Chapter 3 Suspected Foul Play

Jordan looked at his two solemn-looking cousins, and he realized that they were serious. He closed his wardrobe and came to sit down on his bed. They both swerved to face him.

"I am sorry, kids. I wish I could, but I can't."

"Why? Is it because you have serious business to attend to? We won't disturb you at all." Henley said, then he continued before Jordan could reply, "Remember how I used to follow you to the Sheriff's office here? Even deputy Sheriff Shedrack allowed me to use the radio in the new car the other day. I could be your deputy back in your country."

"What do you mean by you could? I thought we were asking for the two of us, you dunce," his sister hissed at him.

Henley stuck his tongue out at her before facing Jordan C'mon, Jordan, let's go with you."

"Even if you do not want to take this dumb head with you, you can just take me, and we will leave him behind," Fukayna pitched her campaign.

"Fuka, you are bad!" Henley said she was aggrieved.

"Are you two disturbing my cousin Jordan with your plans? I mean, the plan where you intend to follow him to Baleria and never come back?"

"Chione! How did you know that?" Fukayna asked in surprise as she turned back to her sister.

"Because I heard you two hatching your incredible plans of how you could make it big in Baleria, of course."

"You were eavesdropping, weren't you?" Henley asked Chione, and before she could reply, he said to his twin in a stage whisper, "She was eavesdropping on us."

Fukayna rolled her eyes and folded her arms as she faced her sister with a signature glare that seemed to be the main thing she directed at anyone who displeased her these days.

Chione laughed and left where she stood, leaning against the door, as she wagged her finger at Fukayna. "Na na, baby sister, you don't want to try that on me. That could only work on Hen here," she said as she bent down and kissed her sister's cheek. Fukayna, who was trying hard not to laugh, turned up her nose with a comical miffed expression: "But for me, sister, it ain't going to work." Chione ruffled her hair, and she squealed.

"Chione! Now you will make Mother run her brush through it again," Fukayna said as she tried to affect her serious expression again.

Ah, ah, you look like a scarecrow!" Henley, who would not pass up any opportunity to rib his sister, laughed as he pointed at her. Fukayna's unruly hair had never learned to stay in place, no matter the brushing.

"Did you hear that? I swear I am going to..." His miffed sister made her remove her shoe again, and Henley ran out with a singsong of "Scarecrow, Scarecrow!"

Fukayna stopped her attempt at removing her shoe as she ran after him. "I am going to break your head!"

"Well, since you all are going to kill each other," Chione raised her voice so they could hear her, and their footsteps paused. "I guess that meant that I do not have to deliver the message of the Cook regarding a certain apple pie with your names on it. Great, more for me!" she said cheerily as she winked at Jordan in anticipation of their reaction, which came fast enough.

"No, way!" and he could be heard running.

"Don't you dare start without me!" Fukayna followed as their sounds faded.

Chione dusted her hand theatrically "That was so easy."

"That never fails." Jordan shook his head. "Those two should have been named apple and pie."

"They left you be, didn't they? I am sure they would realize in no time, and one of them, certainly Fukayna, would realize what I did. Especially when they realize that there was no pie at all."

Jordan laughed, "What? The Cook never said anything."

Chione blinked innocently as she batted her lashes. "I saved them from killing each other, didn't I?"

"They are coming for you, you know?"

"I would be long gone. No frogs in my bed would work this time around."

They both laughed as Jordan remembered a time last year when the twins had decided to get back at Chione for something she had collected from them. The genius twins had thought putting a frog in her bed would be the perfect revenge.

Well, they had not thought of the part where the frog would not stay calmly on the bed until their sister got in and got scared. They released the frog, and not only did he not stay put; he jumped and landed in Fukayna's hair and refused to hop off. Henley's attempt to get it off had only made the amphibian burrow deeper into his sister's hair.

Jordan looked at Chione, and they both laughed out loud at the memory. He had never heard Fukayna scream as much as she did that evening.

"Do you really have to go?" Chione blurted out, and immediately they stopped laughing. She had apparently come to his room to persuade him as well. His aunt had tried twice this week already. Before and after he resigned from the force.

"Not you too, Chi," Jordan replied.

Chione Alfrez had grown from the squalling baby he saw for the first time when her parents brought her home. There was nothing of the eight-year-old shy kid that Jordan had thought was too cool to be seen in her company when he first arrived. His cousin had grown into a beautiful young woman who had men turning their heads whenever they went out together.

Jordan once joked about getting a long stick to ward off her long line of admirers. It had been his cousin who had dumped her initial dream of being a model, which she was already showing promise for with her poise and confidence. She had been the first high school girl to be signed by a popular magazine, Rova. When she dumped what most had thought would be her lifelong career and made her opinion known to her family that she wanted to enroll in the police academy in Selon just like Jordan, they were all surprised.

Well, all except Jordan, who knew how interested his cousin had been in learning everything he would deem necessary to tell her about the force. Even he had thought she was just curious, but then she had shown her determination by getting the form herself, and her parents had reluctantly supported her. His aunt still talks about it to this day, saying that it was Jordan who influenced her with his achievements and cop talks.

Twenty-year-old Chione looked at Jordan's ruggedly handsome face and knew that she would terribly miss him "I know, I know Ma has been on your case for the past week now, and even though Da wouldn't say much, I could hear him talking to her about how this place and he meant the whole town wouldn't be the same without you."

Jordan didn't like the serious look on his cousin's face, and in a bid to lighten the mood, he grinned, "What is it with you and eavesdropping?"

Chione shrugged with a small smile "You can't blame me. It is not my fault that people talk like this in this place."

"Oh yeah, you mean the way the girl who professed undying love to me was also talking loud the other day?" he reminded her as his smile widened.

Chione rolled her eyes just as her sister had done earlier. "Peonia is a dunce; you would die of boredom or your brain would just lick out through your ears," she grinned unapologetically. She really should stop walking so quietly, and people should stop talking so loud.

"I know what you are doing, Jordan," she said as she sobered again.

That almost worked. "What am I doing, genius?"

"Trying to get my mind off the main reason I am here won't work. Ask my buddies in the academy."

"Any chance those buddies could be particularly close male buddies?" He teased as he wiggled his eyes at her.

"Pfft. Guys are idiots," she snorted.

"Hey! A representative of the species right here!" he said comically

"You are doing it again," she accused.

He knew what she was talking about: "I am..."

"Are you going back because you suspect foul play?"

Jordan looked sharply at her.