Chapter 5
Eddie was arranging some frozen rolls on a cookie sheet when another large yawn escaped suddenly, she then blinked owlishly to wake herself up a little bit more.
Linda was walking in from the sunroom and smiled when she caught Eddie rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "What is up with you two? Your husband is practically passed out on the couch. You have a wild night out or something?" she asked with a grin.
"I wish," Eddie sighed. She walked past Erin and placed the rolls in the hot oven before dropping back down onto her stool and leaning heavily against the countertop.
Erin and Linda looked at each other and then at Eddie, waiting for her to explain.
"Fire alarm went off in our building last night," Eddie revealed.
"Oh. Been there, not fun," Erin said with a pained smile as she checked on the pot roast.
Eddie placed her chin in the palm of her hand as she thought about their long, cold night standing out on the sidewalk across the street from their apartment building. "Yeah. We were both on swing yesterday and came home late, but couldn't fall asleep until after our neighbor was done entertaining."
"Entertaining? Was she having a party?" Linda questioned.
"She got a new boyfriend a few weeks back...they're really loud," Eddie said. Apparently the awkward conversation she'd been forced to have with Leah fell on deaf ears.
Erin snorted, not needing any further explanation. "Again...been there, not fun."
"Fun for the neighbor, not you two," Linda joked.
Eddie smiled and continued. "So we didn't fall asleep until really late only to wake up a little while later to evacuate the building while FDNY cleared the whole place from top to bottom."
"Thank God for my little house on Staten Island. I'm not up for apartment living anymore," Linda proclaimed.
"We didn't get back into bed until after seven," Eddie complained.
"You weren't kidding about the long night," Erin confirmed.
"Long, weird week," Eddie sighed as she stared thoughtfully into the distance.
"Weird how?" Linda inquired.
"I don't know, our neighbor keeping us up at odd hours, the fire alarm last night, Jamie ended up in urgent care on Wednesday -"
"Wait, what?" Erin interrupted, alarmed to hear that bit of news.
Linda turned concerned eyes onto her youngest sister-in-law. "What happened? Is he okay?" she asked while leaning back for a peek into the sunroom.
Guilt flashed across Eddie's face for unnecessarily worrying them. "He's fine," she assured them. "He just had and allergic reaction to something he ate."
"It's been a long time since that's happened, no?" Erin frowned as she thought of the one food that Jamie was allergic to.
"Yeah, like years. He ate something at home that shouldn't have had olives," Eddie said. She had read the ingredients on the jar of tomato sauce he'd opened that night and olives were definitely not listed on the label. But on further inspection of the contents of the jar, she saw and tasted green olive bits mixed throughout. Eddie shook her head in confusion before sharing the other odd thing that happened that week. "And then I got this weird delivery at the precinct on Friday."
Erin narrowed her eyes in curiosity. "What'd you get?"
"This ridiculously large and hideous flower arrangement. It was kind of embarrassing, it looked like it belonged in a funeral home or something," Eddie said.
"At the precinct?" Linda asked.
Eddie nodded, remembering the monstrosity of cheap blue and white flowers that had been left in the corner of the squad room while Renzulli and JC waited for her to return from patrol so that they could tease her about it.
"Jamie?" Erin guessed with a pinched expression, although her brother wasn't flashy with things like that.
"No. That was the weird part," she said, puzzled by the whole thing.
"Then who?" Linda wondered.
"No clue. There was a note but no name," Eddie said.
"What did it say?" Erin prodded, intrigued by the whole thing - Danny wasn't the only one that liked to play detective.
"'Sorry I missed your birthday. I'll catch you soon,'" Eddie recited from memory.
Linda took a seat next to Eddie. "That is weird. Your birthday was months ago."
"Yup. I racked my brain thinking about it but I can't figure it out." And it had bothered Jamie to no end as well. He'd become more concerned by the cryptic message, especially when they were unable to identify the sender. She dismissed his concerns in an attempt to put him at ease, but also couldn't help feeling thrown by the whole thing.
"No one comes to mind?" Erin asked as she made her way over to the cupboard for a mug.
"No. It's probably nothing. Like I said, it's just been an odd week," Eddie brushed off the incident, really only wishing for her soft, warm bed right now.
"Well, tomorrow is the beginning of a whole new one," Linda said encouragingly.
"Yeah," Eddie sighed, glad that she would be able to sleep in tomorrow morning.
Erin placed the steaming mug in front of Eddie and smirked at the younger woman. "Here, have some coffee so you don't take a nose dive into your dinner plate later. Linda and I will get everything finished while you mainline some caffeine."
Meanwhile, in the sunroom, Danny was watching the Packers drive the ball down the field for a last minute, game-winning touchdown while his brother, just as Linda claimed, was snoring softly on the couch.
Danny stood from his seat as Aaron Rodgers through a gorgeous Hail Mary pass with the game clock winding down to zero. Danny could swear that the ball hung in the air for an eternity before it finally floated down into a fray of clamoring players. "Oh! Did you see that, kid?! Holy mother of Christ! Literally!" he screamed as one of the Packers' receivers made an impossible catch in the end zone to win the game.
Jamie sprung forward to a sitting position and his eyes snapped open at the rude awakening.
"Did you see that?!" Danny repeated as his eyes finally left the television screen to study his brother. "What's the matter with you? You've been sleeping since we got here."
"Tired," Jamie mumbled as he ran both hands across his face.
"I can see that. Eddie keeping you up?" Danny smirked and then grimaced when he realized what he was asking and promptly sat back down. "Wait," he ordered while lifting his hands, "don't answer that. I don't want to know."
Jamie rolled his eyes at his older brother. "And you'll never know, I promise. We had a fire alarm in our building last night...well, this morning actually."
"Was there a fire?"
"No."
"Well, that's a good thing but it still blows. So the smoke eaters made everyone wait outside while they took their sweet time clearing the place?" Danny assumed.
"Yup," Jamie confirmed.
"That happens to me, there better damn well be a good reason for it," Danny griped.
"Lieutenant on the scene said it looked like someone pulled the alarm on the floor below us on purpose," Jamie advised. That had left him feeling a little paranoid, wondering if everything that had happened recently was related somehow.
"Bastard. I'd hunt them down for you but I got real cases," Danny smirked.
"Thanks," Jamie snorted. "It's just been a strange week."
"Why strange?" Danny wondered.
Jamie went on to explain the allergic reaction that sent him to urgent care and the flower delivery Eddie received at the 12th. She had even called the florist about it, but they couldn't tell her anything of use. The order had been called in and paid with a gift card with a bogus address and phone number provided by the customer whose name - John Smith - was too common to provide any real answers. For some reason, the flower thing really bugged him.
And judging by the look on Danny's face, it bothered him as well. "Eddie got a stalker or something?" he asked worriedly.
"What? No...I hope not...I don't know. It's just weird," he stammered, unable to make sense of it all. He hadn't even bothered to mention the strange feeling he got sometimes when he walked into their apartment because he couldn't explain that either.
"Well, anything else happens, you let me know," Danny ordered, eyeing his brother to make sure he knew he was serious. You could never be too careful; the Reagan gut never lied.
"Yeah? You gonna put aside your real cases then?" Jamie asked with a raised brow.
"For family? Sure," Danny nodded.
"I'm sure it's nothing," Jamie said, but there was still something niggling at the back of his mind.
"I'm sure it is," Danny said, sharing the same feeling as his brother.
Our favorite couple knows something's not kosher with all of these weird occurrences, but they can't quite figure out what it is. They will soon.