Jessie sat by the front door of the lady's house, which turns out was just down the street from Graceland. Charlie had explained to her how she knew the woman, but Jessie didn't remember. She just sat on the bench in the small foyer, swinging her legs, and keeping her eyes on the driveway in anticipation of Jakes' car.
When the headlights turned into the driveway, Jessie popped up onto her feet and peered back into the hallway to wait for the lady to realize that Mike and Jakes were here.
The doorbell rang as Ms. Miller made it to the entranceway. "Your uncle is here, sweetheart."
Jessie smiled at her and stood in front of the woman to peek her head through the door as it opened.
"Uncle Mike!" she yelled, jumping up to him. Mike laughed at her remark.
"You ready to go?" he asked her, already knowing the answer. She nodded and turned back to look at the car, a bit confused as to why she couldn't see Jakes. "We'll be back around nine, ma'am," Mikes said.
"Yes, that's what Catherine had said," she replied.
"Ok, well, thanks again." Mike turned around and carried Jessie to the car.
When Jessie heard the front door of the house shut, she looked up to him with a puzzled face. "Who's Catherine, Mikey?"
"Charlie," Mike said laughing. "And that's 'uncle' Mike to you."
"Sorry," Jessie said softly, "but that's what she called you so I thought…"
"That was great," he said, opening the car door.
"Where's Jakes?"
"Waiting around the corner," Mike said, getting into the driver's seat. "I didn't want to have to explain, so we're going to get him now. You buckled?" He looked in the rearview mirror and saw her nodding, a huge smile on her face.
Sure enough, Mike drove a few houses down to the corner and pulled over to the side. Jessie watched as Mike got out of the driver's seat and moved around to the passenger's side. Jakes slid in and adjusted the mirrors, glancing behind him and winking at Jessie. "Ready, kid? I haven't been to a school in a looooong time."
The ride to the elementary school was fairly quiet. Jessie knew that Jakes and Mike were talking mostly in code about what had happened with work so far that night.
When they arrived at the parking lot though, Jessie picked her head up and sat tall, looking at how crowded it was. Jakes drove slowly, scanning for a parking space. "So, uh, what's our play here Mike?" he asked, pulling into a spot.
Mike looked around at all of the parents walking across the lot and into the school. Every kid was accompanied by a man and a woman, all of whom seemed to be dressed in business clothes. Without saying a word, Jakes and Mike both turned around in their seats to look back at Jessie.
"So…" Mike started, unsure of what to say. "Who… What do you tell… Tell the kids about…" he kept stopping himself. "Am I your…"
"You're Mike," Jessie said.
"Just Mike?"
"Just Mike," Jessie repeated, now unbuckling her seatbelt.
"We'll figure it out inside," Jakes said. "Let's just do this thing."
When they got to the front steps of the school, Jessie moved between the men and took their hands, leading them up to the door. "This is the lobby, and this is the office, and that's the security lady's desk, and that's the honor board, and that's the—"
"Ok!" Jakes said, stopping her.
"But you said you haven't been to a school."
Jakes laughed. "I know what a building looks like." Jessie squeezed his hand and made a funny face up at him.
Mike stopped to look at the board with the honor roll. "Are you up here?"
Jessie shook her head. "No… you have to be a second grader."
"So when you're kicking butt as a second grader you'll be up there?" Jakes asked.
"Mhmmm," Jessie said. "And I get a medal like Paige."
"And a medal like Mike…" Mike added confidently.
"What did you do?" Jessie asked bluntly.
Mike laughed at her. "I helped take down a major bad guy and was first in my class."
Jessie shrugged her shoulders. "Me too. What else you got?"
"Alright, enough. Stop learning the sass from Paige and Chuck," Jakes said. "Which room is it?"
The hallways were crowded, but Jessie pulled them along down and stopped a few doors down on the right. "107," she said, "with the blue door."
Mike and Jakes both took a breath when they walked into the classroom.
"Hi, Jessie!" A little girl with blond hair ran up to her and waved. "This is my mom!" the girl said. "Is that your daddy?"
Jessie waved shyly and looked up behind her. "That's my- my Mike," Jessie said, "and that's my Jakes."
The little girl's mom smiled and reached out to shake their hands. "Julie talks about Jessie constantly. We should set up a play-date sometime."
"Ummm, yeah," Mike said, wondering why he's never asked Jessie about any of her friends before, "we're so glad she's come out of her shell here."
The mom leaned in a bit and mouthed the question "Foster parents?" to Mike and Jakes.
"Something like that," Jakes said. He looked down at Jessie and wanted to change the subject. "So where is this cubby I keep hearing about?"
Jessie smiled up at him, "C'mon, guys!" she said pulling them over to the back wall.
"This is my cubby!"
"I can see that," Mike said, pointing to the giant nametag across the top of the shelf.
It was decorated with drawings and had some small items in it.
Jessie reached towards the back of the cubby and grabbed a rectangular piece of paper that had a circle drawn in the center. "This is my phone watch," she explained. "So I can tell you stuff when I'm at school."
"And this is for winning cases". Jessie pulled out a marble notebook; Jakes took it from her and looked at the cover. It said "Case Notes" where the subject should have been written. He flashed it over to Mike so that he could see.
"Do you solve a lot of cases?" Jakes asked her.
"Still working on it…" Jessie said, more seriously than Jakes was expecting.
Mike grabbed it from him and flipped open the cover. "No!" Jessie yelped, taking it back from him. "It's con-di-fential."
"You mean it's confidential," Mike corrected.
"Yep. Exactly," Jessie said eyeing him. She took the notebook from him and put it back in the cubby.
"And who is this, Miss Jessie?"
The three of them turned around to see who Mike and Jakes assumed was the teacher. Mike had met her briefly at the beginning of the school year when they explained the custody situation to the school district.
"Are they some of your friends from your house?"
Mike was relieved that the woman answered the question for the kid. He watched Jessie nod and felt her grab his hand once more.
"This is Mike," Jessie told her, "and that's Jakes."
Jakes reached out and shook the woman's hand. "I'm sure she's all trouble..." Jakes said smiling.
"Well, I don't know about that," she said, "but, Jessie, have you shown them the Family Wall?"
Mike and Jakes didn't know what the woman was referring to, but Jessie gasped and pulled Mike over to the far wall on the other side of the classroom, with Jakes following close behind. There was a group of parents standing around the board, but Jessie directed them right to the center of the group.
The bulletin board was covered in drawings each of the kids had done. Mostly they were stick figures standing in front of a house. Most of the pictures had three or four stick figures with a sentence underneath describing the drawing, but Mike and Jakes didn't need to read the names to know which one was Jessie's.
Her work read, "I love my family because they keep me safe and help me be smart." Mike took out his phone and took a picture of it to show the others later. Jakes messed up Jessie's hair and was about to say something when another one of the pictures caught his eye.
"Mike," he said, pointing to a picture in the corner of the board. There was a boy and a man in the drawing standing in front of a small house. "Check out the name," Jakes said. It read: Bobby Quattrodiano Jr. Mike and Jakes exchanged a glance. "Not the most common name in the world..." Mike mumbled.
Jakes picked Jessie up, took a few steps away from the group of parents, and spoke quietly to her. "Hey, do you have a Bobby in your class?"
He watched Jessie nod. Her eyes got big.
"Do you play with him? Is he a good boy?" Jakes asked her.
She laid her head on Jakes chest and shrugged her shoulders.
"Is he here now?" Mike asked her. Jessie nodded slowly and looked over to a boy who sitting on a bean bag chair in the corner, making two trucks crash into each other repeatedly. Jakes realized she also looked back over at her cubby.
"Should we go talk with him?" Mike asked, gauging a reaction.
Jessie shook her head quickly. "He's not nice..." she explained.
Mike was about to ask her more but his phone started buzzing.
Jessie yawned and shut her eyes for a moment.
"You ready to go kid?" Jakes asked her. He eyed Mike's body language while he was on the cell phone. He put it away after a minute and came back over to Jakes.
"We have to get back..." Mike said, not wanting to go into specifics.
"You think we got enough detail for P?" Jakes asked laughing.
"Yeah, we can make this work."
Jakes looked over to the cubby area... "Go take some more pictures, Mike," he said, hoping Mike would understand.
He turned around a bit so that Jessie wouldn't see Mike snooping in her notebook. Quattrodiano was a family name of rundown kingpins in California. Could she have figured out that something was wrong with the kid's family?
Jakes headed for the door and Mike caught up to him quickly, nodding his head.
Just as they started to leave the classroom, Mike felt a hand on his shoulder. He was nervous for a second, but turned to find the mother of that little blond girl.
"I just wanted to stop you before you left and give you my card," she said, holding out a business card to Mike.
"Oh, thank you so much," Mike said. He looked down at the girl who was now standing shyly behind her mother's leg. "It was nice to meet you, Julie."
The woman took a breath. "And it doesn't matter what anyone says... I think it's great that the two of you are doing this. I'm sure you're a wonderful couple and excellent fathers."
Mike and Jakes both lost their breath. "Oh we're- we're not- not a-" Mike stuttered.
"We're not together," Jakes said for him.
"But you're roommates?" the woman asked. "I'm sorry I just assumed with two men-"
"Four men," Jessie corrected.
"Ohhh," the woman said.
"No!" Jakes said a bit too loudly, shaking his head. "We are just roommates."
"It's a big house," Mike added. He needed to explain without actually explaining. "My girlfriend and I are the ones with custody-, she's at work and I didn't want to do this by myself."
"Ohhh, I see," the woman said laughing. "Sorry about that."
"Happens to Mike all the time," Jakes said, shaking his head.
Mike shot him a death glare and then said another quick goodbye before turning and heading back out to the car with Jakes, who was still holding Jessie.
"She's not your girlfriend," Jessie said to Mike. "A girlfriend is somebody you take on dates."
"So then what is she?" Mike asked her our of curiosity.
Jessie didn't give an answer at first while she thought it over.
"I don't know," she said. "What comes after a girlfriend but before a wife?"
"That's a great question, kid," Jakes said. Mike ignored it altogether and made sure Jessie was buckled in the back of the car as Jakes left the parking lot to drive back to the sitter's house. He checked his phone and scrolled through the photos of her "case notes."
