Almost every day since he had walked over and had the heart to heart with the family, Ace had gotten little gifts or plates of food from Jimmy of, courtesy of Mrs. Gemma. 

He had tried to refuse it at first, feeling the gesture was too intimate but Jimmy had told him, “My Mom thinks you're some stray dog she needs to care for. Can’t say that I don’t agree but as much as I don’t want to be here I’m not going back with this still in my hands”.

Though Jimmy was throwing an insult at him, Ace could only think about yet another person reminding him of his mother and how he was going to let her down if he didn’t accept her kindness.  So he placed her little trinkets around his place and stuffed his face with the food, even if it was something he didn’t eat. 

He had brought over an omelet as a thank you one day. She looked perplexed but accepted it. He looked down at the ground as he explained.

“Mr. Wilson showed me how to make it one time”.

When he heard sniffles, he looked up.

“I taught him my recipe. That old man doesn’t know his way around the kitchen but he can sure follow instructions”.

She grabbed a tissue paper Jimmy was holding out to her and wiped the tears from her eyes. She smiled at Ace.

“When you do something kind, it has a way of coming back to you”.

Ace simply nodded, looking down again.

The old lady laughed at this.

“You are such a shy little fellow! I’ll bet your mother has to fight off all the girls falling over you”.

Ace smiled a bit despite the sadness washing over him.

“Not really”.

“No?”.

Ace shook his head.

Across the room, Jimmy narrowed his eyes at the two.

“I’m going to watch the game in my room, Ma”.

She looked at him and gestured to Ace with a tilt of her head.

“I knew you’d come around. I don’t need you to hover around me over a sweet boy who needs to come out of his shell. That’s all”.

“Mhmm”. 

Jimmy clenched his fist in his pocket, pulling out his phone and dialing a number. 

The caller picked up after a few rings, just as he closed the door.

“Detective Dumont”.

“It’s Jimmy Wilson. You said to call if I had a concern”.

Ace once again finds himself outside of his childhood home, summoning the courage to go inside. 

Though it had been a little under 2 weeks since he had last been to see his father, the man still had yet to call him. Ace knew his father could make the time to call him if he wanted to. His father had an hour of his day scheduled to make calls and emails, squeezing in 5 minutes was not out of the question.

Feeling more justified about his anger, he walked up the gates and buzzed the button.

A different guard answered. An old voice.

“Good day, Young Master. The Master is not here at the moment”.

He looked at the row of cars and saw the service car gone. 

“I’m not here to see him. I came to collect something”.

There were a few moments before the guard buzzed him in.

Ace let out a sigh of relief, he still did have influence in the mansion. He was still his father’s son after all, even if it didn’t feel like it sometimes. 

The minute he walked in, Portier, the head servant, greeted him. It was  a weird thing to come back to after being in a different world. 

“Bonjou Mesye”.

Ace eyed him carefully, looking around at other servants who bowed upon making eye contact.

“Bounjou Portier”, he whispered.

His Papa  had been against the man speaking Creole instead of “proper French” as he put it.

“Your mother speaks French, not Creole. There’s no reason to speak it”, he would say.

Although she wasn’t outright like his Papa, Ace could tell his mother had a similar sentiment. She would mention offhandedly how her speaking French to her son was special to her as too many people would neglect to do so. So maybe it wasn’t so special if another person spoke anything that resembled French to him. Perhaps that’s why his Papa was so adamant about it, the man had mentioned a similar sentiment about being proud of his own son being able to converse with him in fluent German.  

Ace handed Portier his jacket and shook his head at a servant with a tray of refreshments. He took off down the hall by himself.

Ignoring the servants who bowed, he stopped briefly here and there to look at portraits, reminiscing on the family ones that once were there. Walking these halls reminds him of memories that feel like a lifetime ago. Happy and sad ones.

He stops in front of the second staircase next to the drawing room and looks up, contemplating. A memory of his Maman carrying his lapinou up the stairs, pretending to leave him behind just to get him to go to bed, comes to him. He smiles to himself and turns away from the staircase, continuing on to his Papa’s study.

Seeing servants in the hallway to his Papa’s study slows him down a bit. He resorts to pretending to look over the portraits in the halls while they bow and pass. The door being unlocked shocked  him to but then again, who would actually dare enter his Papa’s study to do what he’s about to do. Not that he even knows what that is particularly. 

He takes a moment to look around. Though the room is familiar, the familiarity of it sets him on edge. The bareness of everything, the organization, not a single thing out of place ever, the mix of cologne amongst whiskey and cigars. It feels like a hand choking him. 

An envelope on the desk breaks him free of the daze. His Papa was very particular of how clean his desk was. Nothing was left out for anyone to see, unless his personal secretary left it for the man to see. 

He closed the door gently and walked up, eyeing the envelope. It was written in german. 

Eric

Gisla needs more testing 

Outside of Edenstone 

Call Schreiner 

Gisla?

His blood ran cold at seeing his mother’s name. He had always assumed his father had nothing more to do with her after he had her sent away and had complained about her so much. 

His head shot up when he heard the echo of heels on the floor outside the door. 

He looked back to the envelope. 

If Lettmann left it out here, Papa hasn’t seen it yet.

He snatched it up and ignored the guilt screaming at him. He shoved it into his waistband, between his pants and underwear and pulled his shirt over it. The door opened behind him and he turned to see an old servant. The only one allowed inside to clean his father’s study. 

“Young Master. The Master does not like for you to be in here alone”, the man coughed, wracking his entire body. 

“Marks”, Ace looked the man over. 

“I was waiting for my Papa to come home but he’s …  it was dumb for me to come here. I’ll be leaving now Marks, please tell him I was here”.

The old man kept the young man’s gaze for a while before bowing his head.

“I will see to it, Young Sir”.

Ace walked past the man, trying to be nonchalant. His mind was screaming at him to stop and put the envelope back. He had never done anything out of the ordinary like this. 

He ignores that small voice. 

When he gets home he pries open the envelope and gets a couple of paragraphs into the first page before putting it down. 

“I don’t even know where this Edenstone is”, he mumbles to himself. 

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a baseball card and he thinks of Mr. Wilson and the man’s family. 

Looking back to the papers stacked neatly from the envelope he contemplates in his head. 

I can find Edenstone and Mr. Wilson’s son. 

Edenstone can be found in the library pages. I have to … I need more for Mr. Wilson’s son. 

… at least I know Jensen is his name. 

A wild idea pops up into Ace’s head and despite his inner voice screaming at him and the sweat building in his palms, he decides to go with it before common sense comes. 

Ms. Gema had told him he reminded her of Mr. Wilson when he was young. Full of determination and always looking out for others. 

Which is why Ace felt like throwing up currently. Like a thief in the night, breaking into the family’s apartment instead of talking to them. Ms. Gemma mentioned them having to leave to finalize funeral plans. And now he was using the information against them.

At the same time, he couldn’t just say, “I talked to Mr. Wilson after he died. He stayed at my house for a while. I want to help find Jensen”.

He couldn’t tell them the truth. Especially that he saw Jensen.

Remembering the details the old man told him, he grabs the spare key from under the fake plant and lets himself in.

Mr. Wilson’s words come back to him.

He tried to give his daughter a stuffed teddy bear. It had some white powder on it so I took it away and put it on top of the cabinet. 

Ace grabbed a chair to put up to the fridge and opened the cabinets, coming face to face with cooking ingredients. 

His shoulders fell. He stared at the ingredients for a moment and then rummaged through the sugar and flour.

More words came to him. 

I told her to go to her room, she stays over some times. I told her I would get her another doll but she really wanted that one, it had a heart on it that glowed up. I don’t know why he gave it- because of the drugs. He wanted to give her it to keep safe for him and he didn’t want me to take whatever was inside. But giving a teddy bear with drugs inside to a child…   and that’s what he was willing to shoot me over. I just don’t get it. 

He gently got down and moved the chair back, easing it into place and took off down the hall. The few times he had come over, Allie had been insistent on showing him her room and although he had tried to be nice and refuse her offers, mainly because of the look he got from Jimmy, he couldn’t resist being nice to an innocent child. 

He opened the door and paused in the doorway, staring at everything that was in place. He carefully took apart the room, making sure to move things in a way so he could put it right back the way it was. 

After a few minutes of searching he sighed out loud.

“Where does Allie put her doll?”. 

He looked around.

His eyes landed on a princess themed tent.

He walked over and pulled back the flap, coming face to face with a ripped up, muddied teddy bear with a lit up heart on it.

He hesitated to grab it, Mrs. Gemma and Mr. Wilson’s face popping up in his head. He looked down at the ground. 

This isn’t what a hero would do. 

He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms. He felt sick.

I’m not a hero. I’ve never been one.

The tent nearly came down from the force of him yanking the teddy bear out.  Stopping to look around, he made sure to put back everything he moved so it looked somewhat decent. And then he turned his back on the room, wanting for everything to be over. He yanked  his hoodie down to cover his face before stepping out the door.

“I’m sorry”, he whispered to the night air.

He walked off, not bothering to wipe away the tear that rolled down his cheek. 

He tossed the teddy bear on the counter when he got back in his house, ignoring it immediately. He blinked back tears, reaching for the remote, wanting some sort of comfort. It was barely on for a second before anger hit him. 

Who was he to turn to the tv for comfort? It was something Mr. Wilson had shown him something they did together and he just broke into the man’s home and violated his and his family’s privacy. 

Could he be any more disgusting!? 

He hit the wrong button on the remote and the channel switched instead. 

Growling under his breath, he looked down more intently at the remote, looking for the power button. 

Out of sight, the tv droned on. 

“The hospital will be investigated by the Attorney General alongside the”, he cursed under his breath, “If you have any family at Edenstone-”.

He hit the power button. 

The realization hit him a second after the screen went black.

“Edenstone?”.

Frantically hitting the power button again, he threw himself down in front of the tv. 

The screen came back on and he quickly skimmed the words in bold on the screen.

Edenstone hospital is under investigation after allegations of abuse and missing patients come out from an anonymous source! 

He sat back on the couch, listening to the news reporters go on, though their words weren’t registering. 

“Is this what he did to you, Maman?”.