A/N: I'm gonna put this out there now, this is a pretty lame update. What's in the chapter I had planned to be placed into other chapters as filler but it just worked out better to throw it into this one, so it will be shorter than most and there isn't any Normero interactions in it. Hopefully the next chapter will make up for it, I have a part that was a lot of fun to write and I'm really looking forward to sharing it, but for now please enjoy these little scraps.
Norma laid on the bed watching her sons while they slept, she couldn't imagine what it would be like had one of them gone missing. One thing's for sure, she knows she would be a wreck the whole time. Norman began to stir next to her, his arms stretched out over his head before he opened his eyes slowly and looked over at her.
Norma reached over a hand and ran it through his hair, giving him a smile. "You feeling any better sweetie?"
He nodded and turned to face her. "My throats still a little sore but the cough went away."
"That's great." She said with a weak smile.
"Is something wrong mother?"
"No, everything is good. I'm just thinking about how nice it is to have you and Dylan in my life, I don't know what I'd do without you two."
"You'll never be without us, we are going to be together forever."
"Yes, we will." Norma said then she pulled her hand away from him and sat up some. "Are you hungry yet?"
"Yeah, very."
"How about you wake up your brother and we'll go make those packs of mini pancakes for breakfast."
"Okay." Norman said with a big smile, hopping up from the bed and going over to wake up his brother. It took a bit of work but he finally got him on his feet, they all sled their shoes on before going outside.
"Here, take my hand while we go to the shed." Norma said, grabbing each of their hands.
"The shed is like fifty feet away, do we really need to hold hands?" Dylan asked, still half asleep or he might have put up more of a fight.
"It isn't uncool to hold your moms hand once in awhile." Norma said, walking them into the shed. She let go of their hands to grab out the box of pancakes and handed it to Norman to carry before taking their hands back. She held onto them again till they made it safely into the office. "Morning." Norma said, greeting Maggie.
"Morning, you coming in for some breakfast?" Maggie asked.
Norman held up his box showing it off to her. "We got mini pancakes."
"Now if they would have had those when I was growing up I wouldn't have had to eat so much cereal."
Norma took the box from Norman and opened it then placed three bags into the microwave. "You want any?" She said, turning back to Maggie.
"No, thank you." She replied. "I was actually going to ask you something."
"Shoot." Norma said, turning back to face her.
"I was thinking that with my brother out of town I have a lot of work here to do on my own, and Alex told me how you had experience, if you wanted a job here. I could use help with the front desk and housekeeping if that's what you're looking for, I couldn't pay you much but you could stay free in your room."
"I don't know, I mean I'm still planning to live in Portland. I wouldn't want to take the job then leave you with no help a few weeks later."
"It wouldn't be a big deal, I've been doing everything on my own for months now. This could be temporary so you could save up money and I can get a little bit of a break."
"It's just, it's not really what I'm looking for, I'm trying to get something more independent."
"I understand completely, that's how I like to work too." Maggie said then the microwave beeped and Norma turned around to grab their food out. "But if you end up changing your mind let me know, the jobs always open."
"I'll keep that in mind." Norma said setting the packs of pancakes and a three containers of syrup on a few paper plates then handing it to Dylan.
"I can take your leftovers to the shed, I'm heading up to the house anyways." Maggie said and Norman handed her the box.
"Thank you, Maggie." He said sweetly and she walked out of the office with them. She went toward the house and they went back to the room, as soon as the door was closed Dylan spoke up.
"What were you thinking? Why didn't you take that job?"
"Because, taking that job would mean being on a payroll." Norma said while setting each of them up with their food at the desk and taking her own back to the bed.
"What's wrong with that, do you not like getting paid?"
"Being on payroll means paperwork and you have to show your ID."
"We already got around that with staying here, why not use the same excuse?" Dylan asked, turning around in his chair to talk to her.
"It's not as easy when it comes to working for someone, you need to have a bank account to get the money deposited and the only ones I have use my real name and have Sam on them."
"But what are we supposed to do about money? You said we only have enough for like two or three more days."
"You know I've been looking in the newspapers for people looking for work, if I can get someone who needs odd jobs done then they will pay me in cash."
"And if you don't find something in time?"
"I will figure something out, I always do. Now eat your pancakes before they get cold."
Alex and Oliver had been working the missing persons case all morning and couldn't find any reason for a perfectly normal teen to disappear. They decided it was time to look through Riley's room, maybe things weren't as simple as they seemed in this young boy's life.
"He's got gaming magazines down here, don't most teen boys hide pornos under the bed?" Oliver said, laying on the floor while he pulled stuff out from under Riley's bed.
"I kept mine in a box on the top shelf of my closet." Alex said while he sat at the desk, going through all the drawers.
"You finding anything?" Oliver asked, standing back up.
"He's very neat, everything in here is organized perfectly, he even color coordinated his notebooks and folders."
"Everytime we learn more about this kid things make less sense, he doesn't seem like the type of kid to run away from home and I doubt he has any enemies. Maybe this was a random grab, some sick pervert who prays on teen boys."
"But don't you think he would have yelled and fought back, the whole way to his friends house was wide open and no one saw anything suspicious."
"His parents said he is a sweet kid and they are normally targets for manipulation, he could have went with someone willingly."
"He may be sweet but he's not stupid, when I spoke with his advisor on the phone she said he was an honor student."
"So unless they found a quick and discrete way to grab him we are back to somebody he knew." Oliver said while closing the nightstand drawer he had been looking in. "We should go downstairs and talk to the parents again, maybe we can figure something out with their help." He said then Alex got off the chair and followed him down the hallway, he stopped suddenly and Oliver almost ran into the back of him. "Woah, use your brake lights next time."
Alex stared into the master bedroom through the partly open door. "You notice the bed?"
"What about it?" Oliver says, leaning forward and looking inside.
"You tell me, do you and your wife share one pillow at night?"
"No, we have two but she usually ends up with both by morning anyways."
"Then why do they only have one pillow on the bed? And the right side looks untouched." Alex said, opening the door and walking inside.
"Romero, we don't have their permission to be in this room."
"I was looking for the bathroom and got lost." Alex said opening up their closet and looking inside.
"Yeah, because most houses have closet entry bathrooms." Oliver said, closing the door most the way behind him.
"Their clothes are completely split down the middle, they aren't even touching."
"So, maybe they like thing organized like their son."
"If they were anything like their son they wouldn't have clothes half tossed off the hangers and full of wrinkles." Alex said, pulling the arm of one of the fathers shirts out. "Check the dresser." He said while looking through the stuff on the floor of the closet.
"You realize you are telling your boss to do an illegal search, right?"
"I'll look through it if you're too scared to."
"You should really update your way of getting me to do stuff, I fell for the too scared card in sixth grade when you talked me into taking my dad's Camaro for a joyride."
"You faced your fears and everything turned out okay in the end."
"I tried to floor it out of the garage and it was in reverse, I crashed it straight through to the house."
"Will you just look through the dresser or I will."
Oliver exhaled and walked over to the dresser, he went through two of the top drawers and when he got to the third one he felt something under the clothing and pulled it out. It was a beige folder with a court house stamp on the front. "I found something."
Alex walked over to him and read the open file over his shoulder. "It's divorce papers."
"Drawn up two weeks ago." Oliver said then Alex ripped the file out of his hands and carried it downstairs. "Romero, put that back." He whispered, following him down the stairs.
"Did your son know you were getting a divorce?" Alex said to the Jacobsons as he walked into the living room, slapping the papers down on the coffee table in front of them.
"You went through our bedroom? You had no right to do that." Mister Jacobson said, standing up.
"Answer the question."
"He didn't know, we hadn't told him about it yet." Missus Jacobson said.
"Why didn't you tell us about this already?"
"We didn't think it mattered, Riley never knew there were any problems between us."
"Okay and what if he did know, that could be reason for him to run away. Or what if one of you aren't getting the custody agreement you wanted so you arranged to have him taken somewhere till you could sneak away."
"He didn't know, we kept the papers locked away in the safe. We only took them out to get rid of, with everything going on it wasn't the right time to deal with. And neither of us would ever take him away from each other, we were gonna let Riley decide where he wanted to go and when." Mister Jacobson said, offended by what he had accused him of. "Now I suggest you get out of our house or I'll have both your jobs." He said and Alex stepped up to him.
"We'll give you a call if we find out anything new." Oliver said, pulling Alex back.
Alex walked with him a few feet then turned back to look at the father. "Sheriff Mckenzie had nothing to do with it, I went through your room on my own when I told him I was going to the bathroom. And we've spent every waking hour these last few days looking for a way to find your son, the least you could have done is be honest with us." He said then left the house with Oliver.
"You know you could have just got them to admit it, you didn't have to possibly get yourself in hot water." Oliver said as they got into the squad car.
"Their son has been missing four days now, we don't have time to play their games." Alex said, throwing on his seat belt. "Besides, now I know the father is hiding something."
