Though Sandy Jareau was quite surprised to see JJ and Emily, she stepped aside to let them in to the front foyer so they could get out of the cold January air, but she had to be careful when she shut the door behind them because she had an eight-month-old baby on her hip, who just so happened to be the youngest child of her late nephew. The baby's name was Annalyn, and JJ had only ever seen pictures of her.
"Mom, is that Annalynn?" JJ asked. "She's beautiful!"
Sandy pressed a kiss to Annalynn's cheek, prompting the baby to giggle and cuddle up to her.
"Yep. This is Annalynn Ruby Foxworth." she confirmed, adjusting Annalynn on her hip. "Jenny, are you and Emily in town about Tinsley?"
JJ nodded. "I'm afraid so. We all just flew in less than an hour ago."
Sandy turned to Emily. "But if you're here, at Foxworth Hall, that means that Tinsley's death is connected to those other poor souls who turned up dead this month, huh? I found newspaper articles about them."
"Yes." Emily said. "Is Tinsley's wife around? JJ said she probably would be, and we need to talk to her."
"All I can say to that is to suit yourself."
JJ winced. "How bad is it?"
"DeLilah is here, but she's a mess, Jenny. Grandpa and nana have been taking care of her, and they're all upstairs."
JJ looked around. "You've got Annalyn, but where are Hattie Bell and Talley Kay at?"
Hattie Bell and Talley Kay were Annalyn's big sisters, and they were three and two.
"The maids are looking after Hattie and Talley, but your brother should be around here somewhere…"
JJ felt like her brain was melting. "What the hell?"
"Language, Jennifer!" Sandy hissed, briefly blocking Annalynn's ears. "The baby is unbelievably smart and according to DeLilah, she's already absorbing things faster than her sisters did at this age!"
"Sorry, mom." JJ apologized before quickly moving to the next part of her list of questions. "What is Archer doing here? He lives way up in the north!"
An unfamiliar, masculine voice answered from the stairs behind them. "I was nearby for a business trip."
Emily, who had already been observing the current part of the conversation with a shade of amusement, was the first one to spot who the voice belonged to: JJ's brother. Archer certainly looked the part.
Emily's thoughts were confirmed when Archer hit the bottom stair and JJ rushed forward to hug him; she knew for a fact that even though the two had never been exceedingly close like JJ had been with Rosaline, they were still buddies, and hadn't seen each other since before JJ had gotten mixed up with Baylor.
"Jenny," Archer said to his little sister. "Something looks different about you. What is it?"
JJ blushed spectacularly because she knew that Emily was watching, and that she also had to keep her cool, somewhat. "I promise I will tell you, Archie, but we need to go talk to DeLilah."
"And by 'we,' you mean you and Emily, over there?"
"How did you know…?"
JJ started to ask her brother how he knew who Emily was, but then let out a dejected sigh when she connected the dots.
"Mom?"
"Yep."
The Jareau children glanced over at their mother, who was looking anywhere but at her offspring.
Laughing and shaking her head, JJ beckoned to Emily, and she approached, she made quick introductions.
"Emily, Archer; Archer, Emily."
Archer Jareau spoke with a southern accent, the same one that JJ had spoken with when she was younger, and he was very charming.
"I'm very pleased to meet you." he told Emily as they shook hands. "I just wish it could be under better circumstances."
"As do I." Emily replied.
Gentleman that he was, Archer said to her, "I'm sure you and Jenny won't be setting up camp, but it's quite cold outside and the weather forecast is calling for snow by the end of the week, and this mansion is very warm because my grandparents hate being cold. May I take your coat?"
"Okay, sure." Emily told him. "Thank you."
Archer helped Emily out of her jacket, and her baby bump was visible immediately. When Sandy saw Emily's middle, she was very surprised.
"You're pregnant, Emily?"
"Uh-huh, and it's complicated. We just didn't have a chance to tell you during the Skype chat before Christmas."
The older woman raised an eyebrow, having no trouble talking to Emily like she was one of her children. "Yet, you and Jenny found time to tell me that you're a couple? Anything else I should know about? Did you two go off to Vegas and get married?"
This prompted an, "Oh, my God, mom!" comment from JJ, although Sandy ignored her. Emily, on the other hand, was feeling like she was eighteen again and had been caught coming in after curfew. Nevertheless, she turned to JJ and raised her eyebrows at her, imploringly.
Sighing, JJ took also took off her jacket and handed it to her brother, instantly making visible her plaster cast and the swell in her middle that told the world of her expectant condition. Archer opened his mouth to say something, but words failed him because his baby sister's girlfriend being pregnant was one thing, but JJ being pregnant, having a broken arm, and not telling them was quite another.
In the end, Archer just looked over at his mother to see what she was going to say.
If anything, Sandy was feeling overwhelmed. "You, too? And what happened to your arm?"
JJ wiggled the fingers on her damaged hand, feeling nervous. "I promise I'll tell you when we've got the time. We really do need to talk to DeLilah, though. Where is she?"
"Up in the blue room, but a word of warning: DeLilah is almost six months pregnant."
JJ almost tripped over air. "You're kidding. Annalynn isn't even one yet."
Sandy shrugged, giving little Annalynn's back a rub when she let out a sleepy sigh. "DeLilah and Tinsley wanted a lot of kids, and they were practical about it. Just be good to her, okay? She's already been in the hospital this morning because she fainted after finding out about Tinsley, and she found out there that the baby is a boy."
Still hung up on DeLilah being pregnant when she already had a small baby, JJ didn't say anything to her mother, so Emily spoke up to the woman who would one day be her mother-in-law.
"We will remember. Where is the blue room?"
"Jenny will show you; I have to give Annalynn her bottle and plan a funeral for my nephew."
Emily nodded understandingly and she and JJ watched Sandy as she left with Annalynn in the direction of what she supposed was the kitchen. Archer followed his mother.
JJ started up the long marble staircase that Archer had come down, and Emily accompanied her.
"Is she always like a whirlwind?" Emily asked.
"Yeah." JJ laughed softly. "I promise that my mom is a nice person, but we caught her by surprise in a variety of ways just now."
"Then I can't say I blame her for being all over the place."
"She became a single mom after my dad died, and since it was just the two of us left in the house, we became very close. She also chose to just be herself, and it turns out that my mom in her truest form, loves as deeply as yours does, but is also organized chaos and goes at things like a freight train."
"Good thing I can adapt." Emily winked. "And it's going to be fun, sitting down with her to properly explain what's happening."
JJ shuddered. "Let's just think about DeLilah, okay? The room she's in is down the hall a bit."
The blue room got its name because while all the furniture and even the closet door was made of black cherry wood, everything else was different shades of blue. It was very calming, so it made perfect sense that DeLilah would be found in this room.
JJ and Emily stood in the doorway of DeLilah's room, and they saw she was on the bed, laying on top of the covers and leaning against an abundance of pillows that were propping her up. JJ's grandparents, Bertrand and Pearl, were sitting in a pair of chairs beside her bed, keeping her company and tending to her.
When Bertrand and Pearl saw JJ and Emily, they hurried over and said hello, although they were puzzled.
"Jenny," Pearl said to her her granddaughter. "What in the world are you doing in Alabama, and who is your friend?"
"We're here for work, and it concerns Tinsley. We need to talk to DeLilah, nana." JJ said by way of explanation before putting a hand in this small of Emily's back. "This is Emily, and we work together. She's my best friend, and my partner."
"How sweet."
The couple smiled bashfully, but JJ still maintained control of the conversation. "We're going to be in town for awhile, working on things, but we'll make sure the family knows all what's going on before we go."
Accepting that and catching her drift, Pearl and Bertrand nodded in acknowledgement to Emily before leaving the room deciding to go check on the rest of their house guests. That meant JJ and Emily were finally alone with the person who they'd come to see.
DeLilah Quinlan Foxworth was a good woman who had been through a lot in her life, but was kind and known for her unwavering strength. She was fair-skinned and had bright blue eyes, the very trademarks of the family she had married into. DeLilah even had a kind face, although at the moment, it was tear-stained and her eyes were bright red from crying. By this point, she was all cried out.
Her hands were also plastered on her big, burgeoning baby bump, and Emily's heart went out to her for it because it made her seem sadder and more vulnerable than she already was.
One thing, Emily noticed as they sat in in the chairs bed, was that DeLilah was noticeably younger than even JJ. For a minute, it made her think of how there were almost ten years between JJ and herself. But age was just a number.
"How are you doing, DeLilah?" JJ asked the young woman.
"I don't know, Jenny. I really don't." she responded in a soft tone, although her own southern accent was not to be missed. "If you and Emily are down here with your team, then does that mean that Tinsley got in trouble? He was the best man I've ever known, and a great soldier; I want him to be buried at the National Cemetery in Birmingham."
"We are hoping that he wasn't in trouble," Emily said. "But we are going to do everything we can to get to the bottom of things."
"Thank you. What is that you and Jenny want to know?"
"Anything you can tell us about Tinsley, especially the last time you saw him."
"Okay." DeLilah let out a shaky breath and moved her hands over her baby bump as she felt her son move around inside her. "I can do that."
Tinsley had been missing for thirty-six hours before being discovered in an alleyway, but even still, the last time DeLilah had seen her husband and the morning he went missing during his morning jog, everything had been perfectly ordinary.
During the interview, Emily took notes while JJ did most of the question-asking.
"One last thing." JJ said to DeLilah as they wrapped things up. "We know that you were in the hospital this morning, but how did you get here, and where are my Uncle Balfour and Aunt Sarahjane?"
Balfour-Lee Foxworth and his wife, Sarahjane, were DeLilah's in-laws… and Tinsley's parents.
"They brought the kids and I here so that we'd be looked after because I can barely stand without help… Balfour and Sarahjane have been either at the morgue or the police station claiming Tinsley's body and taking care of the paperwork. They almost didn't go, though."
"What changed their minds?"
"More like whom." Even in her sorrow, DeLilah allowed herself a small smile. "Your mama was over in Butler County for her high school reunion, but she dropped everything to come over here and help out; she's even going to help me plan the funeral."
"Okay, then how in the world did Archer get here? How long has he been here?"
DeLilah furrowed her eyebrow in thought. "Archer was just over the border in Georgia for a conference, but he left it to come here and help out. He got here just a little before you because he got on a train that was a straight shot into the station downtown."
"He's always been a good guy that way, DeLilah, taking care of his family." JJ said as she and Emily stood, getting ready to go. "Is there anything you need right now? Do you want me to send for my mom or the kids?"
"No."
DeLilah looked her visitors up and down, curious.
"What's the age difference between you two?"
"Nine years." Emily answered promptly.
DeLilah nodded in the direction of the couple's rounded middles. "And you're partners in more than one way, huh?"
"We are."
"You married?"
"Not yet, but we will be, one day. Why?"
"People still judge me for marrying a man more than ten years my senior when I'm not even thirty yet, and they judge me even more for having four children almost consecutively, even though that was the plan… Every minute with Tinsley was worth it, even if we only had five years together." DeLilah sighed sadly. "I wouldn't change a day for anything."
"You wouldn't?"
"Yeah. Tinsley was the love of my life, and I knew from the second we first met that we were it for each other." DeLilah paused a second, thinking. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that when you know you've got The One in your life, cherish every moment you've got together because you never know."
"Thank you, DeLilah." Emily said honestly. "I'll remember that."
DeLilah just nodded absently and turned over, facing away from her visitors, too emotionally drained to keep talking.
JJ and Emily left quietly, shutting the door behind them.
