some handouts for class next week.”

  “You’re gonna go to the school in the middle of the night to make copies?”

  There was a very long pause.

  “You’re really dense,” he finally said, “you know that?”

  “Oh.”

  “So are you gonna be ready in ten minutes or not?”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said. “Oorah.”

  “Oorah?” Laci asked, lifting her head and looking at me as I turned on the light.

  “It’s a military term,” I informed her, climbing out of bed. “You wouldn’t under
stand.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked as I pulled on a pair of jeans.

  “Tanner and I are gonna go do something.”

  “Now?”

  “Apparently.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Is it going to be something legal?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  “You’re both going to get arrested,” she said, putting her head back on the pillow.

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “If you need someone to bail you out, do me a favor and call your dad, okay? I’ve got a plane to catch tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I said. “No problem.”

  “Anthony,” Tanner said when I climbed into his truck. “His name’s Anthony Perry.”

  “Did you teach him?”

  “Sort of,” Tanner replied.

  “Sort of?”

  “Two years ago I had a split position. I had two physical education classes and the other half of the day I worked ISS.”

  “In-School Suspension.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And let me guess. This Anthony kid was in there?”

  “All the time,” Tanner nodded. “He spent more time in in-school suspension and out-of-school suspension than he did in regular classes. Toward the end of the year, though, he quit showing up. I think he dropped out.”

  “What grade was he in?”

  “I think he was a freshman,” Tanner said, “but I’m not sure. We’re gonna take a look at his records when we get to the high school and see what we can find out.”

  “What kind of records? Like his grades?”

  “I think we’ll find some other stuff too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, once I remembered who he was, I got thinking about it. When kids get sent to ISS, all their regular school work gets sent down there for them to do – you know, whatever they were supposed to do in regular class they’d have to do in there with me, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Even if they had to take a test or something.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So I remember that whenever he had to take a test, his was always a read-aloud.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “A read-aloud.”

  “He had to read it out loud?”

  “No,” Tanner explained. “I always had to read the test out loud to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Cause that’s what was in his IEP.”

  “His what?” I asked.

  “His Individualized Educational Plan. He was a special ed kid.”

  “Like . . . he was mentally retarded or something?”

  “No, kids can get IEPs and 504s for all sorts of things. Learning disabilities, ADHD, autism . . . whatever. I bet Amber’s got one.”

  “What’s a 504?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Tanner said. “All I know is that kids with IEPs and 504s have files in the special ed office, and they have all sorts of information in them . . . like if you have to read the test aloud to the kid or if they get to be tested in a separate room or whatever they need.”

  “And you have access to his file?”

  “Well . . .” he hesitated as we pulled up into the parking lot of the school.

  “Laci’s right,” I muttered. “We’re going to get arrested.”

  Tanner turned off the engine.

  “I can look at the files of any student I’m teaching.”

  “But you’re not teaching him now?”

  “No.”

  “But you can get hold of his file?”

  “I think so.”

  I bit my lip and looked through the windshield at the darkened school.

  “What d’ya think?” Tanner asked after a minute.

  This is illegal.

  “Oorah?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I finally nodded, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s do it.”

  The first thing we did when we got to the high school was to go into the main office and turn on the central photocopy machine.

  “What are we doing?” I asked as we waited for it to warm up.

  “Making copies,” Tanner said, opening a ream of paper.

  I watched him take the top piece of paper from the stack and make several small tears in it. He opened the lid of the copier and then opened up a textbook. He laid the textbook face down on the glass as the copier beeped to let us know that it was ready. Next, he opened up the paper tray and placed the ream into it with the torn paper on top.

  “Isn’t that gonna jam the machine?” I asked. He rolled his eyes at me and hit “Start.”

  The machine whirred to life and we could hear it attempting to make a copy. Sure enough, it quickly beeped at us to let us know that there was a jam.

  “Aw,” Tanner said. “That’s a shame. I hate it when that happens.”

  “We can probably fix it,” I suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” Tanner said. “I think we’d better go in there.” He pointed to a door down the hallway.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “EC Services,” he explained.

  “EC?”

  “Politically correct way of saying special ed,” he explained. “They’ve got a photocopy machine we can use since this one’s jammed.”

  “Ohhhh,” I said. “I get it.”

  “You finally got it figured out, Sherlock?”

  We headed down the hallway and Tanner produced another key.

  “You have a key to EC Services?”

  “I have a master key.”

  “Do all the teachers have master keys?”

  “Not exactly.”

  We entered the EC Services suite and Tanner flipped on a light. He headed toward a wall that was lined with filing cabinets. A photocopy machine was next to the filing cabinets and Tanner hit the “Power” button. Then, he started reading the labels on the drawers of the filing cabinets.

  “This is the one, I think,” he said, tapping one of them.

  “Is it unlocked?”

  He tried a drawer. “Of course not. That would be too easy.”

  “Are you gonna pick it?”

  “I will if I have to,” he said, “but I’ve got the keys to about seven filing cabinets on my key ring, and I’d bet almost anything that one of them will work.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re cheap filing cabinets, that’s why.”

  “Shouldn’t records like this be a little more secure than that?” I asked.

  “Should be,” Tanner agreed, trying the first key. “But that doesn’t mean they are.”

  “You’re a great spy,” I told him as the lock popped open with the fourth key he tried.

  “Thanks,” Tanner grinned, opening the textbook he’d had in the main office and pointing to a page with nutritional information charts on it. “Here. Make thirty-two copies of this.”

  “Why?” I asked as he opened a filing cabinet drawer.

  “Because I need it for class tomorrow, so you might as well make yourself useful. Besides, that’s why we’re in here, remember?”

  “Oh, right,” I said, taking the book from him.

  He started looking through files as I made a single copy of the page.

  “Do you really think anybody’s gonna come in here?” I asked, pulling the copy out of the machine and assessing it.

  “No,” he said, closing the top drawer and opening up the next one down. “But I feel safer having an excuse for being in here.”

  “Me too,” I agreed, grabbing a pair of scissors from a nearby work table.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “I mean, why are you cutting?”

  “Because there’s all this extra stuff that got copied,” I said, holding the paper up to show him, “and I’m trimming it off before I run the final copies so it’ll look nice.”

  “Oh, brother,” Tanner said. �
��Just make the copies!”

  “I can’t make ’em look nice?”

  “You do whatever you want,” he sighed, shaking his head, “but you’d never make it as a teacher.”

  “I’d be an excellent teacher!” I insisted.

  “Oh, please!” Tanner said. “I can just see their eyes glazing over while you bound around up in the front of the room talking about the joys of parabolas or something.”

  “Well,” I said, “at least they’d be able to read the handouts I gave them!”

  “Yes,” Tanner said, turning back to the filing cabinet. “And that’s what’s really important.”

  I ran another copy and scrutinized it. It was covered with little black spots.

  “You got any Wite-Out?” I asked Tanner.

  “Here it is!” he said, pulling a file from the drawer.

  “Really?”

  “Yup!”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Give me a second . . . you got those copies made?”

  “Almost,” I said, forgetting about the black spots. I hit “32” and then “Enter.”

  The copy machine spit out page after page as Tanner and I scanned through Anthony’s file.

  “Okay,” Tanner muttered, flipping pages. “Specific learning disability in reading. That explains the read-aloud. This page just shows what kind of modifications we have to make to accommodate his special needs, and this one just shows that his parents agree to those modifications . . .”

  “Wait!” I said. “Who signed that one?”

  “Ummm . . . it’s kind of hard to read,” Tanner said. “Betty Trout, maybe?”

  “Becky Trent?”

  “Yeah. I think that’s it.”

  “That’s Rebecca Trent . . . her name was on the deed for the house, remember?”

  “Good work, Sherlock,” Tanner said. “You’re not such a bad spy yourself.”

  “So we’ve got Anthony Perry and Amber Patterson living with the Trents. He must be a foster kid too.”

  “Probably,” Tanner agreed. “Or a step-kid.”

  “If he’s a foster kid, when’s he gonna age out?”

  “Ummm, looks like he just turned seventeen, so not for a while.”

  I sighed.

  Tanner continued to flip through the folder as the photocopy machine came to a stop. I stepped away from the file for a second, taking out the original and the copies. Tanner stepped in right after me, loading several pages into the automatic feed slot and hitting the start button.

  “What’s that?”