Chapter 6
Eew! That's disgusting! Mom and Danny kissing? She hasn't seen the guy in seven years and now she's kissing him? I don't like it. That's my Mom… Mom doesn't have boyfriends. Mom works at the restaurants and complains about Mr. Elkins and has Stephen comes over to bring me presents, but she doesn't have boyfriends. She's my MOM!
"Maddie." Stella walks by and takes my hand again. "C'mon, I'll show you the rest of the lab."
So down the hall we go. We go into a room where there's pictures lying on glass, and there's a light on underneath. Someone else is hanging other pictures up on a clothesline… and they aren't very nice pictures either.
"What does the light do?" I ask, trying not to look at the yucky pictures.
"It helps me see anything I might have missed when I took the picture," Stella says as she puts on a pair of gloves and picks it up. "Now here there's a piece of a… footprint there. I didn't see that when I took the print…" I see her bend over the table and pull out a small glass to look at it even closer. She's working… so I leave and walk down the hall, searching for something new. I bump into an older man when I turn the corner.
"Hi…" I say when I look up at him. He's got wrinkles, and eyes that look like he's seen a ghost. He's not smiling, but he's not mad either.
"Who are you?" he asks when I don't say anything else.
I point to the door where I saw Mom and Danny. "That's my mom in there."
"That's your mom in there?" he repeats. He looks in the door. I can tell Mom and Danny aren't kissing anymore, they're just talking.
"Lindsay?" I hear the man say as he goes into the room.
"Mac?" she seems a little shocked. Why? This Mac person isn't going to hurt her. "Oh God, where's Maddie?"
"Who's Maddie?" Mac asks, clearly not getting who I am, even after I said Mom was indeed my Mom.
"ME!" I pipe up, smiling.
I hear Danny snort, almost like he's going to laugh! Don't laugh, it's not funny! I suddenly don't like Danny very much, even if he is my dad. If I don't break them up soon Danny's going to take Mom away from me and I'll hafta go live in Stephen's house.
And Stephen's house smells funny.