The Family Secret

Chapter Six

These past nine months here in Colorado have been really good. I decided to stick with the school where my mom placed us. My older sister Katherine was taking college classes online at our high school. She recently graduated early and was planning on moving out. During which Katherine decided to break up with her boyfriend, Lincoln.

Katherine thought it was best that she focused on herself for a change. We all agreed that it was best for her.

After the incident with Kyle, Dallen and Daniel repaired Dallen's frog. They still currently are expanding their ceramic frog collection. Tanner was focusing on applying to medical school for next year. Currently what he does on the side as a hobby is work with Jon's dad Clark in his garage building furniture. Tanner's told me that it has been very therapeutic for him.

As for me I recently turned 18 years old. Jonathan and I have been dating for about seven months now. Honestly I couldn't be happier than I am right now. Nothing can spoil anything for us right now.

Almost nothing.

I walked outside and dressed and ready for school. Jon was roughhousing with Dallen and Daniel while they were waiting for the bus. Katherine asked, "How much longer until the bus gets here for you guys?"

Jon runs up and gives me a kiss and then answers, "About 5 minutes I believe."

By the smirk on Katherine's face I could tell she was creeped out, "Do I need to get the hose?"

"Maybe." Jon chuckled as he was pulling out his phone. "Hey, Lelia... Why not?"

"What's the matter?" I asked.

Jon shows me two text messages from Lelia. I read the first message, 'He got released three days ago'. My heart dropped when I saw the second message. It pretty much confirmed that Kyle was released from the Detention Center. The bus slowly pulls up to the house and I could see Kyle was just blankly staring out the window at us.

Is this a joke? I didn't understand why none of us were told about Kyle getting released. Unless someone pulled some strings to get him out. "We can take my dad's van," Jon suggested. "Your call babe."

Dallen was almost traumatized at the very sight of Kyle. I couldn't put him through that again, not after last time, "Yeah. Let's all go."

Halfway through the day things went okay. Kyle hadn't tried anything with any of us. Well, none that I know of. For now, we are just going to stay on the side of caution with him. "Did you guys get the 'moms' group text?" Jon asked.

Lelia answers, "Yup."

"Just got it now," I replied. "Pretty much just says for them they are going somewhere for the weekend."

Heather than asks sounding puzzled, "Have you guys noticed your parents acting strange at all lately?"

Tanner answers, "I've noticed our mom and acting strange, but I never really put the two and two together."

"What's going on with you?" Jon asked Heather.

Heather reaches into her bag and pulls out a brown leather book. She then says, "I took this from our dad's desk this morning."

Tanner and grabs it and opens it, "It's all military coded." He then asks, "Can I borrow this for a bit?"

"Sure," Heather answered. "You'll probably have better luck with it than I did."

Lelia then suggests sounding very excited, "Movie night at your guy's house then!"

Tanner answers almost sounding disinterested, "Sounds good."

Sixth-period art class starts as Lelia and I took our seats. I told Lelia, "You are such a little snot!"

Lelia then says, "She was snoring in my ear!"

"So you put rubber bands in her hair!" I laughed. "Do you know how painful that is to get those out?"

We both laughed it off until we saw Kyle. He looks at us and then walks over to the teacher holding a note in his hand. Lelia and I both knew right there that he was switching classes. Lelia whispers, "Are you kidding me!"

"Just don't acknowledge him," I whispered.

Mr. Schultz walks into the classroom and you can tell he looks somewhat irritated. He then says in a calm voice, "I'm subbing for Miss Klein today. She had a family emergency. She had left a note here 'please have students work on a canvas art project today' so get to work."

Lelia and I decided to get two big black canvases and try sand art. "Does it matter what glue we use?" Lelia asked.

"Modge Podge glue works best," I answered. 

She went to get the glue and while I started working. Jon comes into the room, "Hey babe!" He gives me a hug and asks, "Whatcha working on?"

"Sand art!" Leila answered sounding very bubbly.

"Wanna possibly see if you can grab the Shop-Vac?" I asked.

Jon then answers, "Sure." He turns and spots Kyle and mutters, "What the hell is he doing here?"

I got in front of Jon because I was worried that he was going to try and pick a fight with Kyle. I put my hand on his chest as I gently held him back, "Don't."

All of a sudden the phone in the classroom rings. "LePree!" Mr. Schultz shouted holding up the phone.

I went up to the front of the room and grab the phone from Mr. Schultz, "Hello?"

My heart dropped and I just felt absolutely confused. Mr. Schultz gets up from the desk and goes to get coffee at Jon comes over to me. He asks, "What's wrong?"

The person on the other end of the line wasn't a person. It was a recording. I gestured to Jon to grab a pen and paper as I listened carefully.

"Zpv sfnfncfs nf? Epo'u uijol xf gpshpv bcpvu fjuifs pg zpv."

The connection on the other end of the line went dead. I hung up the phone as I was trying to figure out what the message was. Jon asks me, "Do you know how to figure out what it says?"

I told him, "My grandpa taught me how to figure this out. This message was written in a shifted code. It shouldn't be too hard to decipher." Finally, after a few minutes, I was able to decode the message. I showed it to Jon.

"You remember me? Don't think we forgot about either of you."